Ryan Gosling

Steve Carell didn't mind the slapping. But the man-kissing was too much. During filming for his new movie "Crazy, Stupid, Love," a romantic dramedy about a father attempting to remake himself after his marriage hits the skids, Carell found himself on the receiving end of some surprise high jinks from costar Ryan Gosling. Like smacking. And smooching. When Gosling improvised a scene by administering a strike across the face, Carell didn't break. "All I wanted was for him to hit me harder and harder," the actor said.

"Fracture" is the kind of movie that can get you really worked up if you take it too seriously and try to parse all the twists. Rather, the best way to enjoy it is to suspend your disbelief and soak up the actorly tete-a-tete that pits wily veteran Anthony Hopkins against young gun Ryan Gosling in the kind of courtroom potboiler that can be fun if you let it.

Motherhood looks good on you, Beyonce! Especially in the eyes of People magazine, which named the entertainment dynamo its world's most beautiful woman for 2012. "I feel more beautiful than I've ever felt because I've given birth," she told the mag . "I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth, never so proud of myself. " Blue Ivy Carter, her baby girl with hubby Jay-Z, was born Jan. 7. Part of that purpose? Changing diapers, which apparently is also quite beautiful at Casa de Carter -- enough that Beyonce expressed "love" for the task.

Not only is Martin Scorsese one of the most influential filmmakers of the last four decades, the iconoclastic director consistently delivers superior audio commentaries that offer rare insight into his life and the directing process. Unfortunately, there is no Scorsese audio commentary on the two-disc set of "The Departed" (Warner, $35).

Henry Bean's "The Believer," an explosive portrait of a young Jew who becomes a neo-Nazi, is as ultimately unsatisfying as it is provocative. In the title role, Ryan Gosling is electrifying and terrifyingly convincing, but key people around him are so inadequately drawn as to be unpersuasive. Most detrimental of all has been Bean's decision not to probe the forces that shaped scary Danny Balint, which results in a film that tends to be all effect and no cause.

You sense you're in trouble when a movie resorts to selling itself with a description like "in the space between desire and fear, reality and illusion, life and death lies a whole other alternate world." Not that there's a better way to describe it. That "whole other" basically sums it up. With "Stay," Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland") tries his hand at a psychological thriller and comes up with a perversely stylish tangle of loose ends unencumbered by logic.

The new crime thriller "Gangster Squad," with its swell cast led by Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn and Emma Stone, tries to capture mob-infested Los Angeles circa 1949, when Hollywood glam ruled the Strip, wiseguys took aim with tommy guns and fedoras were all the rage. Those fedoras are a tip-off of problems to come - there are simply too many of them in "Gangster Squad. " Director Ruben Fleischer gives a lot of neon and noir-ish flash to the turf wars between East Coast and Chicago underworld figures for control of the City of Angels and their battles with the undercover cops obsessed with taking them down.

Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine," starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, is a beginning and an ending, an intensely intimate rendering of love that limits itself to that first falling in and that last falling out. Without a middle, the writers ? Cianfrance, Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne ? have still put in everything we need to know about a relationship that is fraying faster than either Cindy (Williams) or Dean (Gosling) grasps. It is painful and moving to watch as they lose hold of the few threads still connecting them, including 5-year-old daughter Frankie (a soulful young Faith Wladyka)

NEW YORK - Though dozens of movies will be seeking distribution when the Toronto International Film Festival opens Thursday, there's one that tops nearly every major buyer's must-see list: "The Place Beyond the Pines. " The movie stars Ryan Gosling as a motorcyclist who begins robbing banks to provide for his family, and Bradley Cooper as a hotshot cop on the biker's tail. It was written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, who collaborated with Gosling on the 2010 critical darling "Blue Valentine.

Ricky Gervais is back for a second year to host the Globes and says he's going to push the comedy a little further this time, that he'll just look around the room and spot someone to target. What might that mean for you? "Black Swan" director Darren Aronofsky: "There will be a lot of ballet jokes. Last night, Letterman made fun of the film. I think he said, 'If you don't want to celebrate Christmas, you can go see two Jewish girls make out.' " "Animal Kingdom" actress Jacki Weaver: "He's right up my alley, the British ironic humor.