This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr enters the grid (which is what he likes to call his local IMAX theater) to try and find an old and hairy Jeff Bridges amidst a bunch of young-looking sexy-time people in tight body suits. Afterwards, he has a pic-i-nic at Jellystone Park and faces a bear attack. It’s a good thing he had his hunting rifle with him… but he still wonders why that grizzly he shot was wearing a hat and tie. Finally, he hands out some grades on two limited release award flicks that really don’t jazz him as much as a big, dumb IMAX 3D movie.

Tron: Legacy is a thing of beauty. This is what everyone seems to be ignoring this week as Disney’s latest titan of budget and marketing roars into theaters, hell bent on whipping the masses into a consumerist frenzy just before ‘Oh holy night.’ But it’s true: Tron: Legacy, born of concept footage from young director Joseph Kosinski and a Comic-Con crowd who, at the time, had zero expectations for such a project, is a beautiful experience. It may be remembered as a beautiful disaster, but it’s beautiful nonetheless. The great problem is that after several years, three Comic-Cons and millions of dollars in marketing later, it’s hard for heavily invested fans to accept that a concept so cool could yield a film so mediocre. That’s a hard notion to swallow. What we saw on that fateful July day at Comic-Con in 2008 was The Grid, fully realized in a new and exciting way. It was bold and sleek, fast-moving and exciting. It also included Jeff Bridges, our own champion du nostalgia. This final version has all of those things. It’s what’s been added that becomes problematic.

Through the latter part of this week, we will be unleashing a series of interviews focused on what might be the last big blockbuster of the year, Disney’s TRON: Legacy. Members of the FSR staff were in attendance for the recent press junket, where roundtable interviews galore were held with cast and creators. For this installment, we’ve got Jeff Bridges. You know, the star of the original TRON who has returned to the sequel 28-years later to not only reprise his role as Kevin Flynn, but also play himself in several digital formats, including a maniacal piece of software known as Clu. You can read below to see his thoughts on the crossover between Flynn and Lebowski, his thoughts on the technology that made Clu possible and why recycling your plastic bottles is important, you know?

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; try it with bacon! This is the weekly internet column that proves to within an inch of certainty that any idiot can be a writer. I take all the lessons I failed to learn in film school, warp them with demented abandon, and splatter the resulting abomination all over cyberspace. Who doesn’t like bad movies? If you are currently raising your hand, you should know that I cannot see you through the screen and you just look ridiculous. Everybody has one or two guilty pleasure films to which they subject their brains in full awareness of the film’s shortcomings. Personally I have a library of bad movies I love and I will examine one every Friday; giving the celebrated, if dubious, highlights as well as the technically existent flaws. In an effort to make this experience twice as unhealthy for you, I will also pair the film with a snack food item linked to the shenanigans in the film. Last week saw the fall of a titan. For lovers of over-the-top, schlocky, or otherwise cheesy cinema, few names are spoken with more reverence than that of Dino De Laurentis. The guy is a legendary producer who had a Corman-like prolificacy. There is something incongruently grandiose about his productions that belie their actual budget or ultimate quality. In the short span of time that JFC has been in existence, two of his films have already been showcased: Danger: Diabolik and Flash Gordon. In honor of the

There’s a gun slingin’, Johnny Cash song usin’, eye patch wearin’ new trailer for True Grit out today, and it looks like the Coen’s have crafted another beautiful lookin’ film. We’ll have to wait to see the film to judge it on its own merits (and not just two minutes of clips), but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. Plus, check out the 2:11 mark for a guest appearance by Mary Poppins.

Retribution. Revenge. That’s the theme at the core of the Coen Brothers’ upcoming reimagining of True Grit, based on the book by Charles Portis. The film follows Mattie Ross (played by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld), a 14-year old girl whose father is murdered by a vicious man named Chaney (Josh Brolin). To get the revenge she feels she deserves, she hires a trigger-happy, boozed up US Marshall named Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges). Together, they set out to avoid other more noble lawmen (Matt Damon) and bring Chaney to justice. All of this, as you’ll see, can be gleaned from the first trailer…

You know how “they” say sometimes that a movie will “blow your mind”? That’s one of those over-used cliches here in the movie blogosphere. Because in fact, it would be — as far as I and science know — impossible for a film watching experience to cause your brain to spontaneously combust. In a literal sense, this is impossible. However, I’m willing to delve into the realm of figurative for Joseph Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy, as this brand new trailer — which debuted earlier today at Comic-Con in San Diego — shows a cinematic experience that could be, in all honesty, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. So hit that full screen button, crank that Daft Punk score to 11, sit back and let Tron of the future blow your damned mind.

Is Iron Man 2 an escapist, crowd-pleasing piece of big-budget popcorn entertainment, or a two-hour ad for neo-capitalism? Can it be both?

It seems fitting that just a day after Jeff Bridges won a very deserved victory on Oscar night, for his performance in Crazy Heart, that we find ourselves in the possession of the trailer for Tron Legacy, a movie that is not likely to earn him a Best Actor nomination. However, if this trailer tells us anything, it’s that this damn movie is going to be very cool.

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.

Finally, two Jewish men will be delivering a remake of a John Wayne film on Christmas. My 2011 is complete.

‘Crazy Heart,’ better known as the movie that Fox Searchlight thinks will get Jeff Bridges an Oscar, is an admirably low-key venture that never packs much of a punch.

It’s been a busy weekend for Awards season, the busiest thus far. The folks at AFI, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and our friends at the New York Film Critics Online group have all weighed in with some big pre-Oscar rewards to some major favorites.

With the December 17, 2010 released date not so quickly approaching for Tron Legacy, Disney is already on the marketing warpath. At least, they’ve begun to do their work internationally. Thankfully, there are no borders on the internet.

A month ago, there was very little known about the Jeff Bridges led drama Crazy Heart, from first time director Scott Cooper. But ever since Fox Searchlight set a release date, we’ve been hit with a flood of new info that has piqued our interest.

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

Bob Wilton is having a mid-life crisis of the marital strife brand so he sets out to prove himself as a journalist by leaving his small desk at the local newspaper and heading for Iraq. There, he runs into Lyn Cassady a man claiming to have been trained as a psychic spy by the U.S. military.

This week on a very special episode of Reject Radio that we forgot to post earlier in the week, I name more than 5 great Stephen King film adaptations and make Robert Fure look like the fool he is, we take a look at Sorority Row, and Diane Lane looks great in a cop uniform.

For some reason, I get the feeling that Rooster Cogburn will suddenly be attacked by a water-dwelling mammal.

George Clooney returns to the Middle East but this time he’s not looking for Saddam’s gold or getting wrapped up in a global conspiracy. No, this time he’s killing goats with his mind (and sexy mustache no doubt).