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Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

That noise you hear at the multiplex this holiday weekend is the gobbling of turkeys from *New Moon* to *Old Dogs*. To boost morale, mine and yours, I want to point to a genuinely inspiring movie event opening next month. It’s called *Invictus* (Latin for unconquered). Clint Eastwood directed it so you know the scaffolding of this tremendously exciting true story will be sturdy and artfully presented with humor, heart, rich characterization and a notable absence of bullshit. *Invictus* is about a newly elected black President struggling to unite citizens divided by racism. The name Obama never comes up — it couldn’t since the time is 1995 and the place is South Africa. The President is Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) who was voted into office the year before in the country’s first free election. The challenge facing Mandela is to find a way to make peace with the apartheid forces that put him in jail for three decades. Mandela figures that battle should take place on, of all things, the rugby field. A little background here:

Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

That noise you hear at the multiplex this holiday weekend is the gobbling of turkeys from *New Moon* to *Old Dogs*. To boost morale, mine and yours, I want to point to a genuinely inspiring movie event opening next month. It’s called *Invictus* (Latin for unconquered). Clint Eastwood directed it so you know the scaffolding of this tremendously exciting true story will be sturdy and artfully presented with humor, heart, rich characterization and a notable absence of bullshit. *Invictus* is about a newly elected black President struggling to unite citizens divided by racism. The name Obama never comes up — it couldn’t since the time is 1995 and the place is South Africa. The President is Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) who was voted into office the year before in the country’s first free election. The challenge facing Mandela is to find a way to make peace with the apartheid forces that put him in jail for three decades. Mandela figures that battle should take place on, of all things, the rugby field. A little background here:

It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and there’s plenty of turkeys in theaters. Thankfully, Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers is here to tell you what to see and what to definitely avoid this four-day weekend. For instance, why see 2012 or New Moon when you can instead opt for the latest adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road starring Viggo Mortensen? Why see Old Dogs starring
Robin Williams and John Travolta or the silly swordplay in Ninja Assassin when you could instead save your money and spend it on Black Friday?

There is one movie that’s out this week that Travers recommends, a winning wishbone so to speak and a movie “so crazy, it’s almost endearing,” called Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Directed by oddball auteur Werner Herzog and featuring one of the craziest, zaniest performances of Nicolas Cage’s crazy, zany career, like the film’s title suggests, Bad Lieutenant is about a police officer in the Big Easy who’s on the wrong side of the law.

The original Twilight set (under the direction of Catherine Hardwick) was “full of explosive energy and excitement” that can “get a little crazy” recalls Nikki Reed. By contrast, the New Moon set was “the most calm, relaxed, reassuring set that I’ve ever been on,” she tells Peter Travers in an outtake from his Off the Cuff interview with the actress. Click above to see Reed chat about her New Moon experience, and watch her full episode here.

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s Twilight coverage — reviews, interviews, photos and more.

OK, from the looks of things *New Moon* has no problems. Chapter 2 in *The Twilight Saga* took in a gigunda $140 million this weekend. That’s the third best weekend opening of all time, following *The Dark Knight* and *Spider-Man 3*. But here’s the thing: *New Moon* won approval from only 29 percent of the nation’s critics. So defend the movie all you want, but even Twi-hards know these film versions of Stephenie Meyer’s novels could be way better.

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s Twilight coverage — reviews, interviews, photos and more.

And look what’s happening to *Gossip Girl*, once the primo guilty pleasure on the tube. But once the class graduated from high school and dispersed all over Manhattan, the show lost its focus. Based on the book series of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar, *Gossip Girl* debuted on the CW in 2007 with 3.5 million viewers. Recent episodes have sunk below the 2 million level. OMFG!

What to do? My idea is to have the Cullen family of vampires move to the Upper East Side and shake up Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) and true love Chuck Bass, a bad boy for the time capsule as played by Ed Westwick.

What’s life like in the Twilight bubble? The Twilight Saga: New Moon star Nikki Reed opens up about being chased by paparazzi (“maybe Britney Spears was on my plane?”), her character’s back story in third film Eclipse (“We went back to the ’30s, Jack Houston played Royce, my fiance”), and whether she would have picked up Stephenie Meyer’s books back when she was 13 (“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this, but probably not … I was a really cynical child”). Oh, and one last thing: she admits she’s Team Jacob. “I’ve been through my share of Edwards,” she says.

Reed also takes a moment to clear up some misconceptions about controversial film Thirteen, where she portrayed a nasty badass teen in a picture that was described as loosely autobiographical (she also co-wrote the script). “I wasn’t sexually active, but yet I was doing interviews where I said that I was. That’s what Thirteen was: it was shocking, because we were so young and because I wrote it.” For more stunning admissions from the 21-year-old actress, watch the full episode of *Off the Cuff With Peter Travers*.

Follow all of Rolling Stone’s Twilight coverage — reviews, interviews, photos and more.

Twilight Nation will storm theaters this weekend as The Twilight Saga: New Moon finally arrives, continuing the story of Bella, Edward, the werewolves and the drama in Forks, Washington. Regardless of how Peter Travers feels about New Moon in this week’s *At the Movies*, Rolling Stone’s film critic knows he can’t stop the Twilight juggernaut from raking in the cash — the franchise is so powerful, he points out, rival studios were afraid to release movies against it.

Read our New Moon review here.

This movie “is for nine-year-old girls, and the nine-year-old girl inside of all of us,” Travers says in his New Moon review. But his nine-year-old girl is critical: he says young cast didn’t have enough time to adequately learn how to act between the first film and this sequel, so once again Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner pose while a movie goes on around them. At one point, Frost/Nixon actor Michael Sheen, playing a millennium-old vampire, appears onscreen and puts on an acting clinic, but other than that, this film is about one thing: Team Edward vs. Team Jacob.

Read our interview with New Moon director Chris Weitz.

Yes, I hated *2012*, except for Woody Harrelson and the way John Cusack keeps his tie on through every computer-generated disaster. Yes, I know Roland Emmerich’s end-of-days saga (all slogging 158 minutes of it) took in a chubby $65 million to become No. 1 over the weekend. Yes, I know *The Twilight Saga: New Moon* will open this Friday and break more records. Yes, I know stupid rules at the box office.

Do I have to be happy about it? For those of you asked — No, I’m not going to take any of this back. No, I’m not going to agree with my hate mail that says I like to “rip apart movies that are designed to be just for fun.” Not true. I totally enjoy just-for-fun movies as long as they’re made with smarts instead of cynicism (that’s you *Transformers 2*). Want examples of just-for-fun movies that worked for me this year?

Woody Harrelson has played a serial killer, a basketball hustler, a sitcom
bartender and Larry Flynt, but this week, Woody appears in his most
difficult role yet: Off the Cuff with Peter Travers. Just one week after his
Cheers co-star Ted Danson sat down in the office of Rolling
Stone’s resident movie critic, Harrelson and Travers talk about
fatherhood, the funniest actor in Hollywood, attacking the paparazzi and
Harrelson’s two new films out this week, The Messenger and
2012. Watch this week’s Off the Cuff above, and stick around after
the credits to see Harrelson perform Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel.”

True to its title, Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox is in fact fantastic, Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers says in this week’s At the Movies. Two of Hollywood’s best young directors, Anderson and Spike Jonze, have both successfully mined children’s books for their latest films this fall, with Jonze taking on Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things
Are and Anderson now offering up a stop-motion film of Roald Dahl’s tale of mischievous foxes, badgers and other animals.

Like Anderson’s Royal Tenenbaums and Life Aquatic, Fantastic Mr. Fox features a dysfunctional father — in this case a former thief (voiced by George Clooney) who plots one more caper against the three men who plan to drill the family foxhole. Just as Wild Things tested the limits of PG ratings, Anderson also respects the imagination of children and the essence of Dahl’s book by not watering down the content. Fox scored a fantastic three-and-a-half star review from Travers in our new issue, so if you’re going to the movies this weekend, see this and not that blockbuster coming out (more on that in a sec).

Good things come in small packages. I’m talking about *Precious*, a low-budget movie about an obese Harlem teenager that took in $1.8 million at just 18 theaters in four cities over the weekend. The take of $100,000 per screen is the highest ever for a limited release, especially one that Lionsgate picked up for chump change ($5.5 million). The week’s big package, *Disney’s A Christmas Carol* with Jim Carrey as an performance-capture Scrooge in 3D, opened at No. 1 with $31 million, a bah-humbug start given its $200 million production cost and the rep of Carrey whose *How the Grinch Stole Christmas* debuted to much cheerier $55.1 million nearly a decade ago.

Which brings me to the matter of marketing. I’m asking what got you to shell out for each of these movies? The reviews heavily favored *Precious*, which won recommendations from 87 percent of the nation’s critics according to rottentomatoes.com. *A Christmas Carol* garnered only 54 percent of the reviewing Scrooges.

So here are my questions:

There’s one can’t-miss film hitting theaters this weekend, and Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers can’t stop gushing about Precious in this week’s At the Movies. Film-festival darling Precious is a near perfect film, with only its clunky subtitle Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire among its flaws. If you can look past that, you’ll find a moving film that “lifts you up in ways you don’t see coming,” Travers said in his three-and-a-half star review. The film is about a 353-pound, HIV-infected, illiterate 16-year-old girl named Precious who cares for her two babies (both fathered by her dad) and lives with her abusive mother.

It sounds harrowing, but Travers insists the film is hopeful, and all but guaranteed Oscar nods for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Mo’Nique’s portrayal of the evil mother. The film also boasts two “amazing” performances by a pair of musicians: Mariah Carey completely makes up for Glitter by playing a social worker and Lenny Kravitz plays Nurse John, both of whom come to Precious’ aid. Director Lee Daniels started a production company just to take risks and make movies like this, and with Precious, Travers says Daniels has hit the jackpot.

Jane Lynch — a.k.a. acid-tongued Sue Sylvester from Glee and your favorite part of Best in Show, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and dozens more films — puts Peter Travers in his place in the new episode of Off the Cuff. Find out what originally drew her to the role (a few lines in the script about *Penthouse* and horse estrogen), her first-ever big-screen role, Taxi Killer (“the freakiest thing I ever did in my life”) and her most humiliating TV commercial (“I am every woman who has ever suffered from reflux”). Plus, watch her sing the Guatemalan love song from Virgin and come up with a new theme song for Travers’ show.

Taking in a huge $101 million on its worldwide opening, Michael Jackson’s *This Is It* — a concert film drawn exclusively from rehearsal footage — has now extended its intended two-week run in theaters through Thanksgiving. Maybe now the American audience won’t drag its ass. The $21.3 million domestic total for the weekend was enough to hit No. 1 and send the hot-hot-hot *Paranormal Activity* to second place, with $16.5 million, even on Halloween. But, please, America, your middling interest in *This Is It* almost had the late King of Pop eating the dust of the OMFG dreadful *Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds 3-D Concert Tour*.

Read Peter Travers’ review of This Is It

Taking in a huge $101 million on its worldwide opening, Michael Jackson’s *This Is It* — a concert film drawn exclusively from rehearsal footage — has now extended its intended two-week run in theaters through Thanksgiving. Maybe now the American audience won’t drag its ass. The $21.3 million domestic total for the weekend was enough to hit No. 1 and send the hot-hot-hot *Paranormal Activity* to second place, with $16.5 million, even on Halloween. But, please, America, your middling interest in *This Is It* almost had the late King of Pop eating the dust of the OMFG dreadful *Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds 3-D Concert Tour*.

Read Peter Travers’ review of This Is It