As much as I admire the incomparable films made during the era, New Hollywood (the term referring to innovative, risk-taking films made funded by studios from the mid-60s to the mid-70s) is a title that I find a bit problematic. The words “New Hollywood” better characterize the era that came after what the moniker traditionally refers to. Think about it: if “Old” or “Classical” Hollywood refers to the time period that stretches roughly from 1930 to 1960 when the studios as an industry maintained such an organized and regimented domination over and erasure of any other potential conception over what a film playing in any normal movie theater could be, then if we refer to the time period from roughly 1977 to now “New Hollywood,” the term then appropriately signifies a new manifestation of the old: regimentation, predictability, and limitation of expression. Where Old Hollywood studios would produce dozens of films of the same genre, New Hollywood (as I’m appropriating the term) could acutely describe the studios’ comparably stratified output of sequels, remakes, etc. What we traditionally understand to be New Hollywood was not so much its own monolithic era in Hollywood’s legacy, but a brief, strange, and wonderful lapse between two modes of Hollywood filmmaking that have dominated the industry’s history.

When thinking about which films I consider to be overrated, I keep coming back to two different categories. First there are the art films that get embraced by the movie geek community and praised to high heaven for their crafting, whether they really makes for an exceptional overall movie-going experience or not. And then there are the movies that get overrated by the mainstream. They’re mostly sentimental movies that tug on the heartstrings, with characters that hit low lows, but then achieve some new victory. Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump is definitely the latter. It’s a movie that seems designed solely to make parents and grandparents nod knowingly at historical incidents they remember and then tear up when a sad part rolls around; but they love it for it. Being There was nominated for the Palme d’Or and even won Melvyn Douglas an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor back when it came out, but it’s a movie I never hear mentioned these days. As a matter of fact, other than the little bit of nostalgia that remains for Harold and Maude, I would say that Hal Ashby is a director whose career has been kind of forgotten by my generation of film fans. That’s a shame, because the man did some great work, and this film in particular has one of the last great performances by the legendary Peter Sellers.

Every year, the National Film Registry announces 25 films that it will toss gently into its vault for safe keeping. This year, they’ve chosen a hell of a list, but (like every year), the movies saved act as a reminder that even in a digital world where it seems unfathomable that we’d lose art, we’re still losing art. The task of actively preserving films is an honorable, laudable one, and it’s in all of our best interests to see movies like these kept safe so that future generations (and those attending Butt-Numb-a-Thon 55) will be able to screen them as they were meant to be seen. So what 25 movies made the cut this year? Let’s explore:

Man, sometimes these things just write themselves! Paramount Pictures has just sent over what will be Friday’s last gasp casting announcement before we all go home for the weekend and watch Unstoppable or The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 or something similar on a loop because, duh, that’s what weekends are for. And if that’s how you’re spending your weekends, have I got a treat for you! Denzel Washington is set to star in another film about mass transportation! Can we just get that Speed reboot going now, just to round out his resume? Washington will star in Robert Zemeckis’ Flight for Paramount, proving that no one knows how to steer things like Denzel. Written by John Gatins (who most recently penned Real Steel – man, this guy loves technology!), the film will star Washington as “a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a heroic feat of flying in a damaged plane, saving 98 lives on a flight carrying 106 people. While the world begs to embrace him as a true American Hero, the everyman struggles with this label as he is forced to hold up to the scrutiny of an investigation that brings into question his behavior the night before the doomed flight.” So it’s basically the story of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger with a hefty dose of self-reflection and probably a bunch of awkward Today Show appearances and likely a big secret reveal round the hour and fiften minute mark? Eh, I could be on board for this one (see what [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]

Ever since Seth Grahame-Smith’s “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” got picked up to be adapted into a feature film, there has been a rush to make movies where supernatural elements get inserted into inappropriate places. This is no problem for me as I’m a big fan of both supernatural elements and inserting things into inappropriate places. With “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” Grahame-Smith himself moved the venue from classic literature to historical events, and now Legendary Pictures is looking to keep that trend alive with their new film Here There Be Monsters. Legendary CEO Thomas Tull has come up with the concept for the film, and he has hired Brian Helgeland to write the script. Helgeland is the guy who wrote L.A. Confidential, but don’t get too excited because he’s also the guy who wrote the 2010 version of Robin Hood. Whether he’s the right choice for this project or not will remain to be seen. The focus of the film follows around Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones. You know, the guy who said that he had, “not yet begun to fight.” Everyone knows that Jones captained the USS Ranger during his time fighting against the British, but what this film presupposes is that he was also grappling with giant sea monsters at the same time. Revolutionary War naval battles and sea monster wrangling are two concepts that could make two great movies. Smoosh them together and you get some sort of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of a movie. [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]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s usually a rather tame and family friendly nightly column that rounds up all the best and most interesting news and views from the world of film. It’s worth noting, as it doesn’t always lead with headlines about Anne Hathaway’s rear end. It’s usually something Doctor Who or Michael Bay related. Pick your poison, I suppose. This will likely go down as the dumbest lead story I’ve ever run in MNAD, but the Sunday edition works on the conceit that movie news happens over the weekend. Spoiler: movie news doesn’t usually happen over the weekend, so we’re doing our best. Also, do you really have a problem talking about Anne Hathaway’s ass? Apparently the tightness of her costume and aggressiveness of her stunt work on the set of The Dark Knight Rises has given other cast and crew a unique view of her hind-quarters. There’s something news-worthy in that, I’m sure of it.

Those who scoped out yesterday’s trailer will notice a distinctly Spielbergian feel to this week’s vintage trailers, so hopefully that Amblin logo will be swirling around your head all week. It isn’t present in this teaser, but there’s something about a pair of high top sneakers kicking the tires on a soon-to-be iconic vehicle that makes me giddy. Back to the Future is a rare type of universal movie that’s equal parts entertainment and enlightenment. Plus, it treats time travel extremely well, which is a bonus. We see a lot of teaser trailers these days, but it’s fascinating to look back on this short spot meant only to titillate and recapture some of the thrill that people on the edge of seeing this movie in 1985 would have felt. The only difference is that they have no idea what they’re in for. This trailer is a machine that converts nostalgia into anticipation.

I’ve always found Robert Zemeckis’s films to be hit or miss. Lately he’s been pretty solidly in the miss category though. Sometimes it’s hard to remember he directed films like Back to the Future or Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Movies that were full of genre weirdness, but were undeniably mainstream because they had that certain Robert Zemeckis touch. It’s even kind of hard to remember that he made the movie with perhaps the most universal appeal of all time in Forrest Gump. It’s hard to remember because of the last ten years of weird looking, off putting, motion capture animation movies that he’s insisted on making. His next film was set to be another of those creepy exercises in something nobody ever asked for, this time a motion capture take on the Beatles classic Yellow Submarine, but then Mars Needs Moms tanked at the box office. Suddenly the hammer was put down on weird, experimental forms of animation, and that left Zemeckis scrambling to find a script for a live action film to direct.

It looks like everyone is throwing their hats into the ring. When the studios announced a plan to release movies in home theaters just 30 days after the theaters located outside the home (with a price tag of $30 per rental), the National Association of Theater Owners balked. Apparently their threat to boycott big blockbusters was a fake, but they haven’t kept secret their disgust for the new model that would limit their ability to make money showing movies (since studios take the 50%-100% lion’s share of the ticket split in the first weeks). Now, 23 directors and producers are speaking out against it. That list includes James Cameron, Michael Bay, Kathryn Bigelow, Guillermo del Toro, Roland Emmerich, Antoine Fuqua, Todd Garner, Lawrence Gordon, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Gale Anne Hurd, Peter Jackson, Karyn Kusama, Jon Landau, Shawn Levy, Michael Mann, Bill Mechanic, Jamie Patricof, Todd Phillips, Brett Ratner, Robert Rodriguez, Adam Shankman, Gore Verbinski, and Robert Zemeckis. The full, un-edited open letter is below:

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?

One odd thing about being a child of the 80s is that you learn movie history backwards. In watching anything from Animaniacs to Pulp Fiction, I became acquainted with references and homages to classical Hollywood cinema long before I ever watched the movies referenced or the moments paid homage to. Thus, my knowledge of cinema’s past was framed through cinema’s present: I learned about old movies because of what new movies did with them. One of the most formidable moments of this backwards cinematic education occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s when major event kids’ movies became especially preoccupied with 40s film noir in movies like Robert Zemeckis’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) or Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990). These movies embodied a world of double crosses, femme fatales, and cynical detectives without requiring their viewers, young or old, to have seen any of the films these genre tropes are indebted to. Thus, because of my exposure to new tweaks on an old form, conventions became familiar to me long before I could name the films from which such conventions originated. But one movie was exceptionally influential in formulating a distinct impression of film noir in my childhood imagination, and that movie was – oddly enough – Home Alone (1990).

Yeah, we know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but that hasn’t stopped the advertisers and the studios from assaulting us with Christmas-related stuff. So what better way to take the edge off the early holiday onslaught by tipping back a glass or two of eggnog and watching one of the bigger early Christmas releases. And if you’re lucky, Jim Carrey may just start to look less creepy as you move through this film.

If everything had gone perfectly back in 1985, Doc Brown would have rolled into our future this week on October 25, 2010. But that wasn’t the case, and thus started one of the greatest motion picture trilogies of all time. Back to the Future is out on Blu-ray for the first time in a box set (and also on DVD), so not counting the hours of special features, you can spend six hours revisiting the entire saga. And if you’re going to spend that much time watching the movies, you’re gonna need to have something to drink with that.

A highly anticipated sequel, Scorsese and De Niro back together, and another from a Japanese legend round out our list of what we’re looking forward to most this year.

I’m hoping that a casting director for Robert Zemeckis asked Cary Elwes to star in Yellow Submarine, and he answered, “As you wish.”

Robert Zemeckis is moving forward with his remake of a movie based on one of the lesser works of pop icons who didn’t even appear in the first film. Explain to me why this is relevant.

Brian Salisbury goes into Robert Zemeckis’ highly animated retelling of A Christmas Carol with high hopes. He emerges however, with less than high praise.

Kevin Carr takes a look at this week’s movie releases, including A Christmas Carol, The Fourth Kind and The Box.

Will Disney’s A Christmas Carol worm it’s way into your hearts and homes and become as much of a holiday staple as rum balls and spotted dick are now? Rob Hunter answers this and more…

Kevin and Neil stare at some goats, grumble about not being allowed to open a box, visit the uncanny valley and debate whether Kevin is spoiling the viewing experience for The Fourth Kind.