Originally slated for a November 15 release, the adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s tell-all autobiography stars DiCaprio as Belfort, a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 20 months in prison for refusing to cooperate in a massive 1990s securities fraud case that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world, including mob infiltration. Joining DiCaprio in the film is the aforementioned McConaughey along with Jonah Hill, Kyle Chandler, Margot Robbie, Jon Favreau, Rob Reiner, Jean Dujardin, PJ Byrne and Kenneth Choi.

The switch to a December 25 release, however, pits Wolf of Wall Street opposite a massive crop of Christmas Day films including 47 Ronin, August: Osage County, Believe, Grudge Match, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and the limited releases of Labor Day and The Invisible Woman. There is no telling just yet if Wolf too will get a limited release and expand later in January, but it is expected Paramount’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit starring Chris Pine will move from Christmas Day to January 17, though that hasn’t yet been made official.

I reached out to the MPAA and confirmed this was the film directed by Russell and the rating lists a Nailed Partners, LLC production company as the distributor an online search was rather unsuccessful and the MPAA wasn’t able to supply me with any more information.

Of course, Russell has been on a hot streak as of late with The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook and has the hotly anticipated American Hustle coming out on December 13. It would only make sense for someone with the rights to the now five-year-old film to try and recoup some costs from the troubled production.

As for the rest of the bulletin, we have ratings for Ben Stiller‘s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Hayao Miyazaki‘s The Wind Rises, and Chavez from Diego Luna.

Check out the complete bulletin below.

12-12-12

Rated R For language.

Cesar Chavez

Rated PG-13 For some violence and language.

Release Date: April 4, 2014

The Christian Licorice Store

Rated R For some sexuality/nudity.

NOTE: RE-RATE. PREVIOUS “GP” RATING, BULLETIN NO. 135 (6/3/71), VOIDED.

Date and Switch

Rated R For strong sexual content including crude dialogue, pervasive language, and drug and alcohol use – all involving teens.

Gabrielle

Rated R For some sexuality.

The German Doctor

Rated PG-13 For thematic material and brief nudity.

Haunt

Rated R For some horror violence, disturbing images, and brief drug use.

Justice League: War

Rated PG-13 For sequences of violence and action, and some language.

A Many Splintered Thing

Rated R For language and sexual content.

Nailed

Rated PG-13 For sexual contact and language.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Rated PG For some crude comments, language, and action violence.

Release Date: December 25, 2013

The Wind Rises

Rated PG-13 For some disturbing images and smoking.

Release Date: February 21, 2014

I’ve added everything I could think of and while I’m sure I missed a few, please forgive me and hopefully you’ll find something that appeals to your taste on the list.

I’ve included some of my own thoughts, information on the films, the book synopsis, trailers where available and a link to purchase any of the books at Amazon.com.

If you have seen No Country for Old Men or read the book then you should be fine reading the entire interview as Brolin and I actually had a nice chat considering he was late and I was only given about 13 minutes, two minutes fewer than I was allotted dammit.

Before going in I scoured the Net for everything he had already talked about so as to cut the fat and hopefully bring a little something new to the table. Of course I had to talk to him briefly about his side venture MarketProbability.com and the fact that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez helped him make his audition tape during the filming of Planet Terror. Other than that I think it was a somewhat fresh chat with him, and the best part was he didn’t beat around the bush. He was straight-forward and I hope you enjoy it.

What prompted the Market Probability site? You weren’t interested in acting at the time…?

JB: No, no, no… I’ve always had my hand in several different jars. We also have a real estate business and we have our trading business, Market Probability… Market Probability came out of my partner and I just trading, real time trading. We were doing very well and we were coming up with different indicators beyond what trade station was providing and those indicators started to work pretty well and we realized there was no real way you can win in the market without having some kind of mathematical edge based on the history of the market and what it has done compared to now and all this kind of shit. So, I don’t know man, I liked it, we got into and we were making money, a lot more money than the pros that were telling us not to do certain things.

It is interesting, because the media always speculates on why an actor isn’t acting… but Paul Haggis even said that the reason you weren’t acting wasn’t because you weren’t being offered roles, it’s because you are picky. Is that the case? Were they lesser roles that you were being offered?

JB: It’s not lesser roles; it’s just that roles, for me, I respond to. I can respond to a role and look at the filmmaker and just because it’s a great filmmaker doesn’t mean it is going to be a great movie. A lot of great filmmakers make bad movies and a lot of great actors have parts that you go, “Wow, I can’t believe that they did that,” or, “Why did it turn out like that?” Including myself.

So, for me, I like the experience, I like the process. I like to research, working with people and the collaborative effort. I want to make sure I am working with people that I trust and like and will have a good time with. The Coens and I and Javier especially had such a good time making this movie.

People, obviously because of the nature of the film, go, “What was it like man? Were you in character the whole time?” No, the only time I was ever in character was when I was working. Otherwise I was nailing Javier’s shoes to the floor in his trailer or whatever I could do to make it fun.

I read Javier got his hair cut and came up to you and said, “I’m not gonna…

JB: …not gonna get laid for three months.” Yeah, he and I were out at a bar when that happened. “What do you think of my hair, it looks stupid?” I go, “It doesn’t look that bad.”

“Oh bullshit, I’m not going to get laid for three months man, this is awful. Fucking hate the Coens.” [laughing]

It seems like the Coens are just no nonsense kind of guys, but then I see the “Esquire” write up about you called “The Casting Mistake of the Year” and realize there is an obvious lighter side.

JB: Yeah, I was a part of that.

That was classic, and then I saw where you bullshit some reporter about Goonies 2 and said Meryl Streep was in the cast. Is this just you dealing with the boredom and how all these publicity tours get old?

JB: [Laughing] Of course it gets old, it gets too narcissistic. Taking yourself too seriously as an actor, I mean obviously there’s a craft, but when we do the work that’s when we focus on the work. You open and you listen, that’s the craft of it and you have an imagination, but when you are talking about it all the time it kind of demeans the whole process. What is it like? What is your process?

Yeah, and having to give the same answer over and over again…

JB: Well, it’s not the same answer, because you try to be fresh, but half the questions I am getting never even crossed my mind. You know? Do you feel there is a connection between Moss and… I guess… If you want there to be.

What do you think Cormac meant when he wrote the book? I don’t think he meant anything. I think he thought of a great story and then kind of riffed on it.

So all the metaphors and stuff like that come after, in order to fulfill an answer.

UPDATE: A representative from Warner Home Video replied to my earlier email regarding the mention of an extended version of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone in the MPAA release bulletin. I asked whether they had any additional information such as a release date, whether it will be both DVD and Blu-ray and if there are any plans for releasing extended versions of the other Potter films and the reply didn’t give much, but it at least should let you all know something is brewing:

Although we’ve not announced [it yet], all Harry Potter films are being planned to get special upcoming releases!

The earlier version of the bulletin follows…

You will notice in this release a mention of an extended version of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone. The MPAA bulletin listed Warner Home Video as the distributor and I have an email out to Warner in hopes of obtaining any additional information, but as of right now all I have is the below rating.

Looking to repeat at #1 is The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and after setting a November opening weekend record at $158 million last weekend it only stands to reason it would have a significant drop in its second weekend, but even still, while Laremy is predicting a 59% drop, that still means $63.3 million at the box office. Will you dare go higher or perhaps lower? The first film dropped 61.6%, but that was a March opener. Looking at another popular franchise title in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, which opened last November to $141 million, it dropped 69.1%. With Catching Fire‘s “A” CinemaScore it should have good word of mouth, but it also has a little bit of competition.

Expanding from only one successful theater last weekend, Disney’s Frozen expands into 3,742 theaters this weekend and while the reviews have been largely positive, the marketing has been severely hit and miss. Two years ago Disney released Tangled on the same weekend to the tune of $48.7 million where its competition was the second weekend for another major franchise you may have heard of, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Last year the studio released Wreck-It Ralph on the first weekend in November and without any competition it scored $49 million. Laremy’s confidence in Frozen, however, isn’t that bullish.

I can only assume it’s due to the marketing he believes Frozen will secure only $29.9 million. According to Fandango, however, Frozen is their top advance ticket-seller among animated original films (non-sequels), outselling Pixar’s Brave, the previous record-holder, at the same point in the sales cycle on Fandango. Reader predictions on this one could be interesting and if I could add a little fuel to the fire, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one land over $50 million.

Moving down the line we come to the latest Jason Statham actioner, Homefront. This time Statham is taking on James Franco as Gator Bodine and while I quite liked it (read my review here), the RottenTomatoes rating is a mere 32%. Laremy predicts the film will score $9 million from 2,572 theaters. I can’t tell if that’s good or not, but I do know I’d rather see more Statham actioners like this one rather than most of the so-called action films Hollywood is churning out these days.

Finally, it was a toss-up as to whether we went with Black Nativity, Oldboy or Philomena for our fourth film in the Box Office Challenge this weekend and I thought Oldboy, which FilmDistrict is opening in only 583 theaters, would be the more interesting choice.

Laremy doesn’t expect Lee’s latest, which is currently sporting a 46% at RottenTomatoes, to even crack the top ten, predicting a $1.7 million finish for the remake of the much-loved Korean original. Do you see it doing any better?

With that, I’ll step aside and leave the rest of the predicting to you. I’m sure you’ll all have Catching Fire at #1, but how big a drop will you predict and how high (or low) will you go on Frozen? Closer to Laremy’s sub-$30 million number or a $40+ million number closer to the previous results of Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph?

I have added the brand new theatrical trailer directly below along with seven additional screen captures, but if you want to check out all the new images I captured from the trailer our gallery is now up to 40 pictures and can be viewed right here.

Alice in Wonderland stars Mia Wasikowska as Alice and she is joined by Johnny Depp, Matt Lucas, Michael Sheen, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Eleanor Tomlinson, Christopher Lee and Stephen Fry. The film hits theaters on March 5, 2010.

Of the films on his list, Diamonds are Forever and Die Another Day are spot on. The only real redeeming factor in Diamonds is Lana Wood as Plenty O’Toole and I will admit to liking Rick Yune‘s face scarred with diamonds in Die Another Day, but otherwise it is a disaster.

I will say Moonraker is probably the closest of his remaining three films to making my list of five worst as it is certainly absurd, but it’s a little fun as a result of said absurdity. But I can’t fall in line with License to Kill (I love how nasty it is with the exploding body in the pressure chamber and the gnarly death of Benicio del Toro) or Quantum of Solace (a film with a not-so-great plot and villain, but strong action in my opinion).

Certainly A View to a Kill would be among my five worst as Roger Moore (my least favorite of the six actors to play Bond) was simply too old and the film itself lacks any and all intrigue. I would then probably add Live and Let Die, Moore’s first outing as Bond and a voodoo angle I never really got down with. I would probably throw For Your Eyes Only in there as well, but the opening holds a special place in history for me as Bond dropping Blofeld into the smokestack in the beginning is the first image of James Bond I remember from my childhood.

Finally, of the Sean Connery entries, on top of Diamonds are Forever, Thunderball is one I really don’t like either from the jet pack in the beginning to the tedious underwater fight in the end.

Runners up would probably include Brosnan’s The World is Not Enough and while many like to claim George Lazenby‘s On Her Majestyâ€s Secret Service is one of their favs, I personally don’t think much of it.

In the favorite department, I honestly believe Timothy Dalton‘s The Living Daylights is my favorite Bond film. Connery’s debut trio of Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger are also musts and I really enjoy Brosnan’s Tomorrow Never Dies.

My truest guilty pleasure in the franchise is The Man with the Golden Gun in which Christopher Lee‘s turn as Scaramanga I find to be a lot of fun and I love Hervé Villechaize as Nick Nack.

I tend to go back-and-forth with my thoughts on Casino Royale and I still don’t know what I make of Daniel Craig‘s time as Bond. All three of his films I find entertaining and I’m excited he is signed to do two more after Skyfall (read my review), which will give him a worthy five films and I suspect he’ll hang it up then.

Before heading into Skyfall I watched both Casino and Quantum again and was happy to see Casino played better after a year or so since last seeing it than I remembered. I have a problem with the length of that film and it’s tough for me to be convinced Bond would so easily fall for Vesper and even go so far as to resign from MI6 and in an email no less. The Bond franchise, however, requires you to overlook little problem spots such as that or you’re going to probably have a hard time with all of them.

Everything said, here’s my quick list of favorites and least favorites, both in alphabetical order. I’d love to read what your’s are so let me hear them in the comments below.

Favorites

• Dr. No
• From Russia with Love
• Goldfinger
• The Living Daylights
• Tomorrow Never Dies

Least Favorites

• Diamonds are Forever
• Die Another Day
• Live and Let Die
• Thunderball
• A View to a Kill

Caramel was considered unique because it didn’t focus on a war-ravaged Beirut, but rather a typical city filled with normal people dealing with universal issues. Some critics went so far as to dub Labaki, the Lebanese Nia Vardalos.

Labaki’s new film Where Do We Go Now? tackles more serious subject matter. It tells the story of a remote, isolated unnamed Lebanese village inhabited by both Muslims and Christians. The village is surrounded by land mines and is only reachable by a small bridge. As civil strife breaks out in the country, the two sides suddenly find themselves engulfed in turmoil despite having lived for years in relative peace.

The film is painted as a fantasy and uses musical numbers and humor throughout, despite the dark subject matter. The film was a surprise winner at the Toronto Film Festival last September when it beat out such highly regarded films as Moneyball, The Artist and The Descendants for the coveted Cadillac People’s Choice Award, which is voted on by festival attendees.

I was fortunate to interview Labaki and Ashgar Farhadi, director of A Separation, in the same week recently. Fortunate as I not only love both films, but because both films paint a more complex picture of the Middle East than we are used to seeing in the media. Characters with universal dreams, goals, problems and lifestyles. Something I think is incredibly refreshing to see.

Below is my interview with Labaki, which occurred over the phone as is evident from my first question. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you seek out Where Do We Go Now? as it just might be one of the year’s Foreign Language Oscar nominees and will likely hit theaters soon after that…

How’s Beirut today?

Nadine Labaki (NL): It’s great.

Has Where Do We Go Now? been released over there?

NL: Yes, yes. It has come out here.

How is is doing?

NL: It is doing wonderful. It is setting box office records in fact.

Did your last film Caramel also do well in Lebanon?

NL: Not like this film. The reaction here has been incredible for this one. But the market here is not big. That’s why there is such a need for popular movies compared to festival fare because we need to be able to work abroad outside the Lebanese market, which is very small. For a film to make money for the investors it needs to be popular abroad.

You talk about making popular films as opposed to festival fare, could you expand on that?

NL: Well, we’ve had a lot of war here in Lebanon. Films are sometimes the only way for people to escape reality. That’s why I like to use humor in all of my films. Humor is good to have in your soul. It makes you feel like you can do something about your situation when you are able to laugh. So I don’t like to make my films so heavy. Even this one, which is much more serious than Caramel is done as a fantasy. And I still use a lot of humor throughout the film. I think serious subjects go down easier when mixed with humor.

How important it is for your films to be able to play outside the region?

NL: It’s very important. And not just because of the money. You guys get a very false image of the whole picture here and film can paint the truth of what is really happening. I think sometimes people get a very negative impression what is happening here and that is very unfortunate.

I would imagine an Academy Award nomination would be helpful in that regard. What do you think your chances are?

NL: You would know more about that than I would, I’m not over there. What do you think the chances are?

Well, the film is getting a lot good press. And of course the track record for Audience Award winners at Toronto is very good as well.

NL: That’s good to hear. I don’t hear a lot about such things in Beirut.

Some people have mentioned that you are one of the few filmmakers outside the US that makes “chick flicks”…

NL: I don’t think I make “Chick Flicks”…

Your films do come from a woman’s perspective though.

NL: Yes, yes. I am a woman. I definitely have a woman’s perspective. I’m also a mother and I think because of that I feel resposible to try and make a difference. I believe everybody can make a change in the world. It’s very important to me to understand myself and my place in the world. My films help me with that and the more people see them the more I am making a statement.

Speaking of your place in the world, there has been a lot of talk recently about bringing back Sharia Law in many of the countries around Lebanon like Tunisia and Egypt. Do you worry about women getting pushed back on.

NL: Yes, I am worried about that.

What about the current situation in Syria? Will it have an effect on Lebanon?

NL: Everything in the region has an effect. But I don’t know what’s happening. I consider myself a filmmaker. I try to stay out of politics.

There has been a lot of mention that your films are not typical Middle Eastern films. Who are your influences?

NL: I think my biggest influence are the current filmmakers coming out of Iran. They have been making great films there and I am very influenced by what they are doing right now.

The only one I have ever met is Bahman Ghobadi, he directed Turtles Can Fly…

NL: Oh, that’s a film I was very influenced by. I loved that film and I loved what he did with non-actors. I work with a lot of non-actors in my films and pay attention to how other directors use peope in their films. Oh, yes. I was very influenced by that film.

So, I thought why not take a look back in time and see just how Tarantino has utilized the female tootsies for his own prurient interests, and has it ever managed to make you look at them any differently?