1. Brussels cancels New Year's Eve fireworks.

["Traditional New Year's Eve fireworks in the center of Brussels have been canceled because the police contend there is a continuing terror threat to the Belgian capital, officials said Sunday.

The authorities have warned of an increased risk of attack over the holiday season since the police detained 14 people last week. They were suspected of a plot to break a prisoner linked to Al Qaeda out of a Belgian prison.

A judge ordered their release 24 hours later for lack of evidence, and all of the suspects have maintained their innocence. In a letter published by the newspaper La Dernière Heure, the prisoner, Nizar Trabelsi, denied the allegation that his supporters were involved in preparations for a jailbreak or a terrorist attack."] Continue Reading »

1. "The Irresistible Urge to Destroy New York Onscreen." By Sewell Chan, for The New York Times' "City Room" blog. See also: "10 Best Movie Destructions of New York City." Hattip: The Reeler. Continue Reading »

1. "Whatever It Is, Kill It." Marion Cotillard's performance as Edith Piaf in the biographical drama La Vie En Rose has drawn worldwide critical acclaim. Josh R. of Edward Copeland on Film begs to differ.

["The voice—a guttural hiss that shifts into an adenoidal, nails-on-a-chalkboard shriek when Edith loses her shit, which she frequently does—is pitched somewhere between The Lord of the Rings' Gollum and the cartoon hag in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (when she laughs she goes "heh heh heh"). The stoop-shouldered, saucer-eyed look, accompanied by a strenuous sucking in of the cheeks, which Cotillard affects for her representation of Edith in her twenties, is pure Marty Feldman circa Young Frankenstein. Again, it should be mentioned that when Feldman played Igor, his faces were intended to draw laughs—here they're done with such wormy sincerity that they suggest Hans Christian Andersen's Little Match Girl, trying to look as pathetically undernourished and bedraggled as possible, in order to maximize her profit margin soliciting change from guilt-ridden passersby."] Continue Reading »

1. "Bhutto is Buried as Pakistan Reels." By Salman Masood and Victoria Burnett of The New York Times. See also: "Benazir Bhutto, 54, Weathered Political Storm"; "Seventeen Dead in Bhutto Protests in Pakistan." Related: "Candidates Talk Up Experience After Bhutto's Death"; "Al-Qaeda's New Terror Tactic?"

["The body of Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest in her ancestral village, as violence erupted in cities across Pakistan on Friday, a day after the former prime minister was assassinated at an election campaign rally...The death of Ms. Bhutto, who had been the leader of Pakistan's largest political party, throws Pakistan's politics into chaos less than two weeks before parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8."]

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2. "Rosenbaum to Retire For Some Creative Loafing of His Own." By Hank Sartin of Time Out Chicago's blog. The veteran Chicago Reader film critic has announced that he will retire February 27, his 65th birthday. See also: "Jonathan Rosenbaum Turns a Leaf" at Green Cine Daily, which brought the story to our attention. Related: House contributor Jeremiah Kipp's interview with Rosenbaum, titled "To Understand Movies, You Have to Understand the World." Continue Reading »

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1. "MCN Top 10: The Big-Ass Chart." Movie City News turns critical consensus into an easy-to-read spreadsheet. Place your Oscar bets today! Continue Reading »

1. A very Happy Birthday to our illustrious editor-in-chief. (Look, he's blushing!) Two essays by him in celebration, both from The Criterion Collection: Man Bites Dog & Mon Oncle.

["There is mystery to Hulot, a sense that he lives mostly in his own world, occasionally adjusting the wider world to make it more livable—or at the very least, more reflective of his own eccentric desires. "] Continue Reading »