Cinema Latino: Diego Luna gets lethal ' smuggling ' Eva Longoria wants to meet you;; Cuban actress Coolidge calls Sean Penn Communist a ** hole

Covers Latino film, well, all things related to Latin culture, and movies every Friday.

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The representative Diego Luna Mexican is to return to Hollywood with the thriller action contrabandfilled. Stars Mark Wahlberg movie and Kate Beckinsale but we sure Luna will steal a few scenes. Movie release 13 January.

The story goes like this: set in New Orleans, the film explores the underground world of international smuggling — filled with desperate criminals and corrupt officials, and rewards high risk and large — rarely found loyalty and death cycle one mistake away. Wahlberg plays a man forced to do what he does best — running contraband — to settle family debts. Check out the trailer Spanish below.

Are you ready to Eva Longoriaface? Wait, there's a small catch. Actress, who was an avid supporter of President Obama and avid supporter of immigration reform, teaming up with Obama's re-election campaign. So here is the deal: in order to meet the Longoria have to donate to the Obama campaign, you can enter the donor fee to participate in conversation with Eva "alongside Debbie Wasserman Schultz, President of the Democratic National Committee.

Here's the pitch in Longoria: "in 2008, like many of you, devoted much of my time to help Barack Obama win the Presidency. Now, with 2012 just around the corner, I wanted to prepare for the upcoming elections to sit for intimate conversation with supporters like you to talk in politics and the role we ' LL play to win the 2012 elections. "

Five donors will be chosen and will receive accommodation and hotels. And is expected to play a key role in helping get the vote Latino Obama Longoria. Here click for official rules about how to enter.

Reportsand in accordance with, the Cuban representative Maria Conchita Alonso Sean Penn and exchange a few words rough with each other during quick meeting at Los Angeles Airport last Sunday. Alonso, known as an opponent of President Hugo Chavez, facing Pennsylvania because according Alonso supporters of Chavez.

"It was very quiet. I said, ' I would like to speak with you. ', ' I have something to tell you ...You say many things about me in the press. ' say that ' how you can defend Chavez? ' "Alonso admitted, adding," I said, ' you're a Communist, Sean Penn, said ' ' you are a pig! ' I, ' I was a Communist *** hole! Something wonderful to live the way you as a Communist? ' "

Ben, who was travelling from Haiti, he didn't realize he was smashing him was Alonso publicly.

"I knew only that the hostile woman berating me nonsinsikali," Pennsylvania "I didn't realize that actress ' te. I think it worked once. But it sounds really different. "

Pennsylvania Alonso and worked colors together again in 1988 and involved two scenery love Boukhari, played lovers from opposing gangs.

Alonso dropped later on her comment, saying they should never be approached by ** hole but not sorry describing him a Communist.

What's your take on the drama?

Follow-up to @ alisaosigoida us and @ movisdotkom

Cinema of horror 2011: 20 best and worst 20 13 to watch out for next year

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Not very long ago I was commenting (ok, whining) that 2011 was one "weak-ass" year for fans of horror cinema. But then I sat down to write a top ten, which became a top twenty ... plus a bunch of "honorable mention" titles left over. And after I finished cobbling together a Bottom 20, just to keep things even, I was irritated to notice that I've already seen at least 13 2012 horror flicks that also deserved a mention.

So here's the whole package, courtesy of me, Movies.com editor and resident film critic for FEARnet.com. Frankly I don't care if you agree with my opinions -- as long as you enjoy reading them.

 

Top 20 Horror Films of 2011

1. We Need to Talk About Kevin -- “By the time we arrive at the moments of true horror and misery, We Need to Talk About Kevin has transcended basic genre labels and become one of the most insightful, daring, and ballsy thrillers I've seen in years. Take it as a very loose remake of The Bad Seed / unofficial sequel to Rosemary's Baby, or take it as a powerful rumination on the genesis of evil, but make no mistake: this is easily one of the year's best movies.” (full review)

2. I Saw the Devil -- “As in most films with this sort of story, our hero becomes instantly infected by the malicious evil he's trying to destroy. The killer actually gets to cause untold damage because the cop wants to string his quarry along. The movie is loaded with dark ambiguity of the sort, and its themes elevate the film well beyond that of a "cop vs. crook" story; things start to feel downright biblical by the time Act III comes barreling at you.” (full review)

3. The Skin I Live In -- “Gorgeous to look at (this is Almodovar), sometimes frustrating, quietly unsettling and, frequently, darkly amusing, The Skin I Live In may not be your typical slam-bang conventional horror movie, but it combines enough that's genre-friendly and accessible with the trademark style of a truly unique and "artsy" filmmaker.” (full review)

4. Black Death -- “Well shot, edited remarkably well, and boasting a period piece production value that's really quite impressive, Black Death is a smart, scary occult thriller that takes firm aim on various aspects of Christianity (and religion in general) but never at the expense of telling a dark little story. It's unfortunate that there's no real place in the American cinema marketplace for a flick like this, but I'd bet good money that Black Deathis still finding new fans five or ten years from now.” (full review)

5. Attack the Block -- “...a throwback monster movie made by people who clearly adore the films they're referencing. Combine that with some truly astute filmmaking and a playful tone that never goes too light or too dark, and you're looking at a festival circuit winner that's guaranteed to earn a lot of fans somewhere down the road.” (full review)

6. Cold Fish -- “Call it a horror film, a two-headed character study, a morality tale, or a rumination on the fragility of the human ego ... Cold Fish is smart, devious, and confrontational filmmaking from a man who's quickly becoming a master at this sort of stuff.” (full review)

7. The Woman -- “Most films of this ilk would simply offer a house full of victims, an insane killer outside, and a bunch of murders that happen like clockwork. McKee (and his collaborator, novelist Jack Ketchum) seem intent on subverting the basic horror fare by placing "the woman" in more danger than she causes. From one angle, The Woman is "about" the inability to destroy the human spirit (especially a female's), but it's also "about" the ways in which a natural wildness is a lot less horrifying than is a vision of domestic normalcy with something truly foul just beneath the surface.” (full review

8. Dream Home -- “...the sort of import that the genre fans should try to champion. Not because it's almost mercilessly gory, but because it packages some really interesting ideas (and some truly impressive filmmaking prowess; it's shot like a dream, for example) into a full-bore horror film that works just as well on the surface as beneath. Pang Ho-Cheung has bounced around numerous genres over the past ten years; here's hoping he sticks with the horror fare for a little while.” (full review)

9. The Innkeepers -- “If The House of the Devil was his affectionate throwback to the early '80s, then The Innkeepers is sort of an homage to Roman Polanski with a dash of The Shining and a pinch of various other flicks. And while Ti West is still clearly painting with nostalgic brushes, The Innkeepers marks his most original and novel flick to date.” (full review)

10. Seconds Apart -- “If Seconds Apart rambles on a bit in its third act (and spends a bit too much time focusing on the detective's rather uninteresting back-story), those are minor issues from a little chiller that actually manages to deliver something of quality. And if After Dark is planning to continue with its own films instead of picking up some foreign horror fare, they should look to Seconds Apart as an example of how to do it right.” (full review)

11. Troll Hunter -- “Almost certainly destined to be remade by Hollywood, The Troll Hunteris a enjoyably odd cross-breed of horror, adventure, and mockumentary, and it forges ahead with a confidence that can only be found by enthusiastic filmmakers who are creating something they wanted to see as a kid. Ovredal strikes a great balance between silly, scary, and sincere, and it's that cool sense of schizophrenia that makes The Troll Hunter the coolest monster movie import since The Host.” (full review)

12. Undocumented -- “...a surprisngly unique example of how to infuse stark, graphic horror with a few salient points on issues social and political, but it all boils down to plain old morality. (Plus the film works exceedingly well as a plain old suspense thriller, especially in Act III.) The cast takes to the multi-camera faux-verite gimmick remarkably well, and while there are strong performances across the board, Undocumented is almost single-handedly stolen by the ever-nefarious Peter Stormare. The actor exudes intelligent but noxious malice without even showing his face.” (full review)

13. Insidious -- “Perhaps best described as a high-end carnival "ghost ride" that offers thrills and chills both comfortably familiar and excitingly novel, Insidious is absolutely one of the most entertaining horror movies I've seen this year -- thereby proving (once again) that the people who make the best horror flicks are the people who love horror flicks the most. It's unlikely that Insidious will kick-start a stunningly lucrative franchise like Saw did, but I don't think I'd be all that disappointed if it did.” (full review)

14. Stake Land -- “If you’re focused only on the surface stuff, Stake Land is a perfectly satisfying horror flick mixed with a low-key- neo-western. The old gunslinger and the kid feel like a duo yanked right out of an old John Ford western, and the quieter moments between the two men, particularly as the wise old warrior teaches his charge the importance of staying alive, are unexpectedly effective. Outside of that simple framework, however, Stake Land becomes even more interesting.” (full review)

15. Grave Encounters -- “Billed as "The Vicious Brothers," filmmakers Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz plow forward with palpable confidence, seemingly aware that both "ghost hunters" and "found footage" are both sort of played out by now, but also aware that they have a few new tricks to bring to the party. The cast helps a lot; even when the characters do patently dumb things (which, to be fair, doesn't happen that often) the five leads do a solid job of selling themselves as both slightly skeptical and then, eventually, truly freaking terrified.” (full review)

16. Fright Night -- “I'll leave it to the comparative thinkers to decide which Fright Night is "better" when all is said and done, but I think the new flick does a relatively impressive job of paying homage to its ancestry while also delivering a simple, crafty horror flick that will appeal to teens without insulting the grown-ups. And when you consider how many wretched horror remakes we have to suffer through, doesn't a B+ effort like this one deserve a nice pat on the back?” (full review)

17. Bereavement -- “Strong but quiet proof that not all "video shelf horror flicks" are created equal, Bereavement is evidence of a group of filmmakers who take their horror seriously. One has no doubt that these guys could do something even cooler with a bit (or a lot) more money to work with.” (full review)

18. Little Deaths -- “As a whole, the flick stands as one of the most unique and challenging horror anthologies in quite some time. The title refers to term "la petite morte," which means "the little death," and is a metaphor for an orgasm. Now that you have that information, or already knew it, you have a good idea of the themes and ideas that are about to be tossed around in Little Deaths.” (full review)

19. Julia’s Eyes -- “While cleverly original in its own right, Julia's Eyes benefits by paying homage to classics like Wait Until Dark and The Silence of the Lambs, but on its own, it's simply a handsome, clever, and entirely engaging little throwback of a thriller. Once again, hats off to Senor Del Toro for not only noticing good, young talent when he sees it, but also acting as a producer-type patron for these great Spanish thrill-makers.” (full review)

20. A Horrible Way to Die -- “Generally sedate and low-key, but peppered with frequent moments of gallows humor, shocking horror, and unexpectedly sincere “character moments,” A Horrible Way to Die is a crafty and calmly mysterious little road thriller that earns big points for simplicity, intensity, and plain old good acting.” (full review)

Honorable mention: (click title for full review) Atrocious, The Clinic, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Hostel Part 3, A Lonely Place to Die, Saint Nick, The Silent House, The Tunnel,Paranormal Activity 3, The Reef, Urban Explorer, Wake Wood, We Are the Night (subtitled, not dubbed!), Yellowbrickroad

Worst of the Year

1. Human Centipede 2 -- “By presenting the sequel's lunatic as a big fan / copycat of the original film, Mr. Six is offering one of three potential ideas here: A) that horror films are to blame for murder; B) that aspiring horror directors should never emulate Tom Six's work (as if that would ever happen), and C) that horror fans are dangerous freaking psychopaths. Any or all of these ideas could make for some astute satire or provocative social commentary, but such is not the case with The Human Centipede 2; it is more than content to be the indie horror flick version of a low-rent carnival sideshow: at first you want to see how much ugliness you can take, but eventually it all becomes too base, too grueling, and too miserable.” (full review)

2. 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams -- “...once the frankly amateurish parade of “oh so offensive” black / Jew / chick / gay jokes land with a series of loud thuds, we’re treated to an equally low-rent collection of gross-out gore scenes that’d have a lot more impact if they had a point, delivered some thrills, or were intellectually provocative in even the slightest of ways.” (full review)

3. Deadtime Stories Volume 1 -- “Deadtime Stories Volume 1, which has been sitting on a shelf for the better part of three years, is, it pains me to say, pure trash. It's as if a producer had three homemade short films, and not the sort you'd ever come across at a film festival, but in order to make this ungainly mass of footage into a releasable whole, they threw some cash at George Romero. Watching this fine filmmaker quip and pun his way through some witless "Crypt Keeper"-ish blather is one of most depressing things I've seen all year.” (full review)

4. Hellraiser 9: Revelations -- “Forget that the flick looks like it was shot in a strobe-lit warehouse, that the actors (particularly the noxious lead kid) are more or less wholly inept, and that the script is an endless deluge of unintentional hilarity ... we expect bad horror sequels to be bad. But garbage like Hellraisers Bloodline, Inferno, Hellseeker, Deader, Hellworld, and Revelations have gone from laughable to punishing to downright insulting. And yes, I'll be back for Part 10. Dimension will give up on Hellraiser before I do.” (full review)

5. The Perfect House -- “In the hands of some filmmakers who actually treated issues like rape, torture, and child murder with some degree of delicacy and respect, the material broached in The Perfect House could make for some truly unsettling horror fare. Unfortunately, co-directors Kris Hulbert and Randy Kent seem well aware of how silly and generic their stories are -- and so they ramp the "torture and suffering" up to eleven in an effort to distract you from the flat, amateurish acting performances, the consistently dippy and dreary screenplay, and the flick's overall air of low-rent, sleazy desperation.” (full review)

6. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night -- “When I say that Dylan Dog is a New Orleans-based neo-noir mystery flick in which zombies and vampires and werewolves (oh my) co-exist in a balance better developed in slightly better film -- I'm making it sound a whole lot more fun than it is.” (full review)

7. The Roommate -- “Bottom line: The Roommate is even more vacuous and generic than its title suggests. It's a dull, unpleasant thriller with no pulse, no thrills, and no soul. Staring into an empty movie theater with a black screen would be more appealing.” (full review)

8. Creature -- “Fair credit to Mr. Andrews for watching self-reflexive horror flicks likeHatchet and then opting to do for monster movies what that one did for slasher flicks (going so far as to borrow its location), but his pacing is way off; the gore is solid but the scares are absent; most of the actors are, let's be kind and say "unprepared;" and whenever things get really dreary (which is often) the flick cuts back to an ostensible subplot in which Sid Haig screams at his slovenly cronies about how stupid they are. “ (full review)

9. Spiderhole -- “A fine location is wasted in a morass of dull characters, redundant wandering, constant shrieking, uninspired suspense, little to no horror, and a rather mercenary approach to a "sure thing" premise. Writer / director Daniel Simpson may be a big horror fan, but his first feature speaks to a slavish commitment to formula that grows real old, real fast.” (full review)

10. Children of the Corn 8: Genesis -- “Even those who (somehow) hold some nostalgic regard for this series will walk away disappointed because it neither furthers the "mythology" of the series nor does it adhere to the established formula. This is cheap, lazy, uninspired filmmaking that hopes to coast by on a slick DVD cover and a brand name that's still slightly familiar to the horror fans. Don't fall for it.” (full review)

11. Apollo 18 -- “It's easy to dismiss a bad feature film as "something that'd play better as a short," but such is most certainly the case where Apollo 18 is concerned. If it clocked in at around thirty minutes, it would still have the novelty of its premise and presentation, but it'd also be wonderfully bereft of all the dead air, aimless wandering, and redundant dialogue that all but ruin a potentially fun movie.” (full review)

12. Psychosis -- “If it’s possible for a horror flick to be as generic as the title “Psychosis,” then Psychosis is it. Stop me when this sounds interesting: a dreary author heads to her family’s old house out in the woods, only to hear creepy sounds wafting out of the forest, and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....” (full review)

13. Scream 4 -- “On a purely technical level, the thing is a gaping yawn: dry scenes that go nowhere and do it slowly, patchwork editing that relies on florid exposition and stupid coincidence, and a lethargic pace that's sinfully light on actual scares. A few cheap jolts, to be sure, because those are easy ... but nothing in the way of actual horror.” (full review)

14. Choose -- “Directed by a first-timer (Marcus Graves) who will certainly move on to better flicks, and written by two guys who should probably turn out better material (well, they wrote Dragonfly, anyway), Choose was slapped together with just enough nastiness and "edge" to fill a 90-second trailer. The film itself is as lazy, obvious, and tiresome as retreads get.” (full review)

15. Cold Prey 3 -- “The first Cold Prey had a hook: it took place in incongruously beautiful mountains covered with snow. The second film found its own angle by taking inspiration from the "all in one night" horror sequels like 1981's Halloween 2. And now comes the wholly disappointing Cold Prey 3, which offers nothing in the way of memorable faces, clever ideas, unique settings, or novel dispatches. It's the sort of mercenarily-produced sequel that killed slasher flicks in the first place.” (full review)

16. The Task -- “Directed by first-timer Alex Orwell with all the creativity his meager budget allows (which means virtually nothing), The Task is as rote and as rudimentary as its premise suggests. When the biggest thrill a horror fan can find is that s/he notices Texas Battle among the cast (because he was in Final Destination 3 and Wrong Turn 2), you're dealing with a pretty inert genre flick.” (full review)

17. Dream House -- “Long-delayed, instantly forgettable, and barely worthy of a footnote on the resumes of the talents involved (not even character actor extraordinaire Elias Koteas can help this film), Dream House feels like the late-arriving and (hopefully) final wheeze of the J-horror-inspired domestic thrillers that ran rampant a few years back.” (full review)

18. The Thing -- “The digital gore is far from the only issue. First-time feature director Matthjis van Heijningen Jr. pays virtually no attention to the isolation, suspense, claustrophobia, and paranoia that ran rampant through the 1982 film, and the result is a movie in which a bunch of interchangeable bearded men wander down hallways holding flashlights. Then we get a fake scare, then a real scare, then a geyser of digital gore, and then we're on to the next slow-witted Norwegian.” (full review)

19. Scar -- “If there's a silver lining to all this, it's that Angela Bettis has survived the mess of Scar and gone on to do much better work. Also I can finally scratch this Canadian curiosity of my "wanna see" list. I highly recommend you do the same.” (full review)

20. Final Destination 5 -- “The filmmakers are so certain that all you want to do is cheer on gruesome death that they make it a little extra easy for you: aside from the thoroughly generic lead boy and girl, every single character is a hateful caricature (the sleazy jew, the skinny ho, the selfish hunk, and on) who says and does despicable things just prior to their stupidly protracted demises. Constructing hateful assholes just to slash them to ribbons isn't horror.” (full review)

So there's the crap. But don't get too sad, horror freaks. Here are a dozen worthwhile horror films that you'll get to see in 2012. (Yep, click the links for the full reviews. I write a lot!)

Best of 2012 so far

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (fingers crossed), Cabin in the Woods, Cold Sweat, The Corridor, The Day, Kill List, Livid, The Loved Ones, Marianne, Midnight Son, Mother's Day,Rabies, Rites of Spring, Some Guy Who Kills People, You’re Next

 

Christmas movies of naughty and nice list that you would put: these films?

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Everyone knows that Santa keeps "naughty" and "nice" lists. Presumably, if you wind up on the "naughty" list, you don't get any presents. Some sources say you get a lump of coal. No one wants that, unless, of course, you're really into coal. As always the movies can teach us valuable lessons about how to be naughty and nice. Here is our cross-check of naughty and nice Christmas movies. We've made this list and checked it twice, though chime in below if we have forgotten anyone.

 

Naughty and Nice Former SNL Alumni

Naughty: Bill Murray in Scrooged (1988)

It's funny: even though Frank Cross is actually staging a big budget, live production of "A Christmas Carol" for television, no one ever once equates the fictional character of Scrooge with Cross himself. This is probably not one of Murray's deepest performances, but he clearly has a ball being bad, pretending to be shocked at the general stupidity and ineptitude of everyone around him. But when it comes time for his transformation, he makes it a breathless, joyous event, not easy to resist.

Nice: Will Ferrell in Elf (2003)

Buddy the elf (Ferrell) is probably the culmination of Ferrell's persona; he's like a little kid, probably more girlish than boyish, taking great joy in simple things and completely misunderstanding grown-up issues. Buddy is a sweetheart, but he's so completely endearing that he doesn't even need to go through any kind of character change; it's his job to impart innocence and goodwill on all those grumpy people around him. (He's even nicer than Santa Claus!)

 

Naughty and Nice Santas

Naughty: Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa (2003)

Bad behavior in Christmas movies has never been so extensive and so hilarious. Willie T. Soak (Thornton) is like an "R" rated version of W.C. Fields. He hates children and animals and loves to drink. But he goes all the way to the limit, seducing fat ladies in the dressing rooms and peeing his Santa pants. The "Badder Santa" version of the movie goes even deeper into his depravity, but Terry Zwigoff's shorter director's cut is even darker.

Nice: Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Gwenn plays the real, honest-to-goodness Kris Kringle in this great holiday classic. While the movie has its lump-in-the-throat scenes, it gets by with a kind of streetwise, New York feel, much grittier than it is gooey. Gwenn's job is to stay ambiguous: is he a nice, crazy old man, or the real Santa? But even if he's crazy, he's still awfully nice to be around.

 

Naughty and Nice Holiday Horror

Naughty: Gremlins (1984)

Joe Dante's grisly black comedy was actually released as a summer blockbuster, with Steven Spielberg's name slathered all over it, like it was another E.T. Nonetheless, the movie, set at Christmastime and filled with snow and colorful scarves as well as wicked creatures, was a huge hit. Except that parents were outraged by one thing: Phoebe Cates delivers a monologue about the Christmastime demise of her father that has the power to scar children for life.

Nice: The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

This Val Lewton-produced "B" movie was supposed to be a sequel to the hit Cat People (1942), and it is, but it has very little actual horror in it. Instead, it's a lovely little story about child psychology and "imaginary friends," in a beautiful, snowy Christmastime setting (it even has carolers). Even some scenes set in a creepy old house are more sad and lonely than they are scary.

 

Naughty and Nice Bob Clark

Naughty: Black Christmas (1974)

Four years before Halloween, Bob Clark's Black Christmas was arguably the first real slasher film. Set in a sorority house just before Christmas break, it makes superb use of the dark, snowy night, offset by colorful lights. The big house offers plenty of hiding places for the killer, who also likes to make obscene phone calls. We also get the lovely Olivia Hussey, the hilariously bitchy, drunken Margot Kidder, and a mind-blowing ending. (Avoid the 2006 remake.)

Nice: A Christmas Story (1983)

Inexplicably, less than ten years after the horrific Black Christmas, Clark made this enduring, funny, family classic (even stranger, he made it the same year as Porky's II: The Next Day). A closer look at the shopping mall sequence, however, reveals that Clark did not quite get all the Christmas horror out of his system. A Christmas Story was not an immediate hit, but rather picked up steam over the years as it ran on cable. Now it's an undisputed classic.

 

Naughty and Nice Christmas Cult Films

Naughty: Female Trouble (1974)

John Waters' 1974 cult classic starts off at Christmastime. Dawn Davenport (Divine) wakes and opens her presents beneath the brightly-colored tree. But when she fails to get her coveted Cha-Cha Heels, there's trouble. "I hate you and I hate Christmas!" she screeches, before embarking on a life of crime, depravity, and debauchery. Waters never did get Christmas out of his system: in 2004, he released the album, "A John Waters Christmas," a compilation of all the weirdest, most annoying tracks imaginable.

Nice: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

This 1964 movie has become a cult classic by virtue of the fact that it's so hideously bad, but thankfully, it's the so-bad-it's-good kind. It starts off with the song "Hooray for Santy Claus," which, if you ever hear it, you will never get it out of your head. And Santa doesn't even really "conquer" the Martians; rather, he kindly brings them their own version of Christmas on Mars, even after they have rudely kidnapped him. A young Pia Zadora stars as "Girmar," the very clever shortening of "Girl Martian."

 

Naughty and Nice Holiday Indulging and Partaking

Naughty: A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)

This terrific new holiday classic opens with Kumar visiting Santa at the mall, whisking him away to the parking lot, buying some pot, stuffing it into Santa's pipe, and blowing 3D smoke clouds at the camera. Out searching for a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, the reunited friends just keep getting deeper into trouble, and the depravity just gets deeper as well. It may not be good clean fun, but it's definitely fun!

Nice: The Thin Man (1934)

Based on a Dashiell Hammett novel, this murder mystery takes place over the holidays, with a stopover on Christmas morning for Nick Charles (William Powell) and Norah (Myrna Loy) to open their presents. (Even Asta the dog gets something.) But on Christmas and throughout, Nick is almost constantly drinking, preferably martinis, but really, whatever he can get his hands on. Nonetheless, he's one of those warm, funny drunks, rather than a mean one, and his detecting skills are always at their peak.

 

Naughty and Nice Seasons Beatings

Naughty: Die Hard (1988)

Die Hard is fast becoming a holiday classic of the It's a Wonderful Life magnitude, and essential annual holiday viewing in many homes. Bruce Willis spends his holiday running around a high-rise, knocking off terrorists. It's great, but not exactly festive. Rather than "God bless us, everyone," it's "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf-----." His Christmas card reads: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho." The less-loved sequel Die Hard 2 also takes place during the holidays.

Nice: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Chevy Chase isn't exactly an action hero like Bruce Willis, and here he's facing visiting relatives rather than terrorists, but he takes just as many lumps. He gets attacked by a squirrel, crashes a high-speed toboggan, nearly gets electrocuted, is nearly smashed by an 18-wheeler, crashes through the attic, gets raided by a SWAT team, and eats a dry turkey. But he remains cheerful throughout, and especially melts when he watches his old Christmas home movies.

 

Naughty and Nice Classics

Naughty: Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1951)

Ebenezer Scrooge is the ultimate Christmas meanie; he's so mean it takes four ghosts to set him right again. There have been perhaps dozens of Scrooges in the history of TV and movies, but the English actor Alastair Sim (1900-1976) is probably the preferred specimen, starring in Brian Desmond Hurst's 1951 film (entitled Scrooge in England and A Christmas Carol in the U.S.). Sim is perfectly scowly and spindly, and looks just as if Dickens had imagined him to life.

Nice: George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

The ultimate Christmas nice guy? James Stewart, of course. If there was a drinking game which involved George Bailey's good deeds in this movie, no one would ever make it through the movie sober. Even when George loses faith in humanity for a brief period, he's never totally lost; this is the ultimate dream movie in which we can believe that good deeds are indeed unpunished. No one but Stewart could have played the range and depths of emotion that George required.

Upgrading sinevili: Christmas special for the entire family

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Scott Neumyer is the author of Jimmy Stone's Ghost Town. He's a publicist for Click Communications as well as a writer and photographer. You can reach him on Twitter and at www.scottwrites.com. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and daughter. You can read his Raising a Cinephile column every other Thursday.

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We love Christmas in this house. And, honestly, it doesn’t matter what holiday you celebrate here in December, it’s always a very special time of the year. My wife and I are both obsessed with Christmas specials and it’s pretty easy to see the influence rubbing off on The Wiggle Bear. This past year, she turned Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman into year-round viewing. It didn’t matter that it was a beautiful, ninety-degree July day. If she wanted to watch Rudolph… she wanted to watch Rudolph... Some of our favorite memories were watching these Christmas specials with our parents, so it’s only fitting that we’d try to create similar memories with our little one.

Now, everyone knows about the perennial classics (and I’m only talking about specials… if we included actual Christmas movies, we’d be here all year). They’re amazing and it’s obvious that they’re classics for a reason. Things like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Jack Frost, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, and A Charlie Brown Christmas play multiple times on television every December, and for good reason. They’re just as fun now as they were when you were a kid. But this column isn’t about telling you what you already know. I don’t need to sing the praises of every Rankin/Bass production because everyone already loves them. I, on the other hand, prefer to open your mind to some of the lesser-known Christmas specials that we dig. So, let’s examine some of the more unsung (and, some, barely remembered) Christmas specials that you can pass on to your kiddos.

If you thought Christmas specials began and ended with A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you’re sadly mistaken. There are loads of other Christmas specials (check out this insanely extensive Wikipedia page on them) and, while Rudolph… is one several excellent specials that are still airing every year, it’s worth your while to track down some of the other lost gems of the Christmas season to enjoy with your family.

First up: What do you get when you mix a young Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, Pat Morita, and Richard Mulligan with a classic tale, but you plop them all in the middle of the 1980’s? You get one of the coolest television movies ever! Babes in Toyland premiered in 1986 on NBC and has since been sadly forgotten. You can’t even get this flick on DVD (good news is, though, you can currently see it on Netflix Watch Instantly!). I’m hoping with the proliferation of Manufacturing-on-Demand DVD programs, we’ll see an official release of Babes in Toyland soon because this is one of the wackiest Christmas specials ever. Reeves, Barrymore, and Jill Schoelen are all adorable, but Richard Mulligan and Eileen Brennan are absolutely creeptastic. And then there’s Troller. I won’t even spoiler Troller for you because I still have nightmares about him to this day. So if you have Netflix, head over and check out Babes in Toyland for one of the creepiest (and coolest) Christmas specials you’ll ever see.

Ah… what’s better than a fat, lazy cat eating up all your Christmas lasagne and then singing “A Good Old-Fashioned Christmas” while learning the true meaning of the holiday? Not much! A Garfield Christmas premiered on CBS in 1987 and has run on and off since then (the last time it ran, I believe, was in 2008 on ABC Family). In this house, however, it ranks right up there with the classics! Garfield and Odie going at it. Jon driving them both crazy. And the entire Garfield family coming together for a nice holiday celebration at the end. It’s so fun and so different than most of the Christmas specials you see every single year. This one’s on DVD and it’s paired with the excellent Garfield Halloween special so it’s easily worth buying.

Most people would insert Mickey’s Christmas Carol in this list, but we’re going outside the box and choosing Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas instead. While we adore Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the three stories told in …Once Upon a Christmas are just so much fun that it’s hard not to love the film. We get Donald and his nephews going through their own little Groundhog Day scenario, Goofy and a doubting Max, and Mickey and Minnie’s own take on “The Gift of the Magi.” After Rudolph, this DVD has probably gotten more rotation in our household than any other Christmas special. The Wiggle Bear absolutely loves it.

Which leads us to what is probably the most offbeat of all the animated Christmas specials: Ziggy’s Gift. Adapted from the popular Tom Wilson comic strip, Ziggy, this short (it’s twenty-four minutes long but it feels like it’s about ten minutes) is a quietly beautiful masterpiece. As you can probably tell from the image above, it’s not your usual Christmas special, but what it lacks in classic Christmas mythos, it makes up for in style. Ziggy himself never says a single word through the entire special and he’s constantly surrounded by a weirdo cop, thieves, and some crooked Santas. Yet, through it all, Ziggy remains the most kind and caring person you’ll ever meet. It’s a great little tale about the true meaning of the holiday season and it’s told with all the weight of a feature film (only in much less time). Don’t believe me? Ask the Emmy Award Ziggy’s Gift took home. Pick it up on DVD before it goes out of print. It’s a little pricey, but totally worth it.

There are so many great Christmas specials that have aired over the years. It would take a book, much less a column, to cover them all. That said, here are a few more favorites that my family likes to revisit every Christmas:

- The Rankin/Bass catalogue. From Rudolph… to The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (which is a personal favorite of my wife’s as I’ve heard her singing the “Big Surprise” song about the “wooden cat with yellow-green eyes” on many occasions) they’re all amazing. ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas is a personal favorite and just came out on Blu-ray.

- Mickey’s Christmas Carol

- Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas (the follow up to the previously-mentioned Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas)

- Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (if you like your Christmas Jim Henson style, this one’s for you)

- The Christmas Toy (another Jim Henson production)

- A Charlie Brown Christmas (obviously)

- A Claymation Christmas Celebration (I was a sucker for those California Raisins when I was a kid. Not so much now…)

- How the Grinch Stole Christmas

- Smoky Mountain Christmas (we’re suckers for Dolly Parton)

- Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too

- Elmo’s Christmas Countdown

- Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas (I’ve heard The Wiggle Bear sing the “Christmas Monkey” song more times than I can count)

- Little Einstein’s Christmas Wish

And that list is just the tip of the iceberg. As she grows older, I’ll be introducing The Wiggle Bear to the wonders of great unconventional Christmas movies like Gremlins, Die Hard, and Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. They may be way out of her age range right now, but they won’t be forever.

I hope you now have your Christmas weekend TV watching mapped out with some great specials. Most of the previously mentioned specials can be found online either in Blu-ray, DVD, or VHS (you still have one of those lying around in case of emergency, right?), or in pieces on YouTube. A few (Babes in Toyland is one great example) are even on Netflix Watch Instantly. Some of them might be tough to find, but stretch your Google-Fu muscles and you can track them down. And be sure to let us know about your favorite Christmas special down there in the comments. Happy Holidays!

Dialogue: Tom hidlistone on ' war horse ' defend Luque and reading poetry written in the first world war trenches

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The best way to describe a conversation with Tom Hiddleston is by calling it oddly therapeutic. He's an actor's actor; the sort that completely gives himself up to a role in every conceivable way, transforming his soul in the process. For someone who's played the villainous Loki from the Marvel universe with such hurt and anger, Hiddleston is surprisingly warm, generous and soft-spoken. His words gracefully dance out of his mouth as if they're looking to land on the pages of today's most romantic poetry, and it's comforting to watch someone discuss their craft with such care and adoration for what they do and what they're able to add to the cinematic conversation. In short, he's a pretty nice guy.

In War Horse, Hiddleston isn't on screen for too long, but the time he does spend is rewarding and also crucial to the plot. He plays Captain Nicholls, one of many young British men asked to join the World War I effort who were, as Hiddleston describes, "educated, upper-class, decent and amateur, and blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead of them." Nicholls was a role Hiddleston took on immediately after wrapping The Avengers, where he played a character who was angry, bitter and hell-bent on destroying as many lives as he could. Essentially, the complete opposite of a war hero like Nicholls. Our conversation with Hiddleston opens up with us discussing the difficulties of that kind of transition ...

Movies.com: How is it transitioning right from playing a villain who wants to destroy the world in The Avengers to playing this war hero in War Horse?

Tom Hiddleston: You know what, I feel so lucky to be an actor, I really do. Because every character you play – and I know it sounds trite to spell it out – but it really does feel like living in the shoes of somebody else for a period of time. And I feel that that experience of trying to understand what the world looks like from another perspective is a bit like traveling around the world and visiting lots of different countries. If you met a man from one town and he never left that town, and at the same time on exactly the same day in the same town, another man was born and in sixty years one of them had been to every country in the world when the other hasn’t been anywhere apart from that town he was born in, the wisdom of the traveler would be so much greater than the wisdom of the man who stayed at home. Every character I play is like visiting a country I’ve never been to. Does that make sense? And so you come back after the experience with new knowledge about being alive that you didn’t have before.

The experience of playing Loki changed me for a moment. I was inhabiting this absolutely volatile, damaged, psychologically wounded creature with enormous power and a massive reservoir of pain, and that took a degree of recovery. I had a huge compassion for anyone who’s felt left out or abandoned or lonely, because that’s his predicament. I really did – I felt this enormous well of compassion for people who feel like they have no place. Then I pretty much went straight into War Horse and I had this sort of cathartic experience of being asked to play someone who was incredibly kind and incredibly decent, and warm and heroic. That in a way I felt was an enormously soothing reintroduction to the parts of myself that didn’t belong to Loki. Does that make sense?

Movies.com: It definitely does, but there’s a flipside to that – of being the world traveler who’s constantly inhabiting all these different kinds of roles and characters because I imagine it’s easy to lose your real self somewhere. Can you just flip that switch and turn off these characters? Is that easy for you to do?

TH: My friends are pretty good at keeping my feet on the ground. If I start getting crazy and start talking to myself, ya know. [laughs] I’m very blessed to have amazing family and friends around me who constantly deflect who I really am back at me, in a way. Sometimes you just have to go home, or go and visit someone you’ve known all your life.

Movies.com: What is your trigger? What do you do every time you finish a film to pull you out of that mode, that character?

TH: I tend to sleep a lot. I like to allow myself to sleep. I have a rigorous, physical regime – I keep very fit – and I feel that’s an ability that I demand of myself so that if a director asks me to do something – Steven Spielberg says, ‘Can you get on that horse and lead a calvary charge?’ – I can, yes, I’m in the shape to do it. If Joss Whedon says, ‘I need to put you on a wire and I’m going to send you pinging from wall to wall on this set, are you fit enough to do that?’ – I can say yes, sir. I get up in the morning when I’m shooting at about four or five o’clock and I run for 40 minutes, and I go to the gym, and when the shoot stops I literally get into bed and I don’t set the alarm, and I stop working out, and I listen to my favorite music, and I just do really normal things. It’s kind of like checking back into my normal life.

Movies.com: It’s interesting with this role because the film is broken up into sections, and we have an end for your character, but we don’t really have a beginning or a middle, unlike, say, Loki, who we follow through all these different character arcs. So how do you prepare for a character like this? Do you invent backstory?

TH: You know I did, actually, because I thought despite the episodic nature of the film, the snapshot you get of Captain Nicholls was incredibly important, and no character is truly played unless it’s played with a kind of rigorous authenticity and integrity. It’s funny because the craft of acting really is the craft of truly inhabiting another human being, be they real or fictional. For Captain Nicholls, I couldn’t just put on a uniform and make a bunch of facial expressions. This is a real guy, and also he’s an emblem of a whole army of those guys who were educated, upper-class, decent and amateur, and blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead of them. And innocent, apart from everything else. So I thought if in this film, Captain Nicholls is the face of that pre-war innocence, it’s my duty to play him properly.

I read a lot about life before the first World War, and how rustic it was, and how in a modern context it was idyllic. It was like man before the fall. It was so uncynical, and they lived such an outdoor, open, honest existence, still very connected to the land in a way that many of our lives are not. These guys lived off the earth, no matter how rich or how poor they were – everyone had animals; everyone had horses and chickens. And there were no gyms, but there was sport like horse riding and looking after the farm. Captain Nicholls is a man who would’ve done a lot of fox-hunting. Fox-hunting in a modern context is conceived of as very cruel, but these men would’ve hunted in winter as a way of keeping foxes away from their livestock – also keeping their horses fit and themselves fit. And I loved reading Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon. He was one of the most famous war poets to come out of the British army. His poetry that he wrote, in the trenches, from 1914-1918, is still absolutely shattering.

But his biography talks about this lovely life he had before that, so I borrowed a lot of those details from Sassoon, watched films on military history and developed a backstory that, if the first World War never happened, Captain Nicholls would’ve been a painter because he had this artistic sensibility. That seemed to speak to me as the sensibility of an artist who was asked to wear a uniform because he knew how to ride, which distinguishes him from a professional soldier in a modern context. If you sign up for the army now, that’s a proper job, you get a pension and you become a machine. But these guys were boys who needed to become men, and those uniforms were like suits.

Movies.com: Where are you going from here? Thor 2?

TH: I’m actually in the middle of filming Henry V, which is really exciting. It’s for NBCU and BBC, and it’s part of a season of Shakespeare plays that are being mounted on film. That’s kind of a combination of all the things that I love. It’s the greatest poetry that’s ever been written, the greatest storytelling by the greatest storyteller – and an amazing character. I mean he is a warrior king, and one of the greatest England ever had.

Movies.com: Do they have you wrapped up in this Marvel universe for a long time? I know a lot of the actors signed on for something like nine films – do you have the same sort of deal?

TH: Yeah, I signed initially for six, and I’ve made two already – Thor and The Avengers. Who knows for how long people will be interested in me. We’ll see.  

War Horse is in theaters now. The Avengers arrives in theaters on May 4th.

Remember Kim Jong Il through North Korea koltish monster movie ' bolgasari '

Mitt dictator Kim Jong-Il, North Korea, while the awesome stuff that caused North Korea's population is well documented, no one ever seems bolgasari mentions in his list which seem endless atrocities.

The 1985 movie Monster stands as the most popular movie ever stem from North Korea, which is ironic, since it was made by a South Korean film director Shin sang-OK and his wife actress Choi UN-Hee-who had been kidnapped Kim Jong-Il and imprisoned even made this classic cult flick for a kigo.

Io9 site is incompatible with a piece on the film awhile back, it was reprinted on the occasion of the departure of the dictator. It revolves mainly around a giant iron beast helps farmers eat ox overthrow tyrant King. Reportedly considered a cult classic in Japan.

As the movie plays out io9, like strange metaphor for communism. Certainly the beast Bull helps locals overthrow them evil ruler, but he does this by consuming all natural resources, leaving them in a different situation, but also fraught with risks. One must wonder what Kim was thinking the story of the movie primarily when you are tyrannical leader of the country known for injustice and starving your citizens, perhaps making movies where mythical creatures come to assist the population was not the best idea to keep the masses towing the party line. Of course, since the death of Kim for reasons other than revolution or slaughtered by a monster Thor eating iron giant, perhaps things were okay after all ...

If you like social commentary with kigo clicks, and you're in luck. Bolgasari available for YouTubeviewing, with full English translation. Not as cool as the movie Godzilla or King ghidora, but definitely worth checking out.

Photo of the day: poster one ' disappear ' If you know you always wanted

Told from the point of view of excellence ' s most iconic line of dialogue. Hans poor, we can ' ve used the consequences.

[Via reddit]