What is Movie News After Dark? Tonight it’s the column I’m filling in on as Neil Miller journeys to the mystical, frozen land of Chicago. It’s also a list of links to movie or entertainment related things that I either found interesting, noteworthy, or that involved super famous young girls from the Disney channel. Tonight we begin by getting a glimpse at the second season of HBO’s Game of Thrones. WinterisComing.net has a whole host of pictures from the second season that have reminded me of how much I like the show and reinforced the three reasons why I’m looking forward to new episodes so much: boobs, blood, and Brienne. Hopefully we’ll be getting a lot of each.

Our wise overlord Cole Abaius recently pointed out one of the most burning questions in Hollywood this year: will The Hunger Games be the next big thing? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself ever since the project was announced. The fanbase is there, but doesn’t come close to matching the Twilight nation. And an even bigger question is whether this adaptation will reach non-fans, which will remain up in the air until the film’s released. The trailer was a mess and I can’t see this run-of-the-mill poster (courtesy of Moviefone) catching the eye of anyone who doesn’t obsess over the books. However, even if the marketing continues to rely on this image of Jennifer Lawrence looking like a plastic doll, my main hope will remain intact. It’s been over eight years since Gary Ross’s last film, so it’ll be nice having him back, franchise hit or not.

With the Twilight Saga film franchise (thankfully) wrapping up this year, fans of author Stephenie Meyer are turning their attention to the next film to spring from one of her works. The Host is being adapted from Meyer’s crack at more adult fiction and, while the book itself is a touch more advanced than Twilight, it still relies on some familiar tropes – love triangles, concocted mythology, the somewhat sci-fi, and lots and lots of drama. And now it looks as if the film version (from writer and director Andrew Niccol) will have something else in common with Twi-land – a way too attractive cast. Saoirse Ronan has long been attached to play the lead character of Melanie Stryder, a teenage girl who lives in a future world where Earth has been invaded by an alien race (the Souls) who take over human bodies (a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers), but with a much less nefarious edge to their plan. Melanie is one of the few remaining full humans, and she spends her days on the run with her little brother and her boyfriend Jared (to be played by Max Irons), until she too is caught by the Souls (who are also highly organized) and implanted with one of the parasitic aliens – who eventually goes by the name Wanderer and then Wanda. Of course, Melanie and her memories prove to much even for the experienced alien (who has been implanted in no less than eight other species over [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 a nightly hand-in-hand stroll down Newsworthy Lane, with a stop at the Noteworthy Café for a bite to eat. Then we’ll head back to my place and I’ll show you my signature move, the Well-Researched Scoop (I have two sources that will confirm its quality on the record). What do you say, baby? We begin this evening with part of a new midseason poster for The Walking Dead. Which brings to mind the question of the hour: Is anyone still exciting about this show? Sure, it has the occasional zombie and it was nice to see Glen “make a friend,” but beyond that, it’s become tired, has it not?

Way back in January of 2010 I crafted a list of ten things I figured I’d hate in the following year. I tried to predict my own hatred, which can be difficult. Hate is the most wily and evasive of emotions, prone to erupting without warning. I made a few safe choices on the list, a couple of generalizations, but there were some surprises. Hell, one of the things I thought I’d hate I loved, while a few never even made it to the surface. Anyway, let’s take a look back at my look forward and see how things panned out.

When I first saw the Hollywood Reporter piece on Melissa Rosenberg surpassing Linda Woolverton (The Lion King, Alice in Wonderland) as the highest-grossing female screenwriter, it took me a while to wrap my mind around it. After all, it’s the kind of statistic that only a baseball fan could love. It doesn’t take into account the thousands of other people and factors that go into making a film a world-wide financial smash, giving credit solely to the writer (and only if that writer has official credit on the movie). On the other hand, it’s the kind of fact that feels significant. That tells us a bit about the world we live in. Maybe in a way that upsets us. At its barest, it reveals that the female movie writer responsible for banking the most money did it mostly through the Twilight series – Step Up is the only non-Twilight property she’s credited for outside of her lengthy television resume. It also means she did it mostly through means of a book adaptation. After Breaking Dawn Part 1 topped $647m, her total landed at just over $2.56b.

When I purchased my ticket for the Thursday night midnight show of Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, I had no idea what I was in for; not because I hadn’t seen any of the previous Twilight films – I have, in fact, seen them all – but because I had never seen a Twilight film in a theater before, much less on opening night. The Twilight subculture befuddles me, as I’m sure it does any non-initiate of the series. Having seen all the films, I still feel like I’m viewing them from afar, like it’s some strange anthropological project of a phenomenon whose worth and value I will never fully understand. Twilight seems to encapsulate the drastic changes that have taken place in big-budget event filmmaking in the last thirty years. Rather than a film made with the intent of mass appeal (like franchises ranging from Indiana Jones to Jason Bourne), the Twilight films play almost exclusively to a specific – but dedicated – demographic. Of course, one could make this argument about many film franchises. Everything from Star Trek to The Dark Knight certainly have rabid fanbases at their core, but the audiences for these films seem to be “filled in” with a significant amount of casual fans. For example, I once viewed the Harry Potter films similarly to the way I now approach Twilight – not in terms of filmmaking quality, mind you, but in terms of being a cult phenomenon surrounding a fictional narrative that I [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 dresses up in layers and layers of rain gear to brave the estrogen storm that comes with the showing of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part I. After enduring that non-masterpiece, he dances down a few screening rooms to watch the new Happy Feet movie. Confounded by the gelatinous goop that masquerades as movies this weekend in American cinema, Kevin eventually curls up in a ball and softly weeps.

Much has been said, screamed, analyzed, obsessed over and dismissed about the Twilight series over the years that sometimes it is easy to forget it all began… with a book. That book alone created a fandom that was quickly compared with another famous book series (Harry Potter), but once the books were brought to the big screen, that fandom seemed to reach a whole new fever pitch and rocketed its leads Robert Pattinson (Edward), Kristen Stewart (Bella) and Taylor Lautner (Jacob) into superstardom (whether they were prepared for it or not). Seeing these books (or any book, for that matter) brought to life is always a matter of living up to the expectations of what people had imagined and envisioned while reading. While scene and character descriptions are usually included, the one wild card that is rarely described when reading is the music. Author Stephanie Meyer certainly noted the music that helped influence her while writing, the films themselves were essentially a blank slate for the Chop Shop’s music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas to inject life and movement into.

Today People Magazine unveiled their annual “Sexiest Man Alive” winner, crushing the hopes and dreams of thousands of starving beautiful men who thought, maybe just this once, they could have been a contender (better luck next year boys). While Bradley Cooper is a tasty, if not boring, morsel of man, as far as I know he has yet to perform in a movie sex scene. Making him completely of no interest to me in regards to this column. Please correct me if I’m wrong in the comments, as I will for sure need to brush up on my Bradley Cooper sexy-time if it does exist. But enough about my personal disappointment in People Magazine’s cornering of the Sexiest Man Alive market, for today is also the day before the night before the opening of the fourth movie in the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn: Part I. Now this little tween fantasy is definitely of interest to me for more than its loose definition of what constitutes child pornography. I have (like almost all women in need of a good train wreck) annually paid good money to the Summit gods for the Twilight experience, and this Friday will be no different. Fans of the sparkly vampire series have (im)patiently waited through the first three films for two Breaking Dawn scenes, one completely contingent on the other. If the press tour mumblings of the film’s stars are anything to believe, Twi-hards should already prepare themselves for some hot and heavy action during Bella [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]

The Twilight franchise is known for many things – its lead actors, bringing vampires and werewolves to a cultural fever pitch, the seemingly insatiable fandom that surrounds it, and the story’s sometimes unbelievable plot lines which, in this fourth installment, will give audiences a wedding, a honeymoon, and (naturally) the birth of a vampire/human offspring. But beyond the blood and the fur, the music featured throughout the series has always been an equally important part of the Twilight experience. Author Stephenie Meyer (who penned the novels the films are based on) has even noted the specific pieces of music she was listening to when writing the various books. The impact and influence of music has always been a part of the Twilight world and the anticipation that accompanies the announcement of which artists will be on each soundtrack is almost as though a new actor is joining the cast. Fans turned out in droves to not only see the actors from the films, but to also watch performances from the artists on the soundtracks for Twilight and New Moon at fan events, selections of which can be seen on Music Videos and Performances from The Twilight Saga Soundtracks, Vol. 1. Regardless of what you may think of the films, the soundtracks have always boasted an impressive list of artists who provided original songs for the films such as Muse (“Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)”), Death Cab for Cutie (“Meet Me at the Equinox”), and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (“Hearing Damage”). [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]

With little sleep and almost zero vegetables eaten during the day, Robert Fure, Cole Abaius and Jack Giroux gathered in their hotel room overlooking the San Diego Convention Center and a giant cargo freighter loading container after container of bananas to discuss what their favorite moments were. After a quiet start to a roaring event, the day was filled with fantastic little moments that made us all wish you were right here in the hotel room with us. Each and every one of you. In one room. While we’ll be calling dibs on the bed, check out the 8 best things about Comic-Con‘s opening day.

There were people camping out for the notoriously crowded Hall H line up to two days before the Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 panel kicked off the events in that hallowed space. I hope they had a sense of humor because at least 500 seats remained open throughout the event, and late-comers’ wait time was non-existent. Regardless, the fans were out in full force, screaming at just about everything that moved on the stage. Director Bill Condon set a tone for the discussion (that wouldn’t last long), talking about the joy of joining a story already in progress. “It’s all third act. I started out in horror movies, and in the second act [of Breaking Dawn] it turns into a really cool horror movie.” All talk of horror ended when Kristen Stewart was asked about the wedding scene.

While enduring the mild pain caused by Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I thought to myself, “Man, this Sam character is a real prick. What type of people actually like this person? This is the best savior we could get?” I then realized that I often find myself thinking this nowadays. We rarely get great, likable heroes or genuine badasses on film anymore. Most are either mopey, passive, or do morally questionable acts. I’m not referring to anti-heroes — although, I do include one on the list — but, rather, the unintentionally lame mainstream characters that aren’t the most compelling or charming. A few of these not-so-heroic characters aren’t due to bad acting. As you’ll notice, Leonardo DiCaprio made the list for Inception, where he gave a solid performance. While I wouldn’t say that most of the actors featured here impressed anyone, DiCaprio and a few others certainly did. Here are ten mainstream characters that exhibit very little heroics:

We’ve been planning hard for nine months, eating entire sheet cakes by ourselves, and now the fruits of our labor will burst forth onto the internet in just a few weeks. It’s Comic-Con season, and we plan to give birth to some incredible content and coverage. Then, we’ll wipe off the afterbirth and hand it to you with a bow on top. We’ll be tackling interviews aplenty, getting the inside information on movies we won’t see for another 3 years, and covering Hall H like pickle sauce on ice cream, but it’s a big job, and we won’t be doing it alone. Fortunately, Jordan Hoffman (champion Reject Radio Movie News Pop Quizzer and Editor over at UGO) has organized a handful of the best movie sites to share coverage. Here’s what we’re all excited for the most and what you can plan on seeing…

It’s a shame that Chris Weitz may call it quits on directing this early. While he says below that he may not be done yet, there was something sad about him saying directing just isn’t that “fun” for him anymore. As Weitz pointed out, the news of his possible retirement didn’t quite rank up there with all the crying old ladies Steven Soderbergh got when he announced his a few-years-off retirement, but after Twilight: New Moon, could you blame some people for not protesting? Had the news come out after his latest film was released, A Better Life, there would have been much more disappointment to the idea. If anything good came out of us having to sit through New Moon, Weitz got to make a modest character drama that we don’t see too often. After The Golden Compass (a film he’s publicly called a failure multiple times) and New Moon, it seemed like the director had turned to big-budgeted commerce driven projects, rather than continuing in making great dramas, like About a Boy. But, as he says below, unless you don’t carry enough clout from doing films like Twilight, getting a studio drama like this off the ground wouldn’t be easy. Here’s what director Chris Weitz had to say about leaving filmmaking behind, finding emotional authenticity, and whether or not making A Better Life gave him a brighter outlook on directing.

Every week, Landon Palmer and Cole Abaius log on to their favorite chat client of 1996 as holeinmyshower and RepWeiner08 in order to discuss some topical topic of interest. This week, the two wonder whether fans should educate themselves before hopping into a movie. Can the movie-going experience be made better by a little research before getting our ticket ripped or should we be able to go blindly into the darkness and expect great entertainment?

Since last summer MTV has been slowly moving their way back into scripted television, something they stepped out of right around 2000. Their first attempt came in the form of the absolutely terrible The Hard Times of RJ Berger, this was followed by a remake of the hit British series Skins. Unfortunately, while a solid (but ultimately failed) attempt at a remake, the series was met with harsh backlash against its content. The backlash combined with the show’s poor ratings ultimately led to its cancellation this past week. Now here we are, saddled with the network’s latest attempt at scripted drama, Teen Wolf. This may be a re-imagining of the Michael J. Fox film from ’85, but the differences are major. MTV’s version is more of an adaptation in name only, and while the series is fraught with problems (many, many problems), it does show, much like Skins, that MTV is willing to grow on a creative level because this is the network’s best scripted series to date.

Apparently the MTV Movie Awards happened Sunday night. If this is something you care about, enjoy your summer break. It’s a big step to High School this fall. While perusing Twitter to see if anyone had retweeted the cool things I say (they hadn’t, because I don’t say cool things), I noticed a fair amount of people and peers complaining about the dominance of Twilight, which won a shit ton of awards alongside Harry Potter and Justin Bieber. I’m sure Hot Topic also unofficially won “Best Store.” There is a very simple way to view the MTV Movie Awards and MTV itself. Ask yourself this question: Am I 16 years old? If you answered ‘yes’ to this question, congratulations, go about your day. If you answered ‘no’ to this question and you spent more than 30 seconds thinking about the results of the movie awards, pour hot cocoa on your nipples – male or female, I don’t care. Do it. For the past twenty years, MTV hasn’t been relevant to anyone who isn’t 16 or the parent of a 16 year old, and that’s a travesty.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a movie news round-up column that comes to you from deep space. It comes as a protector of all that is good and interesting in the movie news world. It also totally swoons over Michael Fassbender. Seriously, have you seen this guy act? He’s the man… man. As my good friend Rusty Gordon pointed out to me this evening, “this summer is already better than last summer,” and it’s just now June. With two-thirds of its movie releasing to go, Summer 2011 is already coming along great. With that, there’s plenty to still be excited about. Like Green Lantern, which continues to look cool as WB dumps a giant batch of photos on the web. So much detail, so much cool.