The Mayans, the wise race of ancients who created hot cocoa, set December 21st, 2012 as the end date of their Calendar, which the intelligent and logical amongst us know signifies the day the world will end, presumably at 12:21:12am, Mountain Time. From now until zero date, we will explore the 50 films you need to watch before the entire world perishes. We don’t have much time, so be content, be prepared, be entertained. The Film: Ikiru (1952) The Plot: Upon inferring the news of his close, impending death within a matter of months due to cancer, long-time city bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe (played by Takashi Shimura) struggles through his final days fending off his illness as well as deep depression. As he reflects upon the trajectory of his life he looks back and realizes the damaged relationship with his son and comes to understand the relative insignificance of his job duties over the past decades of city service. After a few weeks of shuffling through different attempts to find some temporary form of happiness he gets invigorated one day at work when he stumbles upon the request of some lower-end neighborhood tenants seeking city approval to fix up their community playground. With only a few months left to live Watanabe fights both time and seemingly endless layers of bureaucracy to see one positive accomplishment come to fruition before he passes.

Your weekly fix of great movies made before you were born that you should check out before you die. An aging actress of another era wastes away in her mansion on Sunset Blvd. It’s by chance alone that a young writer stumbles upon her dreary existence and is pulled deep down into her madness alongside her. That young writer is now floating face down in a beautiful pool. A classic, a must-see, a brilliant film, Sunset Blvd. succeeds on every level no matter how desensitized by the past 60 years of filmmaking we’ve been.

The Cannes Film Festival is about far more than just the Competition titles, and the Cannes Classics line-up allows those willing to broaden their focus to experience often seminal works on the big-screen for the first time. Last year, I nearly got to see The African Queen for instance, but was sadly unable thanks to a clash in the chaotic screening schedule. This year, I’m determined to see at least one of the just-announced films in the line-up, and I shall not be thwarted. Unless there’s something, like really good on at the same time… Anyway, the official Cannes site has today released the Classics, and features some of the most important films in cinematic history, including the restored color version of Georges Méliès’ A Trip To The Moon, beefed up with a brand new soundtrack from French hipsters AIR, plus restored prints of A Clockwork Orange and special screenings of Bertolucci’s The Conformist and De Niro’s A Bronx Tale. That’s some line-up for what is usually considered only a tertiary concern out on the Croisette. The full line-up is as follows:

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we have a surprise visit from FSR publisher and beard enthusiast Neil Miller who reminds everyone why he’s really a big softie beneath that rugged exterior. Instead of the usual news and reviews, the show is one large Segment Three where we give thanks for the cinematic wonders of 2010 (and the fact that the year is almost over). If you’re heartbroken that we didn’t review Burlesque, please pick up your consolation prize on your way out. Listen Here: Download This Episode

When the calendar page turns to October, we Rejects have only one thought: horror. To celebrate this grandest and darkest of months, we’ll cover one excellent horror film a day for the entirety of the month. That’s 31 Days of Horror and 31 Films perfect for viewing on a dark, chilly, October night. If you, like us, love horror and Halloween, give us a Hell Yeah and keep coming every day this month for a new dose of adrenaline. Synopsis: An American girl named Suzy (Jessica Harper) joins a prestigious dance academy in Germany only to find that it’s run by a coven of witches who enjoy making the technicolor blood run from the still-beating hearts of their victims.

With its vast and ever-evolving film library the cable channel Turner Classic Movies is a cinephile’s dream and serves as a benchmark to other movie channels. Since its debut in 1994, TCM has offered a wide array of movies covering the medium’s history, from silent pictures to foreign films, all uncut and commercial free. This spring the brand will be venturing out with the inaugural TCM Classic Film Festival, scheduled for April 22-25 in Hollywood, CA.

Hopefully 2009 prepared you for brilliant science fiction. Back in 1936, it’s Christmas in Everytown, and there’s talk of war coming to their doorsteps.

You might want to play it over and over. A quick video of some iconic movie titles delivered by the movies themselves.

Need a little film history and culture in your life? Of course you do. We all do. And who doesn’t love the opportunity to watch classic films non-stop for an entire month. Enter Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) “31 Days of Oscar,” a month-long marathont that celebrates some of the greatest films of all-time, uncut and commercial free.

Going to the New Beverly Cinema is an experience. If you live in LA and haven’t been, you’ve got no excuse for it.