In case you missed it in theatres (and chances are you did), the sci-fi thriller In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, comes to Blu-Ray and DVD* today.

The first thing you might notice about In Time is how good-looking it is. Of course, being an Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Lord of War) joint, the film is stylish and immaculate, but that’s not what I mean. I am referring to the film’s entire cast being comprised of gorgeous young actors. With the exception of two young children, every character in the film is 25 years old.

No matter how many years they have behind them, everyone from grandmothers to mob heavies are played by actors in their mid-twenties to early-thirties. Combine that with Hollywood’s natural trend towards beauty, and the effect creates what can only be described as a “model” future.

You see, in In Time‘s vision of the future, genetics have been altered to give everyone’s life a predetermined length. At 25 years old, bodies stop aging but start counting down. Everyone gets a year, but time can be earned, traded, gambled, or stolen. It is, in fact, the only currency humanity has left.

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The experts were wrong again. Last weekend’s huge success of Paramount’s Paranormal Activity 3 lead everyone to believe that the film would have continued success on the weekend leading up to Halloween. Turns out, kids who love Shrek and folks that love adorable, animated kittens proved them all wrong.

That’s right, Universal’s Shrek spinoff, Puss in Boots, managed to blow Paranormal’s creepy handicam shots out of the water this weekend with a decent $34 million in the domestic box office. Don’t worry, horror fans, Activity stil stayed relevant in 2nd place as it pulled in $18.5 million, bringing its total gross up to $81 million so far.

Also opening this weekend, Justin Timberlake’s foray into the world of sci-fi with In Time made a whisper in the box office, only making $12 million, while the faux continuation of Johnny Depp’s performance in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (The Rum Diary) underwhelmed audiences and only pulled in $5 million for the weekend.

Next weekend, it’s the tale of two crowd-pleasers, as the Ben Stiller/Eddie Murphy caper flick Tower Heist hits theaters alongside A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, which both open up wide across the country. Are people already in the Christmas mindset or will Heist prove that the Ocean’s 11 formula works with lesser grade talent? We’ll find out in a week!

Craig Armstrong is one of those interesting composers that I have always really liked. He made a big splash in the late 90s with Romeo + Juliet, and has since been consistently solid in a long line of work. I have been longing for him to venture back into the action/suspense movie scoring business for a few years now. So it is with great excitement I get to review his latest release, the score for In Time.

Early in the process of composing this music Armstrong had conversations with the film’s director, Andrew Niccol, that gave direction to the music. They wanted to think of the kind of music people would be listening to in the “not to distant future”, deciding that there would be a fusion of types. This lead to the decision to merge classical, electronic and eastern influences together to give the film it’s sound.

It is very clear from the first track on where this music was inspired from, and I venture to guess that was exactly the point. The music doesn’t shy away from it’s parts, it is not trying to be subtle it is trying to be good, and for the most part I think it generally succeeds. Craig Armstrong’s style fits perfectly for a serious film score that fuses together different elements and makes something completely original from it.

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Like director Andrew Niccol’s previous film Gattaca, In Time is devoted more to its concept than showing car chases, fist-fights, shoot-outs, and your basic action staples. All those things are in the movie, but mostly they provide breaks from exploring the film’s dystopian world.

It’s a few hundred years in the future, and the worldwide currency is time. Human beings have been genetically altered to stop aging at 25, and from there, they get one year; if they don’t start working, or if they’re lucky enough to be born into a timely family, they’ll die once their clock winds down.

Everyone’s time is tracked by a digital counter in their arm, and they can exchange time by shaking arms or putting them in metal containers that store time. If you want to rob someone, it takes only a forceful arm-shake, and then plop they’re dead, and you have a few extra weeks, months, or years to live.

The wealthiest individuals can live forever, but the poor literally live day to day, and it’s nearly impossible to move up in society because the classes are physically confined to time zones. Travel between them is allowed but costly.

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I’ll admit a bit of a soft spot for writer/director Andrew Niccol. He manages to create pretty amazing worlds and tell stories with style. Plus, and this is a disclaimer, I had the pleasure to work with him a bit during the making of Gattica and enjyoed it very much, so I’m probably a bit biased.

It’s with much interest, then, that I watched the new trailer for his upcoming film In Time, which Fox and New Regency released over the weekend. It’s a futuristic science fiction thriller that takes place in a world where people who want to live past age 25 have to purchase more time.

Here’s the setup: “When Will Salas is falsely accused of murder, he must figure out a way to bring down a system where time is money – literally – enabling the wealthy to live forever while the poor, like Will, have to beg, borrow, and steal enough minutes to make it through another day.”

Check out the trailer after the break. In Time, which features Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde and Cillian Murphy, opens on October 28th.

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We don’t usually post highlights from Saturday Night Live here at the site. However, in the case of last night’s season finale with host Justin Timberlake and musical guest Lady Gaga, the footage is just too funny to pass up.

Obviously, others agree as the finale scored the best ratings for the show in seven years, Plus, we got another in the series of digital shorts with Timberlake and Andy Samberg, which started several years go with Dick in a Box, then Motherlover and now with last night’s new one: 3-Way.

The new short also features Lady Gaga and goes a long way to explain the rules, well at least the “Golden Rule”, when it comes to a threesome. Yes, that means exactly what you think it means.

Okay, enough talk. Click through to check out highlights from the show. Great job SNL.

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Many fans may be holding their collective breaths to catch a first glimpse of Jason Segel’s upcoming Muppets film. But before that, he’s getting down and dirty with Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake in Bad Teacher from Columbia Pictures.

From Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story director Jake Kasdan, the film mixes a little bit of Bad Santa and a little bit of Porky’s and throws in even more laughs. Here’s the official synopsis:

The films follows foul-mouthed, money hungry teacher Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz) who sets her sights on her colleague Amy (Lucy Punch) who is dating substitute teacher Scott (Justin Timberlake). Elizabeth, having just been dumped, decides to pursue her new colleague, who also happens to be the scion of a watch fortune.

In case you need more convincing than a cast like that, we also have the official “Red Band” trailer for you to set your eyes on after the jump. Bad Teacher is set to hit theaters on June 17th.

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So yesterday, we ran part one of this post.  In case you missed it, here were my picks:

• Waiting for Superman
• Winter’s Bone
• The Company Men
• Rabbit Hole/Blue Valentine (tie)
• The Fighter

Now, without further ado, are the rest of my picks for best movies of the year.

5. The Kids Are All Right

This quirky drama won me over in no time. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play a lesbian couple raising two children who were the product of an anonymous sperm donor. When the kids are old enough, they seek out and find their donor, who is played by Mark Ruffalo.

His character Paul is a perpetually laid-back restaurateur who drives a motorcycle and lives a bohemian lifestyle. The kids are instantly captivated, and develop a relationship with the guy, much to the chagrin of their uptight mom Nic (Bening).

I admire writer/director Lisa Cholodenko for her sensitive handling of the subject matter. A lesser director could have turned this into a slapstick farce, but ultimately the film is funny, touching, and wholly original.  It is also universally relatable.  Bening is a standout in the film for her performance.

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I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

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Let’s face it, there’s no good press coming out of the upcoming Warner Bros. live-action reboot of the classic Hannah Barbara cartoon Yogi Bear. Not even the Social Network-ing skills of Justin Timberlake or the comedic timing of Dan Aykroyd can help this film, as it was pretty much doomed from the get-go.

That was, however, until we saw a brand new alternate ending made by animator Edmund Earle and a few of his friends in their spare time. This is most definitely not made for the same audience that the film was made for, as it takes it’s cues from the ending of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Earle and his cohorts want people to know that this has absolutely no association with Warner Brothers, the producers, or the talent involved in the Yogi Bear film. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome.

Check out the full video after the jump and remember, no animated bears were harmed in the filming of this ending.

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It may be taking a bit longer than someone like Blake Lively, but Mila Kunis has some rising stock in Hollywood. A few flops may have held her back, like American Psycho 2 or Max Payne, but with the tandem success of Family Guy and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Kunis is becoming quite the name in the comedy world. Now she’s teaming up with another recent comedy favorite, with his outrageous SNL popularity, Justin Timberlake.

The two are teaming up for the upcoming sex comedy Friends With Benefits about a two friends that try to master then art of “stringless sex”. Of course, things don’t go as planned, and one falls for the other. Who will it be?

The interesting part of the film is it’s R-rated nature. In the newest red band trailer, you get plenty of vulgarity from both Kunis and Timberlake. And yes, ladies, Justin even sings a Semi Sonic song.

Check out the NSFW red band trailer after the jump, and check out Friends with Benefits in theaters on July 22nd.

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There’s a pretty fine line to walk when it comes to remaking a classic. Sometimes the studio gets it right and stays as true to the original as possible, and sometimes we get Cedric the Entertainer’s Honeymooners. Thankfully, the live action Yogi Bear film falls under the umbrella of the former.

If the film is nothing else, it deserves an award for voice directing. Both Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake lend their voices for the film, and you really couldn’t tell unless you were told, which is exactly how it should be.

Joining the cast is Tom Cavanagh as Ranger Smith, Anna Faris, and after an astounding audition with a live bear, T.J Miller was worked into the script as Ranger Jones.

The trailer looks like it could do the franchise justice, or at the very least, do better than the upcoming Smurfs film. And yes, the film will be in 3D, as if there was any doubt.

Check out the trailer after the jump and catch Yogi Bear in theaters and in 3D on December 17.

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