Late yesterday Warner Bros decided to let everyone know “officially” what most of us knew already: The Dark Knight Rises has begun filming. Even though this isn’t really news, it still set off a flurry of discussion around The Flickcast offices about how we’re all really looking forward to this movie.

If you’re in the same boat as we are, this press release from the studio should at least, for a few moments, distract you a little until you again realize that even though the movie has started filming, we won’t actually see the finished product until July 20th, 2012.

Yes, that’s over a year away. Bummer.

Check out the full press release right here:

BURBANK, CA, May 19, 2011 – Principal photography has begun on Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ The Dark Knight Rises, the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

Leading an all-star international cast, Oscar® winner Christian Bale (The Fighter) again plays the dual role of Bruce Wayne/Batman.
The film also stars Anne Hathaway, as Selina Kyle; Tom Hardy, as Bane; Oscar® winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), as Miranda Tate; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as John Blake.

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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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In 2009, director Sebastian Gutierrez debuted a film called Women in Trouble at SXSW Film Festival. That film featured several women whose story-lines converged throughout the film, and it  became a cult classic of sorts. Elektra Luxx is the sequel to that film, and features several returning cast members.

Carla Gugino plays the title character, who is newly retired from the porn industry. She’s also pregnant, and the baby daddy  is recently deceased.  What’s a single sex siren to do?  Elektra shows some ingenuity and starts teaching some sex classes at the local community college for income. She struggles with insecurity about her pregnancy and the end of her career.

Things become further complicated when Elektra is visited by Cora (Marley Shelton), who has an unexpected and troubling connection to her deceased ex-boyfriend.  Cora asks Elektra to seduce her fiance. In exchange, Cora will give Elektra a set of song lyrics that Elektra’s musician boyfriend wrote about Elektra. A madcap series of events ensues when Elektra seduces the wrong person.

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Nerds everywhere thought we could rest easy after years of contemplation and speculation as to who the next villain[s] would be in the Nolan’s third Batman film, and who they’d be played by.

Not long ago, we got word that Selena Kyle would be the film’s main villain, played by Anne Hathaway. Also joining the film would be Inception star Tom Hardy as the secondary villain Bane. Now the door of mystery has opened up once again as Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in talks to play yet another mysterious role in the film.

From Deadline.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in talks to reunite with his Inception director Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises for Warner Bros. I’m not sure what role he’ll play, but I’m told that he will be in the movie when Nolan starts production this spring.

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In the past five years, Carla Gugino has solidified herself in just about every fanboy’s fantasies as a favorite. From Sin City to Watchmen, comic fans everywhere have salivated over the actress for quite some time now. Now they have a bit more to salivate over during her latest role . . . as a porn star.

Here’s the full breakdown for the film Elektra Luxx, which is a sequel to 2009′s Women in Trouble.

Recently retired from the adult film industry, superstar Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) is pregnant with the child of late rock star Nick Chapel. She is trying to make ends meet by teaching a community college sex education class aimed at housewives when a figure from her past, flight attendant Cora (Marley Shelton), approaches her with a proposition.

In exchange for the (stolen) lyrics to Nick Chapel’s last record, all of which is about Elektra, Cora needs Elektra to seduce her fiancee. Elektra reluctantly agrees to do this favor, setting in motion a series of hilarious events which will see her come face to face with detectives, sex bloggers, emotionally unstable neighbors and the Virgin Mary herself as she wrestles with the prospect of motherhood and tries to become a person of substance.

We’ve got a full trailer for the film which you can check out after the jump. Elektra Luxx hits theaters on March 11th. Also, check out our interview with Elektra Luxx director Sebastian Gutierrez for more on the film.

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If you’re like the rest of the nerds around The Flickcast office, then you took your 30 minute lunchbreak on Tuesday to run out and grab Inception on Blu-Ray so you can relive all of Chris Nolan’s dreamworld madness. Of course, with the instant (and legal) accessibility of the film, come the bad ass fan edits.

We haven’t seen any cool Inception lightsaber fan edits like we have for Princess Bride, but there is one video that’s been floating around the Internets that needs to be shared as much as possible. Youtube user Weikang had the great idea (and was the first) to edit all of the dream worlds side by side at once, showing how they all played together.

Mind you, some worlds run faster than others because they are dreams inside of dreams (doesn’t sound as cool when you explain it, sorry Nolan). Check out the cool fan video after the jump.

Expect to see plenty more Inception fan films hit the web as more and more folks re-watch the psychological action flick over and over again. At least we hope so.

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I guess statistically speaking, it was bound to happen.  If you see enough movies, eventually you are going to witness a great movie that just doesn’t do it for you.  Such was the case with Inception.  I was poised to love the movie and declare it a cinematic masterpiece, if not one of my favorite films of the year.

I walked out seeing people high five each other and hug each other in a joyful embrace, no doubt exalted by the awesomeness of the film that they had just witnessed. How I envied them.

I left  frustrated, angry and annoyed. I desperately wanted to belong to that group of blissfully happy movie-goers, but I couldn’t fake it.  I just didn’t enjoy the movie.

Is that to say that it was not an excellent film?  Of course not.  On a purely technical basis, the film is amazing. It is also wildly imaginative, smart and original, all the things I clamor for during the summer film schedule.  Try as I might, though, I couldn’t get engaged in the story.  I never connected with any of the characters, and as a consequence, I never felt any urgency or peril regarding their situations.

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Inception, acclaimed director Christopher Nolan’s next project since the box office smash The Dark Knight, has had buzz surrounding it since it was greenlit at Warners. And while numerous trailers and a poster have been revealed, the details are still vague about this upcoming psychological thriller…until now.

The first full trailer has just hit the web, which finally gives us some more insight on Dicaprio and Ellen Page’s characters. We now know that the story surrounds the world of corporate espionage, with a sci-fi twist. Also revealed online was a brand new poster for the film, giving us a deeper look into the dark and twisted tone of Nolan’s world.

While the first poster just featured Leonardo Dicaprio, alone surrounded by a sea of water and buildings and vaguely reminding us of the The Dark Knight posters, this new IMAX poster features more of the cast. While Leo’s still at his prominent point front and center, other characters walk along the walls and upside down. This film has a really strong ensemble cast so it’s great to see the other actors and actresses of this film on this poster, like Cillian Murphy and Marion Cotillard, as the trailers have all featured Leonardo Dicaprio and Ellen Page.

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, and Tom Berenger. Check out the new poster and trailer (courtesy of TrailerAddict) after the jump and catch Inception in theaters and IMAX on July 16th.

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I first became aware of director Sebastian Gutierrez when I watched one of his first films, She Creature. I’ve followed his career since that time and watched most of his other movies with interest. His latest, Elektra Luxx, the sequel to his ealier film Women In Touble, chronicles the exploits of former porn star trying to change her life now that she’s discovered she’s going to be a mother.

I caught up with Gutierrez during the recent SXSW Film Festival where his film screened to a packed audience, not once, but twice. Here’s what he had to say about the film, his creative process and working with his movie star wife Carla Gugino.

The Flickcast: This film is a sequel of sorts to your earlier film Women in Trouble, correct? Was your plan always to make a sequel to that film? I also heard you are actually going for a trilogy, correct?

Sebastian Gutierrez: Yes, it’s a trilogy. We felt that Star Wars, LOTR, etc. shouldn’t be the only stories allowed to spread out over three movies and thought we’d compete with them.

TF: If you had to tell someone who had never seen Women In Trouble what Elektra Luxx is about, what would you tell them?

SG: It’s about one day in the life of a recently retired pornstar as she tries to make it in the straight world.

TF: How did you approach making the film? Was their a complete script or was some of the film improvised?

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Those who went out to see Inglourious Basterds this weekend didn’t only get close to 3 hours of nat-zee killing action, but also the very first peak at writer/director Christopher Nolan’s newest film starring Leo DiCaprio.

Not much is known about the film, other than it is “a contemporary science fiction tale set in the architecture of the mind”, and that Leo will be playing Jacob Hastley, a CEO that becomes involved in a blackmailing scandal. This is the first writing and directorial efforts of Nolan’s since last year’s critically acclaimed Dark Knight.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins), Joseph Gordon Levitt (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), Ellen Page (Juno), and Michael Caine. Inception is set to hit theaters July 16 of next year. You can check out the trailer after the jump.

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Two years ago, there wasn’t much to be said about a film that was only based off of a toy line. Then a dude named Michael Bay came along and changed all that, making over a zillion dollars with two films about robots that change into other things. The movies weren’t exactly rich with story or character development, but they did the source material justice, which is all most fans wanted. One would think that a movie about a secret squad of soldiers would be more believable, but sadly, this wasn’t the case.

There is more than enough source material to play with, given the G.I. Joe toys, comics, and many incarnations of the TV show and Director Stephen Sommers’ other projects including Van Helsing and The Mummy have a decent story and are both relatively entertaining. For this film, however, it felt like Sommers left the passion and creativity he had for his previous films at home when reporting to the set of Joe — which is pretty evident in the first five minutes of the film.

It’s easy to pick on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra for its poor dialogue or predictable story because when you force lines like “he’s a real American hero” into a scene, it warrants ridicule. When it comes to the story, it’s predictable because it is a blatant ripoff of another film, when the main villain brainwashes his victims to do his bidding, identified by a small lesion on the neck. It’s also funny how you can call this movie The Rise of . . . when the entire film is lacking in any rising action.

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In anticipation of the soon-to-be-released G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Paramount has dropped a bunch of new images from the film on us. Although we still haven’t seen much of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander, these new images do give us a better sense of the size, scale and scope of the film. To be honest, several of these images look like stills taken directly from some of the recent trailers for the film.

Still, and I’m sure I’m pretty much the only one out there who feels this way, these new pictures do make me even more excited for this movie, even if I’ve seen  some of them before. I know, you’ve seen the trailers or whatever and you think the film looks lame, corny, campy or “insert negative adjective here.” But I, on the other hand, think it looks pretty much exactly how a movie based on a line of toys should look. Don’t agree? Take a look at Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Are you going to tell me that Transformers looks serious or is a series movie? Nope. It looks exactly like its supposed to look — and so does this one. Its a movie based on a line of toys people, its not Shakespeare. Get over it and just go see the movie for what it is: a fun Summer ride where you check most of your brain at the door and go for the fun.

Don’t expect much in the way of meaning or deep substance and you won’t be disappointed. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra hits theaters August 7. Check out the larger pics after the jump.

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