I don’t know if it’s the strength of Fitzgerald’s novel or Luhrman’s good understanding of it, but this is a far better adaptation than I was expecting.

In case you weren’t in an American high school, The Great Gatsby follows Nick Carraway (played here by Tobey Maguire), a bond trader moved to New York from the Midwest. He purchases a small house in West Egg, a suburb of New York City, and lives across the bay from his cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) and her husband, Nick’s college friend, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). Nick’s neighbor is the mysterious Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), a playboy who’d be notable for the monstrous parties he throws each weekend were it not for the cryptic means through which he funds them.

Nick attends one of Gatsby’s parties, swept up with intrigue and confusion about his host — hearing rumors of his relation to the Kaiser; tales of his work as a spy; whispers of his past at Oxford — many of them from his new acquaintance Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki), female golfer and social gossipista.

Eventually he runs into Gatsby, who appears at Gershwin’s moment of climax during Rhapsody in Blue. The two stir a friendship and small details of Gatsby’s history begin to drip out. He came from a wealthy family. He’s a hero of World War I. He’s…story after story. And, years ago, he was desperately in love with Daisy. But the war and school and other things kept them apart, leaving Tom to claim her. Gatsby’s convinced that, given some time with his lost love, he could convince her to leave her husband and marry him. It’s a solid plan, especially seeing as how Tom is not particularly discreet about his own affairs. But buried beneath this romance is…

On May 2, 2011, special forces from the United States stormed Osama bin Laden’s compound at Abbottabad, Pakistan. That I had to look up the precise dates and location and confirm that they were our own special forces (and not, say, some coalition) testifies to my ignorance. However, I don’t think I’m alone in not knowing the full details of Operation Neptune Spear (yeah, looked that one up, too), and Kathryn Bigelow’s (The Hurt Locker) Zero Dark Thirty offers a glimpse into the operation and an overview of what’s been called “The Greatest Manhunt in History.”

We know the details of 9/11 – what happened, where it happened, and who was responsible – the how and why are still debated, but they’re fairly established – and Bigelow begins with this common ground, opening the film with some of the calls made on that day. There’s no image – no footage of the planes crashing or anchormen reporting or families weeping or rescue workers toiling or world leaders speaking or terrorists threatening. Just the calls.

For your viewing pleasure here’s the new trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s big screen adaption of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic The Great Gatsby. As you probably know, Leonardo DiCaprio plays the title character, Carey Mulligan plays Daisy and they are opposite other cast members such as Tobey Maguire, Isla Fisher, Joel Edgerton and Jason Clarke.

The film opens May 10th. Sadly, it’s also in 3D for some reason. We’ll probably just see the 2D version. YMMV.

The first trailer for Katherine Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty has arrived and we’ve got it for you below. The film is a followup to her Academy Award winning The Hurt Locker and tells the story of the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

The film will release this December and this first trailer doesn’t show a whole lot. Still, it does peak our interest and we can’t wait to see more.

Check out the trailer after the break.

One thing you can always count on with a Baz Luhrmann movie is that it will be full of spectacle. Said spectacle may take the form of exotic song and dance numbers, sweeping vistas or elaborately choreographed gunplay, but it will always be there.

His next production, an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is no exception. It has contemporary songs, dancing, singing and spectacle galore, as you can see from the first trailer for the movie we’ve got for you today.

Heck, it’s even in 3D. That’s a dimension Luhrman hasn’t explored bofore. It will be interesting to see what he does with it. If this trailer is any indication, he’s going to do a heck of a lot.

Look for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton, to hit theaters this Christmas. Check out the trailer after the break.

Remakes get a bad reputation in the fan community. Mostly for good reason, but a few bad eggs like Gulliver’s Travels or The Honeymooners ruin the concept for the whole group, which is just unfortunate. These days, a few remakes are welcome with the current technological advances we have in CGI or, heaven forbid, 3D.

That’s where a remake like The Thing comes into play. Some call it a remake, others a “prequel/reboot hybrid”. All we know is that we’re getting to see some pretty badass scenes that we never got in the original from 1982. For all 8 of you who haven’t seen the original or need a refresher, here’s the premise of the film.

Taking place three days before the events of the John Carpenter film, paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) joins a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship buried in the ice of Antarctica. They discover a creature that seems to have died in the crash eons ago.

When an experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate joins the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing and imitating them one at a time, using its uncanny ability to mimic any life form it absorbs through digestion, and potentially reaching civilization.

The trailer manages to keep the film’s creepy and shock-tastic tone while still looking like an intriguing science-fiction piece. Check it out after the jump and be sure to catch The Thing in theaters October 14th.

Things have been to fast with Disney’s non-animated studio, Buena Vista. With films like Tron: Legacy, Pirates of the Carribbean: On Stranger Tides, and a few other gigantic pictures getting released in the past year, why not release a small feel good tale about two parents having a magical kid?

With a story by Ahmet Zappa (yes, THAT Ahmet Zappa), the film is definitely a bit saccharin and sappy for an audience who has been fed Nazis, Apes, and Aliens all summer. Here’s the premise:

An inspiring, magical story about a happily married couple, Cindy and Jim Green (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton), who can’t wait to start a family but can only dream about what their child would be like. When young Timothy (CJ Adams) shows up on their doorstep one stormy night, Cindy and Jim—and their small town of Stanleyville—learn that sometimes the unexpected can bring some of life’s greatest gifts.

The film definitely has the feel of a Phenonenon or Powder from the mid-90s. Let’s just hope this film doesn’t end on the same sad note. Check out the trailer after the jump and catch the film in theaters next Fall.

This past weekend at New York Comic Con, we got the opportunity to sit in on the panel for director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s prequel of John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing. Carpenter’s 1982 classic was a remake of Howard Hawk’s 1950’s classic The Thing From Another World which was based on a short story entitled “Who Goes There” by John W. Campbell.

Heijningen’s film covers the three days prior to Carpenter’s version. A Norwegian research team discovers an alien body frozen in Antarctica. Much like the Carpenter film, the alien is thawed and soon begins to wreak havoc on the  research team who discover that it is a shape shifting being that now wants to copy life on Earth.

Very quickly, the team doesn’t know which of them is human or the thing. The film stars Joel Edgerton as the main hero, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World), Eric Christian Olsen (Community), and Ulrich Thomsen also make up the cast.

According to Heat Vision Blog, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) and Joel Edgerton (Attack of the Clones) are set to star in the latest incarnation of The Thing, Universal’s take on “the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.” Oh yeah, that one.

Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship frozen in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins to kill, she is forced to team with a mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage. Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the movie, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer.

Sadly, Van Heijningen has never directed a big budget feature film before, so he’s probably the best choice for this one. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The Thing has, of course, been made into a film at least twice before. The best (and best-known) of these is probably the John Carpenter version from 1982 which featured Kurt Russell as the titular “mercenary helicopter pilot.” That film was a contemporary remake of 1951’s The Thing From Another World, directed by Howard Hawks and featuring pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the creature.

A March 15 start date in Toronto is planned with a very short theatrical run and swift trip to your local video store probably soon to follow.