So the Oscars are over and with them, awards season has finally come to a close.  The Artist dominated those high-falutin' Academy Awards, but with months of stuffiness and pomp out of the way, a different academy, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films is looking to acknowledge excellence in genre films with the 38th Annual Saturn Awards.  The official list of nominations in film and television were announced today, so take a look.

Clear eyes, full hearts, headshots.  Kyle Chandler, who played the virtuous Coach Taylor on NBC's Friday Night Lights for five seasons, is the latest addition to the cast of the Untitled Osama bin Laden assassination picture from director Kathryn Bigelow.  The film, formerly known as Kill Bin Laden, follows SEAL Team 6 in an early attempt to assassinate the terrorist shortly after the September 11th attacks of 2001 up through the eventual killing in Pakistan last May.

Roadie, which will be released in theaters on January 6^th, opens with a man on his cell phone, undoubtedly using the last of his persuasive energy to keep from betraying his true pathos. Juxtaposed with the glamour of Bolex shots taken of his adventure-studded career as an accessory to rock-star life, the lead character of the film^, instantaneously ropes the viewer into his tragic plight.

The man responsible for bringing the character of Jimmy Testagross to life is Ron Eldard, a film and theatre veteran last seen onscreen in J.J. Abrams’ homage to Steven Spielberg, Super 8. Eldard is also known for his roles starring alongside heavyweights such as Oscar-winners Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly in House of Sand and Fog, Ewan McGregor and Josh Hartnett in Black Hawk Down, and Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Brad Pitt in Sleepers. When he’s not committed to a film or TV project, Eldard practices his craft on Broadway, with roles like Father Flynn in Doubt, and Biff in Death of a Salesman. Eldard’s roles often find him in complicated positions, gray areas that demand sympathy or reservation of judgment by the audience. It’s not hard to guess why; because the actor’s droopy-lidded, dimpled visage, and long tough-guy hair make you want to secretly hug him, have a beer with him, and hear him out. Roadie is no different.

The film, stars Jill Hennessy (TV’s Crossing Jordan) as Nikki and Bobby Cannavale (Win Win) as Randy, both of whom participate in Jimmy Testagross’ twenty-four hour adventure immediately upon his return to their hometown. Having been unceremoniously fired from his gig as Blue Oyster Cult’s roadie of over twenty years, Jimmy is a man flung into the ether, forced to quickly gather himself among the ghosts of his childhood and the illusions of adulthood. Written by Michael and Gerald Cuesta and directed by Michael Cuesta, Roadie hits a wide range of notes; from Jimmy’s relationship to his aging mother (True Blood’s Lois Smith) to his relationship with his former high school girlfriend, it all strikes a poignant, honest chord.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Ron Eldard about his work on Roadie. The extremely talented and charmingly modest actor discussed the new film, broken hearts, director Michael Cuesta, his favorite scene in the movie, and getting to work with Blue Oyster Cult.

Another year has come and gone, and what a year 2011 was for movies! We’ve had sensational sequels (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), impressive comic book adapted projects (X-Men: First Class), fascinating documentaries (Page One: Inside the New York Times), amazing animation (The Adventures of Tintin), groundbreaking 3D (Hugo), high-octane action (Drive), homerun hitting sports films (Moneyball), terrific dramas (The Descendants), hilarious comedies (Bridesmaids), blockbuster alien robots (Transformers: Dark of the Moon), movies that celebrate the art of cinema itself (The Artist), and the return of some true Hollywood legends (The Muppets).

The following is a look back at some of my favorite films of 2011. While my job as Managing Editor of IAR allows me to see almost every movie that is released, I was not able to see all of them (sorry Young Adult, and J. Edgar). The list I’ve compiled is based on the films that I did see this year and which of those are my favorites overall. I’m not necessarily saying that these are the ten best films released this year, but they are the ten I enjoyed the most.

Journeyman actor Ron Eldard has had a long and distinguished career in both films and on television, you may not recognize him by name but trust me; you would definitely know his body of work. The actor first gained attention for his role as Paramedic Ray “Shep” Shepard on the extremely popular NBC series ER, and then went on to be featured in a slew of successful films including Deep Impact, Black Hawk Down, and House of Sand and Fog. But the actor is perhaps best known for his starring role in the short-lived Steven Bochco series Blind Justice, as well as playing opposite Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, Billy Crudup, and Kevin Bacon in Barry Levinson’s Sleepers, which also co-starred acting legends Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. After a recent short stint on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the actor returned to the big screen this summer in the hugely successful J.J. Abrams directed film Super 8, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

The film takes place in the summer of 1979, in a small fictional Ohio town called Lilian. Eldard plays Louis Dainard, a single father with a drinking problem, who works in the town’s local factory. One day Louis is too drunk to go to work and the woman that takes over his shift, the wife of Deputy Jackson (Kyle Chandler), is killed as a result. Blaming himself for the accident, Louis visits Jackson at his wife’s wake to give his condolences but is instead taken into custody by the Deputy. Four months later, the deputy’s son, Joe (Joel Courtney), is helping his friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) make a low-budget zombie movie on Super 8 film and convinces Dainard’s daughter Alice (Elle Fanning), who Joe has a crush on, to act in the film. However, both Dainard and Deputy Jackson forbid their respective children from interacting together, causing a very “Romeo and Juliet” type theme. The two kids defy their single parents and eventually start to fall for each other. Things get even more complicated when the kids are shooting one night near the train tracks and witness a truck purposely derail an oncoming locomotive in order to free something that the government is transporting inside. This begins a chain of events that will force the kids to work together in order to solve the mystery of what was on the train, and save the town from a misguided military, and a frightened extra-terrestrial creature that only wants to go home.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to actor Ron Eldard about his role in Super 8, as well as his distinguished acting career. Eldard spoke candidly with me about the film, how and why he got the part, working with J.J. Abrams; his collaboration with Steven Spielberg, making an Amblin film, his emotional scene with Kyle Chandler, the film’s excellent cast of young actors, creating the alien/monster, and which one of his past projects he is most proud of.

Whole generations of kids now have grown up being inspired by the films of Steven Spielberg, with their peerless technical execution, potent emotionalism ,and faultless ability to inspire genuine awe.  Very few kids, however, grow up into adults who get to work with Spielberg himself.  Even fewer get to work with the Bearded One on a project that deliberately evokes his early work and its deeply personal resonance.  J.J. Abrams did just that with Super 8, the science fiction adventure produced by Spielberg under the old Amblin Entertainment banner.  The film, which pays homage to the tone and style of vintage Spielbergian Americana, arrived on Blu-ray and DVD last week.  IAR Managing Editor Jami Philbrick was on hand for the red carpet event at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he and other members of the press talked Super 8 with J.J. Abrams himself.

Today, from the Department of Foregone Conclusions, comes very early confirmation that Michael Giacchino will be returning to compose the score for the Star Trek sequel that has caused such hand-wringing amongst fans over the last several months.  His involvement was more or less expected as soon as JJ Abrams confirmed he would return for another round of spacefaring action, since Giacchino has scored all three of Abrams' feature films, from Mission: Impossible III through Star Trek and Super 8.  Not only that, but he also worked on the Abrams-produced television series Lost, Alias, Fringe.

The entire Jurassic Park trilogy arrives on Blu-ray tomorrow, October 25th.  In 1993, Jurassic Park was the first movie I ever saw in surround sound, and as a direct result of the sequence in which two hungry velociraptors pursue Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards through a kitchen, my youthful nightmares contained many a raptor sound effect.  More importantly, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the Michael Chrichton novel became the biggest box office success up until that point, and was an epochal moment in the development of believable computer generated visual effects.

The dinosaurs in the film, from the velicoraptors to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, represent a seamless combination of animatronics and CGI, attempted at a time whenthere was simply no precedent for such an extensive use of now ubiquitous digital effects. Originally, Spielberg thought full-body shots of dinosaurs in motion would be executed by Phil Tippett, using the Go-Motion stop motion-animation technique he created.  The team at Industrial Light and Magic, led by Dennis Muren, created the CG dinosaurs, with Tippett acting as "Dinosaur Supervisor," overseeing the animation, motions for which were created on a stop-motion rig rather than purely through key frame animation.  John Rosengrant, a puppeteer for Stan Winston Studios, had a hand in every step of the animatronic creatures' creation, and even wore a velociraptor suit onscreen during the kitchen sequence.

Muren, Tippett, and Rosengrant are three of the biggest names in contemporary movie magic.  Both Muren and Tippett worked on Star Wars, with Muren going on to serve as visual effects supervisor on films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, and Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.  Tippett founded Tippett Studios and created the creature effects for Starship Troopers and supervising visual effects on New Moon and Eclipse.  After the death of Stan Winston, Rosengrant became a partner in Legacy Effects and has continued the Winston tradition through films including Iron Man, Avatar, The Avengers, John Carter, and Real Steel.

All three visual effects veterans sat down for an exclusive, though brief chat with IAR at the press day for the Jurassic Park Blu-ray release.  The conversation that ensued focused on Jurassic Park and how the process of creating its landmark effects contrasts with contemporary post-production practices, which tend to put strain on visual effects crews right up until the last minute.

Throughout the super-secret mystery box marketing of JJ Abrams' Super 8, starting with a teaser trailer attached to Iron Man 2 well over a year prior to the film's release, the influence of early Steven Speilberg was abundantly in evidence.  The movie itself, written and directed by Abrams and produced by Spielberg, felt in some ways like a band covering a musician that influenced them.  Given the deliberate similarities between Super 8 and its Amblin Entertainment predecessors, I was half-hoping that Paramount would deliberately take a little longer to bring the film to Blu-ray and DVD, recalling the days when the gap between theatrical and home video releases was far more substantial.  Not so, as it was just announced that Super 8 is set to arrive on Blu-ray and DVD this November 22nd.

Since Star Trek successfully reinvigorated the 45 year-old brand by adding a dollop of Star Wars to the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise, longtime fans and new converts have anxiously waited for lens-flare-loving director JJ Abrams to move ahead with a sequel.  It seemed clear that Paramount Pictures was, to a certain extent, emulating the Batman Begins formula, and Abrams was following the lead of Christopher Nolan by moving on to another project and cagily opting not to publicly commit to Star Trek 2 prematurely, though it's been generally assumed that he inevitably would.  According to Vulture, the long-awaited day has finally arrived, as Abrams will officially once again boldly go where no one has gone before.