What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly column that falls in love with you all over again, five nights a week. It’s also a movie news column that’s debuting a new element this week — the MNAD Mini-Review — a chance for its author to deliver even more commentary, but in short, capsule review style bursts. Look for these all throughout awards season (and perhaps beyond).
DJANGO! – We begin this evening with the hottest story of the weekend: people have seen and reacted to Django Unchained. It was a slow weekend, what can I say? Alas, there was great praise for the latest of Quentin Tarantino. But more on him later. For now, there’s Django buzz, and /Film is recapping it like a motha…
Alfred Hitchcock vs. Alfred Hitchcock – Over at LitReactor, the ever-studious Meredith Borders (of Badass Digest fame) takes a look at the differences between “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” (it’s a book, with words) and Hitchcock, the film starring Sir Anthony Hopkins.
Confessions of a Star Wars virgin – I’ve really enjoyed this recent series from Allison Keene over at Collider. She’s taken a look back at those much talked about Star Wars films with fresh eyes, which is always an interesting experiment. Beyond that, it’s simply a good read.
Super Real World – Over at Movies.com, Jeffrey Taylor discusses the prospect of trying to fit Superman’s alien powers into the gritty, realistic world that Warner Bros. seems to want to have in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. How does Kal El’s sweet arsenal of gifts fit into a world that Christopher Nolan might produce? We demand answers!
Can BitTorrent and Hollywood Be Friends? – Gizmodo asks the question as talk about how the world of Torrents could work together to with the world of moviemaking, not necessarily to stop piracy, but to find a moneymaking model that works. It reminds me of the talk around how author Tim Ferriss used BitTorrent to promote his new book. There’s something to this…
In Defense of Death Proof - Our resident Junkfoodian Scholar Brian Salisbury takes to the pages of Hollywood.com to defend yet another movie that many people (including yours truly) don’t think is very good: Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. Does the Django director’s least lovable film deserve better?
Party Girls – Here’s a trailer for Girls season two. Just in case you needed something to hate this evening. For the record, I don’t dislike this show. In fact, in a hilarious turn of events, Lena Dunham is growing on me.
Lincoln (2012)
Set against the controversial vote for the passage of the 13th Amendment and the waning days of the great American Civil War, Lincoln comes has emphatic punctuation on the long in-the-works claim that Daniel Day Lewis is the greatest actor of his (and perhaps any) generation. Immersive is his take on the 16th President, complete with all the layers of humanity — contemplative, jovial, heavy-hearted, thoughtful — that live up to the legend. Around him is a carefully assembled group of names and faces, all of whom prove that Abraham Lincoln’s story wasn’t just that of a man, but that of the men he saw as friends, as enemies and anything in between. Steven Spielberg delivers this story, based on the book “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, with a lively, reverent, albeit a bit stagey, quality that continues to echo his own sentimentality in the latter part of his career. As we see from scene to scene, it’s not always the details of the story that matter, but the meaning behind them. For a late-coming, name-dropping film that uses every frame of its 150-minute runtime to tell the story of the early days of Lincoln’s second term, this film is surprisingly spry and engrossing, thanks in large part to its leading man. But don’t discount the supporting cast — from Tommy Lee Jones’ crotchety Thaddeus Stevens to James Spader’s charming political swindler W.N. Bilbo — there’s plenty of enjoyment and enlightenment to be had. A great American story deserves a great American performance. So lets all be overwhelmed and thankful that Spielberg picked the Brit to wear the hat. – A-
Read more of my quick-hit reviews on 
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Aaron Sorkin’s Pixar Sequels – Usually we end with a video for you to watch, digest and ultimately spew them forth onto your Tumblrs and YouTubes. But tonight we’ve got something a little more old-school: words. Words of parody. Well-written parody of what it would be like if Aaron Sorkin wrote Pixar sequels, courtesy of Hypable. Here’s one particular movie that I’d totally watch:
