weirdsciencetv

Pamela McClintock The Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment action-comedy starring the actress scored No. 2 spot on Friday with $4 million-plus.

read more

David Rooney Super-heavyweight bodybuilder Kim Kold plays a man whose massive physique can't hide the emotionally stunted outsider within in Danish director Mads Matthiesen's first feature.

read more

Chuck Versus the Goodbye: It's the end of the series, and of course everyone lives happily ever after. This is Chuck you've been watching for the last five years after all.

Chuck Versus Sarah: Sarah has no memories and is on a mission to kill Chuck. We envy her on both counts.

Jonathan Handel The decision by the SAG board to allow an opposition statement – even though not required by guild rules – will allow opponents to make their case to the entire guild membership.

read more

Jethro Nededog In a twisted turn of events that challenges the spy couple's future together, the NBC series ends its run on a hopeful note.

read more

Los Angeles, CA – The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts announced the winners of its newly launched AACTA International Awards recognizing International Achievements in Film tonight by AACTA President, Geoffrey Rush, at an intimate awards Ceremony at Soho House. The Artist was awarded Best Film for producer Thomas Langmann, and Best Direction for French director Michel Hazanavicius. The film’s lead actor, Jean Dujardin, was awarded Best Actor. Meryl Streep was awarded the AACTA International Award for Best Actress for her role in The Iron Lady. The award for Best Screenplay had two joint winners after jury voting was tied in this category: the adapted screenplay from The Ides of March for George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon, and the original screenplay from Margin Call for first time writer and director J.C. Chandor.

Jay A. Fernandez , Daniel Miller The indie distributor grabs the thriller directed by "Man on Wire" filmmaker James Marsh.

read more

Lesley Goldberg The projects hail from the feature writers behind "North Country" and "Thelma & Louise."

read more

After picking up 3 comedy pilots this afternoon, ABC just gave the green light to 2 drama pilots, Americana and a Nashville-set project, both primetime soaps. The latter pickup is contingent on the project becoming a co-production between Lionsgate TV, which developed it, and ABC Studios.

Americana, from ABC Studios and studio-based Mark Gordon Co., is a soap set around a legendary fashion designer and his family and business. It was written by Michael Seitzman (North Country) who will executive produce with Mark Gordon and Mark Gordon Co.’s Nicholas Pepper. This is the third pilot order so far this season for the Gordon’s company under new development executive Pepper, along with the untitled Roland Emmerich drama and comedy White Van Man, both at ABC.

The Nashville project hails from Oscar-winning writer Callie Khouri and TV producer/documentary filmmaker. Thelma & Louise scribe Khouri wrote the project, which is set in Nashville against the backdrop of the country music world. Cutler (The September Issue) is set to direct. The two will executive produce with Nashville-based Gaylord Entertainment, which is being represented by SVP of Media and Entertainment Steve Buchanan. This marks Khouri’s return to ABC where she wrote, directed and executive produced the 2006 pilot Hollis & Rae. It is the second broadcast pilot order this season for leading cable producer Lionsgate TV, which is having its most active broadcast development season ever under new head of development Chris Selak. The company is also behind NBC’s comedy Next Caller Please.

Elizabeth Snead The Oscar-nominated star of "Moneyball" used social media to announce "A Night To Make It Right" fundraiser in New Orleans, featuring Pitt, Ellen DeGeneres, Rihanna, Sheryl Crow, Seal, Blake Lively, Sean Penn.

read more

Merle Ginsberg The AACTA International Awards gave away their first ever film awards in five categories on Friday night.

read more

Aaron Couch The cable net's contributor said Republican presidential candidates have "clearly misrepresented the president’s position" on Israel.

read more

Daniel Miller, Jay A. Fernandez The two films will split a $20,000 prize from the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, which also awarded a Commissioning Grant to "Flood" and a Lab Fellowship to "Operator."

read more

THR Staff AFRTA's Board of Directors to vote on the plan on Jan. 28 and then members of both unions would vote on proposal.

read more

Michael Mackey The actor, who's filming "Only God Forgives" in Thailand, also tells THR he's "been dreaming about making a film in Bangkok."

read more

The show delivered an emotional, somewhat bittersweet but very satisfying capper to the story of a guy who works in a Buy More and the woman who walked into his life 4 1/2 years ago. All that, and Jeffster! singing A-ha too? That's pretty great.

Chuck 5.13 "Chuck Vs. The Goodbye" Series Finale Review

Chuck season 5 and the series itself comes to a close with its ultimate thirteenth entry in tonight’s "Chuck Vs. The Goodbye," as Team Bartowski races to retrieve the final Intersect from Nicholas Quinn (Angus Macfadyen), and restore Sarah's lost memories of the last five years.  "Chuck Vs. The Goodbye" closes the series on a high note, balancing both the sweet with the bittersweet in the manner the show has come to employ so very well over the last few years.

Wow.  Thus endeth Chuck.  I don’t often have a lot to say when it comes to TV finales, and it’s been a good long while since a series I actually cared about managed to wrap things up on its own terms, but this one got to me.  I actually saw both "Chuck Vs. Sarah" and "Chuck Vs. The Goodbye” a few nights ago when NBC decided to release the screeners, and since watching I’ve likely listened to The Head and the Heart’s “Rivers and Roads” about forty times, if only to relive such wonderful sentiment that caps off five years of sweet memories.

I first started watching Chuck about midway through its second season, powering through old episodes as often as I could, though I don’t quite remember what turned me on to the series in the first place.  Mostly what I remember was the warmth, lying there on my door room bed dreaming of that wonderful world where nerdery and dead-end jobs could end up the adventure of a lifetime, provided you never lose the heart that made you yearn for them in the first place.  Even after Chuck’s second season finished, and NBC listened enough to Subway sandwich purchases to grant the series a budget-reduced season 3, it never lost that sense of childish wonderment and enthusiastic glee.  We love Chuck, because we are Chuck.  Chuck Bartowski consistently surprised everyone around him with his intelligence, his heart, and his willingness to risk anything for those he loved, and so too did Chuck as a series keep on braving insurmountable odds to come back year after year.

To be honest, I’m not even sure how I’d go about putting into words a goodbye to Chuck, let alone an in-depth response to “Chuck Vs. The Goodbye,” but I’ll do my best.

In a way, "Chuck Vs. The Goodbye" is all about bringing everyone back to the beginning.  I wish I’d had a chance to go back and watch the series again from its very first episode in time for tonight’s finale, but writing about TV can be a harsh mistress.  Instead, “The Goodbye” does most of the work for us, with Sarah’s memory erasure bringing her in line her badass 2007 self, Chuck an unremarkable layabout with a girl on his mind and no supercomputer powers to speak of, and Casey a career military man trying to eschew any emotional ties.  In that way we get to re-live Chuck all over again, discovering how Chuck’s heart and Sarah’s skill make them the perfect team, and Casey’s emotional entanglements actually made him a better agent in the end.  By going back to Chuck’s roots, we learn along with the character that after five years,  life isn’t so much about how things have changed, but why they’ve changed, and how to take those lessons into the future.

Still, Chuck wouldn’t be Chuck without it’s nostalgia.  And that’s why all of “Chuck Vs. The Goodbye’s” many, many callbacks feel like enthusiastic celebrations rather than rehashes.  Whether it’s one last epic Jeffster performance, an unceremonious reappearance from an old Fulcrum agent (Mark Pellegrino) or Chuck and Sarah re-living the most memorable of their early missions (Wienerlicious outfit alert!) in succession, everything about Chuck’s finale feels as thrilling as it does familiar.  In truth, I practically jumped out of my chair cheering once I realized that a Jeffster performance was on the way to keep Nicholas Quinn’s bomb from killing our heroes.  And if you’re not at least on the edge of tears when Chuck and Sarah once again meet on the beach to discuss their future, flashing through five years laughter and love, then your Intersect must be broken.

Really, most of the little things don’t even matter.  Chuck does re-Intersect-ize himself (and presumably keeps it) by the end of the hour, but the Intersect only serves a base role in unraveling the final threat.  In the end, it’s Sarah’s fleeting memory of Chuck’s past ingenuity that saves the day with a welcome, if surprising callback to the “Irena Demova Virus.”  Nor does the villainy of Angus Macfadyen’s four-episode turn as Nicholas Quinn really amount to anything, considering Sarah just kind of, well…shoots him.  Chuck’s climax lies in bringing together its players to do what they do best by working together; Chuck as the brains, Sarah and Casey the muscle, Morgan the plucky support, and Jeffster the soundtrack.

The climax actually reminded me a bit of similarly heartful series Futurama’s "ending" “The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings,” not merely for the operatic climax, but rather that it and Chuck were both wonderful series that never quite found their niche.  They shared a relatively generous run, all things considered, and ended on a beautifully sweet note  with just a hint of ambiguity.  Unless Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz want to out-right tell us, we’ll always cherish that fairy-tale ending of the magical kiss that may, or may not have rescued true love from the depth of Sarah’s memory.  Either way, they’ll figure it out.  We all will.

And no matter what, we’ve gotten a decent amount of closure to all our beloved characters; Morgan and Alex will move forward with their relationship, Casey will find Gertrude again, Ellie, Devon and Clara will move on to Chicago with Mama Bartowski (Linda Hamilton) in tow, and even Jeff and Lester ride off into the sunset toward the inevitable German superstardom of Jeffster.  Hell, even Subway sandwiches have a  happily ever after!

So, to Chuck I say goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.  Who knows when we’ll see another series as nerd-celebratory, or full of heart as the Buy More boy who met a girl and became a secret agent?    However Chuck goes down in history,  I can’t wait for the day when I can share it’s effortless charm and soul with a leggy blonde of my very own.

And Another Thing…

• After five long years, all the Buy More extras finally get lines!  Really, really creepy lines!

• If Chuck WEREN’T ending, I imagine Sarah hiring out Team Bartowski for missions might’ve been a new dynamic to explore in another season.

• Sheesh, are Desert Eagles really that big?

• There really wasn’t any need for Linda Hamilton to reprise her role as Mary Bartowski, but hey, a friendly famous face is a friendly famous face.

• "I'm a Casey.  I don't run, I stalk my prey."  Well, technically you're a Coburn.

• Did anyone catch any fun easter eggs I failed to mention?

• Sigh.  Goodbye, Chuck.  Aces.

What did YOU think?  Give us your best Chuck memories in the comments below!

Chuck 5.13 "Chuck Vs. The Goodbye" Series Finale Review

FRIDAY 9:30 PM, 2ND UPDATE: Sources are telling me that the No. 1 movie at the North American box office is projected as Open Road Films acquisition of Liam Neeson-starrer The Grey with $6.2M for today and $17.6M for the weekend from 3,185 locations. At No. 2 is Lionsgate’s opener One For The Money starring Katherine Heigl and based on the Janet Evanovich’s bestselling novel (which came on stronger than the disaster which Hollywood thought it would be) with $4.5M for today and $12.4M for the weekend from 2,737 runs. After that, one-week-old Underworld Awakening is #3 from Screen Gems/Sony Pictures and Red Tails #4 from LucasFilm/Fox had decent Friday holds. All the way back in 5th place is Summit Entertainment’s new actioner Man On A Ledge with Sam Worthington which  is a very weak $2.3M for today and $6.7M for the weekend from 2,998 theaters. But grosses for both One For the Money and Man On A Ledge come with asterisks because of Groupon/Living Social discounted movie ticket deals so Lionsgate/Summit don’t collect much of that money. (The exhibitors get the lions share.) And that discount prevented the Marcus Theatre chain from playing One For The Money in the midwest. Numbers will be refined later with full analysis:

1. The Grey (Open Road) NEW [3,185 Theaters] Estimated Friday $6.2M, Estimated Weekend $17.6M

2. One For the Money (Lionsgate) NEW [2,737 Theaters] Estimated Friday $4.5M, Estimated Weekend $12.4M

3. Underworld Awakening (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 2 [3,078 Theaters] Estimated Friday $3M, Estimated Weekend $9.5M, Estimated Cume $42.2M

4. Red Tails  (LucasFilm/Fox)Week 2 [2,573 Theaters] Estimated Friday $2.5M, Estimated Weekend $8.7M, Estimated Cume $32.1M)

5. Man On A Ledge (Summit) NEW [2,998 Theaters] Estimated Friday $2.3M, Estimated Weekend $6.7M

Theater Chain Won’t Play Lionsgate Film ‘One For The Money’ Lionsgate-Summit Offers Discounted Tickets For Films This Weekend

ATO Pictures has acquired all North American rights to director James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer. It stars Andrea Riseborough (Wallis Simpson in W.E.) and Clive Owen. Screenplay was written by Tom Bradby and is based on his novel. Riseborough plays a woman who’s forced to betray her beliefs and spy on members of her family to protect her son in 1993 Northern Ireland. Gillian Anderson, Aidan Gillen and Domhnall Gleeson co star. Shadow Dancer is Marsh’s third film to bow at Sundance. He also directed the documentaries Project Nim and Man On Wire. Produced by Chris Coen of Unanimous Entertainment, Shadow Dancer is also screening at the Berlin Film Festival. Exec producers are Joe Oppenheimer, Brahim Chioua, Norman Merry, Vincent Maraval, Tom Bradby and Rita Dagher. ATO head of acquisitions Sarah Lash negotiated the deal with CAA who represented the producers.