Compared to fellow Oscar noms Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, Rango is a black sheep. Pandas are cuddly, kittens have accessories but Rango is all gawky and gangly. The bumpy lizard hardly translates into plushee form, but that's the least of its differences. Mousehunt and Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski created this dark cartoon as if playing a game to see how many highbrow movie reference he could add to this story of a computer-animated lizard, a one-eared rabbit and a horny toad in the desert. Among them: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Chinatown, and every western.

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When Rachel McAdams loses all memory of her husband Channing Tatum after a car accident-induced head trauma and mentally reverts back to when she was in law school, the broken-hearted ex-fiance she dumped years before seizes his chance to win her back. The Vow sounds like a soap opera, but Scott Speedman makes his schmarmy scorned lover into a believable character—and even makes you pity a handsome and wealthy Chicago lawyer with fabulous hair. The Canadian actor, who got his start as a Felicity heartthrob, talks about what it's like always playing that guy when you're a supporting actor and how to prepare for a kiss with Rachel McAdams. Says Speedman, "Just get it done."

Is it harder to make a character likeable or reviled?

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By now you've surely heard the bizarre news, first reported by Deadline a few hours ago, that the 2012 Oscars will be entirely music free, at least as far as the two - yes, only two - nominees for Best Original Song are concerned. It seems sometime last night, the producers of this year's telecast decided to axe live performances by nominees Sergio Mendes ("Real in Rio" from Rio) and Bret McKenzie ("Man or Muppet?" from The Muppets). 

What the hell were they thinking? Mendes' song isn't great, but a lavish, Rio-themed performance seems tailor-made for the Oscars. And McKenzie's "Man or Muppet" is not only an instant classic, it practically begs for a live performance involving actual Muppets.

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When GOP candidate Jon Huntsman declared one of his primary objectives is "to fix this country's trust deficit" under his future administration, he may have done so on instinct and observation. Or, maybe he'd seen Inside Job. Or, maybe he'd gotten an advance copy of Safe House and decided enough is enough. An amalgam of Bourne intrigue and Training Day grit, Safe House follows Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), an undervalued and overly optimistic CIA agent whose frantic course to prove his worth takes him through the underbelly of high-level government corruption and the shores and slums of South Africa in pursuit of one bad motha—I'll shut my mouth and reveal his name later. But it's safe to say you can't trust him.

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I am the Wolf Conservation Coordinator for Defenders of Wildlife. For the last 23 years, I've been working to bring wolves back to Idaho, Yellowstone National Park, and also now the Pacific Northwest. I'm one of the members of the Canadian Wolf Reintroduction team. I went to Canada and helped capture wolves there to bring them back and help restore them in places like Idaho, which has the largest contiguous wilderness area of the lower 48 states. There's only a handful of us who do this, so we all know each other.

Wolves are a native species and they're very important ecologically. They help strengthen biodiversity, strengthen the ecosystem overall.

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Cats may rule the Internet, but dogs star in movies. According to Susan Orlean's new biography of Rin Tin Tin, the very first Academy Award for Best Actor, way back in 1929, was slated for the wildly popular German Shepherd, who had by then starred in over twenty films. At the last minute, some skittish Academy members snatched the prize from Rin Tin Tin, concerned that bestowing an acting prize to a dog would discredit the Award. Eighty-four years later, little has changed. The Academy's reputation is still suspect among many circles—Manohla Dargis, for example, declared that "the Oscars are bullshit and we [critics] hate them"—and some people still really want to give acting awards to dogs.

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Ti West's micro-budget horror films have landed the indie auteur on many critics' directors-to-watch lists. His tense thrillers House of the Devil and The Roost showed that horror films don't need expensive special effects to be scary—a smart script and clever filming tricks can go a long way. In his latest film, The Innkeepers, West explores a haunted hotel in a small New England town, and he set it in the real Yankee Pedlar hotel, where he had his own spooky experiences. Boxoffice recently chatted with West about making horror movies on the cheap, the unexplained phenomena of the Yankee Pedlar, and his bet for the next hip monster.

When did you start coming up with the idea of making a haunted hotel film?

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