Jackman, 44, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Wolverine in the “X-Men” movie franchise, spoke to Reuters about the demands of the role in British director Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the musical sensation that opened when Jackman was still a teenager.

Q. This role seemed tailor-made for you.

A. “It certainly for me felt like the biggest challenge I have had. I have never been on the front foot so much for a part. I was quite aggressive going for it.

“It felt like the right time. Once I got the part I will admit to you there were times when I went, ‘Oh maybe I have bit off more than I can chew here,’ because it is a pretty daunting role in every way – physically, vocally, emotionally.”

Q. Has all your Broadway experience – and movies – led you to this role?

A. “I never expected this trajectory of having movies, action movies, which was such a weird thing for me, and musicals, which was also a weird thing for me. I was a theater graduate … . So I have for a long time wanted to put the two together. And I waited for the right thing – and when this one came up I was like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t have to think twice about it.’ So, I suppose it does feel like all the stars were aligning, and thank God it took them 27 years to make it.”

Q. Most actors downplay the Oscars, and this movie is getting some buzz. What do you think?

A. “Of course it is every actor’s dream. In our business it is the highest currency there is. It is a dream.

“For me, I didn’t grow up thinking I was going to be an actor, let alone hoping one day to win an Oscar – that was never part of my reality. I went to acting school when I was 22. I don’t even remember thinking about being a professional actor until I was 30 and in drama school.”

Q. What did you have to do to convince Tom Hooper to give you the part?

A. “What I needed to convince him (of) was that it is possible for the lyrics of the song to feel natural. I know he was skeptical of that whole feeling and was nervous, rightly, about whether a musical could really move people and make non-musical lovers feel things, and feel at home with the sung form, because it is highly unnatural right? … . I knew I needed to convince him that the emotion and the story, the thoughts of the character, could feel natural.”

Q. You had that much pressure while in rehearsals?

A. “Your voice had to be as good on the first as the ninth (take). Because, say he (Hooper) got the camera move, or the acting was right on the ninth. You can’t pull the vocal from another, or cut to the second one, because the rhythm would be different. So I think he was testing stamina as well. And pitch I am sure, to see if people could sing in tune.”

Q. Do you feel the responsibility to the ‘Les Mis’ fans?

A: “Completely. I am part of that musical theater world and I know there are some roles that are held up there. And there are people who play those roles who are right up there. It turned out I was acting opposite one of them, Colm Wilkinson, who originally created the role and was astonishing. It actually was really great having him there because there is probably, in terms of the ghosts of Valjean, no one more powerful … than him.”

Q. You are known as being one of the most sincere Hollywood stars. Who is your role model for this humble quality?

A. “My father has a lot of very humble qualities. He is more humble than I am. He is very quiet. If I think about it, there are many Jean Valjean qualities about my father. He has never said a bad word about anyone, he is a religious man in the more traditional sense, and yet he will never really talk about it. He is a man of action.”

(Reporting By Christine Kearney; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Xavier Briand)

The stage musical has left audiences around the world wiping away tears with its themes of justice, redemption and romantic and familial love. So bringing it to life on screen for fans and filmgoers was “hugely daunting,” Hooper says.

Still, the Oscar-winning director of “The King’s Speech,” was ambitious, wanting to offer even more of the “intense emotional experience” that has kept fans returning to various stage productions since “Les Miserables” made its English language debut 27 years ago.

“I felt very aware of the fact that so many millions of people hold this close to their hearts and would probably sit in the cinemas in complete fear,” Hooper told reporters about his big screen take on the tale of French revolutionaries rising up against powerful forces.

Movie stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway were all put through an intense audition and rehearsal process, to make sure they could sing take after take, live, with cameras positioned right in their face.

It also features a large ensemble including Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne, as well as Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter who lead the comic relief song, “Master of the House.”

“I thought the great weapon in my arsenal was the close up, because the one thing on stage that you can’t enjoy is the detail of what is going on in people’s faces as they are singing,” Hooper said. “I felt (that) having to do a meditation on the human face was by far the best way to bring out the emotion of the songs.”

That tactic may or may not have paid off for a movie that is seen as one of the front runners for Oscar awards in February. Early screenings of the film that opens on Christmas Day have moved some audiences. Critics have praised the performances, but given the movie as a whole less than top marks.

The movie reunites the same team that worked on the original musical, including French composer Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyricist Alain Boublil, and English language adapter Herbert Kretzmer. It adds one original song to the existing show, which includes the well-known “I Dreamed a Dream”.

Jackman plays petty thief Jean Valjean, the protagonist of the story based on French writer Victor Hugo’s epic 1862 historical novel “Les Miserables.” Valjean transforms himself into a respected businessman but struggles for decades to escape the clutches of his nemesis, police inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), and along the way encounters factory worker Fantine (Anne Hathaway).

TIMELY MESSAGE

Inspired by films such as 1991′s “The Commitments,” singing was filmed live rather than later recorded in a studio to give the movie a more authentic feel.

Hathaway lost 25 pounds (11.3 kg) for the role and cut her long brown hair. She spent six months perfecting the task of crying and singing at the same time for “I Dreamed a Dream” and is a hot favorite for a best supporting actress Oscar.

In a twist of fate, Hooper had initially seen Hathaway singing to Jackman a boisterous version of the “Les Miserables” song “On My Own” at the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony, just when he was trying to decide whether to direct the film and was thinking about casting.

“I was sitting there, going: ‘There is something very strange happening’,” he joked. “Whatever happened, it certainly worked, because I ended up casting both of them.”

Hooper said he took his inspiration mostly from Hugo’s novel rather than any one stage production, and thus saw Crowe’s Javert more as a “deeply honorable” character than a simplistic “bad guy” as portrayed in some productions.

The time also felt right, he said, to bring the story to a larger audience on the big screen.

“There are so many people hurting around the world because of social, economic, inequality and inequity. There is such anger against the system,” he said, “whether it’s the protests on Wall Street or in London at St Paul’s, or the seismic shifts happening in the Middle East.”

“‘Les Miserables’ is the great advocate of the dispossessed,” Hooper said. “It teaches you the way to collective action is through passionate engagement with the people around you. It starts with love for the person next to you.”

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and David Storey)

Critics say Chastain pulls it off seamlessly as “Maya,”
based on a real-life CIA agent who played a major role in
tracking down bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan.

As the film opens in limited U.S. release on Wednesday,
Chastain, who is tipped as a likely best actress Oscar nominee
for the role, talked to Reuters about playing a character she
could not meet and why the film is an important look at
America’s role in a dark war.

Q. What did you think when you saw this film finished?

A. “It is a tough one for me to watch, because there is so
much responsibility with playing this woman. I find her to be
incredible. And I didn’t want to change her story or make her a
Hollywood version, with a lot of makeup. I didn’t want to
trivialize what she did … I want her to like it, but I don’t
know if she will ever see it.”

Q. How did you play someone you had never met?

A. “There was three months of working with (screenplay
writer) Mark Boal, doing research, reading lists and talking to
people. And then anything I could not solve through research,
like what is her favorite candy – ’cause when we are all
overseas we have something we do when we are homesick – I had to
answer that question myself.”

Q. Boal hasn’t gone into too much detail about her?

A. “We have to protect her because she is an undercover CIA
operative, still working.”

Q. What else did you know about her?

A. “When we finished the movie, when the Navy Seal book ‘No
Easy Day’ came out. I raced to go read it, because I was like,
‘I need to know if my character is in the book!’ And they talk
about Jen, the young CIA girl. Well, everything matched up. She
was the only one that said 100 percent ‘he is there.’… They
talked about how she had been on it close to a decade and they
were only on it for 40 minutes. They said she was crying on the
airplane afterwards.”

Q. During filming, were you ever worried about your safety,
that the film might be misconstrued?

A. “As an actor you always worry about that. Because you
think, maybe someone will see a film and they won’t understand
the difference between acting and reality. The good thing is,
what (director Kathryn Bigelow) and Mark have done, is that they
have not made a propaganda film. They tried to make it as
authentic as possible and respectful of the actual historical
event as they could. That includes showing the intense
interrogation techniques that were used. The end of the film -
it’s not a lot of fist pumping and saying, ‘Here is our journey
over 10 years and it was so difficult and we finally did it.’ It
ends actually on a very different note.”

Q. Can you elaborate on that?

A. “Well, for me the whole thing is about the arc of this
woman. She shows up in the beginning and she is wearing her best
suit. She thinks she knows what she is in for, and she is
completely out of her element. But over the 10 years, this
woman, who has been trained to be unemotional and analytically
precise … we see her struggling to keep it contained for 10
years and as she descends down the rabbit hole of the world she
is in.

“So finally at the end when she is asked, ‘Where do you want
to go?’ there is no way to answer that question. … She has no
idea where she belongs, now that this is done. But not only does
it speak in terms of that, but the movie ends with that question
- where do you want to go? Where do we go now as a country?
Where do we go as a society? It is not a movie that ends with an
answer, and I find that powerful.”

Q. How did you cope with filming the torture scenes?

A. “We filmed in a real Jordanian prison, in the middle of
nowhere. The environment wasn’t great, especially as a woman.

“They had a lot of trust between the actors, nothing was
dangerous or unsafe. There was a lot of discussion to make sure
that we weren’t doing something that was going to be salacious.
They just wanted it to be accurate.

“I know I am playing a character who has trained to be
unemotional. But I have spent my entire life allowing myself to
be emotional, and allowing myself to feel everything. … There
was actually one day that we were doing a scene, and I said, ‘I
am sorry’ and I just had to walk away, and I just started crying
… it was a very intense experience.”

Q. You are a top chance for Oscar nomination. Would that be
more or less rewarding for this role?

A. “Because she is still an active member of the CIA and
undercover, she can’t take credit for what she’s done. … And
by making this film, it is my idea as a way of thanking her. It
would be very emotional because of that.”

Q. You compare your character to getting lost down a CIA
rabbit hole. What about your own dizzying rise as an actress?

A. “That’s a good question. I do think that next year I need
to go somewhere for a month and be in a room by myself and be
like, ‘Ok, what now Jessica?’ But I am nowhere near where she
was at the end of this mission.”

(Reporting By Christine Kearney, editing by Jill Serjeant and
Doina Chiacu)

Instead, she and screenwriter Mark Boal turned “Zero Dark
Thirty” into a more complex look at the decade-long hunt for the
al Qaeda leader, including a frank presentation of U.S. torture
and previously undisclosed details of the mission to hunt down
the man behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

When the film opens in limited U.S. release on Wednesday,
Bigelow and Boal want audiences to disregard a year of
controversies, including claims, which they have denied, that
the film makers were leaked classified information.

“It’s about a look inside the intelligence community. The
strength and power and courage and dedication and tenacity and
vulnerability of these women and men,” Bigelow, 61, told Reuters
in a joint interview with Boal.

Bigelow won an Academy Award in 2010 for “The Hurt Locker,”
about U.S. army bomb disposal experts in Iraq. She says her
latest movie puts the audience at the center of the quest to
find bin Laden, and gives a perspective of the U.S. intelligence
community and how its methods changed in the years following the
Sept. 11 attacks.

“It’s a controversial topic, it’s a topic that has been
endlessly politicized. The film has been mischaracterized for a
year and a half and we would love it if people would go and see
it and judge for themselves,” Boal said.

The action thriller has emerged as an Oscar front-runner
after picking up multiple early awards and nominations from
Hollywood groups.

FROM TORA BORA TO ABBOTTABAD

In 2011, Bigelow was only months away from shooting a film
about the failed bid to find bin Laden in the Tora Bora
mountains of Afghanistan during the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

When bin Laden was killed by Navy commandos in May 2011,
Bigelow was only months away from shooting a film about the
failed bid to find him in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan
during the U.S.-led invasion a decade earlier.

She quickly revised the project.

“Zero Dark Thirty” opens not long after the Sept. 11 attacks
with graphic scenes of interrogation, including water boarding,
sexual humiliation and a detainee being forced into a box.

It stars Jessica Chastain as a CIA officer called “Maya” who
uses intelligence gleaned from brutal interrogations,
electronic surveillance and old-fashioned spying to track down
bin Laden through his use of couriers.

The opening scenes of torture, which are seen in the movie
as yielding both correct and false information from prisoners,
have inflamed debate in the United States.

Bigelow and Boal said the film is not meant to pass judgment
– positive or negative — on such interrogation. “What we are
trying to show, is that it (torture) happened. Which I think is
not that controversial,” said Boal.

“It’s obviously an ongoing debate. It’s a debate within the
community of people who are experts and I am sure that debate
will continue for many years,” he added.

Bigelow points out that much of the second half of the film
shows agents using other methods such as electronic
surveillance.

The movie shifts between locations, including secret CIA
centers in foreign countries known as Black sites, the Pakistan
city of Islamabad and Camp Chapman, in Khost, Afghanistan. It is
not meant to be an accurate depiction of all the players
involved in hunting the al Qaeda leader, Bigelow and Boal said.

REAL AND COMPOSITE CHARACTERS

Instead, it tells the story through the eyes of Maya,
fresh-faced and not long in the field, battling security
threats, CIA bureaucracy and unsupportive bosses to eventually
track bin Laden to his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

“She is based on a real person, and there are other people
who also contributed who are not represented, whose work I hope
is reflected in her character – it’s a character in a movie and
not a documentary,” Boal said.

“I wanted to put the audience in the perspective of those
people, those men and women on the ground who are conducting
this hunt,” said Bigelow. “It’s ten years compressed into two
plus hours…But it’s really the rhythm of the hunt that creates
the rhythm of the movie.”

Chastain told Reuters in an interview that the woman she
portrays is still active. The Washington Post has reported that
the agent is now in her thirties, remains undercover and while
receiving the agency’s highest medal, was denied a promotion.

Boal, a freelance journalist turned screenwriter who won a
best screenplay Oscar for “The Hurt Locker”, would not elaborate
except to say that the agent was “a real person.”

“I spoke to a number of people, I gathered as many first
hand accounts as I could,” he said. He has denied being leaked,
or asking for, any classified material.

Early reviews of the film, which will be released more
widely on Jan. 11, have been positive, especially for Bigelow’s
sense of pacing and suspense. The Hollywood Reporter said it
“could well be the most impressive film Bigelow has made, as
well as possibly her most personal.”

(Reporting By Christine Kearney, editing by Jill Serjeant and
David Storey)

The “12-12-12″ concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden features a who’s who of rock and pop, including The Rolling Stones, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, Kanye West and Bon Jovi.

“How do I begin again? My city’s in ruins?” Springsteen sang. He was joined by Jon Bon Jovi for “Born to Run,” ushering in what was to be a night of musical duets.

Next up, Roger Waters performed alongside Eddie Vedder, and later in the evening Paul McCartney was due to jam with Dave Grohl.

Comedian Adam Sandler took the stage for a Sandy-themed spoof on Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” rhyming the title with “Sandy, Screw Ya!”

Backstage, actress Susan Sarandon recounted losing power in her New York home but said that was a small hardship compared to the real victims who lost their homes.

Steven Van Zandt, guitarist of the E Street Band, scolded “the oil companies” and “Wall Street guys” for not doing more to help.

“Even with the music business not what it used to be… we are proud to be here,” he said.

Producer John Sykes said Waters, McCartney and Chris Martin of Coldplay had reached out to “other legends to join them on stage and create once-in-a-lifetime moments.”

Before the concert, Sykes said $32 million had already been raised from ticket sales and sponsorships. With the concert’s potential to reach 2 billion people through broadcast and digital platforms, organizers are hoping to raise tens of millions more.

To help with the fundraising, celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Kristen Stewart, Jake Gyllenhaal, Chelsea Clinton and Billy Crystal are taking part in a telethon during the concert, which is expected to last between four and five hours.

It is being broadcast live on television, radio, movie theaters, on Facebook and iHeartRadio, and streamed on digital billboards in New York’s Times Square, London and Paris.

More than 130 people were killed when Sandy pummeled the East Coast of the United States in October. Thousands more were left homeless as the storm tore through areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, causing billions of dollars in damage.

Sykes said personal stories of neighborhoods and people severely affected by Sandy will be showcased during the concert.

Sykes was also involved with “The Concert for New York City” after the September 11, 2001, attacks, which raised more than $30 million for charity.

He said technological advances over the past decade have exponentially changed the reach of fundraising.

“We have both traditional and new media behind us in a way that we’ve never had before, and that is really going to be the ‘x-factor’ on how much money we can raise for the victims.”

Donations raised from the one-night concert produced by Clear Channel Entertainment and The Weinstein Company, will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund, which will provide money and materials to groups helping people hardest hit by the storm.

(Additional reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant, Patricia Reaney and Eric Beech)

The list is compiled using data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide.

Hardcover Fiction Last Week

1. “The Black Box” by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown, $27.99) -

2. “Notorious Nineteen” by Janet Evanovich (Bantam, $28.00) 1

3. “Cold Days” by Jim Butcher (Roc, $27. 95) -

4. “The Forgotten” by David Baldacci (Grand Central, $27.99) 3

5. “The Racketeer” by John Grisham (Doubleday, $28.95) 5

6. “Agenda 21″ by Glenn Beck (Threshold, $26.00) 2

7. “Merry Christmas, Alex Cross” by James Patterson (Little, Brown, $28.99) 4

8. “The Last Man” by Vince Flynn (Atria, $27.99) 6

9. “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn (Crown, $25.00) 8

10. “The Casual Vacancy” by J. K. Rowling (Little, Brown, $35.00) 7

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. “Killing Kennedy” by Bill O’Reilly (Henry Holt, $28.00) 1

2. “Barefoot Contessa Foolproof” by Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter, $35.00) 2

3. “Thomas Jefferson” by Jon Meacham (Random House, $35.00) 4

4. “Guinness World Records 2013″ (Guinness World Records) 5

5. “No Easy Day” by Mark Owen (Dutton, $26.95) 6

6. “The Virgin Diet” by J.J. Virgin (Harlequin, $25.95) -

7. “The 4-Hour Chef” by Timothy Ferris (New Harvest, $35.00) 3

8. “America Again” by Stephen Colbert (Grand Central, $28.99) 10

9. (tied) “The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook” by Deb Perelman (Knopf, $35.00) 9

9. (tied) “I Declare: 31 Promises to Speak” by Joel Osteen (FaithWords, $21.99) 9

(Editing by Christine Kearney)

(This story corrects to show hardcover nonfiction tied for No. 9)

Bigelow was named best director and Jessica Chastain, who plays the starring role of a young CIA officer pursuing bin Laden, was named best actress by the NBR.

Bradley Cooper took home best actor honors for his portrayal of a bipolar, former teacher in the film “Silver Linings Playbook.”

” ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is a masterful film,” NBR President Annie Schulhof said in a statement. “Kathryn Bigelow takes the viewer inside a definitive moment of our time in a visceral and unique way. It is exciting, provocative and deeply emotional.”

Wednesday’s awards for the Hollywood treatment of the decade-long operation to hunt and kill bin Laden, based on firsthand accounts, boosts the prospects for the movie to win an Oscar in February. The film, not yet publicly released, also took the top award from the New York Film Critics Circle on Monday.

Leonardo DiCaprio won best supporting actor from the NBR for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s new slavery era drama, “Django Unchained,” while Ann Dowd took the best supporting actress honors for her role in “Compliance,” as a fast-food restaurant manager duped by a prank caller scam.

The NBR, a 100 year-old U.S.-based group of movie industry watchers and film professionals, gave its original screenplay award to Rian Johnson for “Looper,” and adapted screenplay to David O. Russell for “Silver linings Playbook.”

“HOBBIT,” “LIFE OF PI” OVERLOOKED

“Les Miserables,” the first big movie adaptation of the popular stage musical featuring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway was named best ensemble, and the group gave its best animated feature prize to “Wreck-It-Ralph.”

Each year the board also issues a list of top 10 movies, which this year besides Bigelow’s film included Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage thriller “Argo,” “Django Unchained,” “Les Miserables,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” and “Looper.”

“Lincoln,” Steven Spielberg’s biopic of President Abraham Lincoln, the mystical indie film “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Gus van Sant’s fracking drama “Promised Land,” and coming of age film “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” rounded out the list.

Absent from the list were some films that had been touted for honors ahead of awards season, including Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit,” Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” indie film “The Sessions” starring Helen Hunt, and Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi.”

In other categories, NBR gave its best documentary award to “Searching for Sugarman,” and chose Austrian director Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” as best foreign language film.

Child-actress Quvenzhane Wallis from “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” and “The Impossible” actor Tom Holland each won awards for breakthrough performances.

Benh Zeitlin received the award for best debut director for “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” while documentary “Central Park Five” and drama “Promised Land” were both honored with the Freedom of Expression award.

The National Board of Review was formed in New York in 1909 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting movies as an art form and entertainment.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Jill Serjeant and Leslie Gevirtz)

Brubeck died of heart failure on Wednesday morning after he fell ill on his way to a regular medical exam at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn., a day short of his 92nd birthday, Gloyd said.

His Dave Brubeck Quartet put out one of the best selling jazz songs of all time: “Take Five,” composed by alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. Like many of the group’s works, it had an unusual beat — 5/4 time as opposed to the usual 4/4.

“We play it differently every time we play it,” Brubeck told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2005. “So I never get tired of playing it. That’s the beauty of jazz.”

“Take Five” was the first million-selling jazz single.

Dressed in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses and living a clean-cut lifestyle in the 1950s, Brubeck did not fit the stereotype of a hipster jazzman and his music was not nearly as brooding as that coming from East Coast be-bop players.

Despite his innovative approach, some critics interpreted Brubeck’s popularity as a sign of un-coolness, but his fans were undeterred.

Brubeck was born in Concord, California, on December 6, 1920. His father was a rancher and as a teenager Brubeck was a skilled cowboy. But his mother, a music teacher who had five pianos in the house, saw that he took up piano at age 5.

At the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, he planned to be a veterinarian, but within a year he was majoring in music and playing jazz in nightclubs.

“After my first year in veterinary pre-med I switched to the music department … and that was at the advice of my zoology teacher,” Brubeck said in a Reuters interview. “He said ‘Brubeck, your mind is not here, with these frogs and formaldehyde. Your mind is across the lawn at the conservatory. Will you please go over there.’”

Brubeck later met the co-director of a weekly campus radio show, Iola Marie Whitlock, and they eventually married.

After graduation, Brubeck studied under French composer Darius Milhaud and played in a U.S. Army jazz band during World War Two.

In the late 1940s, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he headed an experimental jazz octet. He formed a trio in 1950 and the following year expanded to a quartet with Desmond, who he had known since the war.

Brubeck injected classical counterpoint, atonal harmonies and modern dissonance into his music, hinting at composers such as Debussy, Bartok, Stravinsky and Bach.

The group built an enduring fan base by taking its subdued bluesy brand of classically influenced jazz to colleges.

As a leading figure in the West Coast jazz scene, which also included Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Brubeck was featured in a Time magazine cover story in 1954. Some critics and black musicians, who felt jazz was a central part of black culture, resented the story about the prominence of a white artist.

In the article Brubeck said Milhaud had told him “if I didn’t stick to jazz, I’d be working out of my own field and not taking advantage of my American heritage.”

Brubeck disbanded the quartet in 1967 after nearly 17 years to concentrate on composing. He wrote several choral works, all religiously influenced.

He later began performing jazz regularly again and appeared with his sons, Darius, a composer and pianist; Chris, who played electric bass and trombone; and drummer Danny. They were billed as Two Generations of Brubeck.

In February 1989 Brubeck, who had a history of heart problems, underwent triple-bypass surgery but kept playing. Well into his 80s, he still put on some 80 shows a year. He had a pacemaker implanted in October 2010.

Actor-director Clint Eastwood, a jazz fan, announced plans to make a documentary on Brubeck in 2007. Eastwood also was named chairman of the Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific, designated as the home of his papers, private recordings and other memorabilia.

Brubeck and his wife, who also was his agent and lyricist, had two other sons, Matthew, a cellist, and Michael, and a daughter, Catherine. The couple lived in Wilton, Connecticut.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

Kutcher stars in “Jobs,” a biographical look at the career
rise of Jobs from wayward hippie to charismatic inventor and
entrepreneur, which Sundance said Monday will officially close
the indie film festival backed by Robert Redford that runs Jan.
17 to Jan. 27.

The premiere lineup also features Gordon-Levitt directing,
writing and starring in “Don Jon’s Addiction,” about a
self-centered porn-addict attempting to reform his ways opposite
Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza.

Behind-the-scenes tales of pornography will also be explored
in British director Michael Winterbottom’s “The Look of Love,”
starring Steve Coogan and based on British adult magazine
publisher and entrepreneur Paul Raymond.

“Lovelace,” starring Amanda Seyfried and James Franco, tells
the story of porn star Linda Lovelace famed for the film “Deep
Throat.”

Sundance, the top U.S. film festival for independent cinema
held in Park City, Utah, unveiled the premieres section – which
typically feature more established directors – after it
announced its competition films last week.

Adding to the premieres list is “Before Midnight,” director
Richard Linklater’s third film collaborating with Ethan Hawke
and Julie Delpy after “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” in
which the audience encounters their characters nine years later
in Greece.

New Zealand director Jane Campion will screen her new
six-hour epic, “Top Of The Lake,” a haunting mystery about a
pregnant 12-year-old girl who disappears, with Holly Hunter.

Other big-name actors in the lineup include Steve Carell and
Toni Collette in “The Way, Way Back,” Naomi Watts and Robin
Wright in “Two Mothers”, Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen in
“Very Good Girls,” and Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood in “The
Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.”

Australian actresses Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Jacki
Weaver star in psychological thriller “Stoker,” which marks
South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut.

WIKILEAKS, POLITICS LEAD DOCUMENTARIES

Among documentaries premiering at Sundance in January is
Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney’s insight on
WikiLeaks, the power of the Internet and the beginning of an
information war in “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.”

Author and documentarian Sebastian Junger chronicles the
life of late photojournalist Tim Hetherington in “Which Way Is
The Front Line From Here?” after Hetherington’s death in Libya
in 2011. The photojournalist had collaborated with Junger on the
2010 Oscar-nominated film “Restrepo” about the Afghanistan war.

“The World According to Dick Cheney” promises to examine the
former vice president while “Anita” profiles how Anita Hill’s
allegations in 1991 of sexual harassment against then-U.S.
Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas brought sexual politics
into the national consciousness for the next two decades.

“Linsanity” offers a portrait of basketballer Jeremy Lin and
“Running From Crazy” follows actress Mariel Hemingway,
granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, and her insights into her
family’s mental illness and suicide.

“Pandora’s Promise” looks at a growing number of
environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists changing their
minds after decades of opposition to support nuclear power.

Continuing the rise of music documentaries in the last
several years, Foo Fighters’ musician Dave Grohl looks at the
history of Sound City studios in California, where Grohl’s
former band Nirvana had recorded their classic 1991 album
“Nevermind.”

Veteran Los Angeles rock band The Eagles will also showcase
their past in “The History of the Eagles Part 1.”

(Reporting By Christine Kearney, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and
Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow won best director for “Zero Dark Thirty,” based on the decade-long U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden and billed as a cinematic look at “the greatest manhunt in history.”

Bigelow’s film, which stars Jessica Chastain as a young female CIA officer doggedly pursuing bin Laden for years through a long-forgotten courier, has yet to be released but has already gained buzz in early screenings for critics.

After Monday’s nod from the New York film critics, “Zero Dark Thirty” is positioned as one of the front runners in the race for this year’s Academy Awards, the film world’s highest honors, which are handed out in February.

Day-Lewis won for his performance as President Abraham Lincoln in “Lincoln,” while Britain’s Weisz was a surprise choice for the New York critics’ best actress award for her portrayal of Hester Collyer in romantic drama “The Deep Blue Sea,” set in post-World War Two Britain.

Sally Field was named best supporting actress for her performance opposite Day-Lewis as Mary Todd Lincoln in “Lincoln,” the tale of Lincoln’s battle to outlaw slavery. It was written by playwright Tony Kushner, who also picked up the best screenplay award.

Actor Matthew McConaughey won best supporting actor for his performances in “Bernie” and raunchy comedy “Magic Mike.”

NOTHING FOR ‘LES MIS’

Notably absent from the list of winners was “Les Misérables,” the first big movie adaptation of the popular stage musical. It stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway and was directed by “The King’s Speech” Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper. The movie has been gaining critical buzz in preview screenings.

Also missing from the list of winners was Ben Affleck’s well-received Iran hostage thriller “Argo.”

The New York based film critics organization was founded in 1935 and comprises members from newspapers, magazines and some online publications.

Awards from the critics and movie industry groups often influence which films, performers and film makers will compete for the Oscars, which are given out by the Beverly Hills-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“Zero Dark Thirty,” saw its release date pushed back to December 19 after the film got caught up earlier this year in a U.S. election controversy.

The makers of the film – “The Hurt Locker” Oscar winners Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal – recently denied a claim they were given classified material for their research but said they did conduct interviews with a CIA officer and others at the heart of the hunt for the al Qaeda leader.

The New York critics group’s pick for best documentary went to “The Central Park Five,” Ken Burns’ examination of the 1989 case of five black and Latino teenagers whose convictions of raping a white female jogger were overturned after they spent years in prison.

Best foreign language film went to Austrian director Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” a tale of an elderly couple facing the tragic march of death, while best animated feature went to “Frankenweenie.”

The critics awarded best cinematography to Greig Fraser for “Zero Dark Thirty” and best first film went to nonfiction film “How To Survive A Plague,” David France’s documentary about the first nine years of AIDS advocacy group ACT UP.

The organization announced the awards via Twitter.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Steve Orlofsky)