2012 has been a particularly strong year for foreign language films, with Michael Haneke’s much-praised “Amour” leading many top-ten lists and immediately finding its place as Oscar frontrunner. With only nine slots, and seventy-one official entries from around the world, … Continue …

Michael Haneke knows how to make a feel-bad movie. Over his critically acclaimed career he has created a chilly, detached, and starkly unsentimental body of work that turns Hollywood conventions back on themselves. In "Funny Games," he famously and rather … Continue …

A torture scene takes place at the outset of "Zero Dark Thirty" as audiences are first introduced to Maya, a CIA operative played by Jessica Chastain. As the scene plays out in the film -- already nominated for four Golden Globes -- an uncooperative, hungry, beaten-up detainee is eventually forced to withstand water being …

For leading ladies, a supporting role can prove an actress's range -- and validate her talents -- without requiring her to carry a movie's box-office load. The Golden Globes' list of five supporting actress nominees -- Amy Adams, Anne Hathaway, … Continue …

She says she had to muster up major courage to perform her character's most iconic song in the movie musical version of the endlessly popular stage show "Les Misérables." And, it was all done in one take -- as were a lot of the songs performed in the film. As Anne Hathaway has been doing [...]

Move over Katniss, Black Widow and Snow White -- here comes Maya. In the Golden Globe-nominated "Zero Dark Thirty," Best Actress contender Jessica Chastain plays a new kind of heroine, one that rarely raises her voice and when she does, it's a roar. But she's not some cartoon action figure, and she never throws a [...]

Who would have thought that a brutal, obscenity-laced Spaghetti Western about slavery in the antebellum South would be a strong contender in the Oscar race? Yet this morning Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" nabbed five Golden Globe nominations, including Best Dramatic Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director and two …

This is the year of "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," which received a nomination for best picture -- comedy/musical, and thoughts of retirement for our favorite nominated actors seem as distant as New Delhi. Judi Dench (78) Best actress -- comedy/musical, "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" Dench plays a widow who finds her …