What is Movie News After Dark? It is all about movie news, it happens nightly, and you should never, ever go to bed without it. Should you happen to do so, we’re most likely going to send someone out to teach you a lesson. And you don’t want to learn any hard lessons now, do you? We didn’t think so. We begin tonight with an image that is sweeping the internet. With a little lightening, this new image of Noomi Rapace in Prometheus reveals a pair of Space Jockeys in the background. It’s hard to tell from this angle, but they look rather large and intimidating. It goes along with a quote writer/producer Damon Lindelof gave to Hero Complex: “The movie is definitely epic in its scope. One of the filmmakers that we ended up talking about to a fair degree of redundancy was David Lean, who directed ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ We wanted to make the movie feel big by having the characters be small in big spaces. That connected to the larger themes we were talking about — that we’re all just these little gnats crawling around on our little planet.”

Usually I’m quite cynical about end-of-year lists, as they demand a forced encapsulation of an arbitrary block of time that is not yet over into something simplified. I typically find end-of-year lists fun, but rarely useful. But 2011 is different. As Scott Tobias pointed out, while “quiet,” this was a surprisingly strong year for interesting and risk-taking films. What’s most interesting has been the variety: barely anything has emerged as a leading contender that tops either critics’ lists or dominates awards buzz. Quite honestly, at the end of 2010 I struggled to find compelling topics, trends, and events to define the year in cinema. The final days of 2011 brought a quite opposite struggle, for this year’s surprising glut of interesting and disparate films spoke to one another in a way that makes it difficult to isolate any of the year’s significant works. Arguments in the critical community actually led to insightful points as they addressed essential questions of what it means to be a filmgoer and a cinephile. Mainstream Hollywood machine-work and limited release arthouse fare defied expectations in several directions. New stars arose. Tired Hollywood rituals and ostensibly reliable technologies both met new breaking points. “2011” hangs over this year in cinema, and the interaction between the films – and the events and conversations that surrounded them – makes this year’s offerings particular to their time and subject to their context. This is what I took away from this surprising year:

After nearly a year of verbal back-and-forth, during which two-time Golden Globe host Ricky Gervais claimed that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association wanted him back to host for a third time, and the HFPA claimed that they didn’t want the foul-mouthed comedian back at all, reports started surfacing earlier in the month that Gervais was having lunch meetings with HFPA representatives about coming back again. This surprised no one. The “what will he say next” effect of giving Ricky Gervais a live mic has been a ratings winner for The Globes over the past two years, and money talks much louder than hurt feelings. It should also come as no surprise that Ricky and the HFPA’s mutual appreciation of dollar signs has now made it official that the comedian will be back, once again, to take pot shots at the nominees and the governing body of the awards. The official Golden Globes website confirmed the hiring saying, “After weeks of rumors it’s finally official—Ricky Gervais will be back to host the Golden Globes for a third year.” Not one to let a controversial moment go by without comment, Gervais took to his Twitter account after the announcement was made and said (with accompanying picture), “Just told Billy Crystal he’d better not use any of my holocaust or pedophile material at The Oscars. He agreed (true).”

I know that, in this age of the Internet and the 24/7 news cycle, it’s sometimes hard to remember things that happened even a few days ago. But try to think back all the way to last year’s Golden Globes Awards. They were hosted by comedian Ricky Gervais, and a lot of people thought that he was too mean in the digs that he took at the celebrities in attendance. Then, after the ceremony, the Internet stirred up a bit of a controversy when quote from HFPA President Philip Berk got out that succinctly said, “He definitely crossed the line.” Before you knew it, false Internet drama led to a war of words between Gervais and Berk, or at least a public negotiation. Gervais claimed that, despite Berk’s comments, he had already been invited back for next year but, “I don’t think I should. I don’t know what I could do better. I certainly couldn’t get more press for them, that’s for sure. You know me. Two seasons is enough.” Berk then countered Gervais’s counter by saying that he had not invited Gervais back, or more specifically, “There is no truth to this rumor. We have not asked him to come back. Nice try, Ricky.” But now reports are coming out that Gervais has been breaking bread in Paris with Senior VP of Specials at NBC Douglas Vaughn and current HFPA President Aida Takla-O’Reilly about coming back and hosting again for this year. The Hollywood Reporter is saying that these [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]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr flexes his rippling muscles and sets out to live a warrior lifestyle, just like Jason Momoa in Conan the O’Barbarian. But before he can do that, he has to drive a stake through his neighbor’s heart, since he’s certain he lives next door to a vampire. What else could all those sparkles be about? Meanwhile, he sends his kids off to a dangerous 3D, Aroma-Vision mission, hoping they can make it as real spy kids so they can teach him to put on a fake British accent and woo a not-quite-British Anne Hathaway.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s waiting to watch the latest episode of Community because it promised its girlfriend it would. And that’s really hard to do, because that show’s really good. Also, Josh Holloway from Lost guest stars in the two-part season finale. How can that be resisted by the world’s most interesting nightly movie news linkdump? Must… hold… on… Must… do… the news… Quentin Tarantino went big when he cast Brad Pitt as his lead in Inglorious Basterds. So to see him considering Will Smith as the titular character, a freed slave trained by a German bounty hunter that sets out on a quest to save his wife from a head slave, is an act of pure bravado — he’ll just go get anyone he effing pleases to star in his movies, won’t he? And if that wasn’t enough to blow your mind, consider this: Christoph Waltz is said to be circling the role of the German trainer, with Samuel L. Jackson in consideration as the bad guy. That’s potentially a perfect storm of awesome, so we’ll see.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

If you think back to a time long, long ago here on the Internet, a couple of weeks ago; you’ll remember that there was uproar about whether or not Ricky Gervais had gone too far in slinging insults both at the nominees and at the Hollywood Foreign Press when hosting The Golden Globes. Whether or not this controversy actually ever existed or was just something that we all hoped existed is starting to become clear. It turns out the Internet might just be a bunch of gossipmongers.

Is that a provocative headline? I’m not sure. No more provocative than my first assignment from Neil Miller for FSR, “Why Blacks Don’t Deserve the Vote.” Just kidding, that wasn’t my first article, my first article was a review of The Pound Puppies on VHS. But really, that joke may be tasteless. Some people may be upset by it. You may run off and tell your friends not to read this article, or this site. By all means, go ahead and do that. Make sure to link them to the article too. So they can see it first hand. So that one article no one in your social group was going to read is now read by all of them. Do it. The more you send it around, the the more hits it gets and the more hits it gets the more Milk Duds I receive in compensation. There seems to be a bit of controversy over controversy these past weeks. Last week we had Ricky Gervais say some funny and mean things (the best kind of things) and people got upset. This week Judd Apatow stole that idea and said a lot of mean things that were barely funny (being just remakes of Ricky Gervais jokes) about the chubby Brit. We’ve also got some thick headed religious types protesting Red State because of its subject matter (I say only protest it if it sucks, or because Kevin Smith is a douche nozzle) and similar socially conservative people up in [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]

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the weeks of our lives. Two points if you know what soap opera that’s from. Minus one point for knowing what soap opera that’s from. As if thematically appropriate, this week was a lot of high drama here at FSR. Big casting news was abound, big editorials were written and one of our biggest yearly events, the Sundance Film Festival, kicked off. If you’re a regular reader of this site, it was a great week to be visiting us. If you’re not a regular reader of this site, here’s a list of all the great stuff you missed.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

Quite a fuss has been made of Sunday night’s Golden Globes ceremony. Not the actual awards mind you – everything was safe and predictable in that arena. Not even the obvious drunkenness or awkward attempts at humor with varying degrees of success by the night’s celebrity award winners and presenters are the primary subject of the conversation (De Niro’s bizarre acceptance speech, Robert Downey Jr’s creepy framing of the Best Actress category). All discourse has been centered on the performance by the show’s host, Ricky Gervais. Gervais’s acerbic monologue was met with audible surprise and even aghast by his elite audience. His introductions to awards presenters ranged from tongue-in-cheek playfulness to blatant comic criticism. He later disappeared for more than an hour, prompting speculation on Twitter (the only place where aside observations can immediately morph into conspiracy theory) that he was taken off the show, only to emerge later, without his jacket and appearing vexed, to give quite the backhanded introduction to Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, which all-in-all does suggest at least a firm backstage talking-to. With strangely perfect timing, Gervais ended the show with the line, “And thank you to God for making me an atheist” before the generic end credits music surged. The Buñuelean echo of these final words was a rather appropriate summation of Gervais’s brilliant absurdity and anarchic irreverence peppered throughout this masturbatory rich-ual (get it?). It was, in short, hilarious and the best thing about the show. Here’s his monologue:

To get more hits on this article, I considered calling it “Ricky Gervais & The Golden Globes, Sandra Bullock nude, Ryan Reynolds break up, chicken fight.” But we’re above that sort of stuff here at FSR, or at least that’s what I’m told when all my work gets edited down. Anyway, some of you reading this may care about awards shows. If that’s you, then you probably watched the Golden Globes on Sunday and I feel bad for you because why do you care about awards shows? Did you win your office pool? Nice/Better luck next time. So if you watched the show, or just read about it later, you know that comedian Ricky Gervais is catching some heat over his presentation. Apparently a few celebrities and some Hollywood Foreign Press members (who put on the show) thought that his jokes and barbs crossed a line, proving they don’t know who Ricky Gervais is.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

Few people can capture the human soul inside soft fabric puppets in photography. Your cousin that keeps trying in his basement can’t, but apparently the on-set photographer for The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made definitely can. These photos are so haunting that it also makes you forget that Ricky Gervais and Emily Blunt have both been announced as cameo figures for the film. Fingers crossed for a Gervais/Rizzo duet. Check out the pictures below.

This week’s drinking game teaches us to lie with The Invention of Lying and how to murder people in a show storm with Whiteout… or it’ll just get you drunk.

Do you go back and listen to old podcasts? I find myself listening once, and then deleting them. I mean, you need the space, right? Will you’re soon going to have a reason to listen to one all over again … only this time you can watch it.

This week on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we discuss spoilers (what they are and where to find them), zombie attacks, and why Ricky Gervais really loves being told he’s a fat slob.

Ricky Gervais’ new movie is funny, for sure, but most notable for its genuine sweetness.