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Brett Ballard-Beach: I don't want to understate the impact of the shootings on the decision to refilm the ending and by extension, WB's decision to market it differently, but my feeling is that you have a gangster film from the director of Zombieland and that it walks a very thin line between homage and parody (the violence is apparently set to overkill). That is never audience friendly (although the cast is, considerably so). Perhaps WB took a look at and realized they weren't going to be able to make back that $75 million so easily. I credit Gosling and Stone for a lot of this total. Do they do another Dirty Dancing move in the bedroom?

Max Braden: Clearly nobody wanted to listen to Sean Penn talk like The Penguin.

Reagen Sulewski: As disappointing as this result seems, it's not all that many worlds away from Public Enemies, which had a much more reliable lead. If you want to say Aurora took something away from this film, I won't argue with you too much, but what were you honestly expecting a gangster film with Sean Penn auditioning for Dick Tracy 2 to do?

David Mumpower: I think Reagen's point is valid in that I find myself wondering why someone signed off on a budget this size. Hollywood talent frequently vents about the modeling system studios use when they consider new projects. That system should have triggered loud sirens over the idea of a violent gangster film stylized as a B movie. Everything about Gangster Squad felt out of place, almost as if the movie were being made to make fun of itself. That's not a viable tactic to create a blockbuster. A straight comedy with some action elements a la Zombieland would have been the savvier move.

Kim Hollis: What are your thoughts on the Oscar nominations, as well as the results of the Golden Globes?

Edwin Davies: The Golden Globe results were slightly more surprising than the Oscar nominations, but both seem pretty predictable given how the season has played out so far. The only major - and very pleasant - surprise for me was the way that Amour managed to somehow crash the party and get nominated in four of the five major categories in addition to picking up an expected nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It's rare for a foreign language film to break out of the ghetto that the Oscars force them into by dint of having a separate category, so seeing one do so well is great. Anyone familiar with Michael Haneke's work will also find it strange since he's avoided the mainstream pretty aggressively over his long career, so to see him honored in such a high-profile way is startling, to say the least.

I was genuinely surprised to see Argo win at the Golden Globes since I was expecting Lincoln to sweep the board. This is no mark against the film, which I like a lot, but I liked probably 20 or 30 films more and four of them were nominated against it at the Golden Globes. The lack of a directing nomination at the Oscars probably means Argo will get shut out in favour of Lincoln, but that relatively minor upset was the most surprising thing about the ceremony, with the exception of too little Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Jodie Foster's inscrutable monologue.

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