While this past week had a few fun trailers, unfortunately there wasn’t anything that I’m going to be waiting in line opening night to see.  It seems that we have fully transitioned out of the exciting summer films and are now getting prepared for the mediocre releases that didn’t quite make the summer block.

This week we have a couple big budget films that I feel obligated to talk about, a couple smaller indies I’m a little more excited for, and — Moon Nazis!

Real Steel

Click to see the trailer

There was an early teaser that came out for this last year, but this is the first chance that we really get to see the story of this film.  On one level you instantly want to dismiss this film as “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots: The Movie,” sure to be filled with terrible dialogue and cheesy one-liners.  But on another level you hope that this interesting premise might actually turn out to be a fresh take on inspiring boxing films.

Hugh Jackman (X-Men, The Prestige) is usually pretty decent in whatever he does, but who I would be most interested to see is Evangeline Lilly in this role, who is most famous as Kate from Lost.  Although she was in The Hurt Locker for a bit, this will definitely be her biggest step into features.

While part of me is excited to see some fun robot violence, I feel ultimately this film has to disappoint.  Everyone is going to be expecting Transformers quality CGI, but there is no way they had the budget to pull that off.  And, I get the feeling that people are going to want this film to have more heart that it will end up having.

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As we often do, we’ve got a preview for a new and interesting comic from opur friends at Marvel. This time around its Mystery Men issue number one.

Here’s some scoop on the new comic:

Marvel is pleased to present your first look at Mystery Men #1 (of 5), from Edgar Award-winning writer David Liss and superstar artist Patrick Zircher! Before Captain America, before The Twelve, there was The Aviatrix, The Operative, Achilles, The Revenant and The Surgeon!

What drives these five heroes to pull on masks and take to the rooftops of Manhattan? What dark conspiracy not only brings them together, but threatens to tear the America apart?

On the hunt to solve a brutal murder, our champions will smash their way from gleaming penthouses of privilege to squalid alleyways, as the full horror of their enemies’ schemes unfolds! Get ready for an action packed, edge-of-your-seat and in-continuity super hero adventure like no other when Marvel’s first champions take the case this June, only in Mystery Men #1 (of 5)!

Check out the preview pages after the jump. Look for Mystery Men #1 in comic book stores on June 8th.

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I can see how some might initially dismiss Hesher as a quirky indie drama that struggles to find a consistent tone. One minute you’re watching an emotional family dinner, only to be followed by pounding guitar riffs emphasizing comedic beats.  Some might also complain about a lack of character motivation and backstory. But whatever is lacking in this film is more than made up with compelling characters and strong performances from the entire cast.

Devin Brochu plays T.J. Forney, a quiet kid living with his father (Rainn Wilson) and grandmother (Piper Laurie) after recently losing his mother in a car accident. Through a series of unfortunate situations, he runs into Hesher, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a loner metal-head with greasy hair and homemade tattoos covering his body. Hesher decides that he is going to live in T.J.’s grandma’s house, where he quickly gets himself involved with the family struggling with their pain.

Almost just as randomly T.J. meets Nicole, played by the incredible Natalie Portman (also a producer on this film), when she saves him from a bully.  Despite their age difference, they become close friends who always seem to be at the right places to help each other out of bad situations.

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OK, horror fans, what’s better than relaxing on the couch with a scary movie, good friends, and a large pizza while the scares roll in? Not a whole lot, that’s what. That’s exactly what we’ve got for you with a brand new Rite Twitter Giveaway!

Be sure to stick to our Twitter feed later today as we tweet out a horror trivia question. If you’re the first few tweeter with the right answer, you will win yourself this sweet prize pack:

-Papa John’s Pizza Card

-iTunes gift card for the purchase of The Rite

It’s going to be a pretty deep horror question, so be sure to get your brains ready, watch our Twitter feed, and check out the synopsis and clip from The Rite after the jump to prepare you. Good luck!

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We’ve been following this one for a long time since the days when we only knew a bit about the story. Fortunately, over the months we’ve gotten more and more info about J.J. Abrams Super 8, including a poster and a couple trailers.

Now, as the movie is getting even closer to its release date, we’ve got more to share with you in the form of an actual clip from the movie.

In this one we’re given a bit more of the scene where the kids are making the film that causes all the trouble. Unfortunately, a lot of it is the same footage we’ve seen already including the truck versus train explosion and the kids running from it.

It does, however, play up the obvious budding romance between the main kid and the girl that almost gets away. I wonder if, during the course of the film, those two crazy kids finally get together? And by “get together’ I mean hold hands or have one very innocent kiss, much like Elliott did during the “free the frogs” sequence in E.T. It is a Spielberg homage, after all.

Even if we have seen a lot of it before in other trailers and whatnot, it only serves to enhance my desire to see the entire film. Damn you Abrams, you got me.

Check out the new video after the jump. Super 8 arrives in theaters on June 10th.

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With NBC and Fox already announcing their schedules for the Fall, ABC is next up. The network made its announcements this morning at its upfront presentation.

Some of the highlights include Tim Allen returning to the network to launch a new comedy block on Tuesday nights with his show Last Man Standing. In addition, ABC will launch six of its 13 new scripted series in the fall, including Charlie’s Angels, which will be the anchor show for Thursday nights.

The network also renewed modest performer Happy Endings, giving it the slot after Modern Family. New ABC series for the 2011-12 season are Apartment 23, Charlie’s Angels, Good Christian Belles, Last Man Standing, Man Up, Missing, Once Upon a Time, Pan Am, Revenge, The River, Scandal, Suburgatory and Work It.

America’s Funniest Home Videos, The Bachelor, Body of Proof, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Happy Endings, Secret Millionaire, Shark Tank and 20/20 join previously announced returning series Castle, Cougar Town, Grey’s Anatomy, The Middle, Modern Family and Private Practice.

All new fall series have received 13-episode orders, while the size of the orders for most midseason shows have not been announced. Good to see Castle coming back, especially after Monday’s amazing season finale. Of the others, we’re probably most interested in Missing (mostly because of Ashley Judd), Pan Am, Once Upon a Time and maybe Charlie’s Angeles, but mostly to see how bad it probably is.

ABC’s fall primetime schedule is as follows, followed by descriptions of all the new shows:

MONDAY

8:00 p.m. “Dancing with the Stars”
10:00 p.m. “Castle”

TUESDAY

8:00 p.m. “Last Man Standing”
8:30 p.m. “Man Up”
9:00 p.m. “Dancing with the Stars the Results Show”
10:00 p.m. “Body of Proof”

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Before you flip your collective lids, the Family Guy creator isn’t taking on another live action venture into the residents of Bedrock. Instead, Macfarlane is working with Fox on a brand new animated series based on the modern Stone Age family.

While Macfarlane’s still fighting the PTC on whether or not his show should still be on the air, it looks like he’s getting the full support of Fox to work on a weekly animated Flintstones show. From THR:

Much will remain the same about the cartoon that aired in primetime on ABC from 1960-66, but the creator of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show says some updates will be necessary: “What’s the animal version of the iPod?” he said. “That’s the kind of thing we have to think about.”

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This week’s pick is the 1984 release of director Joseph Zito’s Missing in Action which was the first installment of the franchise. Chuck Norris stars for the first time as Col. James Braddock, who years earlier escaped a POW camp in Vietnam and returns with an American delegation to find out whether or not Americans are still being held prisoner.

The film also stars M. Emmet Walsh (Jack “Tuck” Tucker), David Tress (Senator Porter), Lenore Kasdorf (Ann), James “Lopan” Hong as (General Trau), and in one of his earliest roles before he became an international star, Jean- Claude Van Damme simply as “The car driver”.

Being labled strickly as B-movie entertainment, the film was considered by many critics and fans of the first Rambo film as a rip-off. Both Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were intrigued by a screenplay which was floating around Hollywood at the time by an up and coming writer/director named James Cameron, who had graduated from the Roger Corman school of movie making, and had made a name for himself with a small successful Science Fiction film called The Terminator that very same year.

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Like most folks who attended the last screening of Natural Selection, I was catching the film mostly due to its winning both the audience and jury awards at SXSW. I hadn’t heard of it either, but then there were a ton of films on the venue, and I stuck to the ones I probably wouldn’t get screening invites to later (read “documentaries”).

So the hype for Natural Selection was ample, foremost among its champions was/is my Chicago colleague, the great Roger Ebert. And I can see why: It’s a tender, sweet story, the performances are terrific, and it’s all-around original, funny, and (forgive the use of this word) fresh.

Rachel Harris (whose eclectic credits range from The Hangover to Stuart Little 2 to SeaQuest DSV) plays the infertile, sexually frustrated, and very Christian housewife Linda White. Since she can’t produce a child and since she and her husband Abe Abe (John Diel) are such dedicated Christians, the two haven’t had sex in about a quarter of a century.

Abe finds a loophole in the only-sex-for-procreation by making weekly donations to the local sperm bank, something Linda is unaware of (as it would only compound her frustration at not being able to likewise relieve herself) until Abe suffers a stroke during one session and subsequently reveals to her that years ago one of his donations grew into a 23-year-old son Raymond (Matt O’Leary). He tasks Linda with tracking down Raymond so he can see the lad before he dies, and, like the dutiful wife she is, Linda accepts.

However, Raymond is the polar opposite of Linda—blasphemous, crooked, and, as the opening scene discloses, a fugitive. At first he resists her request, but after spying the opportunity to run some sort of grift on this gullible, overly patient woman, he accepts.

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As with NBC earlier today, Fox jumped into the fray and announced its primetime schedule for next season also. The network has one new drama, Terra Nova, three comedies, New Girl, I Hate My New Daughter and the animated Allen Gregory, launching in the fall.

Dramas Alcatraz, the Bones spinoff Finder and animated comedy Napoleon Dynamite drop in midseason. Prehistoric drama Terra Nova wil anchor the network’s Monday lineup at 8 PM with House moving to 9 PM. House will return to 8 PM in midseason to help launch the J.J. Abrams show Alcatraz.

Fox is keeping the Tuesday comedy block with New Girl joining Glee and Raising Hope. I Hate My Teenage Daughter will launch after X-Factor. Also remaining where it is is American Idol on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Thank goodness for that, right?

Obviously, we’re happy to see Family Guy and Fringe back for next year. It just would have been nice to see Human Target get another chance. That could have fit nicely in the hole left by Terra Nova once it gets cancelled.

Yes, we’re cynical about Fox so we assume they will cancel the show just when it starts to get interesting. Fox, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Here are Fox’s fall and midseason schedules followed by descriptions of the new shows:

FOX FALL 2011 PRIMETIME SCHEDULE

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  - TERRA NOVA (new)
9:00-10:00 PM  - HOUSE

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM  - GLEE
9:00-9:30 PM  - NEW GIRL (wt) (new)
9:30-10:00 PM  - RAISING HOPE

WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:30 PM  - THE X FACTOR Performance Show (new)
9:30-10:00 PM  - I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER (wt) (new)

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Will wonders never cease. After being dark for, um, a little while, it seems Sony has begun the process of restoring the PlayStation Network. About time, I’m sure many would say (and they did).

The first step for Sony’s PlayStation Network members is a firmware update that’s been issued for the PlayStation 3. After applying the patch, your PS3 will restart and then you will be prompted to sign into the PSN. You won’t be able to, however, and instead will be sent an email which includes a link to change your network password.

When I tried last night the servers were so jammed the webpage wouldn’t load. So, be patient. Obviously, a lot of people are trying to do this all at the same time.

Once you can actually change your password, then you can go back to your PS3, sign in, and get back on the network. Oh happy day. Don’t worry if you can’t make all this work just yet. According to Sony, it might take some time.

“Please note that these services will take a bit of time to be turned on and rolled out to the whole country,” the company said in a blog post Saturday. “The process has begun and some states are being turned on now, so please be patient as we reach your city and state.”

In other words, after waiting this long, you may have to wait a bit longer. Anyone having any success with this yet? Let us know how its going for you.

He may never play Superman or Captain Marvel, but Robert Smigel and the gang at Saturday Night Live finally got Jon Hamm to portray one of America’s most treasured superheroes: Ace of the Ambiguously Gay Duo.

This past week marked a special episode of SNL, as Robert Smigel’s “Saturday TV Funhouse” presented the first ever live-action episode of The Ambiguously Gay Duo, a cartoon short that started in 1996.

Originally voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrel, the short made sure to give parts to the original cast, as well as guest host Ed Helms and Jimmy Fallon, who played Ace’s partner (in crime) Gary.

We won’t make you wait any more for this epicness, but if you’re looking for some hardcore superhero action this summer, look no further than the special short after the jump.

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