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Before Hollywood takes the spotlight this weekend, the film world turns its eyes to France for the annual Cesar Awards. Presented by the French Academy, this year’s nominees represent a distinct blend of international favorites, festival standouts and homegrown hits.

Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle” led this year’s nominees, scoring 11 nominations for Verhoeven as Best Director, lead actress Isabelle Huppert, Best Adapted Screenplay and a trio of other acting awards.

Read More: ‘Elle,’ Isabelle Huppert, Xavier Dolan Nominated in France’s Cesar Awards

The evening’s winners at Paris’ Salle Pleyel featured a variety of upsets and sure things. Huppert, going into a busy weekend in the States, won her category. In a pair of surprises, Xavier Dolan and Gaspard Ulliel both won their respective categories for Dolan’s “It’s Only the End of the World.” Houda Benyamina’s debut feature “Divines” also won big, taking home prizes for Best First Film,...

The young 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth (Claire Foy) will soon learn that it’s not easy being Queen in “The Crown,” Netflix’s most ambitious series yet. Weeks before its premiere, the streaming service has released a new trailer which shows how newlywed Queen Elizabeth II’s personal relationships suffer after taking the crown.

“You’ve taken my career from me. You’ve taken my home. You’re taken my name,” says Matt Smith as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. “I thought we were in this together?”

Read More: ‘The Crown’ Featurette: A Peek Behind the Curtain of Netflix’s Most Ambitious Series Yet

As she faces the daunting prospect of leading the world’s most famous monarchy, she must also make sure her husband feels like he’s part of her life, as well as keep her bond with her sister Margaret (Vanessa Kirby) strong, even though Margaret is involved in a controversial relationship.

With only a few more Academy Award nominees winners headed on to Blu-ray and DVD in the coming weeks, including Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook, it's a slow month for home entertainment releases. However, there are a few diamonds hidden in the rough this week, including the final season of Starz's program, Boss and a wildly dominant performance from Bill Murray opposite the wistful Laura Linney in Hyde Park on Hudson. Read on to learn about some of this week.s best releases, and maybe even a few that may have slipped under your radar. Hyde Park on Hudson Lush in props and other details of the age, Hyde Park on Hudson begins, startlingly, with a courtship between Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray) and Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney). Some time later, World War II is on the verge of breaking out, and a visit between the President and his...

DVD Playhouse—March 2012

By Allen Gardner

J. Edgar (Warner Bros.) Director Clint Eastwood provides a rock-solid, albeit rather flat portrait of polarizing FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, covering his life from late teens to his death. Leonardo DiCaprio does an impressive turn as Hoover, never crossing the line into caricature, and creating a Hoover that is all too human, making for an all the more unsettling look at absolute power run amuck. Where the film stumbles is the love story at its core: Hoover’s relationship with longtime aide Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). In the hands of an openly-gay director like Gus Van Sant, this could have been a heartbreaking, tender story of forbidden (unrequited?) love, but Eastwood seems to tiptoe around their romance, with far too much delicacy and deference. The film works well when recreating the famous crimes and investigations which Hoover made his name on (the Lindbergh kidnapping,...