Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist would like to be a novel. In fact, it once was a novel. The film is based on Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 best-seller, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is already being taught in freshman English classes. It’s understandable that Nair and screenwriter William Wheeler would want to preserve the spirit of the original text as best they can. Unfortunately, the result of their work isn’t a film. At best it’s a two-hour mid-season episode of a network terrorism drama, and at worst it’s a cacophony of brutally simplified metaphors spat onto the silver screen. Wheeler’s script has big, big ideas. At its center is Changez, played by rising star Riz Ahmed, whose skilled performance is really the only exciting thing about the film. He’s a college professor in Lahore, suspected by the CIA of having ties to a local terrorist organization. A Western academic, a colleague, has just been kidnapped and the city is about to erupt in a panicked violence. Yet Changez is calmly sitting in a tea house across from Bobby, an American journalist (Liev Schreiber). To call the tension palpable would be an understatement – riding on this single conversation is the weight of the entire world.

Hockey films may be seen as a fringe genre, but there are definitely fans out there that are devoted to them. The latest brutal hockey movie to hit DVD and Blu-ray is Goon, starring Seann William Scott as a nice guy hockey player who has a real talent for fighting. With much of the film taking place in the cold months in Canada, there’s plenty of snow and ice. There’s also plenty of beer and drinking. So join in with the cast and characters as they knock a couple back before knocking out some teeth. Grab your favorite Canadian beer and enjoy this drinking game.

Since the days of yore, or at the very least, my childhood, the sport of hockey has made my blood pump faster through my veins. Born across a lake from Canada into a family with a few notable hockey lovers, I couldn’t help but become enamored with the game of sticks, ice and grit. There’s nothing like a good old fashioned hockey game. Old time hockey, as someone once called it. And in every great hockey movie, like every great hockey game, you need a few things. You need a hero, you need a sage coach with relentless demand for perfection and you need some supporting players. The funny guy, the smart guy and the eccentric goalie. But chief among these sidekicks of stick is the enforcer — the toughest motherf**ker of the group. Whether he’s challenging the hero or watching his back, the enforcer, the thug, the goon is the guy who makes it all so much fun. Because everyone loves a good fight. Inspired by a recent viewing of the awesome Sean William Scott led hockey tale Goon, about a bouncer who finds a true calling on the ice, in the line of knuckle-fire that permeates the world of minor league hockey, I would like to proudly present a list of cinema’s great on-ice tough guys. None of these man are the center of their particular stories. None of them get the girl. But they’ve all got the guts and the grit that it takes to challenge the hero,

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the movie website equivalent of stuffing a turkey with three chickens and an eel. News of all shapes and sizes finds itself among some strange bedfellows here even if you can’t sleep. We get things started with a metric ton of images and information about The Muppets. If you’re willing to brave the spoilers, /film has everything from character descriptions to photos to trivia. Or, you can let the burning questions wash over you. Why is Kermit behind bars? Does it have anything to do with inter-species sex laws? Why wouldn’t it?

What is Movie News After Dark? It is a nightly movie news recap column that would like to make it all the way to the end of this thing without getting controversial, political or mentioning how much skinny Jonah Hill looks like President Obama. It’s just not likely. We begin tonight with the story that’s on everyone’s mind — no, not the Obama speech — the fact that Mel Gibson is developing a movie about Jewish hero Judah Maccabee, who led a second-century revolt against Hellenistic overloards in the name of the Jewish people. He’s brought Basic Instinct writer Joe Eszterhas on for the script work. There will be nothing controversial about this project.

There’s something to be said about movies that adamantly refuse to give you whimsical circumstances or endearing characters. There’s something to admire about a movie that refuses to pander to its audience, instead expecting a certain degree of work and a different kind of investment from them entirely. Such is the situation in the indie-family-drama Every Day, the feature writing/directing debut by Nip/Tuck producer Richard Levine. Ned (Liev Schreiber) is a staff writer on a medical melodrama whose cheap theatrics are reminiscent of Grey’s Anatomy, and is growing increasingly sick of the limitations and deep lack of satisfaction experienced in both his personal and professional lives. His wife Jeannie (Helen Hunt, who really needs to be in more movies) has just moved her sick father Ernie (Brian Dennehy) across the country to take care of him at their home, but quickly realizes she is in over her head with the responsibility and the mess. Their openly gay son Jonah (Ezra Miller) is a high school student ready to start dating, but is suffocated by the overbearing paranoia and implicit homophobia of his father. The younger son Ethan (Skyler Fortgang) is suffering from, well it’s never made quite clear – either a dark chronic pessimism or performance perfectionism as a young violin player.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr sulks his head at not being able to see all the cool stuff that’s going on at Comic-Con 2010, but he knows he’s the lucky one because he was able to see Ramona and Beezus, Suck on that! Oh, and he gets a gander at Angelina Jolie in Salt, which ain’t bad, either.

Practical action from the man who brought us Patriot Games. The first trailer for Salt is surprisingly impressive.

Kevin Carr sits his chubbiness down weighs in on The Bounty Hunter, Repo Men and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Even though he’s currently performing on Broadway, actor and all-around tough guy Liev Schreiber is looking back toward the world of the silver screen. After roles in Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Fox’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the upcoming thrillers Salt and Repo Men, Schreiber is setting his sights on the real life story behind the Rocky movies.

Kevin Carr reviews this week’s new movies: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Battle for Terra.

As the summer movie season sets off from the port, we see this year’s first test of sea legs in Fox’s actioner X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And while it does bring us some big summer action, it also falls victim to some wild inconsistency.

We know that some of you have already downloaded the illegally leaked workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t be excited about it.

Last night the first trailer for Taking Woodstock, the latest film from director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), premiered during the Comedy Central show Important Things with Demetri Martin. And since then, it has appeared online in a low resolution format. Lo-res or not though, we feel that it’s important that you get a look this morning.

The third full X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer has hit the web, and it is bringing a lot more mutant action. Check out some in-depth analysis, courtesy of us.

Kevin Carr drags you kicking and screaming into the weekend with reviews of My Bloody Valentine 3D, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Notorious, Hotel for Dogs and Defiance.

Neil is hob-nobbing around Park City, Utah with his flunkies, hoping to score some make-out moments with John Stamos or Garry Shandling. So, Kevin is left in the Magical Studio in the Sky with special guest host Kristin Dreyer Kramer from NightsAndWeekends.com to talk January releases.

Earlier in the weekend we posted the bootlegged version of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer and found that it didn’t last very long on the YouTubes. We can assure you though, that this one will last quite a while.

The trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine is online, as expected, in bootleg form. Feel free to watch it, but be sure to take your Dramamine first.

The folks over at SpoilerTV have uncovered five new pics from the highly anticipated comic adaptation X-Men Origins: Wolverine.