Buzz

Here's a budding crowd-sourced travel guide in the making. Name: CliptheTrip.com What it does: Offers CLIPS, or a Current Local Information Pack, for destinations around the world. Locals share, in their own words and photos, where to eat, drink and see in their favorite locations. Maps, addresses, phone numbers, websites and sharing capabilities are the cherry on top. What's hot: The local flavor really stands out, and you can tell when you've found an article written by someone who is both passionate and knowledgeable about the area they are writing about.

Americans associate the holidays with many things: mob scenes at the malls, heavy meals with the relatives and an abundance - some would say overabundance - of movies. Award-worthy movies. Family movies. Big action spectacles. Small indie tear-jerkers. All of which are lumped into a convenient package with a Hollywood bow on it called the holiday movie season. It's the time of year when the studios jockey for the biggest slice of the audience pie as well as promoting their prestige films for the plethora of awards to come, including the Golden Globes, the guild awards and the crown jewel, the Academy Awards - in other words, pursuing both cash and class.

Brad Keselowski had a memorable interview with ESPN after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, one in which he drank Miller Lite beer -- his main sponsor -- from an oversized glass and acknowledged he had "a little buzz going here. " If anyone had a problem with that, Keselowski wasn't among them. "It looked like a guy that was having fun, which is what I was having," Keselowski, 28, said Tuesday on a conference call with reporters. "I'm proud of that moment.

Can a trip planner work overtime as a travel journal and protect confidential documents too? Maybe. Name: Tripini Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android What it does: This app keeps all of your pertinent travel information - medical, passport, visa, flight, hotel, car rental information, photos and more - locked in a password-protected area on your Apple or Android device. Cost: Free, for an introductory period. What's hot: The password system worked for me, and I would feel safe leaving my information on the app. I hesitated only when I came to filling out my debit and credit card info.

Though it has become axiomatic over the last few years that the audience for foreign-language films has been shrinking in America as superheroes dominate the box office, there have been a few recent signs of new life. Earlier this year the Iranian film "A Separation" was nominated for an Oscar not only in the foreign-language category (which it would go on to win) but also for its screenplay, where it competed against the likes of "Bridesmaids," pushing the film out from the margins of the art house.

TEHRAN - There's little reaction in Iran so far to "Argo," the box-office hit about the elaborate and risky rescue of six U.S. diplomats who avoided becoming hostages when militants stormed the U.S. Embassy here on Nov. 4, 1979 - 33 years ago Sunday. Of course, 52 other U.S. citizens were held hostage for 444 days in one of the more ignominious episodes in U.S. diplomatic history. Although "Argo" has not appeared in Iran even in a pirated version, as many movies from the West are first viewed here, curious cinema enthusiasts have viewed excerpts on the Internet, via proxy servers to circumvent government censors.

Say no to brand-name hotel chains and resorts. Say yes to handpicked vacation accommodations with a sense of adventure. Name: WelcomeBeyond.com What it does: Showcases unusual or one-of-a-kind lodgings around the world. To book a stay, you make your first inquiry through the website, then make reservations directly with the property owner or manager. What's hot: You can find off-the-radar lodgings, such as a yurt in England, a breathtaking beach house in Kenya or an igloo in the Swiss Alps.

The longtime travel deal website Hotwire has released a mobile hotel app. Name: Hotwire Available for: iPhone and iPod Touch What it does: Offers instant access to hotel deals in 3,145 cities and 61 countries. You can see the hotel rating, price, amenities, general location and whether it's recommended by other customers, but you won't find out which hotel you've booked until after your credit card is charged. Cost: Free What's hot: Using the app is simple and easy - it takes only four clicks to book your hotel room.

This post has been updated. See below for details. After reaching record high negative numbers, online conversations surrounding the upcoming Tom Cruise thriller "Jack Reacher" are becoming a little kinder. In the two-week period ending Tuesday, 24% of online mentions of the new Paramount action movie were negative, with virtually all focused on complaints about Cruise, according to research firm Fizziology. That's the highest percentage of negative numbers the company has ever seen surrounding a particular actor in an upcoming picture.

I'm watching Kansas basketball players dancing across their court Gangnam Style. I'm watching Tom Izzo marching across his Michigan State court dressed like Iron Man. From all corners of the country, I'm hearing of screeches and laughs while feeling the joyful warmth that accompanies the start of college basketball practice. Yet, just down the street, amid the greatest buzz for a UCLA season in many years, the silence is chilling. Instead of players running giddily into the new season through theatrical billows of smoke, it is the team that remains stuck in a dark cloud.