Chronicle sequel on the way

Chronicle performed well at the box office and was met with critical acclaim across the board, so it should come as no surprise to learn that Fox are anxious to press ahead with a sequel as soon as possible.That process is already up and running, with Deadline reporting that original screenwriter Max Landis has already signed on to draft a follow-up script to the super-powered saga.Released back in February, Chronicle told the story of a trio of teens who suddenly find themselves sporting a host of super-powers. Naturally, it isn't long before their abilities lead them seriously astray, with one member of the group developing one hell of a God complex...The film's worldwide gross has already topped $100 million, which is why the creative team are such hot property at the moment. Indeed, it was only yesterday that director Josh Trank was reported to be in talks to take on Sony's Spider-Man spin-off, Venom.Just how the sequel will follow on from the events of Chronicle remains to be seen, but the retention of Landis is a good sign that the film will maintain the same sharp dialogue and tight plotting of the original. Another super-franchise in the making? You'd better believe it.

Netflix increases as Boss mulls cable link

Netflix's stock is booming after news that Boss Reed Hastings lately recommended that Netflix may synergy with cable operators on its video subscription service, potentially growing the internet video company's subscriber base.Talking in the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in Bay Area a week ago, Hastings stated that could seem sensible for Netflix to partner with cable operators and also have them offer its services included in a cable subscription package.Potential close ties with cable operators could be one other way for that Los Gatos, Calif., company to broaden its business and make use of more clients. Netflix's video library has a lot more than 20,000 game titles, including something that can not be seen elsewhere."To have the ability to add Netflix towards the bill, that could be very effective, especially once we do increasingly more original content. We're increasingly more a vintage cable network ... therefore i believe that most likely is really a logical path," Hastings stated.Hastings continued to state that such close ties aren't likely for the short term, but stated that "it is the natural direction in the long run." He stated that cable partners can use Netflix like a competitor for Time Warner's Cinemax.Cinemax provides an Internet-streaming version of their service, but it is only accessible to customers who purchase the cable-TV funnel. Netflix presently sells an $8 monthly service that beams video to Televisions along with other products rich in-speed Online connections.Blockbuster online has about 22 million Internet streaming customers within the U.S. The organization also provides a DVD-by-mail rental service that's been losing clients as Netflix concentrates on the streaming service.Shares of Netflix rose $5.21, or 4.9 %, to $112.34 in premarket buying and selling Wednesday. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

Here Comes the brand new Males in Black 3 Trailer (To Underwhelm You)

Sony's got quite the task in front of them selling the mega-allocated follow up Males in Black III, due in May, when the new trailer is any suggestion: See Will Cruz drop lines like "I do not don't have any problem pimp-slapping the shiznit out of Andy Warhol" and become moved to some advanced time-traveling retro '60s that appears and sounds nearly the same as the main one Austin Forces originated from. I suppose the 1990's would be the new 1980s, but case lazy. The brand new follow up follows alien-hunting Agent J (Cruz) in to the past in order to save Agent K (Tommy Lee Johnson) by joining track of a more youthful version of K (Josh Brolin doing his best Tommy Lee Johnson impression). Anticipate the typical broad aliens-among-us gags which mind eraser schtick that audiences loved in 1997! Cruz bemoans that he's "getting too old with this,Inch and I am inclined to agree. Aren't all of us? Verdict: Looks tired. Place mind eraser joke here.

VIDEO: Dr. Oz Faces Served by His Haters

In A Major Way Hurry is going to be signing autographs - and fielding a fascinating offer - with an approaching episode of Nickelodeon's How you can Rock. How you can Rock stars Cymphonique Burns as Kacey, a once popular girl whose status experienced when she got braces. Like a former bully, Kacey begins to funnel her energy through music when she becomes charge singer of the pop group. Find Out More > Other Links From TVGuide.com In A Major Way RushHow to RockCymphonique Burns

Revenge Boss on Daniel's "Dark Turns," Victoria's Dangerous Blast Previously, a period of time Jump

five years after Law & Order: SVU fans met Det. Olivia Benson's estranged half-brother, Simon Marsden (Michael Weston) has came back too as with desperate demand for her help . "He is not perfectly-fitted for your world since it is,In . Weston states in this particular exclusive behind-the-moments video. "He's a small self-esteem plus an failure to proceed difficult conditions along with his mind up, and therefore he finds themselves acquiring rapid finish in the stick a good deal and feeling somewhat sorry for themselves." Exclusive: Law & Order: SVU books Large Love's Chloe Sevigny In Wednesday's episode (10/9c, NBC) Benson (Mariska Hargitay) calls on... Discover More > Other Links From TVGuide.com Law & Order: Special Sufferers UnitAndre BraugherMariska HargitayMichael Weston

Will There Be Big Oscar Surprises Tonight? Dont Hold Your Breath

At various events and pre-Oscar parties this weekend I have heard over and over again the same line: “God,I just hope there are some surprises!” No matter what people seem to be personally rooting for, the one thing they really want are some good old-fashioned Oscar shockers in a year that doesn’t seem likely to have many, if any at all. That would mean anything but The Artist as Best Picture, maybe Gary Oldman or Demian Bichir as Best Actor or Glenn Close as Best Actress. How about Max von Sydow upsetting fellow 82 year old Christopher Plummer in the Supporting Actor race or The Help’s Jessica Chastain upending her co-star, favored Octavia Spencer, for Supporting Actress. The one category that in recent years has been ripe for surprise is Best Foreign Language Film. In fact the last few winners in the category were not the betting favorites so this year any movie other than Iran’s A Separation would indeed qualify as a surprise. If you want to bet the longshot there, go with Canada’s poignant, crowd-pleasing Monsieur Lazhar, the kind of film the more conservative older voters who participate in the Foreign Language process (you have to prove you have seen all five nominees in a theatre tovote) have tended to go for in recent years. But I don’t expect we will be surprised in this category, or for that matter almost any other this year. It seems likeit all may go in predictable patterns even if we all long for something to spice things up like1982 whenChariots Of Fire came from the back of the pack to triumph as Best Picture overbigger favorites likeReds and On Golden Pond. That year the envelope was opened by Loretta Young, herself one of the biggest upset winners in Oscar history when she won Best Actress for 1947′sThe Farmer’s Daughter against heavy favorite Rosalind Russell (legend has it Russell was practically on her way to the stage when Young’s name was suddenly called).Then there was1951 when the MGM musical An American In Paris stunned front-runners A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place In The Sun to take Best Picture. A trade ad the next day showed MGM’s famous logo Leo The Lion modestly apologizing for the upset saying, “Honestly I was just standing IN THE SUN waiting for A STREETCAR”. In the past couple of decades there have been some classic upsets. Marisa Tomei wasn’t expected to win Best Supporting Actress for 1992′sMy Cousin Vinny (although I did win some money in pools predicting THAT stunner).And there are still conversations about whether presenter Jack Palance read the right name in the envelope (of course he did or the Price Waterhouse accountants would have corrected him immediately). Then there was the triumph of Crash over Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture of 2005 with presenter Jack Nicholson looking shocked when he opened the envelope. Could we have a Crash moment this year? Don’t think so. The lack of potential surprises in the actual envelopesis probably a good reason the Academy Award show producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer are putting so much comedy in the show this year in order to keep it entertaining beyond all the predictability of most races. But even Billy Crystal’s opening monologue with his traditional bit where he inserts himself into the nominated movies is likely to be predictable (but actually welcome) comfort food for Oscar show lovers still smarting from last year’s comedy attempts by co-host James Franco. If you are looking forreal surprises to spice up the show onewould definitelybe if reclusive The Tree Of LifeBest Director nominee Terrence Malick were to show up (he won’t, no way).I would be surprised even to see producer Scott Rudin fly in from NY even thoughhe is the sole nominated producer of long-shotBest Picture contender, Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. Last year he stayed away despite two personal Best Picture nominations for True Grit and The Social Network. He may not want to be around to watch Harvey Weinstein triumph two years in a row. But by far the biggest shocker of the night would be if Woody Allen were in the audience. He got his 22nd and 23rd Oscar nominations this year for directing and writing Midnight In Paris and is likely to win for Original Screenplay but don’t expect to see anyone running up to the stage if his name is called. Woody has never shown up to any Oscar ceremony in which he was a nominee or winner (he has three Oscars for Annie Hall and Hannah And Her Sisters). The only time he appeared was in 2002 tointroduce a segment onNY filmmaking in the wake of 9/11. In that regard he’s like Katharine Hepburn who was nominated 12 times (and won 4) for Best Actress but never appeared for any of them andonly showed at the Oscars one timeto present the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award in 1974 to her friend and producer Lawrence Weingarten. In fact Woody isn’t even a member of the Academy despite those Oscars and 23 nominations he has so he can’t even vote for himself (and does not allow his distributors to even mention his name in their Oscar campaign ads). I asked him about it when I interviewed him about Midnight In Paris earlier in the season. “I am not a member of the Academy because I am justnot a joiner,” he said. “I am not a member of anything (laughs). The Academy, not to take it personally, I think the Academy has done some good work. I have contributed to some of their causes and all that but I am just not a person who joins anything.” So if Woody Allen suddenly shows up on the red carpet tonight that would be the biggest surprise of all. But don’t hold your breath, pray forsomething unexpected, and enjoy the show.

Bay Commits To Transformers 4

Robogeddon continues summer time 2014Given the performance from the franchise to date, it had been inevitable that people would have more Transformers films. That which was more up in mid-air was the chance that Michael Bay will be the guy to direct them. Well, you now need question forget about (and begin despairing should you hated another movies): he'll return.Talking with MTV, loose-lipped producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura let slip word that Vital has kept in Bay to direct a minumum of one more film, that will get to the summer time of 2014. We are saying loose-lipped, while he apparently wasn't designed to reveal the particulars at this time, with Vital planning for a pr release for today or later within the week. However the feline has well and truly left the bag, so here i am.And you will find more intriguing particulars in regards to what we may expect from the new movie. "I believe we actually are likely to perform a reboot there," Di Bonaventura states. "But what that will be, we do not know yet... We have got to obtain a story first."Apparently the primary cast aren't signed yet (and Shia LaBeouf has established that he's completed with the franchise anyway). So we'll likely see some familiar robo faces inside a new plotline. "It is a hybrid due to there being still continuity happening, and you will see lots of new cast," he stated. "Whether there's anybody in the first cast, we do not know yet. But it will likely be another story." And by at this time, it'll just be one film to start a brand new run, not the rear-to-back experience as suggested at by Hasbro several weeks ago.Bay will first reach make Discomfort And Gain (that has Dwayne Manley and Mark Wahlberg attached) beginning this April after which he'll prepare another outing for Optimus and also the relaxation.

NFL's near misses need close scrutiny

Nfl referees depend on network cameras when sinking the hood to examine plays that may be answer to the end result of a game title. Sometime throughout Sunday's Super Bowl game you will see a detailed call -- a questionable fumble, an uncertain touchdown -- and also to resolve a coach's challenge or perhaps a question concerning the officials' ruling, the Nfl will use a greater authority: NBC Sports.It's taken largely as a given now, however the TV coverage of the overall game can and does affect the overall game itself. The league depends on video in the TV broadcast to overturn incorrect rulings around the area. This is not a theoretical problem. The standard and accessibility to replay footage affects games each week from the National football league season. This season, both conference championship games hinged on replay reviews. Authorities in the beginning skipped the truth that a punt had looked from the knee of the San Francicso player, enabling the NY Titans to recuperate. Replay revealed the muff. Earlier within the day, the Baltimore Ravens came within fractions of the second of scoring a game title-winning touchdown against Colonial. Replay demonstrated the ball was removed in the player before he could complete the issue. Within an NBC business call the 2009 week, NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus and Super Bowl game telecast producer Fred Gaudelli appeared mostly resigned somewhere.InchThat's the broadcaster's oblgation and what we must do," stated Lazarus. "We go very seriously."Gaudelli stated, "Whether you want it or otherwise you are a main issue with (the overall game) so it is recommended to get it right."Setting it up right takes a deft coordination of males and machines. We've got the technology NBC will throw at Super Bowl coverage and replays is impressive. The league and also the network are generally mother on the human component that could undermine the entire system. The referee and also the replay authorities begin to see the same video fans see around the telecast. The National football league provides no video of their own to look at. Replay reviews are meant to be carried out about a minute from the moment the referee goes "underneath the hood" to check out monitor around the sidelines. If your replay turns up next minute has ended, it turns up past too far -- a minimum of theoretically.To capture critical replays and air them rapidly, NBC Sports will deploy a remarkable variety of gear: 40 game cameras, including positions on sides of every goal line and shooting up and lower both sidelines. For slow motion you will see two The new sony super-slow-motion cameras using Canon 100 x 9.8 HD Digital contacts and four NAC Ikegami X-mo cameras that may slow action lower much more compared to Sonys. Recording everything are 29 video replay sources: 27 six-funnel EVS XT-2 video servers, most continuously recording 3 or 4 channels of high-def video (Continuous recording means there is no danger of missing something, even throughout playback.) Video from individuals servers is given to 5 Enthusiastic editing suites for pre- and publish-game shows and 2 Final Cut Professional suites for bumpers as well as in-game highlights. You will find also two super-slow-motion EVSs and 10 The new sony Linear tape machines. Video could be remembered in the EVS servers immediately, as well as in merely a second or two in the tape machines. Ultimately, though, everything technology just records data. The pictures need to be examined by human eyes very rapidly after which moved over. "You are searching to obtain the absolute determining position of regardless of the play could be, because it was with Santonio Holmes or James Harrison within the last Super Bowl we did," stated Gaudelli.They narrow their search to negligence the area in which the play is made. "Once you discover it," stated Gaudelli, "you attempt to have it as rapidly as you possibly can (just in case) a coach needs to challenge or even the replay booth needs to stop (play). Then you definitely start trying to find more angles to verify what it's you are seeing and hopefully not dilute the very best angles."Among the risks of this replay system, though, is the fact that no mattter how good we've got the technology, individuals are corruptible.The late Chet Forte, the very first director of Monday Evening Football, was an accepted compulsive sports wagerer throughout his TV pointing career. "I wager everything," Forte told Sports Highlighted in 1991, "But football was my worst sport. And Monday evening was the worst from the worst."When Forte left ABC within the mid-1980s, he'd accumulated $1.5 million indebted. Individuals who understood him stated he cared much more about the telecast compared to money, so he chuckled from the deficits. Forte's betting never stirred a public scandal, however in his era the broadcast's instant replays were not utilized by the league rather than affected the games. Late in the existence, like a sports-talk host, Forte cautioned concerning the risks of depending around the TV production team, that might include bettors, to assist decide a game's outcome. Individuals alerts happen to be overlooked, a minimum of openly. Underneath the current rules, a gambler around the broadcast team within the truck wouldn't even need to bury a vital replay, just delay it from airing until following the officials' make their call.The National football league explained flatly, "There's pointless to think that it is really an problem." However I also requested if you will find background inspections and tests for crew within the National football league production trucks, mentioning Forte's example. NBC rejected comment.Bits & BytesDeluxe's Encore has broadened into NY in the Luxurious facility 435 Hudson St. Luxurious NY's TV publish clients are being rolled away underneath the Encore title. Encore N.Y. topper is Bill Romeo, senior Vice president, Luxurious Entertainment Television. There's a great-opening party in the facility tonight . Creatasphere's Spring Entertainment Technology Expo is skedded for March 1 at L.A. Center Galleries in La. ...SMPTE's Technology Forum, skedded for May 13-15 in Geneva, Europe, has added IBM Media Practice leader Martin Guillaume to the panel on future media business models. The executive-level confab has been created together with the ecu Broadcasting Union. The Visual Effects Society has introduced its Board of Company directors officials for 2012: Jeffrey Okun, mind of vfx for Prana Galleries, continues to be re-chosen board chair vfx supervisor Michael Fink continues to be chosen first vice chair Pam Hogarth, marketing director at Look Effects, is second vice chair Bob Coleman, prexy of Digital Artists Agency continues to be drawn on as treasurer and vfx producer Kim Lavery is secretary. Digital Domain has hired David Lipman as Vice president of their features visual effects division. Lipman is really a former professional at DreamWorks Animation and London vfx studio Framestore. He'll be based at DD's Venice, Calif. office and are accountable to Jody Madden. Madden continues to be upped to senior Vice president of worldwide studio procedures. MasterImage three dimensional has hired Adam Macdonald as sales director for EMEA and Russia. Macdonald depends from Pinewood Galleries in Blighty and are accountable to gm John Kercher. David Garber has became a member of Pixomondo's La office as executive producer of movement graphics. Garber will concentrate on development of primary game titles and graphics for features and advertisements. Pixomondo completed 546 shots, about one-third from the pic's total, on Lucasfilm's "Red-colored Tails." Bjorn Mayer and Boris Schmidt were Pixomondo's vfx administrators around the project. Dilated Pixels of Hollywood continues to be drawn on as sole vfx vendor for season 12 of "CSI: Crime Scene Analysis." A longtime "CSI" vfx supervisor, Rik Shorten, has became a member of the employees of Dilated Pixels as vfx supervisor. Shorten's vfx credits likewise incorporate "Fringe," "I, Robot" and "The X-Files."Deluxe's Efilm created a new workflow for Warner's "Very Noisy and extremely Close," the very first U.S. feature to shoot using Arriraw around the Arri Alexa camera. Pic began shooting prior to the camera was formally launched. Luxurious NY handled deliverables and color certifying was handled at Luxurious subsidiary Company3's NY facility. Stefan Sonnenfeld was colorist. C3 artists did cosmetic focus on about 125 shots. Deluxe's Method Galleries did 120 vfx shots for that picture. Technicolor has restored its agreement with World Wrestling Entertainment for DVD and Blu-ray replication and packaging services. Technicolor's M-GO application, now preparing for any spring launch, has hired Ted Hong as chief marketing officer. Hong is really a veteran of Fandango and films.org. Litepanels is shipping its Hilio high-intensity Brought lighting fittings. The Hilio is really a small-footprint Brought able to 5600 K over 20-25' with no ballast. Texas-based video production company AMS Pictures has bought a Karrera Video Production Center switcher from Grass Valley. Singular Software has launched auto-sync add-on PluralEyes for Final Cut Professional. e-on Software's Vue 10 items are actually obtainable in French and German versions CoreCG has launched MentalCore, a stand alone wordpress plugin for implementing Nvidia Mental Ray with Autodesk Maya. MentalCore's soft launch is at December 2011.Vfx software maker Digital Film Tools has launched its Film Stocks plug-in, which models the feel of 288 film stocks -- including color, black-and-whitened and movie stocks -- on digital images. Film Stocks works with Adobe Consequences and Adobe Premiere Professional among other software programs. CyberLink has released PowerDVD 12, the most recent version of their media player. Contact David S. Cohen at david.cohen@variety.com

'This Means War' Clips: Chris Pine And Tom Sturdy Visit War

In the event you missed it, we spoken with "This Means War" leading lady Reese Witherspoon last evening throughout an MTV First devoted for the flick. Her onscreen character Lauren is lucky -- or, rather, unlucky -- enough to start dating two males who use be best pals and co-workers within the CIA. Through the large event, we first demonstrated two new clips within the film, which you can examine out at this time around. The initial plays within the action side in the movie, using one of Witherspoon's beaus, FDR (Chris Pine), crashes her date while using other, Tuck (Tom Sturdy). Which we mean literally crashes: when Lauren visits collect herself inside the bathroom following a surprise appearance, FDR and Tuck be capable of destroy the restaurant. The second clip showcases the romantic, lighter side in the flick. Tuck and FDR take full advantage of their CIA capabilities and perks in this particular war over love and apparently finish off annoying Lauren's apartment. They have to listen as Lauren's friend, carried out by Chelsea Handler, makes her report on the defects the 2 males have. Ultimately, she gives herself a deadline of just one week to find out which guy she'll finish off dating. So, males, you have to probably thank Micrograms for showing exactly the same-chance movie for both you and your ladies on Valentine's. It does not hurt that "This Means War" stars many individuals that are easy about the eyes. Are you currently presently excited for "This Means War"? Reveal inside the comments section below or on Twitter!

Theo Angelopoulos Dies Aged 76

Greek director destroyed in road accidentGreek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos has died aged 76. The Athens-born director was destroyed in the road accident inside the port capital of scotland - Pireas. Angelopoulos was in the heart of shooting his new film, Another Sea, with Italian actor Toni Servillo (Il Divo) when the accident happened. It absolutely was being his first film since 2008's The Dust of your energy.The director needed the street less travelled for the silver screen. Initially legislation student in Athens, he headed to Paris to examine literature within the Sorbonne just before making expects to go to Paris's exclusive School of Cinema. Rather, he returned to some vacation in a holiday in greece and labored just like a journalist and critic until his paper was banned with the ruling junta. It absolutely was he then switched to filmmaking, developing a politically-charged trilogy that spanned Greek history from 1930 to 1970. It incorporated acclaimed drama The Travelling Players (1975), which won him notice overseas and laid the basic principles for just about any well-respected filmography.Eternity Together With Each Day, through which Bruno Ganz's crictally ill author looks back forlornly over his existence, typified Angelopoulos's keen eye for languid meditiations round the past. It snagged him the Palme d'Or in 1998 and went a method to creating for at a disadvantage three years formerly with Ulysses' Gaze. On that occasion, bitterly disappointed being garlanded while using runner's-up Grand Prix, he told the Cannes crowd: "If this describes what you ought to produce, I have nothing to say." It absolutely was a distinctive strident episode in the guy who certainly are appreciated for his dreamlike and poetic films. "It is the lower sides, frustrations and struggles", Angelopoulos once mentioned, "filmmaking is, finally, a person adventure".

B.O. bounce for a lot of?

The Oscar spotlight could boost several competitors within the box office. It better: The course of 2011 includes some comparative underachievers. Up to now, the nine best-pic hopefuls have acquired $1 billion within the box office, throughout all the previous couple of years, only one film eventually passed the $1 billion mark: "Toy Story 3" joined that threshold this season, while 2009's "Avatar" eventually made $2.78 billion within the global box office. Where one of several best picture Oscar nomineeswas el born area office behemoth that's become an Oscar staple lately? This list of nominees are a combination of pix presently within the box office, including "The Artist" and "The Descendants" -- the likeliest B.O. devices, along with "Very Noisy and very Close" -- and movies already released on homevid, for instance "The Help,In . "Evening amount of time in Paris" and "Moneyball." Disney-DreamWorks' "The AssistanceInch might be the finest grosser in the bunch, with $205 million worldwide. That's nothing to sneeze at, but nevertheless far within the global hauls of 2011's finest-grossing pair, "Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows: Part 2" and "Transformers: Dark in the Moon," because both versions acquired three bids each. "The AssistanceInch and Oscar's second-finest grossing pic nominee this year, The brand new the new sony Pictures Classics' "Evening amount of time in Paris," won't visit a theatrical boost, though VOD and DVD rental costs and customers could spike. Other pic nominees competing for attention in your own home audiences include Sony's "Moneyball" and Fox Searchlight's "The Tree of Existence." For people photos still in play theatrically, an Oscar nom can prompt distribs to alter their release techniques. A week ago, the Weinstein Co. extended "The Artist" to greater than 600 locations, lifting the pic's Stateside total just north of $12 million. Warners also went wide with "Very Noisy" for just about any domestic cume of $10.7 million through Sunday. "The Descendants" -Body of Searchlight's two nominees to find the best picture -- has totalled $51.3 million in your area. According to online ticketing site Fandango, "The Artist" saw a 190% uptick in Tuesday's ticket sales versus. yesterday, while "The Descendants" saw a 65% increase. Are both prone to expand Friday to roughly 900 locations each. While Paramount's "Hugo" acquired most likely probably the most nominations at 11, including best picture and director, the film, released November. 23, has cumed a lukewarm $86.5 million worldwide. "Hugo" develops a couple of days ago to 944 domestic locations, up from 650. Disney-DreamWorks' "War Equine," with six noms, has seen $75 million Stateside but nonetheless is playing at greater than 2,500 locations. For films outdoors the most effective picture race, Oscar's impact on a film's B.O. may differ broadly. Focus Features' "Mess Tailor Soldier Spy" has seen solid totals round the niche front. Pic's three Oscar bids, including best actor for Gary Oldman and modified script, should bolster a Stateside run approaching $20 million. "The Woman While using Dragon Tattoo," that the new the new sony released over Christmas, should mix $100 million in your area a couple of days ago. Pic clicked up five noms including actress for Rooney Mara. Kerbside Attractions' "Albert Nobbs" opens limited on Friday. Par's animated-feature contender "Rango" relaunches for just about any one-week engagement within the ArcLight Hollywood. "Rango" first opened up up in your area on March 4 and contains cumed greater than $240 million worldwide. Pic has showed up at roughly $23 million in homevid sales since beginning This summer time 15. Also inside the toon area, GKids' "Chico and Rita" bows Feb. 10 in NY and may expand into March. Meanwhile, GKids' second feature toon nominee, "The Kitty in Paris," is slated for just about any mid-2012 release. Among the foreign-language nominees, The brand new the new sony Pictures Classics' "A Separation," which won exactly the same trophy within the Golden Globes, might be the category's only nominee to own been released inside the U.S. up to now. In four days, the film has totalled around $541,000. The brand new the new sony Classics' other foreign-lingo competitors, "In Darkness" and "Footnote," are likely to bow Feb. 10 and March 9, correspondingly. "Bullhead," distribbed by Drafthouse Films, launches April 27 Music Box's "Monsieur Lazhar" will even bow in the year. Contact Andrew Stewart at andrew.stewart@variety.com

Tracking d-eyeballs

RosenblumTraditional broadcast still generates the most revenue for shows like Two and a Half Men. All the gadgets in the world aren't going to mean much if viewing content on them isn't properly measured, warned Bruce Rosenblum, president of Warner Bros. TV Group, in an appearance Tuesday at CES.The studio chief had unsparing criticism for Nielsen for its current tracking practices, not to mention other audience measurement outfits."When you walk around that floor and see that technology, the fact we still live in a dark age and people fill out diaries to tell us what they watch and that's the measurement we use to watch is ridiculous and embarrassing as an industry," he said during an Entertainment Matters-track panel discussion, moderated by Los Angeles Times reporter Dawn Chmielewski.Measurement and monetization are key factors that must be nailed down if the plethora of connected TVs at CES want to get the full range of content, he said. Managing dollars and cents are of pivotal concern for WBTV, which has nearly 50 different TV shows currently airing across broadcast, cable and syndication.Digital platforms are helping the TV industry both monetize and market its content, including Netflix and Hulu, Rosenblum said. "What digital and on-demand platforms have allowed us to do is move the window up to monetize these shows," he noted.Rosenblum cited serialized dramas and off-net cable series as having found a new aftermarket that wasn't quite there for them in the traditional syndication sectors. But for TV's biggest hits -- and WBTV has more than a few to call their own including CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men" -- digital still takes a backseat to the usual buyers."This doesn't work with the big shows," he said. "The traditional platform still generates meaningfully more money than digital."The secondary benefit of digital platforms is they provide a catch-up opportunity for viewers who might have missed episodes of first-run programming in their first window. That was a prime motive for the output deal WBTV and CBS Corp. sealed for their joint venture, the CW, late last year."One of the strategic advantages of making a Netflix deal for the CW is the marketing push that the Netflix front page offers, and Hulu as well, to expose our content and our brand to a whole host of new consumers who weren't up to then watching the CW," Rosenblum said.Noting the tension between Time Warner and Netflix, Rosenblum lauded the streaming service for being a buyer of the studio's content but acknowledged Netflix could provide a challenge on the original programming front."There may be a day if their business model continue to evolve and grow and they can compete for other types of contet but right now serialized drama and off-network cable is where we'll play ball with them," he said.Hulu also got points from Rosenblum for helping drive eyeballs to current programming but he noted that the service and Apple's iTunes aren't as important as digital services that more frequently buy entire seasons or series. "I know (Hulu CEO) Jason (Kilar)'s thinking about that and he's made deals in that direction," he said.Digital monetization is also about helping the studio's network partners make good on the promise of TV Everywhere. He pointed to the breakthrough deal WBTV made with Disney last year that gave the conglom rights to make studio content available via authentication, which set the stage for the mammoth affiliate deal Disney signed with Comcast.But for all the progress being made on digital platforms, Rosenblum made clear that TV remains the apple of his eye for driving the most revenue -- for now."We can talk about Internet and digital but from an advertising standpoint, the most effective monetization is TV and it's going to be that way for the foreseeable future," Rosenblum said. Contact Andrew Wallenstein at andrew.wallenstein@variety.com

'Journey 2' helmer sells 'Invasion' pitch

"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 3dInch helmer Kaira Peyton has offered the pitch "Invasion" to Cary Granat's Reel Foreign exchange banner. Peyton will produce and direct in the script by J. Daniel Shaffer. Andrew Adamson may even produce through his Strange Weather Films shingle. Story involves several unarmed, not necessarily prepared students from Philadelphia who uncover they have got being soldiers to live a anxiety attack in the supernatural pressure. Mostly recognized for family fare, Peyton takes his first trip to adult fare with "Invasion," known to just like the vein of "Cloverfield." Peyton has continued to be busy since pointing follow-up "Cats and Dogs: Revenge of Cat By the bucket load.Inch "Journey 2" arrives later, and Peyton has furthermore just closed a deal to direct the next installment. He's very busy inside the TV realm with numerous projects plus a pilot for "Dr. Dimensionpants," they created which is professional creating. Shaffer is repped by Verve. Peyton is repped by Verve and Jodi Peikoff Law Office. Contact Justin Kroll at justin.kroll@variety.com

2011 Memorable New York Stage Performances

2011 Memorable NY Stage Performances January 4, 2012 Photo by Simon Annand Mark Rylance in "Jerusalem" As 2012 commences, Back Stage's cohead critics in NY, David Sheward and Erik Haagensen, continue their tradition of eschewing a list of the top 10 shows of the past year in favor of a salute to actors. During 2011, Sheward and Haagensen reviewed close to 300 theater and cabaret shows, and thanks to their responsibilities as members of the NY Drama Critics Circle and the Drama Desk, they saw many other offerings they didn't review. What follows is each man's selection of 10 memorable performancesby five women and five menseen in 2010. Not the "best," not the "most," not ranked in any order, simply 10 performances that were so outstanding, Back Stage's critics wanted to salute them. This year, there's a bonus: It's actually 11 performances each, as both men also wanted to salute an ensemble.Both Sheward and Haagensen say that, as usual, it took a great deal of winnowing to arrive at their lists, thanks to the high quality of acting routinely seen on NY stages. Due to the arbitrary limit, many performances just as memorable as these could not be included. It's time once again to celebrate that shining phenomenon: the NY actor.Haagensen's Heroes (Photo by Joan Marcus) Peter Bartlett, "The Illusion"A singularly idiosyncratic comic presence, Peter Bartlett is clearly valued by directors for the merriment he can contribute to a production. Last year, however, he got a chance to go deeper in his role as an aging fop obsessed with the young heroine in "The Illusion," Tony Kushner's free adaptation of Pierre Corneille's 1636 Romanesque comedy, the capper to the Kushner season at Signature Theatre Company. Bartlett was a hoot going about his character's business of making ridiculous claims of physical derring-do in an attempt to scare listeners from physically challenging him. But what made his performance special was the bruised wonder beneath the antics, stemming from an inability to accept the harshness of the world, leading to one of the most memorable closing stage images of the season.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Olympia Dukakis, "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore"Thanks to his superb work as both editor and director, Michael Wilson was able to make the case, in Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway production of "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," for Tennessee Williams' much-derided 1962 play as a major work in the great playwright's canon. He couldn't have done that, however, without Olympia Dukakis' extraordinary performance as Flora "Sissy" Goforth, a filthy-rich gorgon dying of a cancer she refuses to acknowledge while sitting in isolated splendor one summer in a mountaintop villa on Italy's Divina Costiera. It's a star part if ever there was one, and Dukakis played it to the hilt, making the paranoid Sissy a glorious mixture of spiky intelligence, cutting earth-mother humor, and gluttonous love of life. The spellbinding Dukakis was in the end shatteringly vulnerable in the role, monstrous but not a monster. Somewhere Williams was undoubtedly smiling.Angela Lin, "Chinglish"David Henry Hwang's smart and funny comedy "Chinglish" was one of the highlights of the fall Broadway season, featuring a whole raft of fine performances under Leigh Silverman's sharp and subtle direction. Nevertheless, the hysterically funny Angela Lin broke out of the pack with two contrasting comic characters: a self-conscious interpreter whose skills aren't up to snuff and a gung-ho prosecutor who is nevertheless more impressed by malfeasance and notoriety than honest but unheralded industry. A loose-limbed picture of giddy mortification and grasping desperation as the first, and a portrait of ever-escalating industry and energy as the second, Lin rocks in every moment she's on stage. Don't miss her.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Joe Mantello, "The Normal Heart"One of the top directors working today, Joe Mantello reminded us of just how good an actor he is as well, stepping back onto the Broadway boards for the first time since 1993's "Angels in America" to play Ned Weeks in Larry Kramer's indispensable AIDS drama "The Normal Heart." Ned is a thinly veiled self-portrait in a play that recounts the founding of the Gay Men's Health Crisis at the start of the epidemic, and Mantello excelled at mixing the personal and the political, moving in his depiction of Ned's relationships with his older brother and younger lover and electrifying in Ned's rage and relentless determination to fight back against the homophobic complacency of the establishment. I'm usually not one for superlatives, but in this case I have to say that I found Mantello's indelible performance easily the best from a male actor on Broadway last season.(Photo by Karl Andre) Alexandra Mathie, "Neighbourhood Watch"In "Neighbourhood Watch," Alan Ayckbourn's latest exercise in suburban comic nastiness, the glorious Alexandra Mathie vaulted into the ranks of such stellar funny ladies as Patricia Routledge and Penelope Keith with her account of Hilda, a thoroughly religious 50ish virgin who lives with her unmarried brother and worries about the safety of their Bluebell Hill Development enclave. Under the author's knowing direction and featuring the incisive original English cast from Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre, this production shook 59E59 Theaters with gales of laughter at these self-deluded would-be vigilantes who are soon setting up stocks on the traffic circle. Mathie was simultaneously demure and deadly in Hilda's implacable drive for order and control, never funnier than when letting her face go from beaming to bruised to baleful in one seamless slide. She's a comic goddess.Pete McElligott, "Johnny Johnson"As the numbers in the introduction attest, my job requires me to see a lot of shows. But every now and then, even I get to go to the theater just because I want to, and that's what I was doing at ReGroup Theatre's one-night-only staged reading of Paul Green and Kurt Weill's 1936 anti-war musical satire "Johnny Johnson." I'm a big Weill fan, and this was a rare chance to experience a show that has always fascinated me. I had no idea what level of performance to expect, so I was particularly delighted to encounter Pete McElligott's terrific work in the title role. In full and confident command of his instrument, McElligott invested Johnny with a pure core of innocence and humanity while walking the fine line of stylization required by this expressionistic, sometimes surreal show, climaxing in his haunting account of a final scene that in lesser hands could topple into maudlin banality. I'm sure it helped that his director, Estelle Parsons, is no slouch in the acting department herself. Nevertheless, the riveting McElligott is unquestionably a comer.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Howard McGillin, "Where's Charley?"Across more years than I care to count, I have watched Howard McGillin do consistently excellent work in strikingly diverse projects, ranging from the Public Theater's mid-1980s productions of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and an English-language "La Bohme" to "Kiss of the Spider Woman," "She Loves Me," and "Bounce." He remains the best "Phantom of the Opera" I've seen. McGillin's singing is so fine that it can sometimes overshadow his considerable acting chops, which is why it was such a joy to see them on vivid display in director John Doyle's light-as-air concert rendition of "Where's Charley?," Frank Loesser's first Broadway musical, at Encores! last spring. Sure, McGillin and co-star Rebecca Luker sounded heavenly on Loesser's gorgeous ballad of love reclaimed, "Lovelier Than Ever." But it was McGillin's effortless expression of Sir Francis Chesney's very English sense of class and its concomitant duties that impressed this first-generation-American child of two Brits. That's not easy for an American to get right, but McGillin absolutely nailed it.(Photo by Paul Kolnik) Seth Numrich, "War Horse"The Juilliard-trained Seth Numrich is another American actor who morphed into a completely believable English character last year. As young Albert Narracott, a farm boy from Devon who, though underage, enlists in the British army to fight in World War I so he can find and rescue his beloved horse Joey, Numrich is the emotional center of the National Theatre of Great Britain's elaborate, puppet-filled production of "War Horse," still playing to packed houses at Lincoln Center. The young actor commands the vast Vivian Beaumont stage like a seasoned pro, bringing a luminous emotional transparency to Albert and giving this great big show the great big heart that makes it such an unforgettable theatrical experience. (Numrich leaves "War Horse" on Jan. 8 to go into Daniel Talbott's new play "Yosemite" at Off-Broadway's Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, where I first noticed his considerable talent as the lead in Talbott's excellent drama "Slipping.")(Photo by Joan Marcus) Alexandra Silber, "Master Class"I initially encountered Alexandra Silber's outstanding work as Sophie De Palmathe young opera singer who hasn't counted on being required to act by teacher Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's sturdy 1995 Broadway hit "Master Class," which was suggested by a series of master classes the famous opera diva taught at Juilliardin the play's Kennedy Center production. When the Washington, D.C., staging was remounted on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre by Manhattan Theatre Club this past spring, Silber once again arrested my attention, finding a depth and texture in the character that I hadn't seen before. Silber, who also turned in notable work in last season's Off-Broadway revival of Michael John LaChiusa's "Hello, Again" by Transport Group, especially shined when Sophie unexpectedly gets the approval she has given up hope of receiving. Silber's rendering of Sophie's not knowing what to do with Callas' sudden approbation was touching and true.(Photo by Carol Rosegg) Heather Alicia Simms, "born bad"British playwright Debbie Tucker Green's 2007 Olivier Awardwinning play "born bad" opened on my birthday in 2011 and proved to be the best present imaginable: an exhilaratingly original work of art. This thoroughly disquieting, relentlessly penetrating play about a family in which sexual abuse has occurred, and the suppressed secrets and accompanying lies that have resulted from it, is clearly the product of a unique voice, one that was given full expression in Heather Alicia Simms' performance in the central role of Dawta, who is no longer willing to ignore what has happened to her. Simms combined a volcanic rage with an underlying uncertainty and fear as Dawta relentlessly pushed her parents and siblings to acknowledge the truth whatever the cost. Heartbreakingly human and continually unpredictable, her performance was one you couldn't take your eyes off.Ensemble Performance(Photo by Peter James Zielinski) Meghann Dreyfuss, Patti Goettlicher, John-Andrew Morrison, and Guy Olivieri, "The Greenwich Village Follies"A delightful salute to Greenwich Village's history and denizens, "The Greenwich Village Follies," Andrew Frank and Doug Silver's refreshing breeze of a show, was tuneful, literate, sassy, and sharp, a delightful throwback to the days of whip-smart musical revues once produced in Village botes by the likes of Julius Monk and Ben Bagley. It takes a special kind of performer to float such material, and the quartet of Meghann Dreyfuss, Patti Goettlicher, John-Andrew Morrison (who also directed), and Guy Olivieri proved to have the perfect sweet-and-sharp mix of flavors required. Innate, unforced charm is a rare commodity these days, and they possessed it in spades. It's a shame then that Manhattan Theatre Source's first open-ended production in its longtime Village home turned out to be its last, as financial problems forced the company to give up its lease. It remains a producing entity, however, so hopefully we will hear more from these bright and very talented youngsters.Sheward's Superlatives Brian Bedford, "The Importance of Being Earnest"In a year of cross-dressing performances, Brian Bedford crafted an indomitable Lady Bracknell without stooping to drag clichs in Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Oscar Wilde's classic comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest." He never put on a falsetto voice or mincing mannerisms but created instead a steely symbol of Victorian righteousness. Bedford made his first entrance into John Worthing's bachelor apartment encased in an oppressive gown while sailing on like a battleship. This was a woman so sure of her place at the top of the food chain that she's astonished anyone would question her values. Every reaction, pause, and gesture was pitch-perfect.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Christian Borle, "Peter and the Starcatcher"Sporting a painted-on Groucho Marx moustache and evoking equal parts poetic pomposity and black-hearted villainy, Christian Borle committed scene-stealing piracy of the highest order as Black Stache, the future Captain Hook, in "Peter and the Starcatcher," Rick Elice's riff on the Peter Pan legend, based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, at NY Theater Workshop. Channeling Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow and Cyril Ritchard's Hook (from the Mary Martin musical version of "Peter Pan"), Borle riotously conveyed his character's colossal ego and literary pretensions. He was particularly hilarious when interacting with Kevin Del Aguila's groveling Smee, the pirate leader's sidekick. As Smee corrected the Black Stache's numerous malapropisms, Borle found a different and equally valid explosive reaction to each intrusion.(Photo by Johan Persson) Derek Jacobi, "King Lear"The primal howl of despair came from offstage and ripped its way into the audience's soul. That gut-wrenching sound issued from the usually elegant voice of Derek Jacobi in the title role of "King Lear" in the Donmar Warehouse's stripped-down, existential clown-show production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There was such anguish in that screamuttered as the elderly king discovers that his favorite daughter, Cordelia, has been slain, partially due to his own pride and arrogancethat it transcended the plot and expressed the loneliness of the human condition. Jacobi's titanic portrayal was definitive in a year of Lears (there were three major productions of the play). While previous stars such as Ian McKellen, aKevin Kline, and James Earl Jones stressed the powerful monarch aspects of the role, Jacobi emphasized the needy inner infant who throws tantrums when thwarted. His choices were always surprising, such as whispering during the normally shouted storm scenes and playing with a blanket like a child pretending to be a monarch. It was an epic journey from inflexible tyrant to pitiful lunatic to broken old man.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Sanaa Lathan, "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark"It's rare that an actor creates a character who is simultaneously an individual and a symbol of an entire class, but Sanaa Lathan did just that in Lynn Nottage's brilliantly stinging satire "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" at Second Stage. In the title role, Lathan smoothly transformed from sexy, eager newcomer on the Hollywood scene to cynical, bitter veteran raking up past regrets on a tacky talk show. She gave Vera specific objectives and desires but also referenced and paid tribute to a galaxy of African-American performers, from the forgotten Fredi Washington (of 1934's "Imitation of Life") to the legendary Sarah Vaughan.(Photo by Richard Finkelstein) Ellen McLaughlin, "Septimus & Clarissa"The challenge in adapting "Mrs. Dalloway," Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness masterpiece, is conveying the interior journeys of the characters in theatrical terms. As both playwright and performer, Ellen McLaughlin met the challenge with force and style in "Septimus & Clarissa," presented by Ripe Time at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. In her breathtakingly direct portrayal, McLaughlin took us through a lifetime of love, despair, and regret as Clarissa Dalloway prepared for one of her famous London soirees while reliving her girlhood and early marriage. Rachel Dickstein's imaginative staging used dance to physicalize the characters' interior struggles, but McLaughlin was still for much of her performance, and we could read Mrs. Dalloway's violent struggle between propriety and passion on this actor's eloquent face.Adrienne C. Moore, "Milk Like Sugar"She hovers by the cool girls' lockers, silently observing their chatter about a pregnancy pact and patiently waiting for a chance to be a part of their world. In Adrienne C. Moore's heartbreaking portrayal of Keera, the overweight, unpopular girl in Kirsten Greenidge's "Milk Like Sugar," she perfectly captured the character's yearning need to be accepted. You could see it in the way her eyes followed the conversation of the other teens and how she pounced when there was a pause. Moore also gave full life to Keera's elaborate fantasy of a perfect home life, so that when it's revealed that her father is really in prison and will not be taking her to a father-daughter dance, the impact was shattering. Her faade of a happy, churchgoing family crumbled, exposing the frightened little girl behind it.(Photo by Richard Termine) Chris Nietvelt, "Cries and Whispers"As the audience entered the BAM Harvey Theater for Dutch director Ivo van Hove's stage version of "Cries and Whispers" (Toneelgroep Amsterdam at the Next Wave Festival), it was greeted with the agonized face of Chris Nietvelt, the actor playing the dying Agnes, on a giant monitor. In van Hove's adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's classic film, the time has been shifted from the early 1900s to the 2010s, and Agnes is a video artist documenting her demise as her two narcissistic sisters give her superficial attention. Nietvelt made Agnes' suffering achingly real as she detailed the character's physical pain in moving from her bed to the toilet and back again. In a dazzling coup de thtre, Nietvelt documented Agnes' final death throes by covering herself in blue paint and fecal matter and thrashing about on a blank canvas while creating a Jackson Pollacklike painting, a visual scream. I've never seen a performer literally throw herself into a part like that.(Photo by Stephanie Berger) Geoffrey Rush, "The Diary of a Madman"Just as he did in his Tony-winning performance in Ionesco's "Exit the King," Geoffrey Rush shattered the fourth wall and our expectation of what a satisfying evening of theater is supposed to look and feel like in "The Diary of a Madman," a stage version of Gogol's short masterpiece, presented by the Australian company Belvoir at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Rush went far beyond realism, combining elements of standup comedy, the circus, and Brecht to create the clownish clerk Poprishchin in a kind of existentialist cabaret.He began as a pitiable fool hopelessly yearning for the daughter of his boss and transformed so convincingly into a raving maniac that I thought he would run up the aisle and attack me. Along the way, he hilariously imitated everything from a cow to a cricket to two lovesick dogs.(Photo by Simon Annand) Mark Rylance, "Jerusalem"For the second consecutive year, Mark Rylance makes my list. In 2010, he combined slapstick with sophisticated wordplay as the egotistical Valre in "La Bte." A few months later, he topped that tour de force with an even stronger performance in "Jerusalem," Jez Butterworth's paean to a vanishing, idealized Britain. As Johnny "Rooster" Byron, a free-spirited drug dealer and alcoholic, Rylance embodied the scary spirit of the mythical, wild past of the character's now-homogenized native land. Rylance made Rooster a lovably crowing buffoon and a frightening attack fowl, cheerfully telling charming stories one minute, belligerently itching for a brawl moments later. You never knew what Rylance's Rooster was going to do next. This actor is one of the few who possess that vital qualitydanger.(Photo by Mark Burton) Lucy Taylor, "The Select (The Sun Also Rises)"Lady Brett Ashley, the morally untidy heroine of Ernest Hemingway's classic novel "The Sun Also Rises," treats men like Kleenex, discarding them as soon as she finishes with them. She's a beautiful siren and a selfish destroyer. But in Elevator Repair Service's exciting stage adaptation, Lucy Taylor made Lady Brett such a charming vixen, it was understandable why men would crawl after her even though she treats them like dirt. With her Audrey Hepburnlike spark and a pixyish blond haircut, Taylor's Brett was a boyish sprite teasing and tormenting the expatriate males in her circle of lost souls in 1920s Europe.Ensemble Performance(Photo by Jeffrey Dupuis) The Sleepy Town Border Insomniacs, "Crawling With Monsters"The Sleepy Town Border Insomniacs are a group of drama students and their teacher from a Texas border town. "Crawling With Monsters," a highlight of the NY International Fringe Festival, was a fascinating collagelike portrait of a community in crisis. Originally planning to bring a children's play to Mexican schools near the U.S. border, the troupe had to cancel its tour because of the unremitting violence caused by drug cartels. Instead, the company interviewed residents in the beset areas, concentrating on how the violence affects the children. The result was a matter-of-fact depiction of life in a war zone, horrifying in its ordinariness. None of the estimable performers can be singled out because, for the safety of their families in Mexico, they wish to remain anonymous. 2011 Memorable NY Stage Performances January 4, 2012 Mark Rylance in "Jerusalem" PHOTO CREDIT Simon Annand As 2012 commences, Back Stage's cohead critics in NY, David Sheward and Erik Haagensen, continue their tradition of eschewing a list of the top 10 shows of the past year in favor of a salute to actors. During 2011, Sheward and Haagensen reviewed close to 300 theater and cabaret shows, and thanks to their responsibilities as members of the NY Drama Critics Circle and the Drama Desk, they saw many other offerings they didn't review. What follows is each man's selection of 10 memorable performancesby five women and five menseen in 2010. Not the "best," not the "most," not ranked in any order, simply 10 performances that were so outstanding, Back Stage's critics wanted to salute them. This year, there's a bonus: It's actually 11 performances each, as both men also wanted to salute an ensemble.Both Sheward and Haagensen say that, as usual, it took a great deal of winnowing to arrive at their lists, thanks to the high quality of acting routinely seen on NY stages. Due to the arbitrary limit, many performances just as memorable as these could not be included. It's time once again to celebrate that shining phenomenon: the NY actor.Haagensen's Heroes (Photo by Joan Marcus) Peter Bartlett, "The Illusion"A singularly idiosyncratic comic presence, Peter Bartlett is clearly valued by directors for the merriment he can contribute to a production. Last year, however, he got a chance to go deeper in his role as an aging fop obsessed with the young heroine in "The Illusion," Tony Kushner's free adaptation of Pierre Corneille's 1636 Romanesque comedy, the capper to the Kushner season at Signature Theatre Company. Bartlett was a hoot going about his character's business of making ridiculous claims of physical derring-do in an attempt to scare listeners from physically challenging him. But what made his performance special was the bruised wonder beneath the antics, stemming from an inability to accept the harshness of the world, leading to one of the most memorable closing stage images of the season.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Olympia Dukakis, "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore"Thanks to his superb work as both editor and director, Michael Wilson was able to make the case, in Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway production of "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," for Tennessee Williams' much-derided 1962 play as a major work in the great playwright's canon. He couldn't have done that, however, without Olympia Dukakis' extraordinary performance as Flora "Sissy" Goforth, a filthy-rich gorgon dying of a cancer she refuses to acknowledge while sitting in isolated splendor one summer in a mountaintop villa on Italy's Divina Costiera. It's a star part if ever there was one, and Dukakis played it to the hilt, making the paranoid Sissy a glorious mixture of spiky intelligence, cutting earth-mother humor, and gluttonous love of life. The spellbinding Dukakis was in the end shatteringly vulnerable in the role, monstrous but not a monster. Somewhere Williams was undoubtedly smiling.Angela Lin, "Chinglish"David Henry Hwang's smart and funny comedy "Chinglish" was one of the highlights of the fall Broadway season, featuring a whole raft of fine performances under Leigh Silverman's sharp and subtle direction. Nevertheless, the hysterically funny Angela Lin broke out of the pack with two contrasting comic characters: a self-conscious interpreter whose skills aren't up to snuff and a gung-ho prosecutor who is nevertheless more impressed by malfeasance and notoriety than honest but unheralded industry. A loose-limbed picture of giddy mortification and grasping desperation as the first, and a portrait of ever-escalating industry and energy as the second, Lin rocks in every moment she's on stage. Don't miss her.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Joe Mantello, "The Normal Heart"One of the top directors working today, Joe Mantello reminded us of just how good an actor he is as well, stepping back onto the Broadway boards for the first time since 1993's "Angels in America" to play Ned Weeks in Larry Kramer's indispensable AIDS drama "The Normal Heart." Ned is a thinly veiled self-portrait in a play that recounts the founding of the Gay Men's Health Crisis at the start of the epidemic, and Mantello excelled at mixing the personal and the political, moving in his depiction of Ned's relationships with his older brother and younger lover and electrifying in Ned's rage and relentless determination to fight back against the homophobic complacency of the establishment. I'm usually not one for superlatives, but in this case I have to say that I found Mantello's indelible performance easily the best from a male actor on Broadway last season.(Photo by Karl Andre) Alexandra Mathie, "Neighbourhood Watch"In "Neighbourhood Watch," Alan Ayckbourn's latest exercise in suburban comic nastiness, the glorious Alexandra Mathie vaulted into the ranks of such stellar funny ladies as Patricia Routledge and Penelope Keith with her account of Hilda, a thoroughly religious 50ish virgin who lives with her unmarried brother and worries about the safety of their Bluebell Hill Development enclave. Under the author's knowing direction and featuring the incisive original English cast from Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre, this production shook 59E59 Theaters with gales of laughter at these self-deluded would-be vigilantes who are soon setting up stocks on the traffic circle. Mathie was simultaneously demure and deadly in Hilda's implacable drive for order and control, never funnier than when letting her face go from beaming to bruised to baleful in one seamless slide. She's a comic goddess.Pete McElligott, "Johnny Johnson"As the numbers in the introduction attest, my job requires me to see a lot of shows. But every now and then, even I get to go to the theater just because I want to, and that's what I was doing at ReGroup Theatre's one-night-only staged reading of Paul Green and Kurt Weill's 1936 anti-war musical satire "Johnny Johnson." I'm a big Weill fan, and this was a rare chance to experience a show that has always fascinated me. I had no idea what level of performance to expect, so I was particularly delighted to encounter Pete McElligott's terrific work in the title role. In full and confident command of his instrument, McElligott invested Johnny with a pure core of innocence and humanity while walking the fine line of stylization required by this expressionistic, sometimes surreal show, climaxing in his haunting account of a final scene that in lesser hands could topple into maudlin banality. I'm sure it helped that his director, Estelle Parsons, is no slouch in the acting department herself. Nevertheless, the riveting McElligott is unquestionably a comer.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Howard McGillin, "Where's Charley?"Across more years than I care to count, I have watched Howard McGillin do consistently excellent work in strikingly diverse projects, ranging from the Public Theater's mid-1980s productions of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and an English-language "La Bohme" to "Kiss of the Spider Woman," "She Loves Me," and "Bounce." He remains the best "Phantom of the Opera" I've seen. McGillin's singing is so fine that it can sometimes overshadow his considerable acting chops, which is why it was such a joy to see them on vivid display in director John Doyle's light-as-air concert rendition of "Where's Charley?," Frank Loesser's first Broadway musical, at Encores! last spring. Sure, McGillin and co-star Rebecca Luker sounded heavenly on Loesser's gorgeous ballad of love reclaimed, "Lovelier Than Ever." But it was McGillin's effortless expression of Sir Francis Chesney's very English sense of class and its concomitant duties that impressed this first-generation-American child of two Brits. That's not easy for an American to get right, but McGillin absolutely nailed it.(Photo by Paul Kolnik) Seth Numrich, "War Horse"The Juilliard-trained Seth Numrich is another American actor who morphed into a completely believable English character last year. As young Albert Narracott, a farm boy from Devon who, though underage, enlists in the British army to fight in World War I so he can find and rescue his beloved horse Joey, Numrich is the emotional center of the National Theatre of Great Britain's elaborate, puppet-filled production of "War Horse," still playing to packed houses at Lincoln Center. The young actor commands the vast Vivian Beaumont stage like a seasoned pro, bringing a luminous emotional transparency to Albert and giving this great big show the great big heart that makes it such an unforgettable theatrical experience. (Numrich leaves "War Horse" on Jan. 8 to go into Daniel Talbott's new play "Yosemite" at Off-Broadway's Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, where I first noticed his considerable talent as the lead in Talbott's excellent drama "Slipping.")(Photo by Joan Marcus) Alexandra Silber, "Master Class"I initially encountered Alexandra Silber's outstanding work as Sophie De Palmathe young opera singer who hasn't counted on being required to act by teacher Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's sturdy 1995 Broadway hit "Master Class," which was suggested by a series of master classes the famous opera diva taught at Juilliardin the play's Kennedy Center production. When the Washington, D.C., staging was remounted on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre by Manhattan Theatre Club this past spring, Silber once again arrested my attention, finding a depth and texture in the character that I hadn't seen before. Silber, who also turned in notable work in last season's Off-Broadway revival of Michael John LaChiusa's "Hello, Again" by Transport Group, especially shined when Sophie unexpectedly gets the approval she has given up hope of receiving. Silber's rendering of Sophie's not knowing what to do with Callas' sudden approbation was touching and true.(Photo by Carol Rosegg) Heather Alicia Simms, "born bad"British playwright Debbie Tucker Green's 2007 Olivier Awardwinning play "born bad" opened on my birthday in 2011 and proved to be the best present imaginable: an exhilaratingly original work of art. This thoroughly disquieting, relentlessly penetrating play about a family in which sexual abuse has occurred, and the suppressed secrets and accompanying lies that have resulted from it, is clearly the product of a unique voice, one that was given full expression in Heather Alicia Simms' performance in the central role of Dawta, who is no longer willing to ignore what has happened to her. Simms combined a volcanic rage with an underlying uncertainty and fear as Dawta relentlessly pushed her parents and siblings to acknowledge the truth whatever the cost. Heartbreakingly human and continually unpredictable, her performance was one you couldn't take your eyes off.Ensemble Performance(Photo by Peter James Zielinski) Meghann Dreyfuss, Patti Goettlicher, John-Andrew Morrison, and Guy Olivieri, "The Greenwich Village Follies"A delightful salute to Greenwich Village's history and denizens, "The Greenwich Village Follies," Andrew Frank and Doug Silver's refreshing breeze of a show, was tuneful, literate, sassy, and sharp, a delightful throwback to the days of whip-smart musical revues once produced in Village botes by the likes of Julius Monk and Ben Bagley. It takes a special kind of performer to float such material, and the quartet of Meghann Dreyfuss, Patti Goettlicher, John-Andrew Morrison (who also directed), and Guy Olivieri proved to have the perfect sweet-and-sharp mix of flavors required. Innate, unforced charm is a rare commodity these days, and they possessed it in spades. It's a shame then that Manhattan Theatre Source's first open-ended production in its longtime Village home turned out to be its last, as financial problems forced the company to give up its lease. It remains a producing entity, however, so hopefully we will hear more from these bright and very talented youngsters.Sheward's Superlatives Brian Bedford, "The Importance of Being Earnest"In a year of cross-dressing performances, Brian Bedford crafted an indomitable Lady Bracknell without stooping to drag clichs in Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Oscar Wilde's classic comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest." He never put on a falsetto voice or mincing mannerisms but created instead a steely symbol of Victorian righteousness. Bedford made his first entrance into John Worthing's bachelor apartment encased in an oppressive gown while sailing on like a battleship. This was a woman so sure of her place at the top of the food chain that she's astonished anyone would question her values. Every reaction, pause, and gesture was pitch-perfect.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Christian Borle, "Peter and the Starcatcher"Sporting a painted-on Groucho Marx moustache and evoking equal parts poetic pomposity and black-hearted villainy, Christian Borle committed scene-stealing piracy of the highest order as Black Stache, the future Captain Hook, in "Peter and the Starcatcher," Rick Elice's riff on the Peter Pan legend, based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, at NY Theater Workshop. Channeling Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow and Cyril Ritchard's Hook (from the Mary Martin musical version of "Peter Pan"), Borle riotously conveyed his character's colossal ego and literary pretensions. He was particularly hilarious when interacting with Kevin Del Aguila's groveling Smee, the pirate leader's sidekick. As Smee corrected the Black Stache's numerous malapropisms, Borle found a different and equally valid explosive reaction to each intrusion.(Photo by Johan Persson) Derek Jacobi, "King Lear"The primal howl of despair came from offstage and ripped its way into the audience's soul. That gut-wrenching sound issued from the usually elegant voice of Derek Jacobi in the title role of "King Lear" in the Donmar Warehouse's stripped-down, existential clown-show production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There was such anguish in that screamuttered as the elderly king discovers that his favorite daughter, Cordelia, has been slain, partially due to his own pride and arrogancethat it transcended the plot and expressed the loneliness of the human condition. Jacobi's titanic portrayal was definitive in a year of Lears (there were three major productions of the play). While previous stars such as Ian McKellen, aKevin Kline, and James Earl Jones stressed the powerful monarch aspects of the role, Jacobi emphasized the needy inner infant who throws tantrums when thwarted. His choices were always surprising, such as whispering during the normally shouted storm scenes and playing with a blanket like a child pretending to be a monarch. It was an epic journey from inflexible tyrant to pitiful lunatic to broken old man.(Photo by Joan Marcus) Sanaa Lathan, "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark"It's rare that an actor creates a character who is simultaneously an individual and a symbol of an entire class, but Sanaa Lathan did just that in Lynn Nottage's brilliantly stinging satire "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" at Second Stage. In the title role, Lathan smoothly transformed from sexy, eager newcomer on the Hollywood scene to cynical, bitter veteran raking up past regrets on a tacky talk show. She gave Vera specific objectives and desires but also referenced and paid tribute to a galaxy of African-American performers, from the forgotten Fredi Washington (of 1934's "Imitation of Life") to the legendary Sarah Vaughan.(Photo by Richard Finkelstein) Ellen McLaughlin, "Septimus & Clarissa"The challenge in adapting "Mrs. Dalloway," Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness masterpiece, is conveying the interior journeys of the characters in theatrical terms. As both playwright and performer, Ellen McLaughlin met the challenge with force and style in "Septimus & Clarissa," presented by Ripe Time at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. In her breathtakingly direct portrayal, McLaughlin took us through a lifetime of love, despair, and regret as Clarissa Dalloway prepared for one of her famous London soirees while reliving her girlhood and early marriage. Rachel Dickstein's imaginative staging used dance to physicalize the characters' interior struggles, but McLaughlin was still for much of her performance, and we could read Mrs. Dalloway's violent struggle between propriety and passion on this actor's eloquent face.Adrienne C. Moore, "Milk Like Sugar"She hovers by the cool girls' lockers, silently observing their chatter about a pregnancy pact and patiently waiting for a chance to be a part of their world. In Adrienne C. Moore's heartbreaking portrayal of Keera, the overweight, unpopular girl in Kirsten Greenidge's "Milk Like Sugar," she perfectly captured the character's yearning need to be accepted. You could see it in the way her eyes followed the conversation of the other teens and how she pounced when there was a pause. Moore also gave full life to Keera's elaborate fantasy of a perfect home life, so that when it's revealed that her father is really in prison and will not be taking her to a father-daughter dance, the impact was shattering. Her faade of a happy, churchgoing family crumbled, exposing the frightened little girl behind it.(Photo by Richard Termine) Chris Nietvelt, "Cries and Whispers"As the audience entered the BAM Harvey Theater for Dutch director Ivo van Hove's stage version of "Cries and Whispers" (Toneelgroep Amsterdam at the Next Wave Festival), it was greeted with the agonized face of Chris Nietvelt, the actor playing the dying Agnes, on a giant monitor. In van Hove's adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's classic film, the time has been shifted from the early 1900s to the 2010s, and Agnes is a video artist documenting her demise as her two narcissistic sisters give her superficial attention. Nietvelt made Agnes' suffering achingly real as she detailed the character's physical pain in moving from her bed to the toilet and back again. In a dazzling coup de thtre, Nietvelt documented Agnes' final death throes by covering herself in blue paint and fecal matter and thrashing about on a blank canvas while creating a Jackson Pollacklike painting, a visual scream. I've never seen a performer literally throw herself into a part like that.(Photo by Stephanie Berger) Geoffrey Rush, "The Diary of a Madman"Just as he did in his Tony-winning performance in Ionesco's "Exit the King," Geoffrey Rush shattered the fourth wall and our expectation of what a satisfying evening of theater is supposed to look and feel like in "The Diary of a Madman," a stage version of Gogol's short masterpiece, presented by the Australian company Belvoir at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Rush went far beyond realism, combining elements of standup comedy, the circus, and Brecht to create the clownish clerk Poprishchin in a kind of existentialist cabaret.He began as a pitiable fool hopelessly yearning for the daughter of his boss and transformed so convincingly into a raving maniac that I thought he would run up the aisle and attack me. Along the way, he hilariously imitated everything from a cow to a cricket to two lovesick dogs.(Photo by Simon Annand) Mark Rylance, "Jerusalem"For the second consecutive year, Mark Rylance makes my list. In 2010, he combined slapstick with sophisticated wordplay as the egotistical Valre in "La Bte." A few months later, he topped that tour de force with an even stronger performance in "Jerusalem," Jez Butterworth's paean to a vanishing, idealized Britain. As Johnny "Rooster" Byron, a free-spirited drug dealer and alcoholic, Rylance embodied the scary spirit of the mythical, wild past of the character's now-homogenized native land. Rylance made Rooster a lovably crowing buffoon and a frightening attack fowl, cheerfully telling charming stories one minute, belligerently itching for a brawl moments later. You never knew what Rylance's Rooster was going to do next. This actor is one of the few who possess that vital qualitydanger.(Photo by Mark Burton) Lucy Taylor, "The Select (The Sun Also Rises)"Lady Brett Ashley, the morally untidy heroine of Ernest Hemingway's classic novel "The Sun Also Rises," treats men like Kleenex, discarding them as soon as she finishes with them. She's a beautiful siren and a selfish destroyer. But in Elevator Repair Service's exciting stage adaptation, Lucy Taylor made Lady Brett such a charming vixen, it was understandable why men would crawl after her even though she treats them like dirt. With her Audrey Hepburnlike spark and a pixyish blond haircut, Taylor's Brett was a boyish sprite teasing and tormenting the expatriate males in her circle of lost souls in 1920s Europe.Ensemble Performance(Photo by Jeffrey Dupuis) The Sleepy Town Border Insomniacs, "Crawling With Monsters"The Sleepy Town Border Insomniacs are a group of drama students and their teacher from a Texas border town. "Crawling With Monsters," a highlight of the NY International Fringe Festival, was a fascinating collagelike portrait of a community in crisis. Originally planning to bring a children's play to Mexican schools near the U.S. border, the troupe had to cancel its tour because of the unremitting violence caused by drug cartels. Instead, the company interviewed residents in the beset areas, concentrating on how the violence affects the children. The result was a matter-of-fact depiction of life in a war zone, horrifying in its ordinariness. None of the estimable performers can be singled out because, for the safety of their families in Mexico, they wish to remain anonymous.

'Girl Using the Dragon Tattoo' Follow up: 'The Girl Who Performed With Fire' Still on the right track, States The new sony

An interesting factor about 'The Girl Using the Dragon Tattoo': audiences appear to like the film (David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's rape-y novel has gotten a b-grade on Cinemascore), experts and major filmmakers do too, and ticket sales for any nearly three-hour R-ranked thriller throughout the holidays happen to be solid. So far, 'Tattoo' has made over $60 million in the box office, and -- with little competition with the the following month -- should have the ability to hit $100 million locally, plus whatever millions more the film grabs overseas. But! In certain quarters, 'The Girl Using the Dragon Tattoo' has been checked out just like a disappointment. Not in in the offices of The new sony, though, where plans are full-steam ahead around the next entry in Larsson's Millenium trilogy, 'The Girl Who Performed With Fire.' "['Dragon Tattoo'] still does strong business and absolutely nothing has transformed regarding growth and development of the following book," an agent for The new sony told EW. "Development continues." Author Steve Zaillian continues to be focusing on the script for 'Fire.' Not sure yet on whether Fincher will return (he's been coy about future 'Dragon Tattoo' participation), but stars Difficulties and Rooney Mara are contracted for that second and third films, whenever they happen. [via EW] [Photo: The new sony] RELATED: 'Dragon Tattoo' star blasts early movie The Very Best Movies of 2011 The Very Best Movies of 201150. 'Breaking Beginning཭. 'Transformers: Dark from the Moonཬ. 'The Tripཫ. 'Warriorཪ. 'Cave of Forgotten Dreamsཀྵ. 'The Iron Ladyཨ. 'We Purchased a Zooཧ. 'Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocolས. 'Horrible Bossesཥ. 'Contagionཤ. 'Winnie the Poohལ. 'Win Winཡ. 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spyར. 'Hannaའ. 'Extremely Noisy and extremely Closeཟ. 'The Interruptersཞ. 'Crazy, Stupid, Loveཝ. 'The Guardཛྷ. 'Captain America: The Very First Avengerཛ. 'The Ides of Marchཚ. 'Beginnersཙ. 'Martha Marcy May Marleneམ. 'A Harmful Methodབྷ. 'The Adventures of Tintinབ. 'Bill Cunningham NYཕ. 'We Have to Discuss Kevinཔ. 'Young Adultན. 'My Week With Marilynདྷ. 'Margin Callད. 'X-Males: Top Classཐ. 'Attack the Blockཏ. 'Shameཎ. 'Super 8ཌྷ. 'Melancholiaཌ. 'The Muppetsཋ. 'Rise from the Planet from the Apesཊ. 'Tree of Existenceཉ. 'Rango཈. 'The Helpཇ. 'Moneyballཆ. ཮/50Ə. 'DriveƎ. 'The Girl Using the Dragon Tattooƍ. 'Harry Potter and also the Deathly Hallows, Part IIƌ. 'Midnight in ParisƋ. 'BridesmaidsƊ. 'The DescendantsƉ. 'War Equineƈ. 'The ArtistƇ. 'Hugo' See All Moviefone Art galleries » Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook