Ebert would have loved this: It does not gloss over major events that tarnish his star – his alcoholism, his pettiness, even his face. This is not simply a chronicle of the critic’s final few months, rather it’s an overview of his life, aptly so, I suppose, as it’s adapted, in part, from Ebert’s memoir Life Itself.

Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois, about an hour and a half south of Chicago, and grew up early on recognizing that he had a considerable talent for writing. In his mid-twenties, he began writing movie reviews for The Chicago Sun-Times, winning a Pulitzer Prize for his work in 1975. Around that time, too, he teamed up with Gene Siskel, forming something of the U.S.’s popular critical consensus for nearly 25 years.

Most of those beats you probably know, and director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) does an excellent job filling them in, yes, with interviews from those who knew Roger best during those times, and passages from the book, but even more so with a deft pace aided by short interspersions of Roger today, or at least Roger in 2012. These diversions are, thankfully, less a study in courage than a testament to stubbornness, wit, or another key personality trait that maintained while the body faded away.

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The apes are back and there’s gonna be trouble … Yes, we like songs. We also like movies where apes run amuck and kick a lot of ass. Fortunately, we won’t be disappointed with the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It’s got all that, and more.

In this sequel to 2011′s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Cloverfield director Matt Reeves brings us the beginnings of the war between man and ape. Our money is on the humans. We cheat.

Look for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to drop on July 11. The trailer is after the break.

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It’s very easy to look at a personality like the Iron Sheik and make some flash judgments about him. Like many wrestlers from the seventies and eighties,  he wasn’t just a character to the audience. The Iron Sheik was everything he claimed to be. Going head to head with Hulk Hogan, the Iron Sheik helped usher in the era of Hulkamania. He would turn one of America’s heroes against it when he took the real life G.I. Joe, Sergeant Slaughter and made him an Iraqi sympathizer. But by being so hated, he lead a generation of wrestling fans through an emotional journey. But that is only half of his story.

The Sheik is a documentary that debuted last month at the Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto that helps fill in all the blanks and brings to light many things that most people who are even fans of the Sheik may not even be aware of. The one that stands out the most that you’ll see in the trailer below is that while he was America’s biggest foe in the ring, he was in fact living the American dream that he escaped Iran to fulfill. Created by Iranian-Canadian twins Page and Jian Magen and joined by commentary from the likes of the Rock, Jim Ross, Jake Roberts, Mick Foley and over 25 celebrities, the Sheik’s story unfolds for audiences as they see there is more to this man than four letter word filled Twitter rants and spitting on the USA.

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At WonderCon 2014, fans crammed into the Arena to watch the world premiere of DC Universe’s latest animated feature, Son of Batman, and with good reason. The film, which is set to release on DVD and Blu-ray on May 6, delivers fun and adventure with a fresh plot based Grant Morrison’s 2006 DC storyline.

Bruce Wayne (Jason O’Mara) receives an unwelcome visit from his former lover and foe, Talia al Gul (Morena Baccarin), who’s brought with her a son Batman never knew he had. Damien (Stuart Allen) is exactly the type of kid you’d expect to come from these two: smart, strong, ruthless, and bloodthirsty. Bats, with some patience and an assist from Nightwing (Sean Maher), is able to get through to his long-lost son, and it’s not long before the arrogant kid is donning his own version of the Robin costume. He soars off alongside his father to take down criminal mastermind, Deathstroke (Thomas Gibson).

In keeping with its later animated features, DC does not hold back on the blood and gore of the battles. Damien, who is supposed about 10, takes quite a beating and there’s an especially cringe worthy part involving daggers. Still the action is very welcome and keeps the plot speeding ahead. One of my favorite sequences involved the new dynamic duo fighting off ninja man-bats, engineered by a kidnapped Dr. Langstrom (Xander Berkeley).

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For a movie that makes mention, nearly every five minutes or so, that this is Detroit, it seems odd that they would offer almost no evidence beyond cars. The Metropolitan? No, you silly bastards, the paper of Detroit is the Free Press. We drink Vernor’s and wholly expect to get shot exiting to both Joe Louis and Metro.

No mention of 8 Mile? Nothing of Motown? Not a word of Comerica Park. Hell, I don’t even live in Detroit, and — oh, and nothing about the Red Wings, either — and I know to reference all that.

There’s a point to that rant — as Brick Mansions is a movie about not quite getting there. The name, which is iterated an reiterated so many times before the title actually appears that I thought it had already appeared when it finally does, is Detroit 2018…or Arkham City: Detroit, a walled slum that is a world unto itself.

It has its own economy, the nature of which is never elaborated upon, and controlled largely by drug-lord Tremaine Alexander (rapper RZA) — how he became so rich and powerful selling to bums is also not very clear — who is presently engaged in catching the feisty Lino (David Belle), a slippery parkour enthusiast whose job is, apparently, swiping drugs from Tremaine’s operation and disposing of them at inopportune times.

The film opens with an impressive display of Belle’s agility, as he tumbles, glides, wall jumps, belt-lines, and neutralizes Tremaine’s thugs with minimal prejudice throughout his run-down apartment complex. It’s a good set piece, and director Camille Delamarre has a steady enough grasp of geography that you don’t get lost following Lino’s escape, but the camerawork, being yet another lift of Bourne‘s shaky cam, often makes it difficult to see what Belle is actually doing. It doesn’t ruin the sequence, and subsequent set pieces, but they’re innovative and skillfully executed by Belle, they deserve more.

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On day two of WonderCon, Fox did its best to take over the convention in Anaheim. The studio showed footage from several of its upcoming films and politely remained mum on Director Bryan Singer’s recent legal troubles.

The clip from X-Men: Days of Future Past, which included a faceoff between Iceman and Sunspot, certainly excited audiences in the Anaheim Convention Center’s Arena. Fox slyly avoided audience questions by saving X-Men to the end of the presentation. In truth, fans had already gotten their fill of footage and Q&A from the other movies’ cast and crew.

Perhaps trying to answer the YA smash hit The Hunger Games, Fox now has its own teen post-apocalyptic movie in The Maze Runner. Director Wes Ball and author James Dashner were both inspired by Ender’s Game, Lord of the Flies and Lost when creating The Maze Runner and it showed in the brief but thrilling preview seen in Anaheim.

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Each time new trailers, photos or whatever drops from this upcoming movie, we get even more excited. Not that that’s really possible at this point as we’re already about as excited as you can get

There’s no doubt, we’re seeing this one opening day (or sooner, if possible). Yes, as the title says, we’re talking about X-Men: Days of Future Past.

There’s a new trailer out now and yes, it looks awesome. In this movie Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) goes back in time 50 years to alter history and hopefully prevent some bad shit from going down.

Does he succeed? Probably. But along the way you can be sure he kicks a lot of ass. As you might expect.

Along for the ride in this one, besides Jackman, are James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Michael Fassbender, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Fan Bingbing, Omar Sy, Nicholas Hoult and more.

Look for X-Men: Days of Future Past to arrive on May 23. Check out the trailer after the break.

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They may be this generation’s Jackass but they aren’t yet a household name… yet. Vitalyzdtv, Roman Atwood and Dennis Roady have about 10,000,000 subscribers and have gotten close to a billion views on their YouTube channels but the trio of pranksters aren’t satisfied with just being on top of the YouTube prank world. They want something bigger. And definitely a bigger screen.

The prank trio is pairing up with Collective Digital Studio to produce a movie called Natural Born Pranksters. The chief content officer for CDS Gary Binkow told the Hollywood Reporter, “We’re really interested in working with creative, dynamic influencers… Roman, Vitaly and Dennis are at the pinnacle of this genre. They have a really loyal and engaged fan base. We thought (the film) was a really great opportunity to tap into that.”

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In a bid to compete with devices like the Google Chromecast, Roku and mainly the Apple TV, Amazon today announced the Amazon Fire TV. According to chairman Jeff Bezos, the Fire TV “is a tiny box that plugs into your HDTV. It’s the easiest way to enjoy Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, low-cost video rentals, and more. With instant access to over 200,000 TV episodes and movies, plus all your favorite subscriptions and streaming services, you can watch what you want, when you want.”

In addition, if you’re a Prime member “you get unlimited access to thousands of popular movies and TV shows, including exclusives like Downton Abbey, The Americans, Alpha House, and Under the Dome.” All in 1080p, of course.

Bu wait, there’s even more. “Fire TV has voice search that actually works. The old way of searching with a TV remote—scrolling and clicking one letter at a time on an alphabet grid—is painful. With Fire TV you simply speak the title, actor, or genre into the remote and you’re done.”

The internal specs of the Fire TV are impressive as well. The device features a quad-core processor, dedicated GPU, 2 GB of memory, and dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi. It also features a new buffering system which will supposedly help eliminate any streaming lag. Of course, your mileage may vary.

The device also plays games. Titles at launch include Minecraft, The Walking Dead, Monsters University, the Amazon exclusive Sev Zero, and many other free games available to Prime Members.

The Amazon Fire TV is $99.00 and ships today. The optional game controller will set you back another $39.99.

To be honest, I’m kinda looking frward to this movie more than pretty much any other this Summer. Why? Well, because it’s the X-Men, that’s why.

Plus, Bryan Singer in the director’s chair and a cast that’s the envy of the civilized movie-watching world. Also, it just looks cool. Oh, and because this sound like a movie I’m gonna love:

The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. The beloved characters from the original “X-Men” film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from the past, “X-Men: First Class,” in order to change a major historical event and fight in an epic battle that could save our future.

And yes, there’s a new trailer that’s just dropped today. Check it out after the break.

Look for X-Men: Days of Future Past to arrive in theaters on May 23.

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