One of the staples of the Los Angeles Film Festival is the festival’s Coffee Talk series which bring together top names in the industry to discuss their craft and offer inside insights on what it is like to be a working director, screenwriter, actor, or composer. This year’s “Coffee Talks: Composers” panel featured The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo composer, Atticus Ross, John Dies at the End and Iron Man 3 composer, Brian Tyler, and Zombieland and End of Watch composer, David Sardy. It was an interesting panel with Tyler and Sardy sharing the experience of composing for big budget films while Ross had avoided some of those studio pressures to pave his own way through the industry. All three have different backgrounds with Ross coming from a band member’s perspective, Sardy a music producer’s perspective, and Tyler from an indie film into big blockbuster perspective, making the moments where the three agreed and disagreed all the more meaningful. Here are 10 things we learned.

It was a piece of concept art that got me (and many more) excited about a “World War Z” movie in the first place. For everyone who’d read Max Brooks’ beautifully thorough oral history, it was a little hard to imagine it translating well to film, though. With a ton of different voices, an after-the-fact central focus and a labyrinthine structure, Brooks’ academic recounting of the times surrounding “The Great Panic” didn’t seem like a good fit for a movie (unless Ken Burns was going to direct). The Brad Pitt-starring film coming out this weekend seems to confirm that. Many, many elements from the book have been changed — including the elimination of the historical perspective in favor of placing us into the immediate danger — but even if it’s an In Name Only Adaptation, World War Z still looks impressive on a lot of levels. One of them is its visuals. To celebrate the film’s look, “World War Z: The Art of the Film” is out, and we have an exclusive look at 4 of the images tucked away in its binding. Enjoy, but remember to wipe the brain matter from your lips when you’re done.

Movies that are able to effectively blend action and comedy tend to be real crowd pleasers. Large segments of the moviegoing public go to the cinema specifically to escape, and, really, what’s more escapist than laughing and being thrilled at the same time? From The General to Big Trouble in Little China to Shaun of the Dead, the best action comedies tend to become cult favorites that stand the test of time and get re-watched constantly. There’s one action comedy that has a giant cult following I’ve never found an inroad to appreciate though—John Landis’ 1980 hit, The Blues Brothers. It’s not hard to see why many find it memorable. It’s set in an exaggerated version of lower class Chicago that’s easy to romanticize, it gets to ride the coattails of John Belushi’s gone-too-soon legacy, and it features so many legendary musicians that you almost feel like you have to respect it by proxy. Putting all that aside though, the movie is really long and slow, it doesn’t contain many big laughs, and quite frankly I have a hard time finishing it without falling asleep. One recent action comedy that doesn’t get any respect is 2011’s The Green Hornet, and seeing as its writers, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, released the impressive and seemingly well-liked This is the End over the weekend, it feels like an appropriate time to revisit it and ask why that is. The Green Hornet made a decent amount of coin, and was successful enough on

Looking for any excuse, Landon Palmer and Scott Beggs are using the 2012 Sight & Sound poll results as a reason to take different angles on the best movies of all time. Every week, they’ll discuss another entry in the list, dissecting old favorites from odd angles, discovering movies they haven’t seen before and asking you to join in on the conversation. Of course it helps if you’ve seen the movie because there will be plenty of spoilers. This week, they take 4 different views on Akira Kurosawa‘s Rashomon because they think they’re clever. In the #24 (tied) movie on the list, a bandit, a samurai, his wife, and a woodcutter each tell their version of a violent encounter on a forest road. With each new entry, conflicts and distortions arise, ultimately bending and challenging what we think of as the truth in storytelling and in life.

Why Watch? More than just a curiosity, this short film from Samm Hodges is a poetic blend of conflicting realities about existence and stunningly displayed images that confuse the pupils. The physical meeting the metaphysical. It feels a bit like a 1950s instructional video by way of “Howl,” and it’s that sober recitation of condensed profundities laid over the beautiful imagery and overall tonal loneliness that makes this a complete package.

This week’s opening of Pixar’s latest film, Monsters University, a sequel starring fan favorites Mike Wazowski and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan, also signals the debut of another perennial Pixar favorite – the accompanying short film. Since the animation house’s second theatrical release, Toy Story 2, every Pixar feature film has kicked off with an all-new short. Some of them have been instant classics (like For the Birds, Day & Night, and my personal favorite, Presto) and some of them have fallen somewhat flat (I forgot about Geri’s Game, Boundin’, and Lifted almost immediately after watching them). Three of them even won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film (and of the twelve already released, ten of them were nominated for the award). The short attached to Monsters University, Saschka Unseld’s The Blue Umbrella, is a different kind of short film for Pixar. Its use of photorealistic CGI is a departure from the more traditional animation styles that Pixar’s shorts have previously utilized, and one that teeters on the edge of the so-called Uncanny Valley. Putting it another way – realizing the entire thing is computer-animated is both obvious (it does focus on the love story between anthropomorphized umbrellas) and unsettling (it sometimes looks too “real” to be fake, though we’re not talking Mars Needs Moms levels of weirdness). It does, however, still have that Pixar charm and emotion (really, it focuses on the love story between anthropomorphized umbrellas), though the bulk of its creativity is focused on ancillary characters

Welcome back to This Week In Discs! As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. Rectify Daniel Holden (Aden Young) is released from prison after serving 19 years on death row for the rape and murder of a teenage girl, but his return home opens up a world of troubled complications for everyone involved. The small, Southern community is divided on the issue of his innocence as the DNA evidence seems at odds with his own confession, and those doubts are just some of the issues he now faces. Character actor Ray McKinnon moves behind the camera here as the show’s creator, and the result is easily one of the year’s finest and most affecting shows. The story shares some thematic similarities to the brilliant Boy A, but it quickly finds its own rhythms and strengths thanks to a smart ensemble filled with heartbreaking performances and characters. It’s not needed, but the show also features some suspense and mystery surrounding Daniel’s possible guilt. It’s a short season at only six episodes, but happily Sundance Channel has ordered an additional ten for season two. [DVD extras: Featurettes]

Movie 43 was in essence an experimental film from the minds of the Farrelly Brothers. This raunchy, ribald sketch comedy film with two different wrap-around stories (depending on where it was released) featured fourteen different short films with an impressive cast. Unfortunately, the experiment did not perform too well during its release. However, there’s always life for these types of film on DVD and Blu-ray. Loaded with inappropriate humor, Movie 43 found a few fans in its original run, while others declared it one of the worst movies ever. This is your chance to be the judge, but may we suggest you judge it with some spirits on your side?

We are living in a post-movie star era, but Will Smith was the last one to find out. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-turned-21st-century box office king has enjoyed his time as perhaps the sole exception to the many articles that have discussed at length the death of the traditional movie star (including ones written here). Smith’s magnetic charm, family-friendly aura, and conventional good looks (coupled, more importantly, with an incredibly calculated, decidedly un-risky series of career decisions) made him a star with mass audience appeal – an increasingly rare commodity as studio films geared more and more toward dedicated niche audiences. But Smith’s anachronistic career (even with two Academy Award nominations and 11 blockbusters under his belt in almost as many years) was growing ever more conspicuous even before his four-year absence from the silver screen. He came back with the serviceable (read: unremarkable) MIB3. However, it was this summer’s After Earth (whose opening weekend gross was $100K shy of, erm, Wild Wild West) that solidified the fact that even Hollywood’s “biggest star” no longer provided a guarantee that anybody would show up. Six months ago, Scott Beggs and I argued that 2012 signaled, with certainty, the death of the movie star. If the movie star died in 2012, then 2013 is most certainly its wake.

Why Watch? Although director Fergal Rock could do with a better camera package, the charm of this short film comes from the sweetness of its leads. Dorothy Cotter and Matthew Keenan shine here, converting a chance encounter into something special with looks, silent era swagger and obvious chemistry. Yes, they have a meet cute, but it’s not based on the situation’s circumstances or a wacky locale (it’s in an empty movie theater); it’s sprinkled with sugar because of Cotter’s portrayal of a character that’s decidedly not shy. Where some movies would include elements that are charming for charming’s sake, Rock and company imbue the characters with it so that everything that happens feels light but still organic. For those who have seen Rock’s Henry and Sunny, the style here shouldn’t be surprising at all.

As we all know, Hollywood is imploding. Steven Spielberg is on the case, millions of angry comment section responses to remake announcements are on the case, and now producer Lynda Obst is on the case. In an excerpt from her new book, “Sleepless in Hollywood,” Obst laboriously details her drive to former Fox CEO Peter Chernin‘s house while repeating the phrases New Abnormal and Old Abnormal until they seem clever. Okay, so I didn’t like the chapter, but it did feature at least two clear insights into the current production mindset of the major studios. The New Abby Someone, if you will. First: DVD sales numbers are the real killer. According to Chernin via Obst, “The historical studio business, if you put all the studios together, runs at about a ten percent profit margin. For every billion dollars in revenue, they make a hundred million dollars in profits. That’s the business, right? . . . The DVD business represented fifty percent of their profits. Fifty percent. The decline of that business means their entire profit could come down between forty and fifty percent for new movies.”

With just one episode left in this year’s remarkable Mad Men season, AMC has cheerily released an “official” press release announcing the latest merger for the ad men, including a look at the new firm’s new logo and adorable comments from all of its partners. The memo was shared on Mad Men’s Facebook page after last night’s show (and subsequently shared by every person you know on social media), and while it’s certainly fun to gaze at, it’s even more fun to use as the jumping off point for some Mad Men activities (and, we’ll admit it now, to delve ever-deeper into the finely-tuned historical elements of the ever-accurate show). Let’s have some fun.

Few franchises have crashed and burned as spectacularly as the Superman films, which reached their nadir with 1987’s fourth installment, The Quest for Peace, which grossed barely a tenth the box office of Richard Donner’s classic origin story a decade earlier. SUPERMAN’S DIMINISHING RETURNS Superman (1978) $134M Superman II (1980) $108M Superman III (1983) $60M Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) $15M With Tim Burton’s dark, gritty Batman demolishing box office records in 1989, Warner Bros. had no reason to think audiences would respond to the brighter, more colorful Man of Steel mythos – at least, not until 1992, when DC Comics’ bestselling “The Death and Return of Superman” cycle put The Daily Planet’s most famous reporter back on the front page. In the comics (later turned into a 2007 animated film, Superman: Doomsday), Superman is killed by a creature called Doomsday, before being resurrected after a three-month publishing hiatus which became a publicity magnet. Deciding that the death-and-rebirth story merited a movie, Warner placed a full-page ad in the trade press announcing a working-titled Superman: The New Movie, with Batman producer Jon Peters at the wheel, and screenwriter Jonathan Lemkin (Lethal Weapon 4, Devil’s Advocate, Demolition Man), at the typewriter.

Don Draper just keeps pulling out the dick moves. And with next week being the season six finale, who knows what he had in store for us? A lot of stuff happened on this week’s Mad Men installment, “The Quality of Mercy,” written by Andre and Maria Jacquemetton and directed by Phil Abraham. So much so that Ken Cosgrove gets shot in the face in the first few minutes and it’s barely a blip on the overall drama scale. Another great episode, this one really sets the stage for the impending finale. It also featured Roger Sterling’s proclamation that he “once held Lee Garner Jr.’s balls!” if that’s any indication. Well, not really. But that line sure tickles. As noted, Don behaved pretty poorly this week, which makes for great television, but not necessarily for making his character any more likable. Don is still pretty worked up over the Sally-caused coitus interruptus… to the point where he is acting like Kirsten Cohen from The O.C. and stealthily spiking his orange juice with vodka. And taking the day off work. He is also very peeved by the growing camaraderie between Peggy and Ted, to the point where he goes out of his way in a meeting to embarrass the hell out of Ted and rob Peggy of her idea for the St. Joseph aspirin campaign.

Friday night during the Los Angeles Film Festival, the talented (and 8 months pregnant) Maya Rudolph sat down with LACMA curator and host of KCRW’s The Treatment, Elvis Mitchel, to discuss “the serious business of being funny.” From her days at SNL to her early days watching movies with her dad (composer Richard Rudolph) in Westwood, Rudolph shared some of her favorite comedic moments from various films and how various comedians influenced and advised her throughout her career. Read on for ten tips and antidotes from Rudolph on the art of being funny, her memories growing up in comedy, what kind of comedians she is attracted to, and who gave her the best advice of her career.

This is another edition of Short Starts, where we present a weekly short film(s) from the start of a filmmaker or actor’s career.  Dan Scanlon has worked at Pixar for almost twelve years (he started the day before 9/11), and it’s taken this long for him to direct his first solo effort for the studio, Monsters University. Actually, though, that’s not a very long time to wait, especially considering he’s the youngest person there to helm a feature (he turns 37 two days after the movie hits theaters). Prior to this, he co-directed the 2006 Cars short Mater and the Ghostlight with John Lasseter and had been a storyboard artist on Cars, Toy Story 3 and Disney DVD sequels The Little Mermaid II and 101 Dalmatians II and was on the senior creative team for Brave. In 2009, Scanlon put out his award-winning feature debut, a non-Pixar-based live-action mockumentary he stars in titled Tracy, which you can watch as a web serial here. That’s not all the past works of his you can watch online. Much like Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who got the Short Starts treatment a few weeks back, Scanlon has been quite generous and not at all shy about his early work. He’s personally uploaded a handful of films he made in high school and at Columbus College of Art and Design, many of which he appears in or voiced characters for (in The Chase he plays a guy who likes to be peed on, which hopefully isn’t a sign

Editor’s Note: To celebrate Father’s Day, 114% of movie websites will be giving you a list of the best and worst cinematic fathers, the most fatherly moments, the best movies to watch with Dad on Father’s Day. This year, we’re keeping things simple by dedicating our recurring column Scenes We Love to a single scene (not coincidentally featuring this weekend’s biggest hero Superman) featuring a tender moment between father and son. Our J.L. Sosa recalls his favorite scene from 1977′s Superman: The Movie.

Spoilers Ahead: This article contains advanced talking points for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. We recommend reading it after you see the film. Anyone who called Iron Man 3 or any other blockbuster in the past few years an “epic” will be eating their words once they see Zack Snyder‘s giant toy set called Man of Steel. It’s as if Shane Black and J.J. Abrams were playing with plastic action figures and then, all the sudden, Snyder showed up with real heroes. His Superman reboot is exciting, a visual marvel, and gives fans the movie they wanted to see from Bryan Singer. Finally, we have a 21st century Superman who punches somebody, but is there more here than a few wicked brawls? For the most part, yes. There’s some heart present, especially with Russell Crowe taking part in the film’s emotional peak within the first twenty minutes. After that, the movie loses some of that patient drama with certain structural and character choices. This isn’t, let’s say, a Star Trek Into Darkness situation where the experience falls flat by Abrams & Co. consistently choosing spectacle over logic. For every confounding choice made in Man of Steel, there’s plenty of right choices made. Some of those puzzling choices raise questions, though. There’s no plot holes to drive buses through here, but they feel like issues that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

We’re about six months away from Christmas, so why not highlight a film about Santa Claus? Actually it’s a very appropriate time to discuss this particular film, because it’s about the off season for guys who play the role of St. Nick. Titled I Am Santa Claus, it’s a documentary that follows six Kris Kringles, including none other than pro wrestling legend Mick Foley. WWE Raw fans may be familiar with his appearances in the ring dressed as the jolly old icon, but for this film he went a bit further by even dying his hair and beard and fully trying out the gig as many men do every December. Additionally Foley is a producer of the doc, which is directed by relative newcomer Tommy Avallone. He’s been thanked in the credits for the films Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles and Indie Game: The Movie, which is good enough for me to trust him here. Other reasons I’m into this doc, which is done shooting and now raising finishing costs via Kickstarter, are that I love Foley as a documentary subject thanks to Beyond the Mat (if you’ve seen it, you saw his daughter, Noelle, getting very upset as a little girl in the audience of a bloody bout; now you can see her grown up and helping to hawk incentives in a video here) and that I’m a big fan of a similar recent doc, the wonderful Becoming Santa. The latter showed men, yes, becoming Santa,

You can tell Man of Steel is the movie of the summer because none of us can stop writing about it. Would it be more or less covered if the Superman movie actually got mostly favorable reviews? It’s hard to say, as much of our and other outlets’ think pieces are a mix of pre-planned stuff on the character in general as well as superhero movies in general and reaction posts both about what the new movie gets wrong and right. All I know is I could have devoted this week’s whole Reject Recap to the ol’ Caped Kryptonian (is that not one of his nicknames?). Let me just point out that it’s deserving. While the official FSR review is fairly negative, I’ll admit that I love it. And it’s definitely worth seeing even if you have problems with much of it. As is clear, there’s so much to talk about. There’s a bunch to discuss on other topics and movies, too. We had two big stories involving the future of Hollywood, thoughts on some older favorites and some other characters’ announced returns, an update on real-life versions of characters from one of this week’s new releases and also a geeky comparison between video game consoles complete with their relevance to movie fans. Before we get to your week in review, here’s some trivia regarding the headline above: all are tied to Superman. Steven Spielberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger were both linked to Superman: The Movie and, well, some interns probably