While most consider the style of storytelling dead, noir is still one of the most elegant and entertaining forms of film narrative to date. The entire culture of Hollywood was built on films like Sunset Blvd. which is easily one of the grandfathers of the genre, and it’s always nice to see modern filmmakers take a stab at recreating that feel in a current film.

That’s exactly what director Tony Krantz and writer Erik Jendresen have done with their upcoming “neo-noir” The Big Bang. The film stars just about everyone moviegoers have come to love, in a pretty intense and ridiculous (in a good way) plot. Here’s the synopsis.

Late one night, Los Angeles private investigator, Ned Cruz (Antonio Banderas) gets a visit from a recently paroled Russian boxer with an intriguing job offer: find Lexie, his missing girlfriend—and the 30-million dollar stash of diamonds she’s hiding. As Detective Cruz sets out to find her, the clues send him into the city’s seediest corners, from a Hollywood action star with a dirty little secret (James Van Der Beek), to an enterprising porn producer who takes a personal interest in his own work (Snoop Dogg), and a kinky waitress with an unusual fetish for particle physics (Autumn Reeser). Lexie proves to be as elusive as she is beautiful and Cruz becomes obsessed with finding her.

With time running out, Cruz discovers the trail leads to reclusive billionaire (Sam Elliott), and his physicist (Jimmi Simpson), intent on recreating The Big Bang underneath the New Mexico desert. Tailed by a trio of cops also looking to find the missing diamonds, and with the body count piling up, Cruz soon realizes that what appeared to be a standard missing person’s case is anything but, and could quite possibly bring about the end of the world as we know it.

The film is set to hit theaters later this year, but you can check out the trailer in the meantime after the jump.

One of the nice things about running your own website is that you can highlight movies, comics, games, TV shows or other entertainments that otherwise might not get a lot of attention or even, in some cases, slip under the radar completely. One such show is Fox’s Human Target which, in spite of its great cast led by Mark Valley and featuring Jackie Earle Haley, has not exactly been a ratings winner for the network.

Fortunately, the show has been given a second season and hopefully it will find new fans and become a big hit. It’s a great show with a good mix of action, drama and humor and an engaging cast which makes for an entertaining hour of TV each week. To help get potential fans excited for the new season and for established fans who want to relive their favorite moments, the show is coming to Blu-ray and DVD.

To help kick things off right we’ve got a scene from the show to share with you which helps illustrate the action, characters and humor I referenced earlier. This scene, part of the special features on the Blu-ray and DVD release, gives you a great idea of what the show is about.

Other highlights of the release include all twelve episodes, featurettes, commentary with cast and producers as well as a gag reel. So, with tall that in mind, check out the promo for the release after the jump.

Human Target The Complete First hits store shelves on September 21.

Julie Benz appears to have gone from victim to hero in one fell swoop. After leaving behind Rita Morgan after four seasons on Dexter, the actress is primed to portray Stephanie Powell on ABC’s upcoming family show, No Ordinary Family.  No longer the dead body in the bathtub, Powell is a busy professional scientist and researcher who develops super speed following a crash landing in the Amazon on a trip with her family. After deciding to move on from Dexter, Renz related that she was looking for a new challenge and the character of Stephanie was just what she was looking for.

“When pilot season started, my quest was to find a character that was strong female character, a character that is more active than Rita. I was getting offered a lot of parts that were similar to her and I was turning them down because I wanted to find something that was different.”

While there might be the temptation to compare Rita with Stephanie, Benz insists that she didn’t pull inspiration from portraying a mother on a previous show. For one thing, the personalities are incredibly different.

“I think they’re both mothers, but other than that, there’s really no commonality. Rita was not career driven at all, she was very dependent, very damaged with a lot of  vulnerabilities, very emotional. Stephanie’s very controlled, a Type A personality, goal oriented and has a hard time interacting with her own family.”