This year, Shorts International continues to promote the Academy-Award® nominated short films, which are available for screening in several cities across the country, as well as in the UK and Canada. But if you can't make a screening, they are also available on iTunes and On Demand. The shorts are original, thought provoking, funny and fresh, so don't miss them – it's quite a different experience from the predictable fare we mostly get fed at the multiplexes. For more information, and to join the spirit of Oscar® voting and choose your own personal favorites, visit http://www.shortshd.com/theoscarshorts/. Let's start our thoughts and musings with this year's animated. So, in alphabetical order…

This animated short was played before the start of Toy Story 3 in theaters last year, so audiences may already be familiar with it. The characters of Day and Night couldn't be more different, and at first, they each maintain their superior attitudes. Of course Night is a "darker" guy than Day, and Day is almost annoyingly chipper as they flip back and forth in a sort of "look what I can do" take on their duties . They finally arrive at the point of appreciating the important aspects they each bring to the table of passing time and nature, and form a respect and friendship. All the visions of day and night take place within the bodies (looking like little ghosts) of the characters, which is a cool touch—and the visions are clever and colorful. Rating: Three Bones

Coming in as the longest of the animated shorts (and the

When the first Scream movie came out in 1996, it completely changed the way I watched horror films. The writing was so original and so clever that it really raised my expectations for the horror genre. Sure, I was still happy watching a cheesy B-grade slasher flick, but deep down I've been yearning for something more ever since I first saw Scream.

Greetings MovieRetriever fans, Mike “Turk182” here!

I should start off by apologizing for the tardiness of our “live” blogging from this year’s Hollywood Nights 24-Hour Movie Marathon to raise money for the Children’s Leukemia Foundation of Michigan. We here at MovieRetriever are thrilled to once again be part of the Movieathon for another year. We’re joined this year by film reviewer Dane Jackson and his wife Rachel.

It may bill itself as "the biggest adventure of all time" but let's stop kidding ourselves. Countless critics, bloggers, and filmgoers alike (this one included) were right. Behind the multi-million dollar budget, the dazzling special effects, and the marketing blitz is the not-so-thinly-veiled truth – Avatar is one of the most politically charged films in years. It touches on overt imperialism, corporate greed, religious pluralism, environmental degradation, and,

With The Last Exorcism and Takers unlikely to change the movie landscape of 2010 too drastically, it's time to take a look back and examine what Hollywood learned from the Summer of 2010 before we close the books and try and put it behind us. What lessons can be taken away from this season of sequels, blockbusters, and bombs? The most obvious is that few films honestly connected

We don't need to tell you that a LOT is riding on the last four months of 2010. Why? Well, the first eight months have sucked. Except for a couple of major summer movies about toys and dreams and a few great independent ones, this year has been a brutal slog of unoriginal disasters. Those of us who cover film for a living are increasingly aware that 2010

We're more than halfway through the year, so we should have seen more than half of the nominees in all of this year's Academy Award categories, right? God I hope not. Of course, we all know that most of Oscar's favorite children are released in the final quarter of the year, but there are usually a few nominees found in films released before August 1st. Notable nominees that

With Bill Murray's excellent supporting work in the limited release Get Low (expanding to other cities soon; watch for our upcoming review and an interview with director Aaron Schneider), it got us thinking about the history of Saturday Night Live and the actors who graduated from that school of super-stardom. Who has done the most with their degree? Who has used the show as a launching platform to

The summer of 2010 is turning out not too dissimilar from the summer of 2008. I remember going into that summer and thinking that it would be all about Pixar and the bat. We knew that WALL-E and The Dark Knight would be season highlights. Flash forward two years and, arguably even more so, we are in the middle of a season that's all about Pixar and Christopher

With The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Toy Story 3 proving to be two of the biggest films of not just the season but the entire year, have we broken the curse of the threequel? Third installments in successful franchises have long been considered absolute poison creatively and commercially. For every one that works, we get a Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and Batman Forever