TRAILER #2: "Mad Max: Fury Road"

Wow! Now that's a trailer. Set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival just days ahead of its U.S. release, the new Mad Max movie looks like a non-stop adrenaline ride, but in a good way. Hopefully it'll be able to rival what was for me anyway, the only great movie in the original trilogy, 1981's The Road Warrior (which really was one of the great action movies of all time). Can't wait to see this.

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "The Imitation Game" (2014)

Out on blu-ray today is the better of last year's dueling British biopics, the one about mathematician Alan Turing that starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley. Nominated for 8 Oscars, including Picture, Director and for its two stars, and winning Best Adapted Screenplay, this was set during WWII and documented the breaking of the Enigma Code by a group of Bletchley Park scientists, including Turing and his fellow outsider Joan Clarke. Seamlessly weaving back and forth between time periods, the movie mixed genres to be a sort of historical thriller, and the performances were terrific from the entire ensemble cast. A very entertaining and engrossing drama that sheds light on a little known period in history, and a man whose monumental contributions had been all but ignored by his own country.

Trailer:

TV SPOTS: "Tomorrowland" & "Jurassic World"

Some new promos for a couple of the big summer movies coming out this year that everyone's looking forward to. Personally, I think Tomorrowland looks more promising than Jurassic World- the Jurassic Park series seems to have been a one-off in terms of you know, a movie people actually liked. I think once you've seen one movie with dinosaurs terrorizing humans, the novelty is basically gone forever. Especially when the special effects from the 90's somehow look better than the ones they're using now- seriously, what's that about?

And here's the one for Tomorrowland. We get a look at Hugh Laurie in sci-fi action here:

Disney to Make Live-Action 'Mulan'

Well, with all the success of their live-action remakes, it can be no surprise that they're forging right ahead, but I guess it is a bit unexpected that 1998's Mulan would be their next choice. Really, Mulan and not Aladdin or The Little Mermaid? But now that I think about it, maybe it's not that surprising. With China emerging as such a massive Hollywood market now (the box office numbers are set to surpass the United States in the next few years), plus this being one of the few they'd be able to justify including action-heavy war scenes in, I suppose it is kind of a no-brainer, money-wise. Make no mistake, even though I liked Cinderella just fine, all these reboots have zilch to do with artistic expression- they can only get lucky in that area. But my first thought for casting is Chloe Bennet, or Skye from ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. What do you guys think? I just hope they cast an actual Chinese actress for this, and not do what Hollywood movies like Memoirs of a Geisha did in casting Chinese actresses for what were Japanese characters. They could at least get that part right now.

My favorite part of the original movie:

TEASER: "Spectre"

Yay, the teaser for Spectre's here! It actually shows more than I thought it would, even though it's definitely still a teaser in every sense. Christoph Waltz only barely shows up for a second in the shadows, but he looks to be the head of SPECTRE, the evil organization finally being brought back to the Bond movies because the studio regained the rights after all these years. Do you guys think he's Blofeld? He has to be, right? Supposedly his character's name is something else, but I suspect that's misdirection. Spectre's coming Nov 6th- I can't wait!

TRAILER: "Slow West"

Now this looks cool. Another Sundance movie, this one coming out May 15th, starring Michael Fassbender in a kind of absurdist western that got praise for its ability to mix different genres- as you can see it goes from violence to humor and melancholy, etc. There's never enough good westerns anymore though, so I'll be checking it out (it's coming out on Itunes the same day as the theatrical release). You can also spot Aussie actor Ben Mendelsohn in this, currently getting a lot of attention for his role on Netflix's Bloodline.

TRAILER: "Maggie"

Arnold Schwarzenegger keeps looking for his comeback, this time in a story about a dad who has to protect his daughter, who's dying of the infectious disease of zombie-ism. I have to admit, I didn't see that part coming, but it looks mostly standard aside from that. Apparently it is supposed to be more of a dramatic rather than action role for Arnold, but I'm sure there's going to be some blood spilled in a movie with zombies in it.

FIRST LOOK: Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor

So, EW.com has dropped the first look at a bald Jesse Eisenberg as Superman nemesis Lex Luthor- what do you think? I'm having a hard time picturing him as threatening, to be honest. I keep imagining a borderline Aspergers-ish Mark Zuckerberg-style Lex, menacingly plugging away at his plan to hack into the world banks or something. That might be kinda funny- a new approach for Lex. To me, the best Lex Luthor to date was Michael Rosenbaum on Smallville- cool, calm, smoothly intelligent yet devious and subtly manipulative. They should have gotten him to do it for the movies.