Usually I’m quite cynical about end-of-year lists, as they demand a forced encapsulation of an arbitrary block of time that is not yet over into something simplified. I typically find end-of-year lists fun, but rarely useful. But 2011 is different. As Scott Tobias pointed out, while “quiet,” this was a surprisingly strong year for interesting and risk-taking films. What’s most interesting has been the variety: barely anything has emerged as a leading contender that tops either critics’ lists or dominates awards buzz. Quite honestly, at the end of 2010 I struggled to find compelling topics, trends, and events to define the year in cinema. The final days of 2011 brought a quite opposite struggle, for this year’s surprising glut of interesting and disparate films spoke to one another in a way that makes it difficult to isolate any of the year’s significant works. Arguments in the critical community actually led to insightful points as they addressed essential questions of what it means to be a filmgoer and a cinephile. Mainstream Hollywood machine-work and limited release arthouse fare defied expectations in several directions. New stars arose. Tired Hollywood rituals and ostensibly reliable technologies both met new breaking points. “2011” hangs over this year in cinema, and the interaction between the films – and the events and conversations that surrounded them – makes this year’s offerings particular to their time and subject to their context. This is what I took away from this surprising year:

The last forty-eight hours have been tumultuous ones for this year’s Academy Awards telecast. First, the show’s producer Brett Ratner was unceremoniously asked to step down from his position after the world realized that he was a creep. Then his host, Eddie Murphy, soon followed, wishing the new producer and new host the best of luck. Fans all over the web were in an agitated state, debating who should take their places, with a large contingent actively campaigning for a very Muppet Oscars. The Academy seems to be in a bit of a panic though, because less than a day later they’ve already locked their choices down, and the replacements they found can most accurately be described as safe. First, it was announced that Brian Grazer would be the new producer. After this, speculation began to run rampant that Billy Crystal would be the most logical and easy choice for Grazer to plug in as host, seeing as he’s done the job so many times and has a seemingly endless enthusiasm for the gig. Sure enough, earlier today Crystal took to his @BillyCrystal Twitter account and made the following announcement, “Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions. Looking forward to the show.” Since then, the Academy’s official account has retweeted Crystal’s claims, making things pretty official.

Last night’s Movie News After Dark column reported the news that Brett Ratner was forced to resign from being the producer of this year’s Academy Awards telecast due to publicly making some homophobic comments that offended a number of people who viewed them as hate speech, and disgusted everyone else who viewed them as sobering proof that there are still men in their 40s who talk like 15-year-old kids trying to impress their friends while drinking Slurpees in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. The news that Ratner would be stepping down as producer was viewed as a negative to absolutely no one. But there has now been some collateral damage from Ratner’s exit that’s bound to bum some people out. In the wake of Ratner’s resignation The Academy has made an announcement that Eddie Murphy has stepped down as the host of the show as well. It seems that Eddie feels that a new producer would be better off stepping into a completely fresh situation with their own host rather than trying to continue work on what had already been done, because when asked about his decision he said, “First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party’s decision with regard to a change of producers for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s not the nightly news column you want right now, but it’s the one you need. Because you need a nightly news column that will be strong in the face of adversity, cover the things you care about, and publish videos of Ryan Gosling being sexy without words. We begin tonight with a shot from the set of The Dark Knight Rises, something we’ve refrained from covering too much. However, I found this particular photo — one of a batch from Mail Online – that shows a tender moment between our hero, as played by Christian Bale, and his new foe Bane, as played by Tom Hardy. Just a little hug as Chris Nolan’s production occupies Occupy Wall Street in New York.

One of the great misconceptions about Hollywood is that it is a liberal institution. Several false assumptions inform this misconception: thinking of “Hollywood” as a monolithic entity in any way besides its shared corporate infrastructure, confusing public endorsements of celebrity politicians by celebrity movie stars as political activism, thinking that left-leaning consumers of movies see Hollywood as representing their political beliefs in any way, selectively reading a limited number of texts (e.g., Green Zone “proves” Hollywood’s liberalism, but every superhero movie ever isn’t proof of its conservatism), and, most importantly, thinking that the most public figures associated with Hollywood (i.e., stars and filmmakers) are Hollywood. This last point I think is one that has continued to be the least considered when such straw man critiques are drawn, because Hollywood here is equated only with its most visible figures who overshadow its intricate but also not-so-shrouded political economy. It’s no mistake that despite the fluctuating numbers of major and minor Hollywood studios in the past 100 years, the most powerful studios, like the biggest banks in the nation, have been referred to as “The Big Five.” And indeed, to the surprise of no one, both Big Fives have had and are continuing a lucrative relationship with one another. Hollywood’s agenda, of course, has always been profit, and the representatives of this ideology are not George Clooney and Matt Damon, but Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal (Chairman/CEO & Co-Chairman, Sony/Columbia), Stephen Blairson (CEO, 20th Century Fox), Brad Grey (Chairman/CEO, Paramount), Ronald Meyer [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr grabs a protest sign and a test so he can occupy something. All the big cities are taken, so he decides to Occupy Hollywood, but being one of the 99%, he can’t afford a plane ticket from Ohio to California. So, he occupies his local multiplex, squatting in the front of their biggest screen. There, he has a chance to check out the loosely-related Tower Heist and later drinks some spiked egg nog and wanders into a later screening of A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. At least that’s what he’s telling the authorities.

Josh Kovacs is, quite simply, outstanding at his job. Back-breaking early hours don’t faze the manager of the chi-chi Tower apartment building, one of the most glitzed-out residences in Manhattan, as he uses that time to beef up his knowledge of fancy cheeses and impressive wines in order to seamlessly recommend them to his high-end clientele. But Josh (Ben Stiller) isn’t just interested in impressing his residents (particularly penthouse owner Arthur Shaw), he’s also equally involved in the lives of his employees. Josh buys the Tower lifestyle hook, line, and sinker – obsessed with keeping his workers at the top of their game so as to provide the best experience for all Tower residents, an experience that will thus ensure longevity in the careers of all those Tower employees. It’s a machine that works, with Josh manning all the gears with a goofy grin on his face. But toss a wrench in that machine, and everything grinds to a halt. Josh’s life works when everyone does their job and does it well – whether that job be operating one of the Tower’s elevators or being a gracious resident. When money man Shaw (Alan Alda) is accused of bilking his clients out of millions of dollars, it stings Josh enough (after all, isn’t Shaw just a Brooklyn boy like Josh?), but when the deeper deception comes to light, Josh’s work ethic and mental stability both go soaring out the metaphorical skyscraper window. Shaw didn’t just play the old financial cup game [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a thing that happens every night, bub. And it will deliver unto you the best of the entertainment-related things that happened today. Also, there will be mustaches. We begin tonight’s late late edition of News After Dark with an epic mustache. No, not this column’s author’s epic mustache. It’s an image of what Burt Reynolds looks like in his cameo on Archer, one of the better shows about animated spies to hit cable television since… okay, I ran that into the ground. It’s really good. Burt Reynolds makes it even better.

The relationship between film studios and movie theaters is an oddly contentious one. You’d think the two would be the best of friends as few entertainment experiences can rival watching a fantastic film in a well run theater, but instead the two parties seem consistently at odds. They’re constantly fighting over the percentage of gross profits each one should get, they’ve recently started bickering about who should foot the bill for the cost of 3D glasses, and now at least one studio is making a bold move sure to anger theater owners even more. Per the LA Times, Universal will be making the upcoming Brett Ratner joint, Tower Heist, available on VOD just three weeks after it opens in theaters. It’s limited to two markets for now, so only movie fans in Atlanta and Portland, Oregon will be able to order the film from the comfort of their living room couch for the totally reasonable price of just $59.99. Sounds high to be sure, but the average movie ticket in theaters is around ten bucks, so if you can find five more people interested in seeing Murphy, Stiller and friends in a Ratner film then you’re golden. You also probably have friends with poor cinematic taste.

What is Movie News After Dark? It is our nightly promise to keep you on the up-and-up in the world of movie news, interesting links, strange occurrences and developments in the world of Breaking Bad. It is also breaking new ground this evening by defying popular opinion on the new Batman movie and featuring stories about not one, but two pop stars! Tonight’s top story, a first look at pop star Rihanna in Battleship, making her big screen debut as a member of the Naval squad who happen upon some Transformers-esque alien tech in the middle of the ocean and are forced to battle it out via a decades-old board game. B2! Oh, you sunk my interest in her character.

The entire setup for the Tower Heist trailer is solid and pretty damned timely. A staff at an incredibly schmancy apartment building are fleeced out of their pensions by the building’s wealthiest schmuck so they decide to rob him. But they’ll need help. Enter the moment the trailer stops dead in its tracks. You know you’re poison when a perfectly harmless action comedy (even one where Ben Stiller and Matthew Broderick try to keep straight faces while Alan Alda tries to be unlikable), becomes a laughingstock just by inserting your image into the trailer. Guess who, movie fans. It’s your favorite comedian turned least favorite comedian and he ruins everything here:

For every ten unnecessary remakes that make it to the big screen it’s worth remembering that once in a while we dodge a bullet. The most recent example being the big budget reboot of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York. Carpenter’s admittedly goofy but entertaining as hell classic from 1981 has been on track for a remake for some time now. Every few months names of newly rumored directors and stars would hit the blogosphere including Brett Ratner, Len Wiseman, Gerard Butler, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hardy, and Breck Eisner. Of those only the last was really appealing in the slightest as Eisner turned in a fine horror flick with his remake of The Crazies, but this was never an endeavor to getting excited over. The original film is set in the far away future of 1997 where the island of Manhattan has been turned into a walled prison (still a great idea) that no one ever exits. Air Force One crashes inside and Snake Plissken, an ex-soldier turned convicted bank robber, is given a single shot at freedom… get in, find and rescue the US President, and get him out alive. There’s a lively supporting cast including Donald Pleasance, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Van Cleef, and Adrienne Barbeau, but the real stars of the film are Carpenter and Kurt Russell. It’s a fantastically fun ride that mixes action, cynical humor, and social/political commentary into an entertaining B-movie. Per Deadline New Amsterdam, New Line and Warner Bros. [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It too slays vampires and zombies. Not in a top hat, mind you, but it slays them nonetheless. It also believes strongly that it will be assassinated (by /Film’s Page 2) while attending a revival of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. “There’s something in the American psyche, we want our presidents to be warriors. We’re giving that to Abraham Lincoln, sort of posthumously in this case.” That’s what Seth Grahame-Smith had to say A in an interview with The New York Times. It’s part of NYT giving the world its first look at Benjamin Walker as Abe Lincoln, the ax-wielding, vampire slaying 16th President of the United States. It’s a neat article that gives away a lot of details about the project, but nothing that you wouldn’t get having read the book.

So, what did you think of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides? Do you think it was good enough to keep the series going despite the loss of Gore Verbinski in the director’s chair and Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom in starring roles? Oh wait… you didn’t even see it yet? It hasn’t come out? Well, that’s not stopping Disney from getting the wheels in motion for a fifth one. They’ve got visions of that 3D money dancing in their heads. However, all of the pieces are yet to be in place to make a fifth film official. What has already happened is producers have a first draft of the script in their hands. Terry Rossio has once again handled the chores of coming up with more mystical pirate adventures, but for the first time he’s done the work without collaborator Ted Elliott. Now that there’s a story in place, the next step will be for the moneymen to try and get the star and a director in place. Overtures have already been made toward On Stranger Tides director Rob Marshall to keep this train a rolling, but nothing is official on that front.

Last summer, word was that Brett Ratner was going to tackle the likes of Hercules by way of the Radical Comics title “Hercules: The Thracian Wars.” Instead, he signed on to direct Tower Heist, and Hercules was put on ice. Until now. It looks like Ratner is circling around a new attack at the property being launched by MGM instead of Universal. The sword and sandals phase we’re in has had mixed results both in quality and box office, but it definitely seems like a genre poised for a comeback. According to Vulture, Ryan Condal is working on the script, but the issue, as anyone who’s read the comic knows, is that Hercules here isn’t really Hercules at all. He’s a mercenary that barely resembles the mythological man-god. Thus, it will also most likely fit in with the trend of seeing characters given darker traits and storylines. Still, it’s unclear why Ratner isn’t remaking Hercules in New York with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I hear he’s available.

It looks like everyone is throwing their hats into the ring. When the studios announced a plan to release movies in home theaters just 30 days after the theaters located outside the home (with a price tag of $30 per rental), the National Association of Theater Owners balked. Apparently their threat to boycott big blockbusters was a fake, but they haven’t kept secret their disgust for the new model that would limit their ability to make money showing movies (since studios take the 50%-100% lion’s share of the ticket split in the first weeks). Now, 23 directors and producers are speaking out against it. That list includes James Cameron, Michael Bay, Kathryn Bigelow, Guillermo del Toro, Roland Emmerich, Antoine Fuqua, Todd Garner, Lawrence Gordon, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Gale Anne Hurd, Peter Jackson, Karyn Kusama, Jon Landau, Shawn Levy, Michael Mann, Bill Mechanic, Jamie Patricof, Todd Phillips, Brett Ratner, Robert Rodriguez, Adam Shankman, Gore Verbinski, and Robert Zemeckis. The full, un-edited open letter is below:

Instead of repeating some litany of grievances against Brett Ratner, just go ahead and pull out your internet film geek handbook to page 372 and read the standard text on your own. When you’re done, you might be interested to know that the director you hate for being average instead of outright awful is circling a project that stands as at least his third attempt to get some sand between his sandals. Ratner wants to be the man to take Avi Lerner’s Hercules concept and breathe life into its muscles. The new interest is most likely sparked by the unreal success of Clash of the Titans, the foreign box office killing of Prince of Persia, and a couple of fingers crossed for Conan. However, since that last film is being produced by Lerner, it will be interesting to see whether success or failure influences the decision to move forward here. If the news bothers you, try to pretend that it’s actually about a movie where Hercules fights Brett Ratner. Plus, it’s reason enough for you to check out the Junkfood Cinema entry on Hercules in New York. Topical! [LA Times]

Just after Guillermo Del Toro exited the director’s chair of The Hobbit, we took to the streets with our own list of 7 Directors Who Should Take Over. Among them was Peter Jackson — writer, producer and gatekeeper of all things Lord of the Rings. He is perhaps the easiest choice to take the reigns, having been on the project from day one co-writing the script with Del Toro. In fact, Jackson stepping up might be one of the only sure-fire ways to give fans what they want — a pair of actual Hobbit movies.

This week, on a very special Reject Radio, Scott Weinberg drops by and watches the Philadelphia Flyers game.

Brett Ratner will produce a live-action retelling of the classic fairy tale Snow White through his Relativity Media offices. This is not a joke, so stop laughing.