We're halfway through our list of the Top 100 Films of All Time, and due to the Holidays, this week's and next week's lists will be released on Wednesday instead of Monday.

This week we bring you a list that is chock-full of classics, and three musicals, in #60-51. In fact, the most modern movie on our list this week is from 1975. Read through #100-91, #90-81, #80-71, and #70-61, then check out this week's list below:

60. Ben Hur
Ben Hur arrived in 1959 and chronicled the triumphant story of a Jewish slave who rode his way to immortality in what was at the time, the most expensive movie ever made. The epic was directed by William Wyler and featured Charlton Heston in one of his most iconic roles. It won a record 11 Oscars, including Best Picture. Above many triumphs, the film will best be known for that riveting chariot race. Check out some Ben Hur quotes for more.

59. From Here to Eternity
While somewhat sluggishly paced for the modern movie-goer, this classic war-time romantic drama features some incredible acting from stars Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine, Deborah Kerr, and Donna Reed. From Here to Eternity features an unforgettable love scene on the shores of Oahu between Lancaster and Kerr, and garnered 8 Academy Awards from 13 nominations. Head to our From Here to Eternity quotes page.

58.Singin’ in the Rain
One of the best musicals of all time, if not the best, starred Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds. Try thinking about the movie and not find yourself humming its theme song. Singin’ in the Rain is considered Kelly’s most legendary moment, what with him providing the film’s choreography as well. An interesting fact is the film was only a modest hit when it hit screens in 1952, but became wholeheartedly adored in subsequent years. Read through some Singin' in the Rain quotes for more.

57. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Gene Wilder delivers one of the most memorable performances in film history as the eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka in this delightful musical adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel. Director Mel Stuart creates a magical world in what may be one of the best ever examples of a movie that both kids and adults can enjoy equally. Wonka won an Oscar for best original score in 1972, and the soundtrack still holds up today. Check out our Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory quotes page.

56. My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady arrived at the world’s cinemas with a bit of controversy. The original star of the stage musical, Julie Andrews, was considered a shoe-in to make the leap to the silver screen. Instead, filmmakers gave the role to Audrey Hepburn. Audiences were angered, but upon seeing the film, quickly forgave and celebrated the woman who became forever be associated with the role. It is frankly hard to imagine anyone else portraying Eliza than the icon herself. Head to our My Fair Lady quotes page for more.

55. The Philadelphia Story
Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart are electric in this quintessential “Comedy of Remarriage.” The film marked Hepburn’s revival after being considered a “box office poison,” and was nominated for six Academy Awards. Check out some The Philadelphia Story quotes to see why.

54. Rebel Without a Cause
James Dean only made a handful of movies and each one is as heralded as the rest. Yet, there is something about his 1955 work, Rebel Without a Cause, that stands above them all. It probably has to do with the fact that it was this film forever endeared Dean to the hearts of millions of movie fans. It is also one of the rare films selected to sit in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry for being “historically significant.” Read some Rebel Without a Cause quotes for more.

53. The Maltese Falcon
On any list of the best films of all time, Humphrey Bogart is bound to make more than a few appearances. This classic film noir has Bogart doing what Bogart does best: brooding, romancing, and wielding a gun (or two). All-star filmmaker John Huston, makes his directorial debut with The Maltese Falcon, which earned three Academy Award nominations. Head to our The Maltese Falcon quotes page for more.

52. Nashville
Robert Altman became synonymous with the ensemble film, often times gathering an all-star cast that are among the best in history. He truly began that journey with the 1975 instant classic, Nashville. The movie follows a group of people, all involved in the booming country music business. With an astonishing 24 characters, Altman showed his talent for giving every role enough of an arc that the vast scope of people intertwining in his story enhances the film instead of diluting it. Check out some Nashville quotes.

51. On the Waterfront
It truly is remarkable to see Marlon Brando’s pioneering acting prowess on display. In no film is the context of Brando’s genius more apparent than On the Waterfront. The film follows an ex-prize fighter battling corruption in his Longshoreman Union. Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” monolgue and other On the Waterfront quotes are among some of the most memorable of all time.

A whole slew of new images for Star Trek Into Darkness have debuted over at Empire, including two magazine covers featuring Chris Pine (Rise of the Guardian) and Benedict Cumberbatch (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey). Take a look:

Pine stars as Captain James T. Kirk in this sequel to 2009's Star Trek. Zachary Quinto returns as Spock, with Alice Eve, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Simon Pegg, and Bruce Greenwood also star.

J.J. Abrams directs the film, which will premiere May 17, 2013. Watch the Star Trek Into Darkness trailer for a closer look.

The first two TV spots for A Good Day to Die Hard have dropped, proving once again that Ode to Joy is best accented by explosions. Check them out:

 

A Good Day to Die Hard TV Spot

 

A Good Day to Die Hard TV Trailer

Bruce Willis stars in the fifth installment of the Die Hard action series. This time, John McClane travels to Russia to help his son, played by Jai Courtney (Jai Courtney), out of trouble, only to get tangled up in a terrorist plot.

Cole Hauser, Sebastian Koch, Yuliya Snigir, Amaury Nolasco, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) also star.

A Good Day to Die Hard premieres February 14. For more, watch the A Good Day to Die Hard trailer.

Phantom is a new thriller set on a Soviet submarine. Check out the first trailer for the film:

 

Phantom Trailer

Ed Harris (Pain and Gain) stars as Demi, a Cold War Soviet submarine captain who is rushed into a classified mission. Once on the vessel, Demi is met with a KGB group led by David Duchovny, who are bent on taking over the ship.

William Fichtner (The Lone Ranger), Lance Henriksen, Johnathon Schaech, Jason Beghe (X-Men: First Class) also star.

Phantom is written and directed by Todd Robinson. It will hit theaters March 1, 2013.

It was a (Bruce) banner year for superheroes in 2012, what with Batman, The Avengers collective and Spider-Man all hitting screens. In the end, who was superhero of the year? The Movie Fanatic nominations for the award went out to the usual suspects, plus a few from an origins story we hope to hear more from: Chronicle.

Early in 2012, a visionary new filmmaker -- Josh Trank -- gave us a "found footage" movie that was truly at its heart the first chapter in a superhero series. Alex Russell's Matt Garetty and Dane DeHaan's Andrew Detmer both earn nominations for Superhero of the Year, even though the latter wound up following a classic antagonist journey. For a while there, DeHaan was super... as we explain further in our Chronicle review!

Then, in May, there was an earthquake of Marvel proportions. The Avengers arrived. After Marvel had released previous movies that firmly established the worlds of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow and the Hulk, each had an audience collective backstory to fall back on. Yet, as introduced in the The Avengers wallpapers, we meet a new hero in Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and learn more about Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow than was introduced in Iron Man 2.

We hope Hawkeye and Black Widow have more to do in The Avengers 2!

The Avengers were all super. The Hulk may have been given to audiences previously by Eric Bana and Edward Norton, but in the hands of Mark Ruffalo through the Joss Whedon story, the green monster has never been so compelling, humorous and menacing. He is a huge park of why The Avengers sits in our Top 10 Movies of 2012.

After a not-so-great Iron Man 2, Robert Downey Jr. brought Iron Man firmly back to where we adore him -- very cocky and quite heroic. Captain America (Chris Evans) came into his own and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) further dealt with his brotherly issues.

As America was set to celebrate its independence in July, someone who many felt was too soon to return... came back. The Amazing Spider-Man landed on screens Independence Day weekend and with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and the webbed wonder, audiences welcomed the hero anew. Garfield is a perfect Parker-Spidey and with his performance, our affinity for the tragic hero grew even deeper. We eagerly await the sequel as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 casting news has the aforementioned DeHaan playing Parker BFF Harry Osborn!

In mid-summer, the Caped Crusader arrived and we learned how The Dark Knight Rises. Although audiences did not see Bale as Batman for the better part of half the movie, the final Christopher Nolan film in the Dark Knight trilogy is still simply super. Our last foray into Nolan's Gotham City showed why the superhero remains so relevant. The Dark Knight Rises trailer shows us that our hero is a wealthy man, but Bruce Wayne is the everyman's hero. He has no superpowers. He relies solely on what he can build and effectively use against those who wish his city evil.

Although Batman is a close second, he is not the 2012 Superhero of the Year. That honor goes to...

The race for Superhero of the Year is not even close. His mark on the movie year 2012 has been seismic... and very green. The Hulk is a character that Marvel has had well documented difficulties bringing to the big screen. Where once was played by Bana and most recently Norton, Ruffalo nailed the schizophrenic nature of the Bruce Banner/The Hulk personality split with an affection worthy of the character's long history.

Yes, the incredible CGI (thanks to Industrial Light and Magic) brought to the beast with a bit of an anger problem to life as never before. But without Ruffalo's even-keeled and stellar performance as Banner, the entire operation would not work.

There were no greater cheers from audiences this year than when the Hulk was doing his thing. Punching Thor across the room... hilarious! Tossing Loki around like a rag doll... warranted and hysterical. Next year may bring us a new Superman, the return of Iron Man and Thor... but 2012 belongs solely to the big (green) man. May we see more of him on his own in the future.

Now he can say, "Hulk happy!"

I hate it when movies do this. They reveal the biggest, most action-packed scene in a still before the thing even hits theaters! Pacific Rim is no different, as the new still shows us the hair-raising "finger-point" scene between Idris Elba (Thor: The Dark World) and Rinko Kikuchi.

The high-concept monsters-vs-robots takes place in a world where giant monsters have emerged from the ocean and ravaged mankind.

With their resources depleted, and the fleet of giant manned robots called Jaegers destroyed, the world's last hope is an ex-pilot, played by Charlie Hunnam, and a young trainee, played by Kikuchi, who must un-retire an old Jaeger and defeat the monsters.

Charlie Day, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, Ron Perlman (Drive) also star, with Guillermo Del Toro directing. Watch the Pacific Rim trailer for more.

In the future, we may look back on 2012 as a defining year for the course of the film industry. The first Avengers movie codified the "franchise" as the new unit of the business of filmmaking, with individual films acting as the branches of a family tree within a movie "-verse," that come together every so often for a "family reunion" of sorts.

Warner Bros. is in the planning stages of their own version of this phenomenon, Justice League, which will act as a binder for a new "-verse," currently under construction, which may or may not include Man of Steel, and a new series of Batman movies.

Disney will be doing the same with their new acquisition of the Star Wars-verse. In addition to Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, preliminary plans involve offshoots of the franchise to explore individual characters.

As someone who generally isn't crazy about large-scale, billion dollar blockbusters, I am surprised that this phenomenon does not bother me. I think it's kind of cool. I've always been somewhat envious of comic book fans who get to truly immerse themselves in a living storyline that grows and changes and evolves while retaining the same essential heart that attracted them to it in the first place.

Not all films need to adopt this model, and surely not all will, but it offers a rich viewing experience not unlike that of professional sports, which connects the thing you're watching at the moment with all these other things happening simultaneously and in the past.

But along with all this amazing potential for deep movie -verses, 2012 simultaneously saw the establishment of a less exciting trend: the low-concept, plot-heavy action movie that relies solely on the audience's trust in the franchise.

The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, Prometheus, the list goes on. Many enjoyed these movies for the action-packed stories and incredible visuals, but the plot of the "new action movie" is so convoluted and rife with loose ends, that what results is a disjointed pile of explosions.

WARNING: THIS PARAGRAPH IS A LITTLE BIT SPOILERY. SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SOME OF THESE FILMS. What does the black goo do? Why did the Engineers lead the Earthlings to a weapons factory? How did Bruce Wayne get back to Gotham? How could he (or any of Gotham, for that matter) have possibly survived a nuclear explosion just over the bay? How did James Bond survive that fall? What happened to the hundreds of MI6 agents whose identities had been compromised?

These over-complicated stories are written with absolutely no care toward continuity or completion. It's not difficult to tie up a loose end. It's even less difficult to just not create the loose end to begin with. The problem is, as it stands Hollywood is so focused on cool set pieces and revolutionary visuals, that they're willing to throw disjointed loose end after disjointed loose end into a 3-hour mess of a film if it allows them to win the award for "most chases" or "largest street battle."

I may sound like a curmudgeonly old crank, and I sort of am one (save the "old" part). But my issue isn't with action. It's with unnecessary plot building that leads viewers down the garden path with no direction home. It's the movie equivalent to a bridge-to-nowhere (excuse the outdated political reference).

So while I'm excited about the future of "the franchise," I am disheartened by the direction individual franchise films has been heading. If these two phenomena evolve concurrently, then we are in for a whole lot of confusing garbage. If Hollywood decides they can sacrifice a gunfight or two in order to allow their films some semblance of cohesion (and maybe a 30-minute-shorter run-time), then we could be in for a golden age of action/adventure/sci-fi/thriller blockbusters.

Broken Lizard co-founder Jay Chandrasekhar makes a cameo in Freeloaders and produced the comedy that came from the mind of all people, Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz. Yet, Chandrasekhar lived a part of the story. As previewed in this hilarious Freeloaders trailer, the film is about a group of six roommates who have been living in Duritz’s Beverly Hills mansion for years and are faced with an uncertain future when the rock star decides to sell his home.

“When I moved to Los Angeles I became friends with this guy Henry Griffin who was from New Orleans, but was living in Beverly Hills. He invited me to this party,” Chandrasekhar recalled in our exclusive interview.

“We were driving through Beverly Hills and we saw this monstrous mansion miles away. We drove for a while and realized that’s where we’re going! We pull up to this place and wonder ‘What the (expletive) is Henry doing living in a mansion?’ There’s a huge party there, and before we find Henry… we find six platinum records for the Counting Crows."

He wondered if his friend had bought them, but then saw a slew of personal photographs featuring the Counting Crows lead singer. “We find Henry and he’s like, ‘Oh yeah this is Adam Duritz’s house!’ We were like, ‘OK, where is he?’ And he said, ‘He’s in Japan or somewhere.’ He didn’t even know,” Chandrasekhar said and laughed.

Seems that Duritz is a swell guy who meets people on the road and when they mention wanting to go to L.A., he offers them a room in his house that he barely ever visits. “So, there were five or six people living there and they became friends. Adam knew them all… they just hung out. I went to five or six parties there and never met Duritz!”

Four years ago, as we first reported, Chandrasekhar and Broken Lizard were at their Warner Bros. offices and the Counting Crows leader booked a meeting. “He comes in with Dan Rosen, who wrote a script about the six freeloaders who lived in Adam’s house. I was like, ‘I’ve been to your house so many times,'” he added and chuckled. It was official, Broken Lizard teams up with Adam Duritz!

Duritz and his partner had the money to make Freeloaders, but wanted someone with Chandrasekhar’s experience to help see it through. Although it’s not technically a Broken Lizard movie, the guys produced it and many have cameos, including Chandrasekhar.

“The writing was sharp. We thought it fit in with our fan base, you know grass smoking people who like to have fun,” he said. “If I’m being honest!”

Broken Lizard scored with their cult smash Super Troopers. The guys who first met at Colgate University, Chandrasekhar exclusively told Movie Fanatic, wanted to capture a Monty Python comedy troupe vibe. So, how did they arrive with that moniker? “The truth of that name we spent three days in a room with a bong trying to come up with a name. We were at one point the Chocolate Speedy Team. We were Four Whiteys and an Indian… then I just went to the poster guy myself and I said, ‘(Expletive) it. I don’t like any of those.’ I just changed to Broken Lizard,” Chandrasekhar said.

“I wanted people to think about Monty Python. Another reptile in the mix… kinda thought by casual word association, people might get the idea that is what we were doing.”

When it comes to the rumors out there that we'll get more Super Trooper quotes with a Super Troopers 2, Chandrasekhar told Movie Fanatic, “There is!”

There is a legal issue between Fox and Broken Lizard as to figuring out exactly how much money the first movie made. “We’re in a discussion with Fox and going to settle it for good. Once that’s done, we will move on to the conversation about the second one,” Chandrasekhar said.

Chandrasekhar admitted that it could still not happen, but he told us he’s optimistic Super Troopers 2 will get made.

“It’s up to them (Fox). They can stop us from doing it. But, I’m friends with them over there and I think once we get that legal issue out of the way, we’re going to have a quick talk and we’ll let you know if it’s going to happen again,” he said.

From the sounds of it, as soon as a green light is given, Chandrasekhar and his Broken Lizard comics will be back in their law enforcement uniforms. “We’re written 12 drafts of the thing! It’s not like once a decision is made, we will be just starting. We will go at really quickly.”

The first four minutes of Warm Bodies have been made available online through Fandango. Take a look below:

 

Warm Bodies First 4 Minutes

Nicholas Hoult stars in the "romantic zombie comedy" as a contemplative zombie named R, who roams the world after the apocalypse. When he falls for a living girl, played by Teresa Palmer, he begins to return to a human state.

Rob Corddry stars as R's best friend M. Dave Franco (21 Jump Street), John Malkovich, Analeigh Tipton, and Cory Hardrict also star.

Warm Bodies, in theaters February 1, is adapted from the popular novel by Isaac Marion. Jonathan Levine wrote the script and directs.

Matt Damon picked up a pen again to write Promised Land, but it took some prodding by his co-writer, The Office star John Krasinski, on the story about natural gas mining in the U.S. Damon sat down with Movie Fanatic to talk about why it took so long to write again, after winning an Oscar for the screenplay that gave us all those stellar Good Will Hunting quotes, his future project with buddy Ben Affleck and whether he will direct... as he was supposed to with Promised Land.

As teased in the Promised Land trailer, Damon plays an employee of a natural gas company sent to a small town to buy acres of land from residents with the purpose of mining for natural gas. The term for digging for the resource is called fracking and it is a divisive subject at the moment with people on both sides as passionate as can be... all shown through Damon's latest film.

Movie Fanatic: Did it take John Krasinski to get you writing again?

Matt Damon: It did. You know, people have said, “Why haven't you written for so long?” And it's because a lot is required. He was doing the show (The Office) full-time and I was making other movies, so it was every minute of our free time we were writing. It really takes somebody who's as tenacious as John because my time gets absorbed, as most parents do by their kids. And John was literally willing to sit at the kitchen table with me while the kids were running around. We'd take little breaks and play with them.

Movie Fanatic: Was it different writing with John versus your co-Oscar winner Ben Affleck?

Matt Damon: No. Like writing with Ben, I can't look at the screenplay and know I wrote that line or he wrote that line. It just becomes a fusion where you're both writing and revising together. It's like it's already a living thing. I couldn't have written this without him and he couldn't have written it without me, and that's what's great about having a writing partner. Something really wonderful comes out of the collaboration.

Movie Fanatic: Is it similar writing with John and Ben because you share certain professional traits?

Matt Damon: Yes, I think because we're all actors. I think the way we write is to get up -- we're walking around, we're improvising. We're playing all the different characters. And then pretty soon the characters start to talk back at you because you start to realize how'd they answer certain things, and that's when it gets really exhilarating. And that was the same writing with both guys.

Movie Fanatic:Promised Land deals with the explosion in natural gas mining in the U.S. and makes both sides of the environmental impact heard. It’s a very real film, but is still uplifting. Is that a tough balance?

Matt Damon: We just talked about wanting it to be a pro-community movie, a pro-democracy movie. Because the issue itself is polarizing, right? People feel very strongly on both sides, but we didn't want it to be a big downer at the end. That's not the way John and I are in life. We wanted people to leave with some sense of hope. We wanted to end with the idea that where we're going, “We can all go together and it can be a better place.”

Movie Fanatic: He directed Good Will Hunting and now Promised Land. What makes Gus Van Sant such a perfect director for Matt Damon-written scripts?

Matt Damon: Besides being Gus [laughs]? He's such a humanist, and this story needed that. I mean, the performances in Gus' movies, from his little movies to his bigger movies, always have that feeling of being captured. He just has a way of getting real human behavior out of the actors. Gus just has a way of putting everybody at ease and filming the real world. And that's what we really wanted for this, was to feel like a moment in time in the country -- where we are now, where we are today.

Movie Fanatic: You were supposed to direct, but were just too busy. Do you regret it?

Matt Damon: I would've liked to have done it, of course, but I love working with Gus and I learned a ton. I learned more this time because I had prepared it as a director, and so I saw all the things that he did that I was going to do, and then there were things that he did that I wasn't going to do that I hadn't thought of. You know, John and I joke that my best contribution as a producer was firing myself [laughs].

Movie Fanatic: How different was Gus’ vision as opposed to yours?

Matt Damon: It is the full expression of this screenplay that we wrote. It is exactly what we wanted. When I was going to direct it, I would write my shots on my script and I would hold onto my shot list, but there was no need to put it in the script. And then when Gus was going to direct it, he'll think of things that just elevate the material.

Movie Fanatic: Will we see you directing?

Matt Damon: You got a project [laughs]? I'm where I was. This was exactly the size and scale of what I wanted to do. This was about the exact budget of Good Will Hunting, adjusted for inflation. And that's about the size of what I want to do the first time out. Like Ben did it with Gone Baby Gone because you don't want to just take on too much the first time you do it. It's an all-consuming job.

Movie Fanatic: What about reuniting with Ben?

Matt Damon: We're developing a few things. There's one Whitey Bulger project that we were looking at, but it's all going to be script-dependent because we're trying to figure out how to tell that story.

Movie Fanatic: Ben’s directing that… are you ready to be directed by your old friend?

Matt Damon: Sure!

And while you have Damon on the mind... be sure to vote in our Best Matt Damon Movie Poll!

The first image from the upcoming comedy The Delivery Man has debuted! Take a look:

The Delivery Man is based on the Canadian film Starbuck. It follows a prolific sperm donor named David, whose progeny try to find him.

Vince Vaughn (Wedding Crashers) plays David, whose donor code name is "Starbuck." Cobie Smulders (The Avengers), Ben Bailey, Britt Robertson, and Chris Pratt (Zero Dark Thirty) also star.

Creator of the original film, Ken Scott, writes and directs the American version. The Delivery Man is set for an October 4, 2013 release.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has passed the $500 million mark in the worldwide box office! As of today, the first in the J.R.R. Tolkien series has made $179.7 million domestically and $344 million internationally, for a total of $523.7 million.

The Hobbit broke the December opening weekend record after its December 14 premiere, earning $84.6 million for the three-day period. The film currently sits in 11th place for the highest-grossing films domestically of 2012.

Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek Into Darkness), Richard Armitage, Ian Holm, Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood, Hugo Weaving (Cloud Atlas), and Cate Blanchett star in the fantasy film, with Peter Jackson directing.

As we head into the new year, An Unexpected Journey should continue to add a fair amount to its worldwide box office total. The second and third installments will hit theaters December 13, 2013, and July 18, 2014, respectively.

Bailee Madison scored her first major motion picture with the family adventure that featured countless The Bridge to Terabithia quotes, and it was her first silver screen audition! Now she’s starring with two legends and an Oscar winner with Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marisa Tomei in Parental Guidance.

The young actress, who plays Tomei’s daughter in the family comedy that's in theaters now, sat with Movie Fanatic to talk about her new film, who her dream co-stars of the future would be and let us know what song is never far from repeat playing on her iPod (hint: It’s from a certain K-Pop superstar).

Although she admitted that she had never seen any of her onscreen grandparents’ work, the second Madison told her parents, the meaning of securing this role hit home. “To be honest, the moment I told my family they were really excited. Bette Midler is such a class act. It was such a joy to work with her every day,” Madison said. “Billy’s really cared about this project. I learned so much from him.”

As the child of an actress who appeared in over 400 national commercials, Madison can trace her showbiz beginnings to those trips to New York City for her mom to audition. “I would unbuckle my stroller and crash her auditions,” she said and laughed.

Once she nailed that Bridge to Terabithia audition, the rest was history. “I got that part and went to New Zealand for four and a half months. We came back to L.A. and it’s been a whirlwind and a blessing ever since,” Madison admitted.

When arriving on the Parental Guidance set, Madison had one particular day of filming firmly planted on her mind. It is a scene teased in the Parental Guidance trailer, where Midler and Crystal’s grandparents finally break through and have a “moment” with their three grandkids.

“The rain scene, I loved that scene. I love rain machines in general,” she said and laughed.

“It was such an important scene in the movie. It’s the first time you see Billy and Bette, me and my onscreen brothers bond with them. That’s the first time you see them smile. It’s important for my character too because she’s so uptight. It’s a beautiful scene for all the character development.”

When it comes to who’s on her dream list of future co-stars, Madison hardly hesitates before answering. “I would love the privilege and honor to work with Meryl Streep. I would love to join the list of people who want to work with her. I’d be glad to even be at the bottom of it,” she said with a laugh. Then came the duo who gave us those hilarious The Proposal quotes. “Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds -- that would be great. I’d be the happiest girl in the world.” 

As her latest film is called Parental Guidance, Movie Fanatic asked Madison the piece of advice she’s gotten from her parents that stands above all others.

"My mom has always said to stay humble. That’s really important, especially in this business. No matter what you’re doing, because one day this could end. Stay grounded, surround yourself with friends and family, and that’s the most important thing.”

Also what keeps her head from shooting into the clouds is the young actress' musical choices. “When I’m traveling, I listen to worship music,” she said. But, pop music is also not too far from her iPod's autoplay button.

“I love Taylor Swift, I love her new album. Then… Gangnam Style,” she proudly exclaimed before leaping up from her seat and doing the now-iconic dance. As she sits down, she smiles. “I love his motto: Dance cheesy, dress classy.”

Perfectly executed!

Matt Damon has a new writing partner in John Krasinski for Promised Land, but still it’s easy to tell that the voice he used crafting Good Will Hunting with Ben Affleck has only intensified in the years since. Damon and Krasinski have penned a tale that could not be timelier, as we see in the Promised Land trailer.

As President Obama mentioned on the campaign trail, when it comes to American energy independence, scientists have reported that there is enough natural gas below the ground in this country to power us for over a century. In Promised Land, Damon is Steve Butler, a big time natural gas company employee whose job is to persuade locals (mostly in rural areas) to lease their land for fracking.

Fracking is the process of excreting the natural gas from the soil. It involves tearing up the land to get the drill where it needs to go, hundreds of feet below the surface. Damon’s character comes armed with money and promises of profit percentages in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is an enormous debate in this country currently between the companies who want to drill for the gas and environmental groups who say fracking lays the land barren for any future use and worse, makes it toxic.

Butler, along with his partner Sue Thompson (the always amazing Frances McDormand), believes that this particular small town that serves as our story’s locale is theirs for the taking. That is until Krasinski shows up. His Dustin Noble is aptly named as he seeks to educate the community as to the risks of leasing land to this corporation.

The town opposition arrives in the form of Hal Holbrook’s Frank Yates. It’s nice to see after decades the legendary actor still gives performances as biting as he does in Promised Land. He’s a science teacher who knows all too well about the process of getting natural gas and the harm it can produce. And Rosemarie DeWitt charms as a local school teacher who has a personal interest in both Damon and Krasinski.

Director Gus Van Sant knows how to effectively shoot Damon’s words, as the star told us in our Matt Damon interview. He was the helmer on Good Will Hunting and the have done it again on Promised Land. These people and their issues are painstakingly real while still solidly entertaining.

Van Sant spotlights the difficult decisions these citizens are facing, mirroring what is going on right now across our land. The economy has hit them hard and the promise of easy money is too alluring to resist. Yet, knowing that their land may be forever ruined has many asking questions and in the hands of Van Sant, it is a right versus wrong story where which side is what is still being determined by science and commerce.

The motion picture is a solid first effort on behalf of team Damon and Krasinski. Like Damon did with Affleck before -- as evidenced by brilliant Good Will Hunting quotes -- he and his co-screenwriter paint a picture that is about as pure as it comes.

That is saying something for a movie that centers on an issue that is so enormously grey at the moment.

A new video has dropped showing us how the visual effects team on the Avengers put together the massive where all the heroes fight as a team across New York City. Take a look:

 

The Avengers Behind the Scenes Video

Visual Effects Supervisor Jason Smith talks about the incredibly complicated process of combining still images, film, and CGI to make one smooth shot. The process involved shooting Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and Chris Evans as Captain America all on separate green-screen sets.

The Avengers earned over $1.5 billion in theaters worldwide, breaking numerous box office records in the process. The sequel is already in the works, with Joss Whedon returning to direct, and a release date set for May 1, 2015.

In the meantime, individual films from the Marvel Universe will be hitting theaters. Iron Man 3 opens May 3, Thor: The Dark World opens November 8, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier is set for April 4, 2014.

There may be only one new film opening this weekend, Matt Damon's Promised Land, but since seven new films arrived in the last week, to paraphrase what one TV network used to say, "It's mostly new to you!" Movie Fanatic takes a look at all of the films that burst onto audiences' radar in the last week that are at the heart of our last Weekend Movie Preview of 2012.

Promised Land: Matt Damon and John Krasinski co-wrote this timely film about natural gas drilling in the U.S. and the ongoing debate that has galvanized rural areas across the land. As we explore further in our Promised Land review, Krasinski and Damon have penned a powerful piece of film that was made that much better by the expert hand of director Gus Van Sant.

 

Promised Land Trailer

Released in the last week:

Django Unchained: Quentin Tarantino storms back into theaters with a guns-blazing movie with a touch of social consciousness, well not that much social consciousness. The story of a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) and the bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) who bought and freed him is a classic within the Tarantino filmography. For more on the film, check out the Movie Fanatic Django Unchained review.

 

Django Unchained Trailer

Les Miserables: One of the, if not the, most popular musicals of all time gets the big screen jump it so sorely deserves. Anne Hathaway will break your heart and Hugh Jackman leaves his action hero persona behind and shows the world the movie musical force of nature that he is. The Les Miserables review is proud to report that fans of the iconic stage production will be thrilled.

 

Les Miserables Trailer

The Guilt Trip: Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen hit the road and although they may hilariously bicker, there is a huge heart at the soul of this film. Our The Guilt Trip review also states that going in one would think that the film would put you in the mood to put some distance between you and mom, but in fact it is the opposite. You'll leave the theater and want to call her ASAP.

 

The Guilt Trip Trailer

Jack Reacher: Tom Cruise hopes for another franchise and the verdict is out whether Jack Reacher is it. The film based on the wildly popular books took a chance in the casting of Cruise, as he looks nothing like the titular hero. The film itself has solid action, but misses a few notes and has a supporting cast that is not even remotely fully developed. Check out our Jack Reacher review for more.

 

Jack Reacher Trailer

The Impossible: Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts portray real life parents of three kids who arrive for their dream vacation on the very beach where the 2004 Thailand tsunami would hit hours after they land. It is a harrowing true story that is expertly crafted and delivered in such a manner that it does not exploit the horror. Instead, as stated in our The Impossible review, the film is a love letter to the human spirit and the bond of family.

 

The Impossible Trailer

Parental Guidance: Billy Crystal got this project going and his fingerprints are all over it. He stars with Bette Midler as a pair of grandparents to a trio of kids they hardly know. Seems their daughter (Marisa Tomei) doesn't think they have an ounce of responsibility. When she and her husband have to go away for a weekend and are left with no other options, they call in the grandparents and hilarity ensues. Well, mostly... as revealed in our Parental Guidance review.

 

Parental Guidance Trailer

This Is 40: Judd Apatow crafts a sequel to Knocked Up, but instead of focusing on the current affairs of Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen, he instead focuses his camera on the "happily" married couple from that film played by Paul Rudd and Apatow's real-life wife Leslie Mann. The This Is 40 review finds lots to like about Apatow's latest endeavor, not the least of which is the performance of his daughter, Maude Apatow.

 

This is 40 Trailer

With 2012 coming to a close, we take a look back at the year's top box office performances. It's no surprise that The Avengers tops the list, considering Earth's Mightiest Heroes are now the third highest-grossing film of all time, both domestically and worldwide. The Marvel movie took in $623.4 million, earning a record-setting $207.4 million in its opening weekend.

The Dark Knight Rises comes in number two, grossing $448.1 million in theaters. Batman, Catwoman, and Bane had the second best opening weekend of the year, and the third best all time, with $160.9 million.

In third place is The Hunger Games, which kicked off a three-part series based on the popular young-adult novels with $408 million in ticket sales. Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, and Elizabeth Banks star in the action-packed film, with the sequel, Catching Fire, hitting theaters November 22, 2013.

Skyfall and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 landed in fourth in fifth place on the year. The two films have earned $283.7 million and $283 million to date, respectively, though both are still in theaters.

2012 Box Office Top 10:

1. The Avengers, $623.4 million
2. The Dark Knight Rises, $448.1 million
3. The Hunger Games, $408 million
4.Skyfall, $283.7 million
5. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, $283 million
6. The Amazing Spider-Man, $262 million
7. Brave, $237.2 million
8. Ted $218.7 million
9. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, $216.4 million
10. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, $214 million

The first 6 minutes of the slasher film Maniac have landed online, and they're pretty tense. Be sure to watch through to the end, unless you're particularly faint-of-heart:

 

Maniac First 6 Minutes

Elijah Wood (The Hobbit) stars as Frank Zito, a lonely, mentally disturbed man whose mother's death sets him off. A deep desire to kill and scalp young women overtakes him, causing him to go on a killing spree. That is, until he begins to form a relationship with a potential victim.

Maniac is a remake of the 1980 horror movie of the same name. Nora Amezeder (Safe House), Liane Balaban, America Olivo, Jan Broberg, and Morgane Slemp also star.

Franck Khalfoun directs the film, which will open some time in 2013. Watch the Maniac trailer for more.

The poster for the psychological thriller Stoker has dropped. Take a look:

Mia Wasikowska (Lawless) stars as India, a girl whose father died suddenly, leaving her mother, played by Nicole Kidman, emotionally unstable. When an uncle she's never heard about, played by Matthew Goode before comes to live with them, India becomes infatuated with him, believing that he is not who he seems.

Dermot Mulroney, Jacki Weaver, and Alden Ehrenreich (Beautiful Creatures) also star. Old Boy director Park Chan-Wook directs.

Stoker premieres March 1, 2013. Watch the Stoker trailer for a preview.

Allegiance is one of those films where the audience is cheering for someone to break the law. The drama asks many moral questions when it comes to loyalty to country, corps and kin.

After Lieutenant Danny Sefton (Seth Gable) is given a questionable transfer to a stateside battalion, his Army brigade looks at him with scorned eyes as they prepare to deploy to Iraq. It is 2004 and the war is raging and frankly, not going very well. In 24 hours, wheels will be up and the National Guard members will be off to war. We immediately learn that Sefton is not the only one looking to avoid battle. A medic, Chris Reyes (Bow Wow), has just found out that his son only has weeks to live and despite his request for a "compassionate" transfer, because of his in-demand skills, he must ship off to Sadr City in the heart of the fight for Iraq.

The medic decides to go AWOL and Sefton gets pulled into the effort.

Allegiance is a thriller on many levels, but where it triumphs most is by presenting how one arrives at the harshest of decisions. As teased in the Allegiance trailer, Bow Wow is astonishingly sincere as the soldier seeking to reunite with his son. It is through his performance that the audience has a vicious internal struggle as to what should happen in this situation. The film's tagline expertly captures the spirit here with "The war begins before deployment."

Filmmakers took a page from another film... one that gave us such inspiring Act of Valor quotes, and cast real-life National Guardsmen in many roles. That would explain how the reality quotient of the film is so high. You see, most of the people who signed up to be in the Guard spent one weekend a month training and never thought they'd see any battle, unless of course it was on our shores. Because the military was so stretched thin fighting two wars in 2004 with Afghanistan and Iraq, the National Guard was sent to combat zones for the first time since World War II.

As Lieutenant Colonel Owens, Aidan Quinn personifies the side of the argument that country and service come first and that is what you signed up for. But it is still difficult knowing the backstory of men who volunteer for the National Guard, the situation in Iraq in 2004 and the pull every one of us can identify with of having a family member in dire need of support.

Our Allegiance review commends Michael Connors, who wrote and directed the film. His first-hand experience with the issue is prevalent on each frame of film. The war veteran clearly saw these types of questions being asked by soldiers who thought they had only signed on to defend the homeland... not go to the most violent spot in the world. By framing his story around an individual who has already done several tours and has a child dying at home, a larger discussion about the role of the National Guard is brilliantly presented.

Allegiance is currently on VOD and out in New York City. The film expands January 4.