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Ever since Warner Brothers released their 30th Anniversary edition Blu-ray of Being There back in 2009, I’ve been tempted to add the disc to my home library. I can recall several occasions where I actually had the case in my hand, and at least one where I took what I would normally consider that first decisive step toward the checkout line, ready to finalize the purchase. But lingering suspicions that this film would eventually find its way into the Criterion Collection always managed to pry the item out of my fingers and back onto the shelf. A few months ago, my reluctance was vindicated by the announcement that Being There would sure enough soon bear a Cc spine number, and this past week, it finally became available to take home for the contemplation of all of us who “like to watch.”

Even for viewers who haven’t seen the film...

Alessandra Stanley discusses the presence of social causes, notably gay rights, in last night's ceremony. Citing Jared Leto's impassioned acceptance speech for "Dallas Buyers Club" and Ellen DeGeneres's playful allusions to her sexuality on stage, she writes: "Hollywood is so righteous, suddenly, about gay rights, and that’s a little puzzling because for so long, movies were part of the problem. Professional basketball has its first openly gay player, Jason Collins, but it’s still hard to think of romantic leads — male or female — who are A-list Hollywood movie stars and also openly gay." [New York Times] Critics may be unsure of DeGeneres, but audiences aren't: last night's ratings are the best since the last ceremony she hosted. [Hollywood Reporter] Why the host's emphasis on social media was a savvy move. [La Times] Ramin Setoodeh, meanwhile, thinks she's the best fit for the job since Billy Crystal. [Variety] Mark Harris declares last night's show, for better and worse,...

Just about every year, brilliant movies are utterly ignored by the Oscars. The Searchers, Groundhog Day, Breathless, King Kong, Casino Royale, Touch of Evil, Caddyshack, Mean Streets, The Big Lebowski, Shame — the Academy has a long history of overlooking comedies, action movies, horror flicks, hard-boiled genre pics, artsy foreign films, and documentaries that aren’t about World War II. This year, we’ll be taking a closer look at films that were too small, too weird, or perhaps simply too awesome for the Academy Awards. These are the Non-Nominees.

The Film: Lee Daniels’ The Butler, a film about White House...

*full disclosure: a DVD screener of this film was provided by producer Paul Tanter. **there are minor spoilers here. Director: Simon Phillips. Writers: James Crow and Simon Phillips. Cast: Nick Nevern, Kellie Shirley, Jenna Harrison, Con O'Neill, Peter Barrett, Roland Manookian, Lorraine Stanley, Mark Harris, Charlie Bond, Steven Berkoff, and Merveille Lukeba. Tagline: "Hooligan first, cop second." GBH is the latest film to come out of the United Kingdom from actor and director Simon Phillips and distributor Revolver Entertainment. The film is set during the London riots of 2011. In this setting, a love story develops between characters Damien (Nick Nevern) and Louise (Kelly Shirley). Violent events split them apart. The film offers an anti-violent message, but that message might be lost amongst all of the chaos occurring onscreen. Overall, GBH is an entertaining film with only a couple film elements hampering the film's full potential. If you did not know.

Chata Pictures have just sent over the first poster artwork for their new movie Hooligan Wars which comes from Director Paul Tanter who has previously worked on the ‘Jack’ series of movies and has a movie coming up called White Collar Hooligan. The press release which is placed below the poster tells us that the movie will be ‘blisteringly violet’ and in the vein of The Football Factory.

Hooligan Wars stars has a cast which includes Nick Nevern, Simon Phillips, Peter Barrett, Glen Murphy, Mark Harris and Lorraine Stanley. It is written and directed by Paul Tanter (White Collar Hooligan, Jack Falls) and is scheduled for a late 2012 release.

Here’s the synopsis and you can scroll down to see the artwork in full below.

A bar fight leaves up and coming footballer Andy injured and out of the game. Needing an income to support himself and his pregnant girlfriend,...

Mark Harris is a contributing editor for New York magazine and posted the tweet above yesterday, presumably in reference to a Zachary Quinto interview to appear in an upcoming issue. What to make of this?

It was less than a year ago that Quinto shut down a brief Q&A with New York mag for asking "too personal" questions. It's quite possible Harris' tweet is being disingenuous by referencing, say, Quinto being out and about in Manhattan and proud to be working on American Horror Story.

If so, that's really shoddy of Harris. But if this guy is really saying that Zachary Quinto will in fact be coming out as gay, then... well, that's sort of shoddy too. He's essentially stolen Quinto's thunder.

Update Sunday 9:00am:

A publicist for New York Magazine has issued the following release:

In this week’s New York magazine, on newsstands Monday October 17 and online now,...

The American Film Institute (AFI) just announced their official selections for the 2009 AFI Awards. Unlike some end of the year lists that only focus on film, AFI selects 10 outstanding TV Shows to go along with their 10 films. Also, unlike some end of the year lists that only focus on the “serious” films, credit most be given to AFI for making The Hangover one of their 10 outstanding films of 2009. I think we can all agree it was a great movie that everyone enjoyed.

While you are about to overwhelmed by a ton of different groups releasing what they think are the best movies of 2009, if you have limited time and are a movie fan, my recommendation is to seek out which films are on everyone’s list. After all, if every group of cranky critics says a movie is a top ten film, it probably is.

AFI’s top films are The Hurt Locker,...