Movies Videos: Film News and Movies Videos 1084 items | updated Apr 23 2012

Melissa Leo shocked a few folks when she gave her Golden Globes acceptance speech -- and thanked her Fighter director David O. Russell for "those few hours" they spent together at the Maritime Hotel. When the audience laughed at the implication, she was quick to add, "Oh, come on! You don't know what kind of girl I am!"

So what kind of girl is Melissa Leo?

Colin Firth won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama at Sunday's Golden Globes -- which certainly give a boost to his movie, The King's Speech. Firth plays a reluctant monarch -- King George VI, who stepped up to the English throne in the wake of his brother's abdication -- undergoing speech therapy with Geoffrey Rush, so that he can address the public. His stammer was but one obstacle they overcome together.

Beyond the Gates (known as Shooting Dogs in the U.K.) tackles a real-life incident from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where a school in Kigali housed some 2,500 Tutsi refugees for a brief time before the UN abandoned them to be murdered by Hutu militias.

The Roman Catholic school, the École Technique Officelle, doubled as a base for the UN to supervise the peace between the Hutu and Tutsi, before the genocide started. As someone bearing witness to the events that take place, the well-intentioned English teacher Joe Connor, played by Hugh Dancy, becomes the conduit for the audience.

Ron Perlman plays a deserter knight in Season of the Witch who, along with Nicolas Cage, is entrusted to transport an alleged witch to her trial. Things along the way go horribly wrong, and the film becomes a tribute of sorts to Mario Bava and various Hammer horrors. But Perlman, with his sardonic wit and seen-it-all-gaze, helps ground the movie in some form of reality. Perlman talks about what attracts him to the horror/fantasy films he's done so far, and a few on the way.

In Season of the Witch, Claire Foy plays a young girl who is accused of witchcraft, and by extension, of having caused the Black Plague. She's to stand trial at an abbey, and Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman are two of her knight escorts, along with another knight (Ulrich Thomsen), an altar boy/wannabe knight (Robert Sheehan), a con man/guide (Stephen Graham), and a priest (Stephen Campbell Moore). Somehow, she nearly bests all of them -- and not because of any witchcraft. Foy talks about what it took to go head-to-head with the men in her cast.

Nicolas Cage plays a knight with a conscience in Season of the Witch -- he quits fighting the Crusades and goes AWOL because he doesn't think the point was to kill women and children. Despite having turned his back on the Church, he accepts a request to accompany a young woman accused of being a witch to an abbey, because he believes she has a right to a fair trial (something in short supply those days). But everything he believes is turned upside down on his journey, when the girl he hopes to protect (played by Claire Foy) ends up having more power than he suspects. Cage reveals why he took the role and what it took to become a knight in the 14th Century.

Like his co-star Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling has already snagged a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Blue Valentine -- could an Oscar nod be next? After an initial snag with the ratings board, the film hit theaters on the last day to qualify for awards consideration, and is already generating quite the buzz, not the least for its two lead performers, who play a couple falling in and out of love. Gosling likens it to a love autopsy.  

Michelle Williams has already snared a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her role in Blue Valentine -- a film which originally won a NC-17 rating for its truthful depiction of a marriage falling apart, only to be overtuned with a more realistic R -- and if the buzz is to be believed, she'll have an Oscar nomination next. The film takes place in two times, the past (shot on film) and the present (shot on the RED camera), which were interwoven as a narrative but shot sequentially. Williams said the hard part wasn't pretending to fall in love with Ryan Gosling -- but falling out of it.

The Coen brothers' latest film, True Grit, like the 1969 version starring John Wayne, is based on a novel by Charles Portis. This version, however, is far more faithful to its source, which is why Joel and Ethan Coen insist this film is not a remake. They also don't think of the film as a western, despite the time period, the locations, and the plot. We'll let them make their case.

Jeff Bridges, in his second outing this month, stars as the cantankerous U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn in the Coen brothers' latest film, True Grit, which, like the 1969 version starring John Wayne, is based on a novel by Charles Portis. This version, however, is more faithful to the book, with a delightful script that's rich in contraction-free locution. Bridges' character isn't an obvious choice for a western hero -- a grumpy, grungy drunk, he's first seen on the witness stand, testifying to how many men he's shot and killed, a number he can't quite keep track of. Bridges himself has better recall, and bears witness to what it took to embody the role.

About halfway through the making of Climate of Change, director Brian Hill was in Africa, talking to a guy he calls "the African equivalent of Al Gore."

Jeff Bridges reprises his role as Kevin Flynn, a man trapped in a digital world, in Tron: Legacy. He also now plays a hacking program he created called CLU 2, which is computer modeled after him, and acts as a duplicate of himself within the Tron world. Bridges talks about playing multiple roles and where he thinks the future of Tron technology will lead.

House fans might forgive Olivia Wilde of dropping out (temporarily) of the Hugh Laurie medical drama once they see her in her latest film, TRON: Legacy. A high-tech sequel (albeit nearly three decades later) of the original TRON, the film starts with the aftermath of Kevin Flynn's disappearance, as his adult son searches for him in the digital world of the Grid, with a little help from a woman warrior/program named Quorra. Wilde explains her inspiration for her new character, and what she thinks of the advancements in TRON technology.

Director David O. Russell has had a controversial past with some actors -- ahem, George Clooney -- since making Three Kings, but one of his actors from that film has stuck by him ever since. Mark Wahlberg got raves for his supporting role in Russell's I ♥ Huckabees, and as a producer on The Fighter, the actor got Russell the job as a director after Darren Aronofsky dropped out to work on Black Swan. Russell talks about his collaboration with Wahlberg and the rest of the cast.

Mark Wahlberg plays a welterweight boxer in The Fighter, a movie for which he pulls double duty as a producer. Casting and rehearsals happened out of his home, where his and Christian Bale's real-life counterparts, boxers Micky Ward and Dickie Eklund, helped and observed. Though the story is a boxing drama, Wahlberg is quick to point out this movie is about more universal themes, such as overcoming adversity, which he can relate to.

In a place near the North Pole, lots of little things are being stored -- not toys to distribute at Christmas, but seeds in case the world has a disaster and needs to start again. The Global Seed Vault, also known as the Doomsday Vault, is featured in the documentary Climate of Change, but that was no easy feat.

Christian Bale subsists on a steady diet of Method acting where he bulks up for one role only to immediately lose all the weight for the next -- from American Psycho to The Machinist, from Batman Begins to Rescue Dawn, and now, from The Dark Knight to The Fighter. Bale plays real life boxer Dickie Eklund, a former welterweight champion who lost his career to a life of drugs and crime, only to turn his life around by training his half-brother, boxer Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg). Bale talks about how it can be dangerous to play a pugilist.  

Director David O. Russell's latest film The Fighter is based on a true life story, and as a consequence, all the actors from Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, to Amy Adams found themselves face to face with their real life counterparts during their research. For Wahlberg Bale, that meant boxers Micky Ward and Dickie Eklund, and for Adams, that meant Ward's girlfriend, the spitfire Charlene, who encouraged Micky to split from his family and his own way in the ring. Adams talks breaking from type and learning to fight.

On Wednesday, Blue Valentine goes to war.

The Motion Picture of Association of America (MPAA) struck the first blow in October, when it gave the upcoming film, starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a young couple falling in and out of love, the dreaded NC-17 rating. But now Harvey Weinstein, one of the film's producers, will be making a personal plea alongside a team of lawyers this week to lodge an appeal to change the NC-17 into a R.