Warning: This post contains spoilers about J. Edgar. For the past few years, I haven’t been much of a fan of Clint Eastwood’s work. While he no doubt possesses storytelling skills as a director and certainly maintains an incredible presence as a movie star, I’ve found that critics who constantly praise his work often overlook its general lack of finesse, tired and sometimes visionless formal approach, and habitual ham-fistedness. When watching Eastwood’s work, I get the impression, supported by stories of his uniquely economic method of filmmaking, that he thinks of himself as something of a Woody Allen for the prestige studio drama, able to get difficult stories right in one take. The end product, for me, says otherwise. While I was a fan of the strong but still imperfect Mystic River (2003) and Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), the moment that I stopped trusting Eastwood came around the time the song “Colorblind” appeared in Invictus two years ago, throwing any prospect of nuance and panache out the window. Eastwood, despite having helmed several notable cinematic successes, has recently been coasting on a reputation that doesn’t match the work. He is, in short, proof of the auteur problem: that we as critics forgive from him transgressions that would never be deemed acceptable with a “lesser” director. As you can likely tell, my expectations were to the ground in seeking out the critically-divided J. Edgar. I was prepared, in entering the theater to watch Eastwood’s newest, to write an article about

Only two to BUY this week, and neither of them are a day under twenty years-old. And three to AVOID including two big studio pics and a vampire indie. Which leaves the ones you should RENT… starting with the return of the man, the legend, the stoic face of awesomeness, Kevin Costner.

This Week in Blu-ray, quality products are a scarce commodity. So for those of you who don’t own Freaks and Geeks on DVD, I suggest picking that up instead. For those who already own it, here are a few other, less lovable options.

The most illustrious of all the individual awards except for all the others, Best Actor is a coveted prize sought after by everyone working in the industry including actors, producers, gaffers, best boys, and that guy in your high school that plans on moving out to L.A.

This category is stacked with talented gentleman representing films of varying quality. I can honestly say that I think all five are very talented actors, but not since the category was introduced in 1936 has an actor had this award so in the bag. So ladies and gentlemen I give you the nominees for best actor in a supporting role.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we change the entire face of the internet film podcast world by doing the show in photo-realistic 3D.

This weekend was indeed a good one for the frogs, as The Princess and the Frog won the box office with a solid though not overwhelming haul of $25 million.

As I reach into my grab bag of critical terminology to describe my reaction to Eastwood’s latest, I come up only with well-worn rhetoric that, nonetheless, fits perfectly to the experience one has walking out of this film: Invictus is disappointing, a major missed opportunity.

Kevin Carr sits his chubbiness down and sees if The Princess and the Frog, Invictus and The Lovely Bones can make the grade.

Kevin and Neil find themselves in not-so-familiar territory by not totally fighting about this week’s movies. While Neil hasn’t seen The Princess and the Frog, he and Kevin pretty much agree about the other new releases like Invictus and The Lovely Bones.

This week moviegoers set the record for the biggest box office year ever at the movies — already past 9.63 billion — and this weekend is bound to see an increase in that total as two new movies go wide: Invictus and The Princess and the Frog.

Earlier this week, the Gotham Awards kicked off award season, with the nominations for the Indie Spirit awards following shortly after. And today, we have our next round of honors and for the most part, the first major awards to be handed out.

The BBC is heading down to Kenya to check in with a very old First Grader.

Clint Eastwood is less than a month from releasing his next film, Invictus, and it already appears as if the old goat is working on his next masterwork…

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we laugh and cry about the state of independent filmmaking while eating leftover Halloween candy.

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for Clint Eastwood’s next film, Invictus, which tells the story about Nelson Mandela and some white dude…

Two huge names in acting have signed on to join the Coen Brothers in Indian Territory. So why am I not totally excited?

Setting aside the fact that Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandella is a no-brainer for an Oscar grab, the poster is one of the best I’ve seen all year.

The Clint Eastwood-directed Invictus will tell the story of Nelson Mandela’s fight against apartheid, and it’s gunning for Oscar territory.