The Gross Liam Neeson’s dances-around-wolves thriller set in the Alaskan wilderness notched first place this weekend in theaters. Underworld Awakening, with Kate Beckinsale reprising her kickass role as vampire huntress Selene, slipped to second. And Red Tails continues to show strength in theaters,...

Chemicals and reaction The Chemical Brothers performed a triumphal concert one night at last year’s Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. Director Adam Smith was there to commit a movie. The result is what some critics have suggested is one of the best concert films ever made. Don’t Think (screening in...

Strangeness in Seattle The trailers have been trickling out since late October, and the word has been building on YouTube, Facebook and IMDb about Chronicle, Josh Trank’s much-anticipated horror film about three Seattle high-school students who acquire supernatural powers — and the discovery of...

Matthew Lickona, at the San Diego Reader, surveys highlights of Day 3 of the San Diego Black Film FestivalLogo: San Diego Rea...

Hugo sets the Oscar pace Martin Scorsese’s fanciful 3-D paean to Georges Méliès and the history of filmmaking leads the field with 11 nominations. The Artist, a tribute to the movies of the silent era, follows with 10. Jonah Hill, Viola Davis, George Clooney and three (!) stars of The Help also...

The Gross Underworld Awakening and Red Tails set the pace for the weekend’s movie box office in the United States. Source: Rentrak Corporat...

The end of a great R&B song When Johnny Otis and Etta James died this week — about 48 hours apart — it ended one of the great stories of rhythm & blues. Mark Jacobson, writing in New York magazine, looks back at two stellar careers whose sounds weaved their way into music history.Photos:...

Sundance 2012: Action! For Michael O’Hehir at Salon, the most recent iterations of Sundance — under new management — has meant a leaner, more muscular festival refocused on the work of film, something he expects to see again this year. See Movies The Hollywood Reporter: Robert Redford kicks off...

Priceline Negotiator checks out After 14 years, The Priceline.com pitchman (Wlliam Shatner) has made his last deal. As the travel services company begins a rebranding, travelers everywhere are said to be in deep mourning. Below, the details of his final earthly transaction (the ad begins airing on Monday). We’re betting he finds a great deal on a room ... at the Great Beyond Hotel. YouT...

140 to the Twitterverse SPIN Magazine recently announced a bid to “reinvent the album review” as 140-character posts on Twitter, a move that’s aroused some outrage among music writers. NPR's Ann Powers and Jacob Ganz weigh in on SPIN’s move, with ideas on what could be said with a little more...

London: Hockney goes big Spanning past work in conventional media (watercolors and outdoor oils) and more adventurous creations (big-canvas oils and drawings done on an iPad), moving from expansive views of the Grand Canyon and the Hollywood Hills to studies of the Yorkshire countryside, the David...

Hollywood’s Asian whitewash Two of Japanese popular culture’s biggest exports to the United States, manga and anime, have brought that culture to a much wider audience. But when those art forms make the leap to the major motion picture, Asian American actors are strangely in short supply. Stephanie...

Bald, beautiful Barbie? A Facebook movement is on to create a "Bald Barbie" as a role model for young girls experiencing the rigors of chemotherapy or the trauma of hair loss conditions such as alopecia. Diane Mapes reports at msnbc.com Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the econo...

Brazil: Diplo on tecno brega With the World Cup coming in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, Brazil is about to blow up in a big way. The nation of 203 million people is in the midst of reinvention – some of it in a bubbling, vibrant music scene. Writing for Vanity Fair, the musicologist and...

Derring-do in World War II It’s been years in the making, but Red Tails, George Lucas’ long-planned story of the Tuskegee fighter pilots in World War II, is finally leaving the hangar. The film stars Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bryan Cranston and Ne-Yo, and was written by John Ridley (Three...

China turns off the TV The country with the most television viewers in the world – about 1.2 billion people – has officially cut broadcast of entertainment content by about two-thirds, in accordance with a government campaign meant to reduce the impact of “vulgar” reality shows and programming...

Guessing the Grammys The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 2012 Grammy Awards early last month. The actual presentation of the awards goes down early next month (Feb. 12, to be exact). To give Grammy handicappers something to do the rest of this month,...

Jesmyn Ward: The next Toni Morrison? With her second and highly personal novel (Salvage the Bones), the 34-year-old author has won the National Book Award, and the attention of a literary world more accustomed to successful authors of majority culture. The novelist talks with Keli Goff of Loop21...

And still Sharpton rises Four months after the launch of PoliticsNation on MSNBC, the Rev. Al Sharpton is helping the network solidify its progressive bona fides. In The Root, Michael E. Ross reports on how he also represents the emergence “of minority voices finally starting to achieve critical...