There’s several things to like about the upcoming film Prisoners from director Denis Villeneuve. For one, it features a terrific ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, and Viola Davis.

Second, the director’s previous film, Incendiaries, was quite enjoyable. For more reasons, you’ll just have to check out the trailer for Prisoners that’s just come out.

In the film, two families lives are upturned when their young daughters go missing together. Yeah, that’s probably not going to end well. The movie also stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a cop trying to pick up the missing girls’ trail, Paul Dano and Melissa Leo.

Look for it to arrive in theaters on September 20. Check out the trailer (which reveals some plot elements) after the break.

Die Hard on a White House.

That’s basically it right there. You have your former law enforcer — here his name is Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) and he used to be Secret Service assigned to protect the President (Aaron Eckhart). During a snowstorm, Some Damn Thing hit the Presidential Limo’s windshield and fishtailed the car nearly off a bridge. Banning was able to save the President, but not his wife, and since the President can’t stand to be reminded of that night, he has Banning reassigned.

Okay, then you have your terrorists commandeering a building — here they attack the White House in a cargo plane the same day the President (whose name is Benjamin Asher, and whom I’ll be referring to as Asher for the remainder of this), Vice President, and Secretary of State are meeting with the South Korean Prime Minister.

As the gang retreats to the Presidential Bunker, one of the PM’s aides reveals himself as Kang Yeonsak (Rick Yune), a North Korean terrorist with a backstory that blah, blah, blah. He shoots a lot of people in the head and wants to blow up things. That’s all we need to know.

You have your former law-enforcer invading the building — in this case, Banning storms the White House after Kang’s goons take out every Secret Service man and Marine on the premises.

In Olympus Has Fallen the White House has been attacked and only former Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) can do anything about it. Previously, we brought you a couple trailers and more for the movie.

This time around, we’ve got some new TV spots to share. But before that, and in case you forgot. this one is directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and stars Mr. Butler as well as Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Ashley Judd, and Rick Yune.

Here’s the synopsis: When the White House (Secret Service Code: “Olympus”) is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President is kidnapped, disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As our national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning¹s inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President and avert an even bigger crisis.

Check out all the after the break. Olympus Has Fallen arrives in theaters on March 22nd.

Say what you will about Tom Cruise, his movies are usually pretty entertaining. Most recently, we enjoyed the latest in the Mission Impossible franchise and are actually looking forward to more.

Next up for Cruise is the sci-fi action extravaganza Oblivion. In the film Cruise plays one of the last humans on earth after an alien war devastates the planet. After rescuing a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft, he stumbles upon survivors of the war who paint a much different picture of Earth’s past. . . and its future.

The film is directed by by Tron: Legacy‘s Joseph Kosinski and also stars Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Melissa Leo, Zoe Bell and Andrea Riseborough. Look for it to arrive on April 19th.

Check out the new trailer after the break.

What can’t Denzel do? He can stop a train, he can land a plane, and in the case of the latter, which he does on Flight, Robert Zemeckis’s first live motion movie since 2000’s Castaway, he can elevate a disappointingly conventional disaster-movie-of-the-week/addiction drama to compelling watching all by the force of his charisma.

Flight starts as the story of Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), a hero pilot who manages to land a badly malfunctioning plane under extreme circumstances no other pilot could have done. They know this because the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Bureau) task force that investigates the crash (a routine procedure for all plane crashes) puts ten veteran pilots into a flight simulation mimicking the exact circumstances Whitaker suffered, and found that none of them could land the plane safely as Whitaker did.

But we the audience knows what the public does not, that Whitaker is a drunk, and drank heavily not only the night before the flight, but the morning of, and even during the flight itself. So the movie quickly evolves (or is it devolve) into an addiction drama. For the question begs to be asked: Does the addiction story ramp up the plane crash story, or drag it down to a commonplace redemption tale? The answer is: both.

It’s pretty hard not to like Denzel Washington. Although, can’t say we were in love with Unstoppable, so there’s that. . .

Putting that aside, a vast majority of the time when he’s got a new movie coming out, we take notice. His latest is Flight, wherin Washington plays a hero airline pilot with a secret. Don’t they all.

There’s a new trailer for Flight out today. Check it out below. Look for Flight to arrive in theaters on November 2.

It’s no secret HBO has some great programs now and in the past. However, the bigger ones like Game of Thrones or The Newsroom often seem to get more attention than some other more hidden gems.

One such hidden gem is Treme, HBO’s look at post-Katrina life in New Orleans. Featuring a stellar cast and exceptional writing and direction, the show has really resonated with fans of great storytelling. Plus, it’s made by the same guys who made The Wire, so what more do you need to know?

The show is is set to debut its third season soon. To help get you ready for said season, or to introduce you to a great show, we’ve got the first trailer for season three to share with you today.

In it you’ll get a taste of the sights and sounds of this show and hopefully, if you’re not already a fan, a new show you need to take a look at. Check out the season 3 trailer after the break. Treme returns to HBO on September 23.

Red State is a movie filmed straight from the first draft of the shooting script.

Right from the opening shot of a small town, the cuts of scenery are so quick the audience doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to be looking at. Eventually the camera settles on a mother driving her son to school. On the way they pass a group protesting the funeral of a recently murdered homosexual student. Director Kevin Smith finally lingers on a shot of one of the protest signs featuring the phrase “Anal Penetration” in big, bold letters. We see the sign a few times more before the boy gets to school.

When he does, he explains to his teacher (who doesn’t even seem to mind his tardiness) why he’s late, and she launches into some unbelievably clumsy exposition about the group’s leader, Pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a nut of a fundamentalist who’s universally despised around these parts and runs his own private Wacoville just outside of town. It’s also brought up at the murdered boy went to that very high school! Two things should immediately pop out: 1) If the kid went to that school, and was murdered two weeks ago, how on earth is it possible that none of his classmates knew him? And 2) If everyone already knows Abin Cooper, then why spend so much time explaining who he is, what he does, where he does it, why he does it…? The answer, of course, is to fill in the audience, but it’s done in such an amateurish way that you can’t believe it came from writer/director Kevin Smith, who’s not only made eight feature films, not only been writing professionally for nearly 20 years, but who’s also a man who prides himself on the quality of his writing.

And this is in the first three minutes.

If you haven’t been watching HBO’s series Treme, you’re really missing something. The show is very well done, features an outstanding cast and comes from the creative team behind one of the greatest shows ever to grace our television screens: The Wire.

Treme deals with the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As season two begins it’s more than a year since Katrina and its aftermath. The national spotlight on the Crescent City has dimmed, and residents are finding it harder than ever to rebuild their lives.

Some have become expatriates in distant cities. The insurance checks that never arrived for homeowners were followed by the bureaucratic nightmare that was the Road Home program, and a land-grab is underway as developers and disaster capitalists press their advantage. Crime and drug use are up, and corruption and graft are endemic, with civic institutions unable to counter any of it.

And yet the culture of New Orleans somehow endures. To help you get ready for the new season of the show we’ve got a preview video for it as well as a recap video of what happened last season.

Check out both videos after the jump. Treme returns to HBO for season two on Sunday, April 24th at 10/9C.

This may be the biggest year for the Academy Awards, as some major Hollywood players are going up against some fresh newcomers. Eyeballs everywhere will be glued to ABC on Sunday, February 27th at 8PM E/5PM P when the awards show goes live. But before that, we decided to do some picking of our own with the staff’s predictions for each award.

For a full list of the nominees, check out our previous article on the subject. Now, on to the predictions.

Best Picture

Shannon Hood-The Social Network. It had early and consistent momentum all year, and the Academy appears to be trying to shake up their stodgy image. This would be the perfect film to put their money where their mouth is.

Matt Raub – True Grit. Not only are the Coens a regular in the “I Have an Oscar” club, but this testament to classic western films is definitely one for record books, between its all-star cast and gritty (no pun intended) visual style, this one definitely deserves the golden statue.

Chris Ullrich – True Grit. Even though this was a pretty great year for movies and there are many excellent choices in this category, True Grit stands on its own as my pick. As an example of pure movie storytelling, this Coen Brothers masterpiece excels on every level and delivers a pure entertainment experience you will want to revisit many more times in the future.

Cortney Zamm – The Social Network. There’s a lot of great films in this category, some of them from my favorite directors and starring my favorite people. But the one that combined all of the essential elements of filmmaking into a truly gorgeous, compelling, and memorable film was The Social Network.