In honor of Moneyball's arrival, as well as the stirring 2011 Major League Baseball playoffs, Movie Fanatic has decided to anoint the Top 10 Baseball Movies of all Time. Many times, the drama on the field of the Major League Baseball playoffs and World Series provide drama Hollywood could never recreate, here still are pieces of celluloid that capture the power and prominence baseball has over our culture.

10. Field of Dreams
Kevin Costner clearly has a passion for baseball given the films he’s made -- Field of Dreams, For the Love of the Game and Bull Durham -- but his focus on the past in Field of Dreams is what makes it so endearing. So few times in current society do we pay respect to the past. Field of Dreams isn’t simply a reminder of the greatness of baseball’s past, it reminds us that the lives we’re living are thanks to the foundation that our past has provided.

9. Eight Men Out
The different between right and wrong sometimes is a little clearer than others. For the 1919 Chicago White Sox, it was downright blurry. Eight Men Out chronicles the “Black Sox” as they took their astounding season and headed into the World Series. Instead of giving their all, as they say in boxing, they took a dive. The title arrives from John Cusack’s character, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and reflects how amongst of team of nine who were bribed, he was the one that was in it to win it.

8. Major League
A 1999 comedy classic, regardless of its characters being baseball players. The Cleveland Indians are a hapless bunch who are put together with an owner setting her sights on moving the team to Florida if they loose enough games. The owner has given her gruff manager (a stellar Charles Cyphers) a team full of ex-cons (Charlie Sheen), Voo-Doo believers (Dennis Haysbert) and a prima donna who thinks he is destined for the Hall of Fame (Corbin Bernsen). There’s one problem in the owner’s destruction plans: This team of misfits comes together and shocks the world.

7. Bad News Bears
Although the 2005 take on this flick starring Billy Bob Thornton is stellar, the original 1976 Walter Matthau starring comedy is equal parts love letter to baseball, comedy, kids’ movie and all around classic. Bad News Bears takes audiences inside the competitive world of Little League Baseball. A ragtag group of kids come together under the unlikely leadership of Matthau’s Buttermaker and triumph on many levels.

6. A League of Their Own
“There’s no crying in baseball,” Tom Hanks said at his shrillingly screaming best. During the height of World War II, Major League Baseball suffered a shortage of talent. Ballplayers including Ted Williams, gave up their formative baseball years to fight for freedom. Filling that absence at the time was a woman’s baseball league. A League of Their Own showcases one team’s incredible true story of how the women of America stepped up to form A League of Their Own. The film serves as one of the only roles that Madonna knocked out of the park. Sorry, Madge, but it’s true. Rosie O’Donnell and Geena Davis lead a stellar cast that not only brings a true tale to life, but also has its own kind of cheer in your seat charm.

5. The Natural
Robert Redford was at his dreamy best in The Natural as an early 20th century ballplayer who found himself on the field of dreams later in life than he expected. Based on the brilliant book by Bernard Malamud and directed by Barry Levinson (Rain Main, Diner), the film manages to transport its audience to the baseball world of another day and illustrate that no matter the decade, the passion for the game and for those who play it is always ripe for some of the most amazing true and fictional stories in storytelling history.

4. Bang the Drum Slowly
Robert De Niro stars in a baseball movie? You bet! In Bang the Drum Slowly, he plays a catcher for a talented pitcher who is fighting a terminal illness over the course of a baseball season. The film is based on the 1956 book by Mark Harris, and astounding as executed by director John D. Hancock. At the time, De Niro was a little known actor while the star was Michael Moriarty. Hancock’s portrayal of a man stricken with Hodgkin’s Disease is the stuff of legend. The fact he fights through the season without the team’s knowledge is a study in integrity and fortitude.

3. Moneyball
The best baseball movie in recent years is also one of the best baseball movies of all time. At its core is a tale of undervalued souls gathered under a radical idea that when you put together a team of experts at one thing individually, with nine players working every baseball game, therein lays a high probability that that specialized team will score. And by scoring, we mean win. In Moneyball, Brad Pitt is pure baseball in his portrayal of Oakland A’s Billy Beane. When he says, “I’ve been in this game a long time,” his baseball history is worn in his eyes, on his forehead and in his lips that deliver that line. What that A’s team did is unmatched in history and on screen, as shot by director Bennett Miller, non-baseball fans will emerge from theater ready to give the game its due.

2. Bull Durham
Although a baseball movie about a Carolina minor league baseball team with dueling parallel characters, each moving in the opposite direction as the other, Bull Durham takes audiences on the journey of Susan Sarandon’s Annie Savoy. Annie is a baseball lifer who embodies every live and breathe fan of America’s pastime. Big money hadn’t taken over Major League Baseball like it does today and this 1988 classic shows how Tim Robins’ Nuke LaLoosh, under the tutelage of Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis, has the power to become a major league star while they can still drip money and deliver on the field that has people thinking history books. Bull Durham is also one of the best baseball movies because it interweaves a love story between Crash and Annie that simmers for 90 minutes -- while giving audiences a show stopping baseball film on the field -- before it explodes into full fledged passionate love. Home run indeed.

1. The Pride of the Yankees
Gary Cooper is Lou Gehrig and in The Pride of the Yankees, he goes from New York Yankees phenom to one of the saddest physical degenerative stories told on screen. Cooper may be thought of as one of the greatest movie stars of history due to his collective work. Yet, it is his turn in The Pride of Yankees that takes what could have solely been an astounding true story about a baseball player and makes it into one of the more compelling human interest stories in Hollywood history. Prior to Cal Ripken, no one had played so many games in a row without injury. In Cooper’s hands, Gehrig’s health never diminishes his drive to conquer, whether on the baseball field or as he fights a disease that will come to bear his name. That final speech in Yankees stadium where Gehrig proclaims, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” is not only one of baseball movies’ most iconic lines, delivered by Cooper, it is of the most legendary in the world of cinema… period.

Gary Cooper's Luckiest Man Alive Speech in Pride of the Yankees

Real Steel is the number one movie at the box office, and rightfully so (check out our stellar Real Steel review). Given the film’s ability to inspire cheer in your seat moments, Movie Fanatic has collected a few Real Steel quotes to brighten up your Monday. The story of Charlie (Hugh Jackman) and his son Max (Dakota Goyo) who find common ground as their robot Atom begins an unbelievable winning streak, is a triumph of the spirit.

Charlie: Times have changed. Fighting has changed. But the crowd? They never change. They just get bigger. The human body can only take so much. But the steel never stops. | permalink

Max: What are we looking for?
Charlie: Anything I can use to put a fighting bot together. | permalink

Max: His name is Atom. Get 'em a fight. | permalink

Max: What was he like?
Bailey: As a boxer? Charlie was the top contender, number two in the world. Then, the fight game changed. | permalink

Charlie: I just need a little loan.
Finn: As much as I like you dude, you're a bad bet brother. | permalink

Bailey: Give it up Charlie. You got nothing left. | permalink

Max: I need you to teach him to box.
Charlie: Are you kidding me?!
Max: You know this fight game inside and out. He needs your moves, your commands.
Charlie: I can't, I can't!
Max: Yes, you can. | permalink

Charlie: I know I've done all kinds of wrong by this kid. I'd just like to do one thing right. | permalink

Rooney Mara could not have been a better choice to take the lead in David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Whether it’s witnessed through the latest Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trailer or the two new publicity shots below, Mara sizzles as Lisbeth.

Noomi Rapace established the bar pretty high in the Swedish version of Stieg Larsson’s wildly successful book series. And it appears that Mara has taken the mantle and run with it.

Several The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo stills have been released, but it is these publicity shots released by Columbia Pictures that show how much Mara has lost herself in the role. The girl from The Social Network has shed that skin and gone to a completely dark place coupled with fierceness.

Sony Pictures has begun to take the upcoming biography of Steve Jobs and turn it into a biopic. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, will hit bookshelves later this month and as many know who follow Jobs and his astounding life, it would make for a stellar biography onscreen.

The studio that oversaw The Social Network certainly can take the audience inside the world of computer geniuses and make it thrilling. Can you imagine someone with as much historical breadth as Jobs at the center of a biopic? It could be astounding. 

Just this simple paragraph from the book’s summary could set the tone for a feature film:

“At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.”

Steven Soderbergh is not wasting any time before getting audiences excited about his next flick. After the success of Contagion (check out our Contagion review), Soderbergh has released a trailer for his new thriller, Haywire.

Haywire arrives January 20, 2012 and stars MMA pro Gina Carano as a special ops agent who finds the world rapidly closing in around her. Carano did her own stunts and judging by the trailer below, she truly kicks serious butt.

The film is somewhat of a departure for Soderbergh as it looks to be a straight-up action film. His action sequences in other films soar, so a full 90 minutes of full throttle action would certainly be within Soderbergh’s wheelhouse.

Haywire also stars Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Michael Douglas and Channing Tatum.

Haywire Trailer

Sarah Deming has submitted a lawsuit against Drive distributor FilmDistrict, saying that the movie that she saw bared little resemblance to the film advertised in Drive’s trailers.

We’d be hard pressed to think of a similar suit in the movie biz, but given Deming’s feelings, we can tell you one thing that can now be explained. Drive was hailed by critics as one of the best of the year, while CinemaScore -- the ranking system for audiences -- gave it a paltry C-. This lawsuit could very well sum up the poor response from audiences to a critically lauded picture.

Deming is demanding FilmDistrict issue her a full refund of her movie ticket, as well as a promise not to continue releasing “misleading movie trailers.”

"Drive bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film… having very little driving in the motion picture,” Deming’s suit states. “Drive was a motion picture that substantially contained extreme gratuitous defamatory dehumanizing racism directed against members of the Jewish faith, and thereby promoted criminal violence against members of the Jewish faith.”

Movie Fanatic is not sure about the Jewish faith part. Just because two of the characters are Jewish gangsters does not make it a racist film.

But seriously, Drive is a terrific film, and yes, there is little driving that actually takes place. Stay tuned, if this case moves forward, movie trailers may have to be pieced together differently. Although, we seriously doubt this case will get very far at all.

Andie MacDowell is stepping into Dianne Wiest’s shoes as the preacher’s wife in the Craig Brewer remake of Footloose. Much is being made of the effort Kenny Wormald has in jumping into the dancing shoes of Kevin Bacon, but one could argue that it is just as difficult to take on a role originated by an Oscar winner.

MacDowell stars opposite Dennis Quaid as his wife, something she has done before in Dinner with Friends. “We’re an old married couple,” MacDowell joked to Movie Fanatic for our Footloose interview.

Brewer is bringing Footloose to a whole new generation and one of the aspects that most spoke to MacDowell was how the director kept the heart and soul of the original while simultaneously making it a film of the 21st century.

MacDowell dishes working with the young cast, and how in particular, she took it upon herself to take the new to acting Julianne Hough under her wing.

Movie Fanatic: What are your memories of the original Footloose?

Andie MacDowell: I remember it being really radical, thinking it was really radical. I watched it again right before I did it just to refresh my memory. It was kind of funny watching it because it’s not nearly as radical watching it now as it was when it first came out [laughs] -- which is why they needed to update it and make it somewhat more contemporary. The world’s even crazier than it was.

Movie Fanatic: What do you think the audience will take away from Footloose 2011?

Andie MacDowell: I think that everybody needs a relief. All of us are so sick and tired of worrying about the economy and all the depressing financial issues, that everybody needs a movie like this. Everybody needs to laugh and have fun and feel good. And it’s got a lot of heart. I think it’s perfect timing for a movie like this. To go and have fun and forget about their troubles for a couple of hours would be very healthy for not only escape but to feel good.

Movie Fanatic: The original film made a star out of Kevin Bacon, and also put Sarah Jessica Parker on the map. What star quality do you see in this new Footloose generation?

Footloose TV Spot

Andie MacDowell: They’re so talented. I knew Kenny (Wormald) because my daughter was a dancer. I knew him from the dance world. All the little girls adored him. I think the great thing about Kenny and what he has to offer is he’s truly a great dancer. That’s where he’s going to steal your heart. When he starts to dance, that’s it, it’s all over. You love him. But I think he as a person is genuine. He’s just such a good person that I hope for him that he becomes a big star. And Julianne too, they worked so hard. The scene in the church with Julianne, that was very difficult. And I’ve been in the position that they’ve been in where everything’s on your shoulders and they carried the movie. You’re doing it, there’s nobody else. Of course there’s the crew and everybody else but ultimately it’s on their shoulders and they really pulled it off. They did a great job. And the dancing’s fantastic.

Movie Fanatic: As a mother yourself, did any maternal instincts take over on set while filming with the young cast and maybe even contribute to your characterization of Vi?

Andie MacDowell: I think it helps, not only in the role, but off screen too. I am a nurturer by nature. I’m very maternal and I really enjoyed being there for Julianne and knowing what my place was for her. Having been the lead, like I said, in many movies, I knew what my role was to help support her and give her the space to do what she needed to do and at the same time try to make her feel good and also touch her in just the right way so it all opens up. I was very aware of all of that. I love being a mom so it was an easy thing for me to do.

Movie Fanatic: How did you see your Vi as different than Dianne Wiest’s interpretation?

Andie MacDowell: I did what Craig told me to do. He wanted it to be a little more lively, not quite as repressed -- contemporary.

Movie Fanatic: You and Dennis have quite a chemistry. What was it like working with him?

Andie MacDowell: We worked together before on Dinner with Friends so we joked that we’d already been married. I do think that helped with being comfortable, already having been married once. It felt like we had been married.

Movie Fanatic: What was your favorite film from the 1980s, besides Footloose?

Andie MacDowell: I like all the dance movies, like Dirty Dancing.

Movie Fanatic: Do you think filmmaking today is different than when the first Footloose was made?

Andie MacDowell: It was different, less computers. There were no monitors. I was pre-monitors. They all sit behind a box now. They used to just watch you. Then when they got monitors there were still directors who wanted to come and watch you because sometimes when they’re watching monitors they don’t see everything. It’s hard to see everything on a little box.

Movie Fanatic: Tell us about the making of Mighty Fine and working with your daughter.

Andie MacDowell: It’s a mother-daughter story. I have a Polish accent in it. It’s going to be interesting. It’s taken from the writer’s true life story. The father is bipolar and the mother is very repressed because during the Holocaust she had been hidden. It takes place in the ‘70s. She doesn’t have a voice and she’s afraid to. She doesn’t know how to take care of her daughters. She’s kind of caught up in his spiral. She feels that she can control it which is an illusion. She can’t. My daughter plays my daughter. She’s the main victim to his aggression. Oh my God, it was so hard because she’s really my daughter and Chazz Palminteri plays the father, and the things she had to do and the things he did to her. In hindsight, ‘cause in the moment all you’re thinking about is doing the best you can do, that’s all you do. It’s complete tunnel vision, focusing on getting the job done. It’s got to be the best whatever it takes, get there no matter what happens to your daughter. And when it was all over and time passed by and I reflected, it was so painful.

Movie Fanatic: How do you feel about her following in your footsteps?

Andie MacDowell: Well she sings too and I’m thankful that she has another outlet. She sings like you would not believe. I don’t know where it came from. She was given a gift. She’s got lungs that are incredible. I’m thankful that she has something besides acting. I don’t want anybody to compare her to me. I want her to have her own voice.

The Muppets open on November 23 and Movie Fanatic cannot wait. The film has spawned some unique trailers including The Pig with the Froggy Tattoo parody of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and now the Muppets gang has taped an AMC spot letting audiences know what you can and cannot do in theaters.

The Muppets: What Not to do in Theaters

Some of these items seem like they should be common sense, but it is always great to remind moviegoers that their actions affect everyone else around them when we are collectively watching a movie.

The Muppets mania is only in its beginning stages and as the November 23 release date gets ever closer, get ready for Muppets fever to skyrocket.

Janet Evanovich fans are counting down the days until the first of the Stephanie Plum series, One for the Money, makes its big screen debut. Lionsgate has released three new pics of Katherine Heigl as Plum that finds the star channeling her inner Jersey Girl.

One for the Money (don't miss the One for the Money trailer) opens January 27 and follows Heigl’s Plum as she is in desperate need of a job and takes the first one that comes along that shows promise: A bounty hunter. Plum begins her career as a bounty woman by having to track down one of her exes -- Joe Morelli, the man who broke her heart in high school.

The film also stars Debbie Reynolds, John Leguiziamo, Jason O’Mara and Debra Monk.

Whether it's Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List, producing Band of Brothers or The Pacific, Steven Spielberg has an affinity for war stories. Such is the case with his latest directorial effort, War Horse, and the film’s trailer has premiered.

War Horse Trailer

War Horse is an epic adventure that sweeps from rural England to the battlefields of Europe during World War I. The film follows the incredible story of a friendship between Albert and his horse Joey. When the pair is separated by the war, it sets into motion an adventure by Albert in search of his best friend.

This is a unique tale for Spielberg. His latest war story is told from the point of view of the horse. The impressive beast makes its way from cavalry to the front lines and into No Man’s Land for the climactic conclusion.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead killed us in Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, so it's only fitting she arm up to do battle against The Thing. Winstead is the lead in the prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter classic and sat down with Movie Fanatic to talk about finding her inner paleontologist who travels to the Arctic to help a Norwegian team unlock the mystery of The Thing they found buried deep in the ice.

Winstead tells Movie Fanatic what the frozen tundra shoot was like (hint: it was the warmest summer in Canada, so not so cold), working alongside the superstar of 2011 Joel Edgerton, her role as Mary Todd Lincoln in the upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and what she most enjoyed about Carpenter’s original The Thing.

Movie Fanatic: You’ve done a lot of horror movies. What, for you, makes The Thing different from others you’ve worked on?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: To me it evokes a time period of my favorite horror films which are from the ‘70s and ‘80s. I feel like it had a little bit more of that classic, slow burn. The first half of the film is really kind of slow and suspenseful and then when the terror kicks in, it kicks in and it doesn’t let go. It doesn’t feel so modern and slick to me and that’s one thing I was really excited about going into it. And also the character was just so refreshing that it was just a no-brainer. I had to do it.

Movie Fanatic: The Thing is more dramatic, and less jokey than a lot of horror films. Was that also an appeal?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I feel like it’s a horror film for adults and I don’t think we get a lot of those. Most horror films now are made for teenagers; they’re about teenagers. I’ve done a couple of those horror films so there’s nothing wrong with that but the older I get the more I starve for more adult material. So that was one of the things that I really liked about this film and the character. There was a real maturity about it, I felt.

Movie Fanatic: Were you a fan of the original version of The Thing?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Yes! I was a big fan of the Carpenter version. I watched the Howard Hawks version when I first auditioned. I hadn’t seen that one. But I’d seen the Carpenter version many times and was a big fan.

Movie Fanatic: And did you recall that in your head before starting this to kind of get a feel for this world?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Oh yeah, I watched it a bunch of times. I think most of the actors did. Something that we talked about every day was if there was a scene that we felt was too similar to a scene from the Carpenter version, we’d all say, “Oh, can we change this around?” Or something that we thought was too outside of the Carpenter world. But every time I would have a question about something, the director (Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.) has seen it 18 billion times [laughs], so I’d always be like, “Hmm, I think I have a question. I don’t think this is quite right.” And then I’d always get smacked down because no matter how many times I’ve seen it, I have not seen it as much as the people behind the scenes of the film.

Movie Fanatic: How was filming in the snow?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Well, it was really hot by the end when we were shooting because we were shooting in the summer in Canada. So it was all actually fake snow [laughs].

Movie Fanatic: Some of The Thing filmmakers have referred to you as the Ripley of The Thing. Did you like that? Did you feel kind of Sigourney Weaver-ish?

The Thing Trailer

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I love the comparison, I tell you, for sure. I love Ripley and I love the Alien movies. The comparison was coming up a lot in preproduction so I tried not to think about it too much because I don’t want to copy her in any way. So I mainly tried to take it as a compliment and then move on.

Movie Fanatic: Are you generally that tough?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I don’t know! I try not to play her too tough because I didn’t want to try to be like, “Oh, she’s a tomboy, and she’s badass.” I really just wanted her to be a relatable woman who’s trying to be strong. So I like to think that I would be the same in that situation. But who knows? I might just be crying in a corner [laughs].

Movie Fanatic: What was it like working with your co-star Joel Edgerton (Warrior), who seems to be having quite a year?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: He is! I’m very happy for him because he’s the most deserving person in the world. He’s so talented, smart, funny, easy to work with, relaxed and down to earth, not pretentious in the slightest bit, just a sweet, fun guy, and he’s Australian. He’s just great, I love Joel.

Movie Fanatic: Did you have a favorite scene with the monster?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I think the scene with the sort of two-headed monster creature, when Eric (Christian Olsen) was shooting that, it was the most disturbing thing, because they had this face of Trond (Espen Seim), who played Edward in the movie, and they were sort of conjoining the two of them. Eric is screaming and looking at this face and screaming and they’ve got it just pressing up against his face. It was just the most disturbing thing to watch being shot. It was incredible and freaky in that sort of form. And of course they enhanced things with CGI but that was one of the things that even without it, it was terrifying.

Movie Fanatic: How did you research the role of your character, a paleontologist?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I hung out with a paleontologist in Toronto a little bit and it was really fun. They have a really fun job and it’s really exciting. It was almost more like Indiana Jones than it was clinical. It was really relaxed and casual. There’s fossils hanging around and they’re picking them up and throwing them around, “Hey, catch this fossil.” It was really cool. So in that sense it would be a lot of fun… It was a lot of fun to be able to play a character as a woman in a movie that is that smart, that is strong, that is that put together, and not be neurotic or shrill or sexy or whatever the thing that women usually are in movies.

Movie Fanatic: Would you say your upcoming role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is more history-based or is it more tongue in cheek?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: It’s hard to say. We all did a lot of research because there’s a lot of historically accurate stuff in there and it really follows the story of Abraham Lincoln in a totally factual way but then weaves in this completely fictional storyline. We all had to really know our characters and the history really well. And at the same time, once you get there, you have to be able to throw it all out the window and just know that you have the foundation, that you know the reality of the story but you have to go along for the ride of the fiction as well and let go of certain aspects of the reality and kind of have fun with it. That’s kind of what we did.

Brad Pitt is not happy, his World War Z film is already over budget and now the Hungarian government has just made it worse. News has broke that the set was raided by Hungarian police who confiscated a huge stash of guns meant for use on the zombie flick.

The weapons, including AK-47s and sniper rifles, well… unfortunately had live ammo in them. Hungarian authorities admitted to the press that their raid was perfectly legal as the weapons for World War Z had not been disabled as they are supposed to be when used as props.

A publicist for the film was quick to issue a statement. “We are working with the authorities to resolve the matter and have no further comment at this time.”

The premise of Carnage could be serious, but in the hands of John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet, we’re talking one serious comedy. Carnage follows two sets of parents who meet when their children get in a schoolyard fight. The trailer for the Roman Polanski film has been released and yes, it does look funny!

Carnage Trailer

Carnage is based on the play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza and film festival folks are already shouting its praises. The film premiered at the Venice Film Fest and is currently charming audiences at the New York Film Festival.

With that cast alone, comedy or drama, Movie Fanatic has its interest peaked!

Seth MacFarlane feels he may have done all he can with Family Guy on TV. So, what’s a guy to do who has created one of the funniest families in TV history? Why… take Family Guy to the big screen! MacFarlane even flirted with the idea back in 2008.

MacFarlane was talking with The Hollywood Reporter and admitted that he has created a world in Family Guy that has perhaps run its course on TV and now he envisions his Family Guy empire tackling the silver screen for movies every couple of years.

"Part of me thinks that Family Guy should have already ended. I think seven seasons is about the right lifespan for a TV series. I talk to the fans and in a way I'm kind of secretly hoping for them to say we're done with it,” MacFarlane told THR. “There are plenty of people who say the show is kind of over the hill… but still the vast majority go pale in the face when I mention the possibility."

MacFarlane admits that a film is currently being scripted, although no news as to when we can expect our favorite residents of Rhode Island to make the big screen jump.

After successfully taking on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business and now with the debut of the trailer for the thriller The Woman in Black, Harry Potter himself -- Daniel Radcliffe -- has left the iconic J.K. Rowling character in the dust.

The Woman in Black Trailer 2

The film has teased us with The Woman in Black first trailer and a Radcliffe featured movie still, but in the latest UK teaser spot, audiences are treated to an even further look at Radcliffe’s dark turn. The star who played “The Boy Who Lived” is Arthur Kipps, a lawyer who believes his visit to a client’s house is simply to get the recently deceased's affairs in order. But, what happens next is a classic horror movie haunting that targets children who never survive when the titular ghost appears.

The Woman in Black has been talked about being made into a major motion picture since the novel debuted in 1983. The film arrives in theaters February 3, 2012.

After making Black Snake Moan and Hustle and Flow, Craig Brewer decided to go back to his youth for inspiration. He was approached several times to write and direct a Footloose remake and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why or how to resurrect a classic. Then, driving late one night: It hit him. The film should start with Kenny Loggins’ classic Footloose theme song, then all semblance of it should be marked in tragedy. Immediately Brewer got to work and the fruits of his labor are astoundingly awesome (check out our Footloose review).

Movie Fanatic: How was the effort getting a stellar acting performance from your two leads, who previously were so well known for their dancing?

Craig Brewer: I’ve been doing it for a while because I’ve had to work with rappers that I’ve needed to act and actors that I’ve needed to rap. Ultimately what I’ve discovered is it’s all a little easier than I think people would think that it is. When you make a decision in your life that you’re going to be an artist or performer in any way, you find that it leads in almost all categories. Let’s get in a time machine and go back 27 years and tell everybody that Robin Williams and Jamie Foxx, they’re going to be Academy Award winning actors one day and you’d go “What?” That doesn’t make any sense but it now makes sense because they obviously had this well of experience. I remember sitting down with Terence Howard and saying, “Look, I know you’re an actor and you’re a great actor, but what do you have in common with this guy?” He was like, “Well, you know, I’m in all these movies and I’m usually a supporting character, like a bright, quick cameo, and people have been always saying you should be a lead and you should be in charge.” And that was his connection to it, of playing that character. I look at Kenny Wormald, pretty good-looking, masculine kid from Boston, all his life being called Ballet Boy and Priss because he’s going off to dance class. Kenny knew Ren McCormick. It was something that when we started doing the readings and the auditions, it just seemed so natural to him. Everybody else was doing this Kevin Bacon impersonation. Even when I told them not to do it, they couldn’t help but do it. I realized it was because they were just acting. They’re doing the best they can. They’re good actors but it’s not real to them. It’s real to Kenny and I think that because he relaxed into it, it came off very natural.

Movie Fanatic: I know you were a big fan of the original Footloose. What was your first reaction when they offered you the Footloose remake?

Craig Brewer: I resisted it twice. I turned down the studio twice to remake it.

Movie Fanatic: What stroke of inspiration altered your opinion?

Craig Brewer: I had this interesting experience. I couldn’t figure out how to get into Footloose. I was like, “What town would ban dancing?” Even in 1984, it was kind of dumb [laughs]. And I say that with complete respect because I loved the original. I was on my way to a bachelor party in New Orleans by way of Memphis so I’m on this really long bridge. Adam Goodman, the president of Paramount, calls me and I put him on speaker phone and he’s like “I refuse to accept your pass. Why do you keep passing on Footloose?” I was like, “Adam, look, I love that movie. It’s a classic. We’re going to get crucified if we redo Footloose.” He said, “It’s not for all these people that loved the original. When was the last teenager movie you saw that had the ideals that you loved in Footloose?” He was right. You can’t necessarily just immediately think of the dance movies like Step Up or any of those movies and say okay, but did it have the kind of camaraderie like a Willard and a Ren? Did it have the harshness that was in the original Footloose where kids are smoking weed and girls are having pre-marital sex and feeling awful about it? Then there’s that whole fight where her boyfriend beats her up.

Movie Fanatic: So how did it then come together for you?

Footloose TV Spot

Craig Brewer: So, I’m in the car and all the bugs off of the swamp started coming up and killing themselves on the windshield. I got a rental car and I hit the little windshield wiper fluid thing, but it was empty -- so it just smeared bug guts. These cars are going by me and I can barely see. I’m talking to the president of the studio. So I go out drinking with all my friends for that bachelor party and they’re like, “What are you doing?” I said, “They asked me to do Footloose, but I’m not going to do it.” All night they were giving me (expletive). We would go to different clubs and they were singing Let’s Hear It for the Boy. Then, I got a little bit too tipsy and I told them all “Guys, I am a father now. I cannot party like I used to. I’m going down and going to bed.” I lay in this bed and I started flashing back to the bridge. I could feel the car shaking and I could see the lights coming up against the windshield and suddenly it hit me. I gotta really entertain the audience for three minutes where they hear that Kenny Loggins music and they start bobbing their head and they think “Oh yeah!” Then I need to kill them and I need to show a horrible wreck. I need to have those headlights come right at me. And then, I had my human connection. The difference between me now and me when I was 13 is I’m a dad. I got two kids. They change you. I’m protective in ways I never thought I would be. I can see myself if some kid got killed crossing the street in front of the school, and then this big list of rules came home, I wouldn’t be even reading them. I’d be like, “Of course!” Once I got past that, once I got past the whole it’s not just banning dancing because they’re worried that you’re going to go to hell. It’s a dozen laws -- curfew, dress code. It’s not so much dancing as much as dancing outside of parental control. Suddenly it became a much more relevant American movie to me.

Movie Fanatic: What elements of the original Footloose were important for you to update? And did you feel that certain aspects of the original had to be in your remake?

Craig Brewer: The great news about the situation going into Footloose was I had a tremendous amount of power. I’m not really used to that [laughs]. I had creative control over it. I knew everything about Footloose. I would look at the Angry Dance and say, “Well we’re doing the Angry Dance because it’s Footloose. If you didn’t do the Angry Dance, it’s not Footloose." I come from the theater and remake is never a word you use. You use the word revival. I tried to view Footloose more in a revival way. I didn’t want it to be too different from the original, but there were a couple things that I did want to change in some of the scenes, one of which is I didn’t want to demonize faith. I wanted to bring the accident up front to get that kind of impact. And then, I wanted to change the way that -- and it’s just my personal mission of the South where I’m from -- when Ren came to stay with his uncle and his aunt, they were not really supportive of him in the original movie. They were more on the side of the town. I have redneck uncles and they’re nothing like me, but I’m their nephew. I’m their cousin. You better not talk bad about me because they’ll defend me. That’s that family theme that I think everybody in Hollywood is trying to connect with, but it’s really real in a lot of people’s lives and I wanted to see that. I wanted to see the family that he came to live with really helping him.

In The Skin I Live In, Antonio Banderas is a doctor whose methods borderline on the unethical, but are all engrossing for the movie audience. Banderas, the international superstar, sat down with Movie Fanatic for an exclusive video interview about what it was about The Skin I Live In that made him game for the gnarly and deeply disturbing in a good way film.

Antonio Banderas Exclusive Video Interview

Banderas, who we will speak to next week for Puss in Boots, shared how it was The Skin I Live In director, his old friend Pedro Almodovar, which had him regardless of the film’s subject matter. The fact that the film is a mind messer was all the better!

The Skin I Live In is Banderas’ fifth film with Almodovar, after Labyrinth of Passion (the star’s very first film), Matador, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

Banderas talks about the magic of Almodovar and how after decades in the business, the filmmaker brings out the creative juices for the actor unlike any other helmer that he's worked with in his career.

Despite its title and premise about two dueling CIA agents, at its heart This Means War is a romantic comedy. This Means War stars Reese Witherspoon in a love triangle with CIA spooks Chris Pine and Tom Hardy (most recently seen in the astounding Warrior). The film’s trailer has premiered and illustrates what happens when two men who are trained to kill do battle for the affections of the same woman.

This Means War Trailer

In a nice touch of casting where usually the leading lady is much younger than the two male costars dueling for her love, in This Means War, star Witherspoon is the veteran at 35, while Pine is 31 and Hardy is 34. What else sticks out from this impressive trailer? Chelsea Handler, leaving her late night talker behind to take the role as a confidante of Witherspoon.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly are achieving a lifelong dream bringing The Three Stooges to the big screen. Their Three Stooges premieres April 4, 2012 and very little has been seen or heard from the production until now. The film’s first teaser poster has premiered and it is asking us to, "Just Say Moe!"

The Farrelly’s Stooges has an impressive cast led by Sean Hayes as Larry, Chris Diamantopoulos as Moe and Will Sasso as Curly. The supporting cast rocks with Jane Lynch, Sofia Vergara, Larry David (who in our opinion could have been a Stooge) and Jennifer Hudson.

As for the plot, little is known except it involves our favorite trio and a reality show. That’s right, you read that correctly.

Antonio Banderas is astounding in The Skin I Live In and the movie itself is one you will not soon be able to forget.

It’s one of those films where the less you know about it, the more the cinematic experience will be rewarding. Because of that fact, Movie Fanatic will be revealing little in terms of the film’s plot other than Banderas plays a surgeon whose specialty is skin. He is working on a synthetic skin that can withstand wounds and even fire. That’s not even a background for the film, simply what his character does for a living!

The Skin I Live In is from director Pedro Almodovar (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) and his lens has never felt so creepy and we mean that in the most adoring of ways.

Almodovar has crafted a world that feels sterile and sensational all at the same time. This is the fifth time Almodovar has worked with Banderas and their stellar shorthand is on display throughout the entire film. Almodovar gets the most from all his actors, in particular in what should be a star making turn from Elena Anaya. Her role is complicated and multifaceted and she rules it with an iron fist. She is equally stunning and simmers with a solitude that rivets.

The Skin I Live In is in one capacity a discussion about the lengths with which science goes to enhance our lives and the length of our life. But, it is also a story of revenge -- one that is deep-seated and years in the making. It is also a story of a dysfunctional family and how what damages you can drive you to become what you loathe as well as what you love. There are sibling rivalries, a death of a spouse that hovers over the entire picture relentlessly and above it all is Almodovar as a puppet master weaving his web as only a master can achieve. 

The Skin I Live In Trailer

Rarely has a Spanish language film left us dreaming about what we had just witnessed for days following the screening. The Skin I Live In seeps into your subconscious and is one of those films that must be seen with a group. You will be dying to talk about what you have just seen. But when it hits you the hardest is when you are alone, in the moments before your eyes close and drift off to sleep. It is there that The Skin I Live In will ooze its power and leave you breathless trying to make sense of all the movie madness that is nothing short of brilliant.