This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr gets his grading done early because school is off for the rest of the week. With three family movies opening in theaters for the Thanksgiving weekend, Kevin tries to keep things respectable. Reliving his childhood, he sings and dances his way into the theater for the revival of The Muppets, then takes a serious look at 3D and avant-garde filmmaking with Martin Scorsese’s latest film Hugo. Finally, he bundles up and heads to the North Pole on a search for Santa and his family, knowing it has to be exactly like it is depicted in Arthur Christmas. Movies don’t lie, after all, do they?

Most Christmas films are too often saddled with the same basic plotlines and tropes – “new” takes on A Christmas Carol or a focus on dysfunctional families gathering for the holiday or something about locating the perfect present – but few of those spins on the genre can match the magic of the good ol’ “but just how does Santa do it?” plot. How does Santa Claus make it around the world in just one night to deliver toys to all the good boys and girls, with only a sled and eight reindeer to aid in his journey? Well, according to Sarah Smith’s Arthur Christmas, he doesn’t. At least not anymore. In Arthur Christmas, Smith and her co-writer Peter Baynham (who, strangely enough, also scripted this year’s Arthur remake) imagine a traditional Santa-Claus-at-the-North-Pole concept, but one that’s been turned on its head by the influx and influence of new technology. Santa and Mrs. Santa’s (Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton, giving the film some real British brio) eldest son, Steve (Hugh Laurie), has revitalized the way that Christmas is done at the North Pole, while youngest Arthur (James McAvoy) is still pleased as Christmas punch to keep doing things in the old style. Steve has outfitted each elf with a HOHO (an elf smart phone named after an acronym too fun to spoil here), while Arthur spends his days as a Mail Agent who is most happy to write back (with pen and paper and everything!) to each boy and girl [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]

Guess what everyone, the Emmys are back in town! Aren’t you excited?! No, that’s okay, neither am I. Just another night for some of Hollywood’s biggest talents to pat themselves on the back for making pretend (really good pretend, though). But you know what, we here at FSR will treat this with the utmost respect that we do all awards ceremonies. That said, before we get to the predictions, let’s take a look at some of the top winners from the Creative Arts Awards portion of the Emmys which were awarded last week: Futurama walked away with the top honor for animated program based on the episode ‘The Late Philip J. Fry,’ beating out front runners South Park and The Simpsons who dominated the category between 2000 and 2009. This also marks the second time Futurama has won the award for Best Animated Series. Maurice LaMarche also walked away with the award for Best Voice-Over Performance for his work on the series as Lrr and Orson Welles. Gwyneth Paltrow took the award for Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Holly Holiday on Glee. Game of Thrones took the award for Best Title Sequence. Boardwalk Empire took the win for Best Visual effects beating out the likes of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Deadliest Catch won the award for Best Reality Series (a win that is more than acceptable in this category). Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let’s move on to [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]

After weeks of negotiations between FOX and Universal over the production costs of hit medical drama House M.D., the show has finally been renewed for an eighth season on the network. The issue of the negotiations stemmed from the fact that FOX wanted to drastically cut the cost of producing the show since the recent drop in ratings from last season. Series stars Hugh Laurie, Omar Epps, Olivia Wilde, and Robert Sean Leonard are all signed on to return, but co-stars Lisa Edelstein, Jesse Spencer, and Peter Jacobson are all still in the middle of negotiations. However, their returns are almost a guarantee. In addition to the renewal of House, the network also picked up three pilots to series including the comedy I Hate My Teenage Daughter starring Jaime Pressly, another comedy in the form of The New Girl starring Zooey Deschanel, Bones (which also saw a renewal a week ago) spin-off Finder which had a back door pilot on the hit crime-drama a couple weeks ago, and the new J.J. Abrams series Alcatraz.

What is Movie News After Dark? Someone said something nice about it the other day, so it’s feeling sort of full of itself. Luckily this means that there will be more news, more snark and even a few surprises in tonight’s entry! There really is nothing like a self-aware movie news column with a sense of purpose. In addition to the surprisingly dark first trailer, Fox has released some HD concept art for the ineptly titled Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The art is also quite stunning, showing off some large scale scenes. Most interesting is the fact that it hints at a movie that focuses much of its time on the actual ape uprising, rather than the build-up. I’m ready to see humanity swallowed by simian rage. Aren’t you?

As a 25-year-old Jewish man I’m about as far removed from the Hop target demographic as one could get. I’ve never celebrated Easter, I consequently have no strong emotional attachment to the Easter Bunny and I’m not overwhelmed by the notion of a drummer Easter Bunny that sounds an awful lot like Russell Brand and poops out jelly beans. Yet, here we are, faced with the strange phenomenon of an obsessively-tested, painstakingly-commercial, carefully-calibrated product that shouldn’t be any good at all somehow defying those odds. From director Tim Hill, this live action-animation hybrid is more than just a one-note marketing machine, despite those incessant ads on every conceivable NBC Universal platform and the salesman’s desperation that underwrites it. A blatant stab at surrounding the Easter Bunny with a mythology comparable to Santa’s, the picture unfolds in two settings. The first: Easter Island, home to the enormous factory that’s home base for Easter operations, filled with cascading waterfalls of chocolate and bursts of colorful candy dyes. There, teenage rabbit E.B. (Russell Brand) is being groomed by dad (Hugh Laurie) to take over the family business. The picture’s second main locale is the slightly less exotic Los Angeles, where slacker Fred (James Marsden) lives a tired, aimless existence. Our heroes’ destinies collide when E.B. flees his fate through a magical wormhole of sorts, lands in Hollywood and thanks to Fred nearly becomes the world’s most famous road kill. The tandem grows ever-closer from there, as Fred (quickly getting over any pretense of [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]

When the teaser trailer for Hop first hit, it was an incredible moment of adorability and Blur’s “Song 2.” Now, with the first full trailer out, we’re getting a better idea of the Roger Rabbit nature of the flick. It turns out it’s a mixture of live-action and CGI. James Marsden stars as a guy who hits the Easter Bunny-elect (voiced by Russell Brand) with his car, and the two starts an unusual friendship that involves one of them pretending to be a stuffed animal in order to hit on the other’s girlfriend. I’ll let you figure out which one. Check out the trailer for yourself:

Christmas has come and gone, but a late present (like the melted chocolate Santa in the toe of your stocking) has been delivered a year early. Arthur Christmas doesn’t come out until November 2011, but he’s here with an elven friend of his to turn your attention away from Santa’s giant flying UFO that’s hovering above your head. The film is a partnership between Aardman and Sony, and it boasts a fantastic vocal cast. James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy, and Ashley Jensen. One thing is for sure: Santa is British. The question is how he manages to get all those presents to all those kids. Enter that giant spacecraft, a million-strong elf slave army, and some funny physics, and this film seeks to provide at least one explanation. See the trailer for yourself after the jump:

Last week I tackled Portal; and the response was interesting. While I’d love to see Portal as a movie — that was really an intro-session into the Valve universe, and a step toward discussing my next Pixel to Projector nominee — Half-life. Almost anyone that is a fan of first person shooters has a soft Spot for Valve Software’s launch title — and with good reason. The ever silent Dr. Gordon Freeman is iconic in the gaming community, as are many of the characters that fill his world. From Vortigaunts, The Combine, Alyx Vance, the ever present Headcrabs, and of course — the mysterious G-Man — Half-life is rich with characters and situations ripe for transition to the big screen.

Due to popular demand, we weigh in on the House season finale which had perhaps the biggest shock ending of any show this season.

Oh, Hugh Laurie. The only thing weirder than seeing him speak in his native accent is hearing him emulate Kriss Kross.

After a horrifying accident with a glowing meteorite turns Susan Murphy (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) into a giant, she’s drugged and imprisoned by the government in a secret facility run by General W.R. Monger (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) where she meets some of the strange monsters our government has kept secret for years.

Dreamworks’ upcoming animated film Monsters vs. Aliens is shaping up to be their funniest release yet. Sure it’s directed by Rob Letterman, the writer/director of the abysmal Shark Tale, but the man seems to have learned a lot since then.

Entertainment Tonight has posted a brand new featurette for the upcoming Dreamworks Animation film Monsters vs. Aliens, which tells the story of a human race that turns to monsters to fend off an alien attack.

As a Tennessean, I am proud that my state produced the most insane President ever elected to office. That President was Andrew Jackson. And I would like to state my case as to why he needs his own movie.

We introduced you to the characters a while back during our visit to Dreamworks, but now you get to see them in action. Now in 3D!

House has hired a private investigator to pry into the lives of those who work for him and around him. Using this information, he creates some tension in the hopes of motivating his staff.

House picks up with a giant close up of an ant, showing off that CGI that the show has become known for. From there, it’s back to business as usual.

This is our first look at the upcoming Dreamworks release Monsters vs Aliens, which will be filmed in Ultimate 3D.