Following the release of 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – a movie that took me a full decade later to actually sit down and watch (told you I’m slow) – Peter Jackson had seemingly done the impossible: bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s famed series to life on the big screen…and made it amazing. So amazing in fact that I was determined not to let another decade pass before I got to watch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

What did I find? More of the same; and I couldn’t be happier for it (you can go here for an in-depth review by our own Nat Almirall). Sure, the length of the movie is every bit as ridiculous as the original trilogy, but if you know that going in there’s really no point in complaining about it. Instead, I focused on what made me love that first offering so much: colorful characters, gorgeous settings and an adventure that could easily stand in as a double for the definition of “epic.”

Many of the same stars and characters make appearances in Hobbit, so there’s practically no chance of unfamiliarity with the viewer…unless this is their first foray into Tolkien’s universe. And unless they have an aversion to fantasy – at which point I’d ask why they’re watching something like this in the first place – they’ll still have a great experience watching a younger Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman in his usual twitchiness) and his new band of brothers come together for the greater good.

Say what you will about Bryan Singer’s take on the X-Men, but at least his was way better than what that other guy did with X-Men: Last Stand. Jeez, what a mess that was.

And don’t get us started on his desire to do a Battlestar Galactica movie. We’ve covered that, but it’s not the point right now. This is about the X-Men.

Anyway, Singer has been working on a new X-Men movie, a sequel to Matthew Vaughn’s excellent X-Men: First Class, and now there’s a new trailer for it for all to see.

In it we get a good look at the movie and the mutants who will be joining forces to battle the Sentinels. And yes, that list is pretty impressive.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for X-Men: Days of Future Past to hit theaters on May 23, 2014.

While many may be excited for this, some of us are not as much as we thought we would be. From all accounts, The Hobbit is good, but not great.

Still, it will be fun to go back to Peter Jackson’s version of Middle Earth for a few hours. And then a few more hours. And then, a few more.

Why was this turned into a trilogy again? Oh yeah, because they can. And also, for the money.

Enjoy this latest featurette from the first filme after the break. Look for the first installment of The Hobbit to arrive next week.

Peter Jackson has never been too shy to allow cameras to document the behind the scenes machinations of the Lord of the Rings franchise. The original trilogy had hundreds of hours of special features dedicated to the creation of the popular film franchise.

Now with The Hobbit in full swing the tradition continues. Jackson has just released his third production diary, this time focusing on the recently revealed dwarves. The diary itself is structured around cast and crews favorite memories of the first block of shooting, but thigs quickly develop into a dwarf love fest. It is clear that diminutive stars of the film are quickly becoming the life of the sets.

Besides the dwarves, the diary also showcases a few quick tidbits that will make any ringer giddy. We see more of the “Riddles in the Dark” scene, including some decent angles of Martin Freeman in full costume and Gollum in his mo cap suit. Elrond, Gandalf and Galadrial show up to tease a certain council meeting and there’s a father son reunion of Gimili and Gloin.

Finally the diary ends on a wonderful surprise that I refuse to ruin for you, but suffice to say it is a comforting sight to see.

Check out all three of the first diaries after the jump. The Hobbit arrives in theaters in 2012.

Not to say that Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming prequel, X-Men: First Class won’t be a fine piece of cinema, but we’ve been burned before. As we all remember, the gigantic mess that was X-Men: The Last Stand was enough to leave a bad taste in the mouths of many fanboys across the globe.

Fox and Vaughn are hoping to erase that film from our minds, however, as they’re forcing us to remember when the film franchise was good and pure with moments of the original 2001 film.

In these new posters, we get a glimpse of the young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) with a perfectly placed reflection showing the men we remember from the film, namely Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. A bit on the nose, but it works.

Check out the posters in full size after the jump and catch X-Men: First Class in theaters on June 3rd.

What ever happened to simple numeric suffixes to titles like Jaws 2 or Friday the 13th Part 4: The Dream Master? In the past decade, films have gotten more ridiculous with titles of sequels like Step Up 2 The Streets or Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Now, Darren Aronofsky’s sequel to 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine is taking another route by going by the name The Wolverine.

In an interview with HitFix, Aronofsky explained that his film isn’t a traditional sequel.

The film that he’s directing is officially called “The Wolverine,” and there won’t be a number attached to it.  In our interview, he referred to the movie as a “one-off,” and he emphasized that the film isn’t a sequel in any conventional sense.

In 2009, Origins was said to be the beginning of a film series based around the backstories of specific characters. For a while, Fox was toying with the idea of doing an X-Men Origins: Magneto with Ian McKellan attached. That idea was more than likely put on the shelf due to a certain Hobbit.

We already know that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is heading to Japan in the upcoming film, in which we expect to see run ins with the Yakuza-like gang The Hand and possibly even the classic villain Silver Samurai.

The Wolverine begins shooting in March for a possible release in the summer of 2012.

Now that the dust has settled, and we’ve adjusted to the fact that Guillermo Del Toro is not taking the director’s chair, as Middle Earth native Peter Jackson is taking the reins back, it’s time to look to the film as, well…a film. That means finally casting some of the characters we’ve treasured since first reading the book decades ago.

Last week, news came forward that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy star Martin Freeman will fill the very big feet of Bilbo Baggins, and now Jackson has decided to let us in on the rest of the cast, and who exactly they’ll be playing. Here’s the full list from Deadline.

Jackson has cast several other significant Dwarf characters. Richard Armitage (MI-5 and Captain America: The First Avenger) will play Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the Company of Dwarves which sets off to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from a thieving dragon. Aidan Turner (Being Human) and Rob Kazinsky (EastEnders) will play Kili and Fili, members of the Company of Dwarves. Graham McTavish (Secretariat) will play Dwalin, John Callen (Power Rangers Jungle Fury) will play Oin; Stephen Hunter (All Saints) will play Bombur, and Mark Hadlow (King Kong) plays Dori, while Peter Hambleton (The Strip) will play Gloin.

As if these names weren’t enough, there are rumors that David Tennant (Doctor Who) and James Nesbitt (Jekyll) will make an appearance, and also possible speculation that Andy Serkis and Sir Ian McKellan will reprise their roles.

This week sees the release of several new movies and TV shows, some for the first time ever on Blu-ray. Of the ones coming out this week, we’re excited for a few of them in particular. These esteemed examples of entertainment include The Natural, Dreamscape, the debut of the quirky ABC show The Unusuals, the second season of Simon & Simon, Cocoon and the Blu-ray premiere of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (pictured above with Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellan and John Rhys-Davies). Yes, we realize it’s not the director’s cut of the trilogy but still, having these great films on Blu-ray in any form is cause for excitement.

Check them out:

Movies

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ~ Fairuza Balk, Nicolas Cage, Vondie Curtis-Hall (Blu-ray and DVD)

Cocoon ~ Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn (Blu-ray)

Dolan’s Cadillac ~ Christian Slater, Wes Bentley, and Emmanuelle Vaugier (Blu-ray and DVD)

Dreamscape ~ Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer (Blu-ray)

Flight of the Intruder~ Rosanna Arquette, Adam Biesk, Reb Brown (Blu-ray)

Jade ~ David Caruso, Linda Fiorentino, Cazz Palmintieri (Blu-ray)

This week, Chris and Matt are joined by special guest Rick Marshall, editor of MTV’s Splashpage site, to talk about movies, tv, comics, games and all things geek. Among the topics covered are what holiday movies the three are looking forward to such as Kick-Ass and Sherlock Holmes, Avatar, cool video game releases, Thor casting, the performance of 2012 at the box office, the upcoming release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon and a whole lot more.

As usual, the guys made some cool picks for you to check out this week including Rick’s pick of the upcoming Warner Bros. action flick Ninja Assasin, Matt’s pick of the classic Bruce Willis action/romance film Die Hard and Chris’ dual picks of the Chuck Norris action film The Octagon (shown at right) and AMC’s currently running reboot The Prisoner, starring Ian McKellan and Jim Caviezal.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

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Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, Night of the Creeps, the original Stargate, The Sam Fuller Collection, Orphan and the complete The Prisoner series starring and created by Patrick McGoohan (pictured above).

Check them out.

Movies

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan ~ Edward James Olmos, Tricia Helfer (DVD and Blu-ray)

42nd Street Forever 5: Alamo Drafthouse Edition ~ Charlton Heston, Robert Englund (DVD)

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ~ Ray Romano (DVD and Blu-ray)

Into Temptation ~ Kristin Chenoweth, Jeremy Sisto (DVD and Blu-ray)