Monotonous meals and an unattractive environment can make you feel sick and tired, do they not? Oftentimes, one could hear complaints about having a bad day and the need to find a suitable place to relax. Indeed, a hard day at work can make one feel awful] and hateful. the everyday stress in the world’s never sleeping city could make one feel weak and uneasy. and, almost everybody knows what stress can do. It can cause unwanted illness resulting to lesser productivity and more expenses. Literally, stress cannot make your life any better. why deprive yourself of the world’s best solution for stress, food? why not try to look for the best places available to make you feel good and relaxed, new environments that will make you feel new? or, you can just try and visit the one of the best NYC restaurants, Daniel, and do both.

One could never go wrong in going to Daniel, one of the best NYC restaurants available. Daniel offers only the best dishes in the planet. these tasteful dishes can make anyone forget their worldly problems. not only that, known for its elegant and very attracting Venetian design, Daniel can make anyone feel new and fresh. With the very famous Adam Tihany as its designer, Daniel offers its customers a dining room full with strategically placed brilliant lights and decors making them marvel at the restaurant’s beauty while enjoying their delightful meal.

This restaurant named Daniel is named after its famous owner, Daniel Boulud. Boulud opened Daniel in 1993 at the upper side of Manhattan. Daniel Boulud is a multi-awarded French chef who received numerous awards for his creativity and dedication in the restaurant industry. No chef can declare that he knows more than Boulud with respect to French cuisine. this type of cuisine is very much perfected by Daniel Boulud. he knows hundreds of recipes involving French cuisine, including the famous Foie Gras Pate which is known all around the globe for its compatibility with wine.

Daniel also offers the best selection of wines available. Its wine collection is unmatched by ordinary restaurants. Offering only the best wines in the world, Daniel is not only included in the list of best NYC restaurants, it is also included in the list of the best leading wine restaurants in New York. No restaurant can ever achieve what Daniel accomplished. It has received numerous awards and citations with the best restaurant reviewing websites in the world, one of which is Gayot.com. in Gayot.com, a restaurant is reviewed by a select group of qualified chefs, critique and restaurateurs. then they will give a particular restaurant in review a score from 1 to 20, the latter being the highest. here, a higher score means better. while most restaurants average only 12 or 13, Daniel averaged a mind-boggling 19 out of a possible score of 20. Indeed, even the world’s most meticulous critic in the restaurant industry give only high praises to this well-deserving restaurant. now that you know this, you know where to go after a hard day’s work. To relax yourself, your friends and your family, there is no question. Daniel restaurant in Manhattan, New York is the place to be when looking for the best NYC Restaurant.

What Are The Best NYC Restaurants?

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Whether it’s your first time to New York or your fiftieth, you’ll never tire of what this city has to offer There’s always a new show to see or a new sight to explore. in fact, there is so much to see and do in this city, that it is literally impossible to see everything. You might just have to come back again – at least you will want to, as NYC is a city that will capture and mesmerise you from the moment you land until the moment you depart.

Now onto the important stuff – booking your hotel. if you’re not lucky enough to have family or friends in NYC you can bunk in with, you’ll have to find accommodation. New York hotels are the most popular accommodation in the city. As one of the most visited cities in the world, New York hotels are always in high demand and can be very expensive, especially if you choose to stay in the city centre.

New York hotels in Manhattan

Manhattan is the heart of NYC. It is actually an island on the Hudson River and this is where you’ll find all the city’s top sights, shopping, theatres, nightlife – pretty much everything that New York has to offer can be found in Manhattan.

Manhattan is huge and has several districts and the elongated island is divided into three main ones – Uptown, Downtown and Midtown.

As the name suggests Midtown occupies the middle stretch of the island and is divided up further into: the Theatre District (home of Broadway, Times Square, Hell’s Kitchen, Madison Square Gardens), Midtown East (location of Empire State Building and Grand Central Station), and the Chelsea Garment District and Gramercy.

Uptown Manhattan is considered anything north of 59th Street. (To go Uptown in NY, is to go north). Upper Manhattan is made up of the Upper East side, the Upper West side, Harlem, Roosevelt Island and Central Park.

Downtown Manhattan is considered to be anything located south of 14th Street. (If you are going Downtown in NY, remember you are going south). Downtown Manhattan is probably one of the most popular hotel locations along with Midtown Manhattan. It is made up of the districts: Lower Manhattan – the very southern tip of Manhattan. this district is home to Wall Street, Ground Zero, South Street Seaport and Battery Park where you can catch a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Just north of Lower Manhattan you’ll find the trendy Tribeca District and the bustling Chinatown district. Soho can be found north of Canal Street and is a fantastic shopping destination. Greenwich Village, East Village and the Lower East side are more residential but also popular for their bars, clubs and restaurants.

No matter where you stay in Manhattan, you won’t be far from a subway station, so you’ll have no hassle getting around. However staying in this central location comes at a price. Manhattan hotels tend to have the most expensive hotel rooms you’re likely to come across. Hotel rooms are really small (especially around Times Square) compared to other cities, buy hey, you are in NYC, how much time will you really spend in your hotel room?

New York hotels outside Manhattan

If you do want to stretch your Dollar a bit further, then there are other options. Consider staying in a New York hotel outside of Manhattan. Four other boroughs namely; Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island together with Manhattan make up New York City and have excellent transport connections to Manhattan.

Brooklyn is one of the most popular boroughs to stay in. It’s very well connected to NYC by subway and has tonnes of hotels, which may be more affordable. Brooklyn could actually be a city in its own right and is one of the most populous boroughs in NYC.

The Queens borough is in fact the geographical heart of NYC and home to two major airports – JFK International Airport and La Guardia Airport. It is the most ethnic and diverse part of the city and has a genuine laid back and relaxed appeal about it.

The Bronx is located north of Manhattan and is the only NY borough located on mainland America like the other boroughs, it is very well connected to the city centre via the subway and the Metro North trains. the Bronx has a character and charm all of its own and has pockets of Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican and Irish neighbourhoods. Yankee Stadium, the Bronx Zoo, Woodlawn Cemetery and the New York Botanical Gardens are located here.

Staten Island is the most suburban of all the boroughs and is a pleasant passenger ferry ride from Manhattan. Staten Island may be a good choice for you if you’re arriving or departing from nearby Newark Airport.

The best advice on booking hotels in New York is to book early. By doing so, you may get a nice Manhattan hotel at a good price. Also try to avoid busy times in the city, like the NYC Marathon, 4th July, Thanksgiving and New Years Eve when hotel rooms tend to skyrocket.

Hope you find the perfect New York hotel for your stay.

New York Hotels – Choosing Your Hotel Location

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Updated 9:20 a.m. PT Feb. 4

"Chronicle" and "Woman in Black" are turning what was supposed to be a lackluster weekend at the box office into a battle for first place.

on Friday, the two new movies crushed their pre-release expectations.

Fox's "Chronicle" grossed an estimated $8.65 million while CBS Films' "Woman in Black" took an estimated $8.3 million.

Considering that Fox had expected high single-digits for the entire weekend — though outside box-office watchers figured about $15 million — and CBS was projecting $11 million for the whole weekend, opening day is beyond solid.

Both pictures are pretty much neck-and-neck for the no. 1 spot and on track to take in a touch more than $20 million each this weekend. The advantage still goes to "Chronicle" by a few hundred thousand dollars.

While Friday was great and Saturday is expected to remain robust, studios expect a major drop on Sunday, when all eyes will be on the Superbowl.

The other new movie at the box office this weekend is "big Miracle," from Universal. that picture took in an estimated $2.26 million on Friday and is tracking to gross just short of $8 million for the weekend — on par with expectations.

this is a weekend of low expectations at the box office.

Super Bowl weekend is about TV – not movies – and is traditionally one of the slowest box-office weekends of the year.

Super Bowl weekend 2011, for example, was the third-worst of the year. that weekend’s entire box office was $87.3 million – about half the opening weekend of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" alone. So studios have some cover if their movies don’t do especially well.

and how low are the expectations for this weekend’s three new releases?

Two PG-13 movies, Fox’s “Chronicle” and CBS Films’ “Woman in Black,” will fight it out for the no. 1 spot, while Universal’s “big Miracle” will be lucky to take fourth place, behind last weekend’s champion, “The Grey.”

The advantage for the top spot belongs to Fox, but the studio is downplaying expectations, projecting that the film, directed by Josh Trank, probably will take in something in the high single-digits.

Also read: Exciting 'Chronicle' Could have Skipped the Gimmicks

less conservative box-office watchers outside Fox anticipate the movie, which cost about $12 million to make, could take in as much as $16 million, though the consensus is closer to $15 million.

The research firm NRG says there’s plenty of awareness about the movie: 52 percent of those polled told NRG they have heard of the movie. That’s an adequate number, but not nearly as good as the 68 percent “total awareness” score “The Woman in Black” received.

But 47 percent of men younger than 25 percent reported “definite” interest in seeing “Chronicle,” and 13 percent said it’s their first choice. among young women, 40 percent report “definite” interest in “Chronicle.”

The found footage movie stars three mostly unknown actors as high school friends who develop superpowers. But it’s a touch darker than the synopsis might suggest.

The critics like it well enough: Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 87 percent rating, Metacritic gives it a 71 and Movie Review Intelligence gives it a 74.8.

It’s a fairly low-budget project for Fox – “Chronicle” cost about $12 million to make – so it doesn’t need huge numbers to work for the studio.

one thing to count on: The 2,909 locations showing “Chronicle” won’t be terribly crowded during the Super Bowl. Friday and Saturday are that movie’s key days.

While “Chronicle” goes after young men, CBS’s “Woman in Black” is aiming for a young female audience.

The movie stars Daniel Radcliffe, the young actor who brought Harry Potter to life.

and it’s likely to perform perfectly well for CBS Films, which paid $3 million for U.S. distribution rights to the film.

an $8 million weekend will push the picture into the black for CBS, and the studio expects it will take in around $11 million. outside box-office watchers figure it will gross a few million more than that.

CBS Films has been promoting it on CBS and on the CW network, and Radcliffe has hyped it on “The Tonight Show,” “Ellen” and other television programs.

The movie is about a young lawyer who travels to a remote village where he encounters the ghost of a scornful woman.

It is getting reasonable reviews: Metacritic gives it a 60 percent, Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 69 and Movie Review Intelligence gives it a 68.6.

and its total awareness is the best of any of this week’s new movies: 68 percent of those surveyed by NRG reported that they knew of the movie. among young women, the number is a remarkable 79 percent.

Additionally, 47 percent of young women report “definite” interest in seeing it and 16 percent say it’s their first choice.

Still, CBS expects a huge drop on Super Bowl Sunday.

The movie debuts at 2,885 locations.

Finally, there’s Universal’s “big Miracle,” a PG-rated family film that looks like “Dolphin Tales” with whales instead of dolphins.

It’s the only family film of the weekend – “Woman in Black” looks a little scary for the 13-and-under set and “Chronicle” is a touch dark and has high school kids being high school kids.

if parents want to push the kids out of the house for a few hours while they prepare for the Super Bowl, they could well push them to “big Miracle.”

Universal spent about $40 million to make the film, about a small town in Alaska that saves a family of gray whales from encroaching ice in the Arctic Circle — quite a departure from last week's "The Grey," about a group of oil drillers in Alaska who try to escape a pack of grey wolves.

Also read: 'big Miracle': Feel-Good Whale Tale's Appeal Is no Fluke

Universal targeted mothers and girls, and notes that the movie’s tracking is similar to the films “Ramona and Beezus,” which opened to $7.8 million and to “Soul Surfer,” which opened to $11 million.

NRG’s tracking shows the movie lagging behind both “Chronicle” and “The Woman in Black,” and outside box-office watchers expect the movie to stay in the single-digits.

Its strongest demographic is women, and 60 percent of young women and 64 percent of those older than 25 report awareness of the movie.

Metacritic gives “big Miracle” a 60 percent rating. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 68 and Movie Review Intelligence gives it a 65.1.

“big Miracle,” which Ken Kwapis directed, stars John Krasinski. It opens at 2,128 locations.

While this weekend will be extra-slow at the box office, next weekend will be anything but slow.

“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,” “Safe House,” “Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace” and “The Vow” all open. and they’ll all open big.

Related Articles:  Exciting 'Chronicle' Could have Skipped the Gimmicks 'big Miracle': Feel-Good Whale Tale's Appeal Is no Fluke Daniel Radcliffe Will Be Haunted by 'The Woman in Black'

‘Chronicle,’ ‘Woman in Black’ Shatter Box Office Expectations on Friday

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Summit Entertainment's revenue more than quintupled from 2008 to 2010 based on the massive success of three "Twilight" movies, according to a regulatory filing by the studio's new parent company Lions Gate Entertainment.

As part of a presentation to potential lenders as part of its acquisition of Summit, which was previously a private company, Lions Gate disclosed Summit's financial results for the first time.

They show that from 2008, the year that the first "Twilight" movie was released theatrically, to 2010, Summit's revenue skyrocketed from $211.6 million to $1.15 billion. the Santa Monica-based studio also swung from an $85.3-million net loss in 2008 to a $352.2 million profit two years later.

In 2009, when the first "Twilight" movie came out on DVD and "new Moon" hit theaters, Summit made a profit of $145.1 million on revenue of $722.1 million.

2010 was a particularly successful year for Summit because not only was the third "Twilight" movie, "Eclipse," released in theaters, but both that picture and 2009's "new Moon" came out on DVD. Studios make most of their film profits from home entertainment sales and rentals.

In the first nine months of 2011, the most recent year for which Lions Gate released data, Summit's revenue plunged to $331.3 million and its net income was only $14.7 million. During that period, however, there were no "Twilight" releases.

The fourth "Twilight" movie was released last November and the fifth and final installment of the popular vampire series will be in theaters in November.

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'Twilight' saga may continue after fifth film, Liosn Gate CEO says

Summit's Friedman, Wachsberger join Lions Gate; Drake plans exit

Photo: Taylor Lautner, Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson in "the Twilight Saga: Eclipse." Credit: Kimberley French / Summit Entertainment

‘Twilight’ helps Summit Entertainment quintuple revenue in 2 years

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There are many things that jump into your head when you think about NYC. one, the shopping is amazing in this town and two the nightlife is to die for, the envy of the rest of the country. new York has an energy and excitement that attracts people from all over the world. with over 12 million people living in greater NYC, the city has people from every corner of the world. with the wide diversity of people comes a large selection of nightlife to choose from, including night clubs, bars and lounges to suit every taste and requirement. NYC is a true 24 hour city, a city that allows you to do anything at anytime of the day or night.

The 5 boroughs of new York are Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island. Manhattan has the largest concentrations of people and with that comes the largest selection of bars and night clubs. Manhattan is full of choices to suit every need from expensive bars and night clubs around midtown to grungy style clubs in the lower east side. Times Square is one of the most famous landmarks in NYC every new visitor to the city will make at least one trip to the area. the area is full of entertainment options from night clubs to bars and Broadway shows. the people that tend to frequent venues in midtown are mainly tourists, so it’s a great place to meet people from all over the world. many people who live outside NYC will make the trip into midtown on the weekends to party it up at one of the many night clubs and bars. A popular area for locals and tourists who are looking for some class is the meat packing district, which is located in the West side of Manhattan. the area is full of ritzy restaurants, bars and night clubs. the area is also home to a large number of trendy art galleries, boutique stores, fashion and beauty salons.

The Lower East side is probably the most popular area in NYC at the moment. There are bars and night clubs to suit every taste, along with hundreds of restaurants and fast food options. the LES what the locals call it, is the best place to find local new Yorker’s. A good starting point for going out in LES is to start at crossroads of Ludlow and Rivington St’s. from there they’re dozens of quality NYC night clubs and bars to choose from. another area of NYC which is quickly gaining a reputation for the nightlife is the Upper West side. one of the reasons for the growth is that the area borders Columbia University, so they’re many young people living in the area. while the area has many bars and restaurants the area is lacking in night clubs.

Where to Find the Best NYC Night Clubs

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in a Super Bowl throwdown, Mayor Bloomberg and his Boston counterpart agreed to give a family of four from the winning side a dream trip to the losing city.

But when the Daily News estimated the tab for the all-expenses-paid trip, Bloomberg stands to fork over a lot more for a Giants’ loss than Boston Mayor Thomas Menino would for a Patriots’ defeat.

if the Pats win, Bloomberg’s offer includes dinners at the Russian Tea Room and B. Smith’s restaurant, and club seats at the Garden for a Knicks or Rangers game.

Hizzoner will also throw in tickets to the 10,000th performance of “Phantom of the Opera” and VIP tours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Statue of Liberty.

n He’ll also treat the lucky family to a tour of the Brooklyn Brewery.

if the Giants win, Menino would be on the hook for dinner at Legal Seafood in Boston and at the top of the Hub restaurant, plus a performance at the Citi Performing Arts Center and a Duck Tour ride.

Menino is also promising club seats to a Bruins or Celtics game at TD Garden, a gander at John Adams’ personal diaries at the Boston Public Library and a tour of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

in the suds department, he’s arranged for a tour of the Samuel Adams Brewery.

Both mayors also agreed to pose for photos with the winning family, of course.

After the crunching the numbers, the Daily News estimated that Bloomberg’s bet outweighs Menino’s by anywhere from $1,400 to $2,200.

even the photo op with Bloomy would top the say-cheese moment with Menino — if the family can get the mayor to autograph the pic.

an autographed photo of Bloomberg goes for up to $124 on eBay. There’s no photo of Menino for sale; a signed letter by the Bostonian can be had for $24 on the online auction site.

whutchinson@nydailynews.com

Boston would get better end of big bet by Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Thomas Menino 

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2012 is set to be one of the best years for new release movies in years. An amazing list of movies covering all genres will flow through to the big screens over the coming 12 months. Superheroes and villains abound along with great comedies, action thrillers and some wonderful children’s movies. If you can’t find a reason to visit the cinema this year, you most likely never will.

Cinema releases for February include the 3D release of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. The story of a sex addicted yuppie, Shame will be released the same day. My week with Marilyn follows soon after with Michelle Williams playing the lead role of blonde bombshell Monroe. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock team up in Extremely loud and incredibly close, the story of a boy mourning the loss of his father following the World Trade Centre attacks of 9/11.

Killer Elite will finally have its day in Australian cinemas after releases late in 2011 in other parts of the world. Robert De Niro and Jason Statham star with Clive Owen in this action thriller filmed (in part) in Melbourne. Owen plays an SAS operative hot on the tale of assassins De Niro and Statham.

March brings us Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arteton play adult version bounty hunters of the fairy tale characters. Nicholas Cage returns in the second installment of Ghostrider: Spirit of Vengeance. this time he has to stop the Devil from taking human form in a race against time through Eastern Europe.

For the ladies, Johnny Depp features in The Rum Diary. Depp plays an alcoholic correspondent based in Peurto Rico. In yet another installment, American Pie: Reunion is out in March also. it comes some 13 years after the release of the original. Teens are randomly chosen to battle to death in an arena to maintain population levels in fantasy thriller The Hunger Games, starring Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone). Lenny Kravitz also features.

Sam Worthington returns to the screen as Perseus in Clash of the Titans sequel, Wrath of the Titans. Set 10 years on from the first adventure this installment stars Rosamund Pike as a new version of Andromeda.

3D re-releases seem to be the order of the day with Titanic 3D launching in early April. The long-awaited Farrelly brothers take on The three Stooges airs soon after with Moe, Larry and Curly signed up for a reality TV show. What has been labeled Transformers at sea, Battleship with Liam Neeson at the helm in an Alien vs Navy action blockbuster. Romantic comedy stalwart Jennifer Anniston teams up with Paul Rudd for Wanderlust, released on ANZAC day in Australia.

May kicks off with a bang as Sylvester Stalone and Jason Momoa play a cop and hitman who join forces in Bullet to the Head. Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham Carter reunite in a quirky adaption of 60′s TV show Dark Shadows. Newly crowned romantic comedy pageboy Jason Segel delivers more funny moments in The Five year Engagement.

The much-anticipated 3rd edition of Men in Black sees Will Smith back as Agent J, travelling back in time to team up with a younger version of Agent K (played by Josh Brolin). Final release for may is Rock of Ages which delivers Tom Cruise to us as an 80′s glam-rock idle. also starring Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Alec Baldwin. this one has to be worth a viewing.

June sees Ridley Scott return to the sci-fi genre with Prometheus. The Prometheus crew respond to a cryptic inter-galactic message that leads them to a planet where they are exposed to a new alien race. Stars include Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender and dragon tattoo girl Noomi Rapace. The Dictator also launches in early June seeing Sasha Baron Cohen return to a comedy role. Cohen portrays a heroic dictator who challenges the evil forces of democracy.

In Jack the Giant Killer Nicholaus Hoult sets off on a fantasy adventure into a hidden land of giants to rescue a princess. Adding to the June laugh fest is Adam Sandler flick I Hate You, Dad. The latest Pixar offering is Brave, a Scottish themed girl power movie with voice contributions from Kevin McKidd and Kelly Macdonald.

Novelist Seth Graeme-Smiths blood sucking contribution to American history Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is out in June also. The ever popular Ice Age franchise continues with part 4, Ice Age: Continental Drift. Fairy tale epic Snow White and the Huntsman sees Charize Theron rack up another winner as the evil queen who consumes young women to maintain her own youthful beauty.

Batman makes a return to the big screen in July with The dark Knight Rises, the third (and supposedly final) installment from director Christopher Nolan. there has been much hype already about this movie and from the initial clip releases they appear justified. Batman (Christian Bale) faces a new nemesis in the form of Bane (Tom Hardy). Bruce Wayne and Gotham City itself are targeted for complete annihilation. Can the dark night save the day?

July will be seen as 2012′s slowest month with but two further offerings of note. The amazing Spiderman is first up starring Andrew Garfield in an all-new web adventure. The promo clips look amazing (excuse the pun) Seth McFarlane of Family Guy fame launches his live-action feature debut withTed. Starting off, a child’s wish comes true and his teddy bear springs to life. The plot shifts swiftly to the pair as adults. Stars mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis.

August releases include the second installment of G.I. Joe, titled G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Channing Tatum’s U.S. military hero (Joe) is joined by Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson and Bruce Willis. this time Joe tackles master-of-disguise, Zartan. look out for Jonathon Levine staring in the zombie love story Warm Bodies. Highly anticipated Bourne No.4, The Bourne Legacy also launches in August. Jeremy Renner takes over form Matt Damon with support from Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz.

There’s been a lot of talk about the remake of Total Recall. This time around Colin Farrell plays hero Quaid. Early reports suggest a different take on the Verhoeven original. The second installment of The Expendables (No.2) sees the entire cast return including Sly Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren and Jason Statham. Chuck Norris joins in for a little additional star power. Final turnout for August is supernatural thriller Sinister, starring Ethan Hawke.

Premium Rushkicks off September’s action with Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a bicycle courier on the run form a corrupt cop. more 3D action follows with CG animation Hotel Transylvania. Adam Sandler’s Dracula is annoyed by his daughters (Mylie Cyris) choice to hook up with a human. Final mention for September is Savages, an Oliver Stone feature starring Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch. a couple of pot growers tackle a Mexican cartel. also stars Benicio Del Toro, John Travolter and Uma Thurman.

First up for October is part 2 of Taken. Liam Neeson features again as ex-CIA operative Bryan Mills. In this turn Mills ends up the target of the father of one of his prior victims. Resident Evil 5 continues the zombie video game franchise. Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez star. Argo, directed by Ben Affleck and produced by George Clooney tells the true-life story of a CIA extraction of hostages from Iran during the 1979 crisis.

Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn team up for Gangster Squad it’s set for release in early November. Final installment of the teen vampire franchise Twilight screens in mid November. Breaking Dawn – Part 2 will provide closure to the story for hundreds of thousands of teens. In 47 Ronin Keeanu Reeves leads a band of warriors seeking revenge after the slaying of their master.

Another 3D, CGI feature, Life of Pie tells the tale of a boy trapped on a lifeboat with a Zebra, Tiger, Hyena and Orangutan. this adaption of Yann Martel’s book is due for school holiday release a week before Christmas. An ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Russell Crow, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter star in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables due out on Boxing Day.

Final release of 2012 is the long-awaited adaption of Tolkein’s The Hobbit. Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth to direct with Martin Freeman playing hobbit hero Bilbo.

If nothing else comes of 2012 we will certainly be able to look back on this particular year as a ‘year of great movie releases’. Cinema fans will want to start making provision now if they are to see their complete list of favorites in the largest of formats. Maybe it’s time to drop in at the bank and open that ‘cinema savings account’ today.

The Best Movie Releases For 2012

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Below is a clip, which features the arrival of the Justice League … just in time to confront a band of villains.

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Earth’s greatest super heroes face foes on all fronts – using a plan initiated from within – in the all-new Justice League: Doom, the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the all-new, PG-13 rated film arrives February 28, 2012 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack ($24.98 SRP) and DVD ($19.98 SRP), On Demand and for Download. Both the Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack and DVD will include an UltraViiolet™ Digital Copy,

Justice League: Doom finds Superman, wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Cyborg and Batman on their heels when a team of super villains discover and implement the dark Knight’s “contingency plans” for stopping any rogue Justice League member. The story is inspired by mark Waid’s much-heralded “JLA: Tower of Babel.”

Primetime television stars Nathan Fillion (Castle) and Tim Daly (Private Practice), the reigning voices of Green Lantern and Superman, respectively, join a group of eight actors reprising their famed Justice League cartoon roles. Fillion made his debut as Green Lantern/Hal Jordan in the recent Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, and took his initial DC Universe movie bow as the voice of Steve Trevor in the 2008 hit wonder Woman. Daly originated his role as Superman’s voice in the landmark cartoon, Superman: The Animated Series. He has reprised the role in two DC Universe films: the 2009 extravaganza Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and the 2010 thriller Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.

The grand reunion of actors who provided the voices of the Justice League for the cartoon of the same name and its follow-up, Justice League Unlimited, includes Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) as Batman, Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville, Breaking In) as Flash, Susan Eisenberg (Superman/Batman: Apocalypse) as wonder Woman and Carl Lumbly (Alias) as J’onn J’onzz/Martian Manhunter. Bumper Robinson (A Different World, Transformers: Animated) joins the cast as Cyborg.

The Justice League faces two sets of villainous teams in the film – The Royal Flush Gang and a sextet of notable evildoers. The latter group includes three voice acting alumni of the Justice League animated series: Phil Morris (Smallville, Seinfeld) as Vandal Savage, Olivia d’Abo (The wonder Years) as Star Sapphire, and Alexis Denisof (Angel) as Mirror Master. Also opposing our heroes are Carlos Alazraqui (Reno 911) as Bane, Paul Blackthorne (The Dresden Files) as Metallo, and Claudia Black (Farscape, Stargate SG-1) as Cheetah.

David Kaufman (Danny Phantom) also reprises his Justice League role of Jimmy Olsen.

The film is executive produced by Bruce Timm (Batman: Year One), and directed by Lauren Montgomery (Batman: Year One), who is also credited as producer alongside Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series). Justice League: Doom is the final DC Universe film script from the late Dwayne McDuffie (All-Star Superman, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths), who passed away in February 2011. Casting and dialogue direction is once again in the capable hands of Andrea Romano (Batman: Year One, Justice League).

“Justice League: Doom has all the classic ingredients of a great super hero film – a cavalcade of dynamic villains, internal strife amongst our heroes, treacherous twists and turns, and a cast that brings together some of today’s popular primetime television actors with many of the fans’ favorite voices from the original series,” said Hersin Magante, Warner Home Video Marketing Director, Family & Animation. “I think fans will embrace Dwayne’s McDuffie’s final DCU script, particularly as it has been nuanced by Bruce Timm and the Warner Bros. Animation team. Warner Home Video is proud to distribute Justice League: Doom as the next DC Universe Animated Original Movie.”

Justice League: Doom Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack has 3 hours of exciting content, including:• Standard and high definition versions of the feature film• UltraViiolet™ Digital Copy,• Sneak Peak at Superman vs. The Elite, the next DC Universe Animated Original Movie• Featurette – “A Legion of One: The Dwayne McDuffie Story” – The skilled writer penned some of the best stories which consistently entertained fans. from his early writing career to adapting the popular work of All-Star Superman, this is the story of Dwayne McDuffie, as told by his family and friends.• Featurette – “Guarding the Balance: Batman and the JLA” – Everyone has a weakness and so do superheroes, yet when they go rogue, their power can topple more than a few egos, they can shatter worlds. The Justice League is the most powerful organization of superheroes on the planet, but what if the Justice League went rogue, and decided to use their power for harm?• Mini-featurette – “Their Time Has come: Cyborg and the DC Universe’s new Diversity” – 2011 will go down in DC Comics storied history as a year when a rich diversity of characters were re-introduced into the spotlight alongside Superman, Batman and wonder Woman. One of the most celebrated of the re-imagined characters is Cyborg, who became the new Man of Steel in Geoff Johns’ altered universe storyline, Flashpoint.• Creative team commentary• Two bonus episodes from the Justice League animated series handpicked by Bruce Timm: Wild Cards, part 1 and 2, written by Stan Berkowitz and Dwayne McDuffie• Digital Comic

Warner Home Video releases latest clip from “Justice League: Doom,” coming to Blu-ray & DVD on 2/28/12

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If the newest books on the situation of the university are correct, we tenured professors are like the aristocrats of the ancien régime in the 1780s, barely conscious of the privilege that structures our lives and oblivious to the storm gathering around us. "the balance of power at universities needs to be restored. the most certain way of doing that is by eliminating tenure," concludes the journalist Naomi Schaefer Riley. "Lifelong tenure should be abolished," cry Andrew Hacker, a regular in the new York Review of Books, and Claudia Dreifus of the new York Times. "the only way for American higher education to remain competitive is to abolish tenure and impose mandatory retirement at the age of seventy," intones Professor Mark Taylor, formerly of Williams College, now of Columbia University. only the statistical social scientists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa are more cautious, not straying from their focus on student learning. But they, too, indict faculty for a bleak situation: "Standing in the way of significant reform efforts are, of course, a set of entrenched organizational interests and deeply ingrained institutional practices." You don’t need a Ph.D. to figure out what is most entrenched and most deeply ingrained.

Where did this consensus come from, and where is it headed? In their own way, each of these books adheres to the central message of a Test of Leadership, the 2006 report of the Spellings Commission (named after U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings). Undergraduate learning is no longer central to our universities and even our colleges, it argued, with the result that the American workforce is increasingly ill-prepared for the 21st century’s challenges. Faculty indulge their passion for research, students attend to their social lives and networks rather than acquire intellectual skills and master a body of knowledge, while administrators and staff support every possible ancillary interest of faculty and students but are clueless about the essential core of higher education. Truth is, hardly anyone who spends time in a classroom can deny this crisis.

But is tenure the cause of the problems that plague higher education today? Naomi Schaefer Riley certainly thinks so, although her publisher yanked the word "tenure" from her original title and substituted the vapid the Faculty Lounges, and other Reasons why You Won’t Get the College Education You Paid For. it might be true that parents and students are not getting their money’s worth from colleges, but it is not because most faculty are lazy. Riley’s argument is, in fact, based on the opposite supposition: they are too busy publishing arcane research in peer-reviewed journals to care about teaching or even about learning in anything but the narrowest sense of the term. They acquire this habit on the road to tenure, and since promotion to full professor is often like "getting tenure twice," they persist in it, building the much-noted "research silos" where small groups of specialists criticize and approve each other’s houses of cards and fund each other’s grant proposals, also peer reviewed. Success that is recognized outside one’s own institution, she contends, comes from a record of publication, not from teaching, and this is the success that administrators crave—it builds the prestige of their institutions and thus enhances their own marketability—and thus what they reward.

* * *

The truth is even worse than Riley tells. within a discipline, professors count rather than read the publications of their colleagues who are up for tenure; and once one gets outside one’s field, no one dares quarrel with a record that contains enough articles in good enough journals that are widely enough cited. Riley is put off, justifiably, by this system of self-congratulation. the experts are unaccountable, and their ever-increasing research specialization draws them ever further from the needs of the students in the classroom who are paying their bill, or the taxpayers who are providing the subsidy. Besides, she adds, most of those who benefit from this system are liberals, who seem to have invented a system for entrenching their ideology and who "love the security of statism," in the words of a Harvard professor. true, she admits, tenure protects conservatives, too, or at least those social conservatives who seem to like and use it. But listen, she advises, to educational policy analyst Chester Finn: "Protecting 411 conservatives is insufficient reason to retain a tenure system. because it’s protecting 400,000 liberals, too."

Leaving aside the protection of conservative voices in the academy, it is not persuasive to place the entire blame for excessive specialization on tenure. though Riley quotes social scientists Christopher Jencks and David Riesman to the effect that administrators "can be relied on to care more about teaching than professors ever would," more recent analysis suggests that administrators typically encourage precisely the sort of resumé fattening that rewards hyper-specialization. Replacing tenure with multi-year contracts makes administrators more rather than less inclined to rely on these "objective" measures of "productivity."

Riley fails to absorb the main argument of Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind (1987): the crisis of American higher education is rooted in intellectual problems, not organizational ones, and can only be addressed by thought and dialectic, not clever adjustments. the Nietzschean relativism that Bloom observed in the world at large can explain the silos, with their independent research cultures opaque to uninitiated outsiders. the undeniable success of modern science has led the humanities and social sciences to imitate its research model, with barely anyone bothering to ask whether methods that uncover causation among mute, irrational, and amoral things should be applied to explain beings with rational souls.

There is much that is useful in Riley’s book, including a discussion of how widespread use of adjuncts enables rather than contradicts the commitment to tenure, the suggestion that tenure is not appropriate in wholly technical fields, and especially the account of how unionization is beckoning on the campus scene. But even in the best parts of the Faculty Lounges it is sometimes hard to follow the author’s logic. when she notes that adjuncts "tend to give higher grades than their tenured or tenure-track peers," doesn’t that support rather than undercut the case for tenure? If all professors are contract employees rather than members of a self-governing faculty, isn’t formation of a union more likely? good for the Olin College of Engineering, which she presents at the end as an attractive model of an innovative school without tenure. But it is not a university, however, nor is a university only for engineers.

* * *

To be fair, Riley’s book does not pretend to be more than journalism, bringing an issue before the public for debate. not so Mark Taylor’s Crisis on Campus: a Bold plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities. Taylor, chair of Columbia’s Department of Religion, expands in his book on a new York Times op-ed he wrote after the financial crisis swept the other end of Manhattan. "the education bubble is about to burst," Taylor warns. indeed, the bubbles come from the same bottle. Parents "remortgage their houses to pay for college, only to have their young graduates return home and begin their working lives in run-of-the-mill service jobs." Universities and colleges "are overleveraged, liabilities (debts) are increasing, liquidity is drying up, costs continue to climb, their product is increasingly unaffordable and of questionable value in the marketplace, and income is declining."

Before you have overcome your astonishment that a professor of religion can actually speak about money as if he respects it, you are treated to an inside tour by a modern academic entrepreneur. Taylor tells us about the programs he founded, the joint ventures he pioneered, the new technologies he explored, the innovations he has made. the problem is specialization in the old disciplines—Taylor’s discussion is more persuasive than Riley’s, since it comes from the inside. he correctly observes that "too many courses represent what the professor wants to teach rather than what students need to learn."

Taylor’s prescription is less compelling than his diagnosis. he wants colleges to embrace the "interdisciplinary," offering cool courses, like the one he taught at Williams called "Real Fakes," about counterfeits and forgeries. other proposals include a fourth division of the university besides the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, called "Emerging Zones"; or flexible curricula, like the one he is designing for the graduate students in his Columbia department, where the new subfields will be "Time and Modernities, Space, Transmission, Body and Media." Forget walls, think networks. Forget the distinction between public and private schools, or even between schools and businesses. Everything can be linked through the web.

What need is there for tenure among such entrepreneurs? That’s for old saps who think teaching religion requires pondering the proofs of Aquinas’s Summa, working through Calvin’s Institutes, studying the Talmud, or meditating on the paradoxes of Paul or the tribulations of Job. Yes, Taylor tells us he can do that sort of thing: he rather likes teaching a seminar on Hegel, Schelling, and Kierkegaard. Yes, "it remains absolutely essential for students to learn how to read and write in traditional ways." he feels so strongly about this that he made his own children write a three-page essay about a subject of their choice every week all summer between 6th grade and college. Yes, "teaching small classes to gifted undergraduates and seminars with committed graduate students is one of my greatest pleasures."

Here is where his book shows its true colors and becomes deeply dishonest: "I realize, however, that in the future, fewer and fewer students and faculty members will have the opportunities my students and I have enjoyed." so all that commercialized excitement was about what is second best? Mozart is dead, but Elvis lives? when Taylor writes that colleges can network, thanks to easy travel and telecommuting technology, he notes that there is absolutely no reason why every university needs a department of philosophy. Of course not: when everything is the play of shadows, who is afraid of the dark?

* * *

Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus’s Higher Education? how Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do About it is a page-turner, full of outrageous factoids and indignation that knows how to stop short of outrage. the authors are unapologetic liberals, concerned about access to higher education, stunned by inequalities among institutions, and confident that "every student has a mind and is curious about the wider world." Professors who barely teach appear here, too, along with their salaries, as do administrators with compensation packages like Wall Street parachutes. Research is "all just compost to bulk up résumés." They bristle when data confirm the "Golden Dozen" who top the ladder of prestige and most successfully place their graduates: the Ivies, plus Stanford, Duke, Amherst, and Williams.

Hacker and Dreifus seem to have been everywhere in America, not quite at random, not quite systematically. Sometimes their opinions are meant to be quirky: Queens College does without football, and so can everyone else, except as a club sport. always the issues are serious even when the tone is light. Is it really conscionable to ask students to finance their college education by incurring significant debt? Can we expect them to study, even taste, the liberal arts that are the core of true higher education if they do?

* * *

The book earned a lot of press when it came out last year for the authors’ conclusion: "Schools We Like"—their top ten list. Usually the key is leadership: Ole miss, for its reconciliation of the races, a surprise to the Yanks; Notre Dame, "for being true to itself," by which they mean not giving in to "anti-abortion conservatives" who think a Catholic university should not honor those who reject Catholic principles; and MIT for high pay and benefits to adjuncts. Eventually it becomes clear that Hacker and Dreifus have no brief for excellence or true distinctiveness. it isn’t just their intolerance of sport, that great mediator at public universities in the South and Midwest that earns the enthusiastic applause of ordinary people for extraordinary achievement and thus gives them a symbol if not a full appreciation of what the university as a whole is about.

Despite their fine words about what a liberal education entails, Hacker and Dreifus are in fact facile about its achievement. Speaking of regional state universities, they claim, "the students are as bright and academically committed as any." true of some, no doubt, but wouldn’t many have gone somewhere more challenging if they had the preparation, talent, ambition, or the funds? In the end, their critique of American higher education is in fact a celebration of its extraordinary diversity, and in this one can readily concur. why then begrudge the leading institutions their role just because of their wealth, especially if, by educating those who educate the others, they hold a key to the system as a whole? If they are doing a poor job of it, then explain why, not just by complaining about their good food and high-quality gymnasiums. If a school ought to avoid "faddish trends" and "compulsive consumerism," explain the higher end to which other ends should be subordinated. But once you do, then some schools will be better and some worse at achieving it.

* * *

Who would have thought that a book by a couple of sociologists would be the best on the shelf? Richard Arum and Josipa Roska’s Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses deserves attention from administrators and those willing to work through the 144 pages explaining its findings. (And I leave to the technically adept any analysis of Adrift’s 68-page methodological appendix.) Their focus is clear and salutary—not on professors and their unpopular ways, but on what students actually learn at school.

Not much, it turns out. Arum and Roska readily acknowledge the limits of their study. They take the results of a single test, administered at the beginning of students’ freshman year and the end of their sophomore year, and see how they change. then the researchers submit the results to multiple regression analysis across a wide range of variables, including students’ demographic and educational backgrounds, the kinds of courses they have taken, the study habits they have formed, the social lives they lead, and the selectivity of the institutions they attend.

The test is the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), an open-ended writing instrument designed to test students’ ability to think critically, solve problems analytically, and write well. rather than the usual multiple-choice questions with a computer-graded answer key, the CLA includes a "performance task," describing a scenario and assigning the students a memorandum detailing the goal sought and a desirable course of action.

What limits the students’ ability to improve their scores over the course of their first two years of college? Partly it’s their background, especially whether they come from a college-educated family and whether they attended a rigorous high school. But just as much depends on two characteristics of their college experience: taking rigorous courses (defined as requiring at least 40 pages of reading a week, and at least 20 pages of writing a term), and studying hard (defined as at least 15 hours a week outside of class, mostly alone rather than in a group). it is a sorry testimony to the state of university education to have to demonstrate statistically the first things a successful student learns from experience: you learn more from the teachers who challenge you, and you have to do your own hard work if you want to reap the rewards of understanding.

Nothing is easier than to point out the limits of such research: it covers only two years of college, measures only basic skills, doesn’t show what students gain from their majors, and doesn’t even differentiate the quality of the teaching, only the amount of work assigned. the authors are aware of all of these objections, and they meet them patiently. moreover, they are cautious but clear in explaining what the data show about the influence of ethnic heritage and family background, the burden of cost and debt, and about the selectivity of the institutions they examine.

Above all, Arum and Roska are unabashed in reporting their findings. most students neither study hard nor avail themselves of guidance about what to study and how. As a result, the modern college student is academically adrift. To anyone who went to college more than a dozen years ago and then completed an advanced degree, the report about how little time students spend on schoolwork outside class is eye-popping. I’ll no longer take it personally when students look at me as though I’m crazy for recommending at least two hours outside class for every hour inside.

* * *

Blame it on us faculty, to be sure, but not just because we’re tenured. We are cheating our students by not demanding enough of them, and that is because we are demanding the wrong things of ourselves. College has a social dimension that will inevitably shape our students’ futures, a fact these books all acknowledge and dance around, especially the serious issues concerning students’ moral formation—and corruption. Except for an occasional moment of grace, and the influence of a good example, this is largely now outside the faculty purview. That may change in the long run, but only if faculty themselves focus on what is central to our business—persuading the students to want to learn, and then supplying what they want and need.

All these books identify a crisis of student learning, and attribute it to faculty neglect. most seem to connect that neglect to the character of contemporary scholarship, but none offers a solution or sensible reform program. I don’t think it will be found in the abolition of tenure, but rather in taking steps to restore the integrity of learning. Faculty research is indeed the ground of faculty teaching. those who do not know cannot teach, and those who do not seek and learn cannot know. those who claim to know must, in turn, explain how their learning fits into the great scheme of things, not according to some private theory but through dialogue with their fellow learners.

It shouldn’t be impossible evaluate research in a way that rewards those who learn something outside their specialty, maybe even outside their discipline, and sanctions those who never do. this will require administrators to read, not just count. the process cannot be managed like a business, but can be conducted in a community. Tenure is part of this community’s constitution, and if it works—if it gives scholars the confidence to think independently and reasonably, and sustains the seriousness of purpose that only a lifetime commitment can entail—then it ought to be able to foster the sort of teaching that makes possible genuine learning on the part of our students.

I speak as though we faculty must restore our own integrity before approaching students, but of course this is nonsense. Every teacher knows that one’s best ideas often come from teaching, in response to able and inquisitive minds. I started with the threat of revolution, and now am proposing something really radical: a tenured revolution that can wear the mantle of reform

The Claremont Institute – Redeeming Higher Education

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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – For years, we’ve been told that drinking wine could be beneficial to our health, but now a new study shows which type of wine you drink could make all the difference, CBS 2′s Kristine Johnson reports.

Women have been told that limiting alcohol could lower their risk of breast cancer. but now, new research shows that drinking red wine in moderation may actually help lower a woman’s chances of the disease.

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center looked at 36 younger women who drank eight ounces of cabernet sauvignon or chardonnay daily for almost a month and then switched to the other type of wine  for a month.

EXTRA: The 5 best Wine Bars On the lower East Side

They say they saw a difference in the women who drank red wine.

“in red wine, the hormone levels, the estrogen levels decreased while the testosterone levels increased,” said Dr. Chrisandra Shufelt, the study’s author.”And that may actually be a change for risk factors for breast cancer.”

Shufelt says that’s encouraging because the change in hormone patterns suggests red wine may preventthe growth of cancer cells.

She says they didn’t see the same protective effects with white wine, but that doesn’t mean white wine ups thecancer risk.

“Red wine has red grapes, the red seed and that’s been found to have phytochemicals that would shift the estrogen levelsto be lower,” said Shufelt. “Where as  white wine did not.”

Experts say more research is needed to confirm this small study and just how safe and effective red wine is in reducing cancer risk remains to be seen.

These new findings challenge much of the current research on alcohol and breast cancer. one study late last year that found women had a 15 percent increased risk of breast cancer if they drank more three drinks a week.

What do you think? Sound off below in our comments section…

New Study Shows Red Wine May Reduce Cancer Risk In Women

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