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A Skeptic's Guide To Surviving Awards Season

Brad Pitt won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his work in Moneyball and in Terrence Malick's Tree Of Life, in which he plays an authoritarian father. Merie Wallace/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation hide caption

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Merie Wallace/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Opinion

Pop Culture Happy Hour

A Skeptic's Guide To Surviving Awards Season

November 30, 2011 • It's awards season again, and it's about the time people start being driven nuts by the awards culture that will be with us for the next three months. If you want to get out of it alive — and maybe even better off — we've got some advice.

British Film Archive Discovers Lost Disney Short

November 29, 2011 • The short animated film Hungry Hobos created by a young Walt Disney starred a rabbit. It was one of about 26 cartoons featuring Oswald the rabbit. Hungry Hobos screened in 1928 but sat on the shelf for decades. It will be sold at auction.

Performances: Michelle Williams Teases Out The Lie Of 'My Week With Marilyn'

Michelle Williams stars in My Week With Marilyn. Laurence Cendrowicz/The Weinstein Company hide caption

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Laurence Cendrowicz/The Weinstein Company

Opinion

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Performances: Michelle Williams Teases Out The Lie Of 'My Week With Marilyn'

November 28, 2011 • A look at some of the great film performances of 2011 kicks off with Michelle Williams playing Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. Her performance is, in many ways, more honest than the film.

Controversial Film Director Ken Russell Dies

Ken Russell (1927-2011) accepts a BAFTA in 1969 for creative contribution to television. Central Press/Getty Images hide caption

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Central Press/Getty Images

Obituaries

Controversial Film Director Ken Russell Dies

November 28, 2011 • The edgy, experimental director of Tommy, Altered States and the Oscar-winning Women in Love brought a spirit of glamour and flamboyance to British cinema.

Swede Fest Attracts Hollywood Blockbuster Remakes

November 28, 2011 • There's a community of people who celebrate the films they love by attempting to recreate them using low-budget costumes, sets and special effects. The process, introduced in the movie Be Kind Rewind, is called sweding. Twice a year, these folks come together in Fresno, Calif., to showcase their work.

Praise Puts 'Tyrannosaur' Filmmaker In The Spotlight

November 27, 2011 • Writer-director Paddy Considine's debut film, Tyrannosaur, is a favorite of critics this year. It's generating Oscar buzz and has earned Sundance Festival awards for Considine's directing and the film's lead actors. the film tackles dark themes like death and spousal abuse, but a message of hope manages to shine through. Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Rachel Martin talks to Paddy Considine about writing and directing the film, which is in theaters now.

Holiday Treats From Hollywood

November 24, 2011 • NPR's Bob Mondello offers a selective preview of Hollywood's brightly wrapped holiday baubles. On tap: two films from Steven Spielberg, Ralph Finnes' directing debut and others.

'House Of Pleasures': A Lush Portrait Of A Bordello

Bonello's film portrays life in a Paris brothel, defined by the distress and hopelessness of the women who work there. IFC Films hide caption

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IFC Films

Review

Culture

'House Of Pleasures': A Lush Portrait Of A Bordello

November 24, 2011 • It isn't what you might think; the sensual pleasures in this far-from-erotic film have to do with the opulence of costume and upholstery, and the intoxications of opium and champagne. Bertrand Bonello's drama is a decadent portrait of the end of an era — and of its most beautiful victims.

Nightmares On The Set: 'Prince and The Show Girl'

November 24, 2011 • In 1956, two icons — Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier — got together in London to make a movie, The Prince and the Showgirl. It was a comedy about the lonely Prince Regent of Carpathia, who meets a flirty American showgirl. The film was a royal flop. Now a film, My Week With Marilyn, recounts the miserable time had by all on the set. It's the story of one week during the film shoot, with behind-the-scenes clashes, misaligned acting styles, and the pursuit of personal ambitions. Michelle Williams plays Monroe and Kenneth Branagh plays Olivier.

'Hugo:' A Dazzling 3-D Display Of Movie Magic

Orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield and his vivacious new friend Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) marvel at the magic of the motion picture in Hugo. Jaap Buitendijk/Paramount Pictures hide caption

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Jaap Buitendijk/Paramount Pictures

Review

Culture

'Hugo:' A Dazzling 3-D Display Of Movie Magic

Fresh Air

November 23, 2011 • A young orphan stumbles on a mystery while living in a Paris train station.

The Muppet Fans Who Made 'The Muppets' Movie

Jason Segel (left) and Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) try to reunite the original Muppets in the new family comedy The Muppets. Disney hide caption

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Disney

Movie Interviews

The Muppet Fans Who Made 'The Muppets' Movie

Fresh Air

November 23, 2011 • The filmmakers behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall have teamed up to create a new Muppet movie. "We set out to make a Muppet movie that harkened back to the late-'70s [and] early-'80s Muppets that we grew up with," says Jason Segel.

In Glorious Black And White, An 'Artist' Falls Silent

A silent-era superstar when we meet him, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) struggles to keep up after Hollywood falls in love with sound. The Weinstein Co. hide caption

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The Weinstein Co.

Review

Culture

In Glorious Black And White, An 'Artist' Falls Silent

November 22, 2011 • In 1927 Hollywood, a silent-film icon (Jean Dujardin) is about to face a challenge with the arrival of talkies — while a young extra (Berenice Bejo) stands on the verge of stardom. (Recommended)

A Prince And A Showgirl, On Location And At Odds

A Yankee At Court: In My Week with Marilyn, Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) is on location in England with her then-husband, the celebrated playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), to film The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier. Laurence Cendrowicz/The Weinstein Co. hide caption

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Laurence Cendrowicz/The Weinstein Co.

Review

Culture

A Prince And A Showgirl, On Location And At Odds

November 22, 2011 • Michelle Williams tackles screen icon Marilyn Monroe in a movie about moviemaking — she's filming a comedy with Laurence Olivier, and it's not going well.

'Dangerous Method': Shocking Therapy For A Hysteric

'Dangerous' minds? Psychoanalyst Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) applies the talking cure to Sabina (Keira Knightley) a young woman diagnosed with what was then called hysteria. Sony Pictures Classics hide caption

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Sony Pictures Classics

Review

Culture

'Dangerous Method': Shocking Therapy For A Hysteric

November 22, 2011 • In the early 20th century, Carl Jung uses the techniques of Sigmund Freud — and a few of his own — to treat a "hysterical" patient. Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen star.

'The Muppets': Felt Favorites, Still Merrily Pretending

Who, Moi? With a telethon planned to help save the theater, Kermit tries to convince Miss Piggy to give up her Paris fashion-editor job and return to the stage. Scott Garfield/Disney hide caption

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Scott Garfield/Disney

Review

Culture

'The Muppets': Felt Favorites, Still Merrily Pretending

November 22, 2011 • Two small-town Muppet fans (Jason Segel and Amy Adams) and their Muppet companion Walter set out to foil a greedy oilman who plans to raze the Muppet Theater in his quest for black gold. (Recommended)