As blown away as we were when Fox released the very first trailer for X-Men: First Class about a month ago, we didn’t get to see as much as we wanted. Thankfully, we’re getting more and more as we get closer to the release date, and now in the form of a Russian trailer.

Sure, the dialogue and titles are in a backwards demon language, but we get a more in-depth look at Beast’s transformation, more young Magneto, and a few great shots of the Hellfire Club.

The film is set to take place long before the events of 2000′s X-Men, when both Professor Charles Xavier and Eric “Magneto” Lensherr meet for the first time and decide to help their fellow mutants by forming a school and a covert team.

The film stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, and a whole slew of young stars as the very first generation of the X-Men.

Check out the new trailer after the jump, and see X-Men: First Class in theaters on June 3rd.

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The third and final game I checked out at this past weekend’s PAX East independent game showcase was an amazing little game called Snapshot, on its way to PC, Mac, and some consoles, sometime very soon. PAX East is the first time in awhile that Snapshot has been available for demo, so I felt really lucky to get a chance to sit down and spend some time with this title.

Snapshot reminded me of Braid right off the bat, and this observation wasn’t far off. Playing as this cute little robot dude navigating some brilliantly designed, beautifully animated levels, players use a camera to solve puzzles. Boxes can be moved, platforms can be relocated, and obstacles can be removed, as the player takes a picture of an object and places that photo over the environment to continue through the level.

It’s not always as easy as it sounds, though, as the objects aren’t always friendly, or aren’t always easily captured with the camera.

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Like most folks, I love food. Its sheer edibleness, its eat-tastic-tude, its ability to be eaten…anything that better facilitates the process of receiving nourishment from something is tops in my book.

Paul Liebrandt, however, might disagree. He views food as a work of art, and the New York chef has made a name for himself over the last decade creating dishes that are meant to be tasted and appreciated for their miasma of flavorful combinations rather than their nourishment.

Sally Rowe’s documentary A Matter of Taste follows Paul’s passion to cook, refine, and perfect his art, as well as provide a brief chronicle of his life as one of the hottest up-and-coming chefs in New York, to his nadir flipping burgers for a simple NY bistro, to his joint undertaking to open Corton, a New York restaurant where he could cook the kind of food he wanted (and wants) to.

Paul is a charming character, surprisingly level-headed and calm given both his youth and profession. He’s also interesting to watch at work, with strands of hair on either side of his head, swinging like pendulums as he mashes a paste of brains and eggs amid a bed of eel tongues (or something like that, but seriously, that’s really the kind of stuff the guy cooks) or discusses the finer points of skinning a pig’s head (as he does in the opening shot).

He works with a swift and violent and hypnotizing precision. You don’t need to taste the food to appreciate the aesthetic of the piece.

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Just when you thought Hell’s Kitchen was safe from the grasp of Hollywood after 2003′s embarrassment to the genre which was Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil, it looks like the property may still be lucrative enough to garner a reboot.

Fox is so keen on the idea of rebooting the Man Without Fear, they’ve even signed Twilight: Eclipse director David Slade to take on the film.

From Variety: Slade has been considering several comicbook properties, including Fox’s “Wolverine,” but that gig wound up going to Darren Aronofsky (“Black Swan”). Though the film wound up spinning off “Elektra” with Jennifer Garner, studio had hoped “Daredevil” would earn more than its $103 million domestic take and launch a series of sequels.

Fox has been looking to redevelop the character since, but people close to the project say it’s not a reboot per se — more a continuation of the “Daredevil” saga. Studio has yet to hire a scribe, but writer would work closely with Slade.

Sadly, because Fox has been keeping the film in “pre-production” for years, they managed to retain the rights to Daredevil when Marvel was purchased by Disney. The same thing goes for The Fantastic Four, which the studio is also hoping to reboot.

One can only hope that Slade and the writer yet-to-be-decided will do a better job than the Affleck/Garner vehicle from 2003, but the most we can hope for is that we won’t get an ancillary Kevin Smith cameo. Fingers crossed.

With the impeding release of Paul, featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, it’s a good time to check in and see if the pair of Brit funnymen have anything else to offer this week. It should be no surprise that they do.

It should also be no surprise, that is if you’ve been following their careers, that the boys have a love for all-things sci-fi and for Star Wars in particular. If you’ve never seen their show Spaced, you should. It will give you a great idea what I’m talking about.

In the meantime, we’ve got a very funny video from College Humor featuring the twosome doing their best Star Wars imitations of R2-D2 and C-3PO. It looks like this video was done during the making of Paul and is definitely worth checking out.

So, to that end, check out the video after the jump. Paul opens this Friday.

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When we first heard that Full House Poker would be at the tail end of XBLA’s spring showcase Block Party alongside the likes of Beyond Good and Evil HD, Torchlight and the spiritual successor to Contra, we were a bit skeptical. After all, how does a virtually unknown poker title fall in with blockbusters like these gems? To our pleasant surprise, the answer is very well.

Gameplay

The primary gameplay of Full House Poker isn’t very different from other standard Texas Hold ‘Em poker games. While the button layout differs, it feels pretty standard to real life poker tournaments. Players have the option to hit, hold and fold in normal play with the added bonus of fast forwarding once they have folded out instead of being forced to watch the rest of the hand play out.

One added feature is the ability to play with emotion. Using the left or right triggers, players can bluff their confidence or anxiety about the moves they make in hopes of both the computer or real life opponents may buy into. Using this creatively can give players an advantage if they properly taunt their competitors into bad plays to take the pot.

Added to Full House Poker however adds the concept of experience points and leveling to poker. Now, don’t worry. This isn’t an RPG-like system where going up levels will earn players perks or special abilities that make players better at poker. Instead, it works as a reward system. For every hand a player deals in on, they earn experience.

Winning hands earns further experience along with risky and smart plays that pan out in their favor. As levels increase, new titles, decks, tables, decor, avatar costumes and game rooms themselves unlock. Not counting in game avatar costumes, there are already 93 unlockable rewards for players to attain.

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We know, you really, really, really wanted a new iPad 2. In fact, you even got in line for it and waited patiently. Sadly, as has happened in the past, Apple didn’t quite understand the demand for the new device (or didn’t care) so even though you waited in line, they sold out before you got one. Bummer, right?

Well, this news isn’t going to really cheer you up all that much, sorry. It seems demand for the new shiny bit of awesome is so great, Apple has pushed back estimated ship dates for new orders to a month (or more). Even though some Apple retail stores may be getting a second wave of iPad 2′s and releasing them to the public today, those of you wishing to avoid that insanity for the first (or more) times and who want to order online seem to be out of luck.

This new shipping estimate means orders placed today might not arrive for over a month. Apple’s shipping quotes do often overestimate the time it will take so orders might ship earlier than indicated. However, we wouldn’t suggest holding your breath for that one.

Still, there’s always Best Buy, WalMart or Target. They might have what you need. Well, probably don’t want to hold your breath for that either.

The fourth installment of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise hits theaters in May, but today we’re bringing you the first official movie poster. Entitled On Stranger Tides, the flick will be the first of the series to be released in 3D and will be producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s second 3D film to-date, following his 2009 animated G-Force.

The Walk Disney Pictures release stars Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane, Geoffrey Rush, and Kevin McNalley, among others. Interestingly, the plot of the new Pirates is inspired by the novel On Stranger Tides, which is the same novel that inspired the LucasArts game, The Secret of Monkey Island; a game that has become a bit of a cult classic, even sporting a recent iPad port of the original game.

The plot focuses on Captain Jack Sparrow searching for the fountain of youth and along the way, confronting the infamous pirate, Blackbeard himself.

On Stranger Tides releases May 20th. Until then, hit the jump for the full movie poster in all its glory.

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I’m a shameful(less?) Anglophile, which in turn makes me an unabashed(ful) Francophobe, and some of the tenderest English patches of my otherwise iron heart are reserved for Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and, of course, Edgar Wright, the three gents who, through their collaborations in such fine works as the sitcom Spaced, and the films, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, demonstrated a mutual respect, appreciation, love for American pop-culture—something I’ve seen very seldomly outside of America.

In fact, it’s so rare, I don’t think there’s actually a term for it (Americaphile? Colonialphile? Washingtonian-a-philia?). So when there’s a project featuring at least two of three, I take notice.

And now we have Paul wherein another favorite, Seth Rogen, voices the titular Paul, an alien who came crashing to earth some 60 years ago and was immediately kidnapped by the US and taken to mysterious Area 51, never to be heard from again…

…until 60 years later, specifically while two British, alien-obsessed Americaphiles Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) are making a tour across the US on their way to Comic-Con, simultaneously hitting every E.T.-related point of interest along the way.

Naturally that leads them through the (evidently) lone highway toward Area 51, with the only other car on the road being piloted by the freshly escaped Paul. Crashes ensue, and the boys meet Paul, who explains he’s fleeing from government agents and asks, his ride being totaled, to tag along.

He does, of course, and farther along the way they attracted the attention/pick up a collection of equally strange and terrible characters, including flighty Bible-thumper Ruth (Kristen Wiig), her truck-driving, shotgun-wielding father (John Carroll Lynch), and a handful of spooky government agents (Jason Bateman, Bill Hader among them), the collection of which all builds up for the big cameo at the end.

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I would like to think that Nintendo’s brand-new, first of its kind portable system wouldn’t have any kind of performance issues, especially when it comes to the previous generation’s games. Unfortunately, according to the people over at Gamespot, the Nintendo 3DS loads DS games 35% slower than the Nintendo DS Light, which by the way, was released in 2006, over five years ago.

No need to panic yet, as 35% slower computes to about a 5-10 seconds difference between the load times of the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo DS Lite, which isn’t too much. Gamespot went on to report that while the 3DS took considerably longer to get to the in-game menu, no performance issues were noticed from then on and frame rates were normal.

I am happy to report that, when I played the 3DS last weekend at PAX East, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries didn’t seem laggy or take a while to load, so I presume that the newer games aren’t having these kinds of issues. Nintendo has yet to comment on Gamespot’s findings.

With the release of the Nintendo 3DS less than two weeks away, it’ll be interesting to see what other users find when they review the system. While backwards compatibility isn’t the key feature of a new system, it certainly is an important one, and if the Nintendo 3DS can handle 3-D, it should be able to handle a little ol’ Nintendo DS game, right?

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This week’s pick is the classic World War II commando caper The Guns of Navarone (1961) directed by J. Lee Thompson, and written by acclaimed author Alistair MacLean, (Where Eagles Dare). The film stars Gregory Peck (Capt. Keith Mallory), David Niven (Cpl. John Anthony Miller), Anthony Quinn (Col. Andrea Stavrou), Stanley Baker (Pvt. “Butcher” Brown), Anthony Quayle (Maj. Roy Franklin), James Darren (Pvt. Spiro Pappadimos), and Irene Pappas (Maria Pappadimos).

The film is set during the rather forgotten Dodecanese Campaign from September 8th to November 22nd 1943. As the Germans had smashed southerly through the Balkans into Greece beginning in late 1940, their Italian allies held several of the Greek islands in the south-eastern Aegean Sea and used them for staging areas to help the Germans conquer Greece next. Fascist leader Benito Mussolini referred to the island of Leros as “the Corregidor of the Mediterranean.”

It was also hoped that Germany could cajole neutral Turkey to enter the war as a member of the Axis. The Allies tried several attempts to capture the islands in order to counter the German push through the Balkans into Greece.

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Hard to believe it, but Syfy’s newest venture into reality TV, Face Off, is finally coming to an end. We’ve seen some drama, some annoying characters come and go, and some awesome makeup challenges, but this week it all comes down to one last competition, and one final winner.

In this last competition, the final three contestants are taking it back to fairy tales as they reimagine some classic stories. From Syfy:

In this second sneak peek clip of the Season Finale of Face Off, the final four contestants recreate their favorite fairy tales in their last attempt to prove their talent.  A werewolf, witch, and other creatures are being finalized.  There seems to be a positive overall tone among the contestants as they head down the final stretch, but it wouldn’t be the finals without something going awry.  Conor’s final creation appears to have a malfunction and his opportunity at being crowned the winner of Face Off may be over.

Check out the clip after the jump, and enjoy the Face Off season finale on Wednesday at 10pm, 9pm Central.

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