Captain America: Reborn #1
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Penciler: Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release date: July 1, 2009

I should be more excited about this. I have loved Ed Brubaker’s run on Captain America since I picked up the first trade. It’s probably my favorite book that I’m currently reading on a monthly basis. So why is ‘underwhelmed’ the first word coming to mind? I’ll tell you why: it’s mostly that too much of Captain America: Reborn #1 is spent recapping info that was recapped two weeks ago in Captain America #600. So what we get is a second issue in a row of set-up; well-illustrated set-up, but set-up nonetheless.

This issue follows from where Issue #600 left off. Sharon Carter and the Falcon take the gun that killed Steve Rogers to Hank Pym for some investigation. They discuss Sharon’s memories from when she was under the Red Skull’s control and how she saw what could be one of Dr. Doom’s Time Platforms and that the Red Skull may have already brought Steve back. Meanwhile, the current Cap and the Black Widow try to track down the Time Platform so they can see what it really is. Unfortunately, the Platform is in the custody of Norman Osborne, so they have to break into a H.A.M.M.E.R. facility, where all does not go according to plan. Finally, we get a hint of what may be happening to Steve, and how he may be brought back.

The Sci Fi (SyFy? If we all refuse to acknowledge that, will they change it back?) channel has already far and away proven that they can take an old TV series, completely restructure it, and create one of the best shows of all time. Now that Battlestar Galactica has come and gone, Sci Fi is developing a new potential series based on Alien Nation with fanboy favorite Tim Minear writing.

Alien Nation first started as a movie starring James Caan and Mandy P in 1988 that turned into a 1989 TV series on Fox. The show was canceled after one season, but has seen five new TV movies made since then, as well. The show is basically a social observation using a fictional setting and aliens known as “Newcomers” who were at first made to live away from humans, but now have been allowed to reside among us; of course this doesn’t stop racism from continuing. The original movie for which this new project is being based followed an L.A. cop (Caan) whose partner is killed while investigating the Newcomers. When the first alien police officer comes to his department, he volunteers to join up with him in order to sneakily try and investigate the death of his former partner.

LOST
The Complete Second Season, Blu-ray Edition
Starring: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Dominic Monaghan, Terry O’Quinn
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release date: June 16, 2009

I didn’t start watching Lost until the second season was underway. All I knew about it before then was that everyone who watched the show was on the edge of their seats talking about numbers and hatches and “others.” All I saw was some people staring down a metal shaft with confused looks on their faces. Oh how little I knew back then.

Things really change in the second season. The survivors learn a lot more about the history of the island, the Dharma Initiative, and “The Others.” The writers also found a plausible way to introduce several new characters into the series as we see what happened to the people in the tail end of the plane (though off camera issues would result in many of the having short lived stints on the show.) We also get to meet Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), the man whose fate is intricately tied to the island and who knows what caused the crash of Oceanic 815 in the first place. Then there’s ‘Henry Gale’ (Michael Emerson), possibly the best addition to a TV show’s cast… ever.

It’s been a while since we heard that Guillermo del Toro was attached to remake the 1973 TV movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Recently the project has begun to heat up with the announcement of Katie Holmes being cast, and now comes word that Guy Pearce is in final negotiations to star in the movie. Nine-year old Bailee Madison — who already has almost 20 IMDB listings — has also been cast.

The movie was about a man whose young daughter moves into his creepy house with him and his girlfriend. Eventually the young girl discovers that the house is also inhabited by demons who want to make the little girl one of their own — though her father refuses to believe this to be true.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Pearce will of course play the father; Holmes will play his girlfriend, while Madison will naturally play his daughter. Guillermo del Toro wrote the script with Matthew Robbins and he is producing with Mark Johnson. One of del Toro’s understudies, Troy Nixey, will be directing the movie adaptation.

The Harry Potter website, The Leaky Cauldron, has found out that actor Bill Nighy has told The Independent that he will finally be starring in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after a long, long time claiming to be one of the few British actors not cast in a Potter film.

The Leaky Cauldron apparently caught wind of this a long while back, but only now is it seemingly being confirmed by Nighy himself. Though the actor decided not to say who he would be player, experts are confident that he’s a shoo-in for the role of Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour

Here is what Bill Nighy had to say:

In the new crime biopic Public Enemies, Johnny Depp stars as John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber who became Public Enemy #1 in 1930s in the United States in the beginning years of the J. Edgar Hoover-led FBI. During the Great Depression, the real-life Dillinger was a two-time escaped convict who not only pulled two dozen bank heists across the MidWest, but murdered several police officers and led a dangerous gang of unsavory characters.

But in the film, we see a different side to this criminal underworld figure, one of a graceful, charismatic man. Depp’s character is someone you can actually believe was able to woo his beautiful young girlfriend into total devotion and get a gang of ruthless thugs to give him respect as their leader.

It’s the combination of Dillinger’s supervillain-like abilities and Depp’s charming portrayal of this machine gun-toting crime lord that makes this on-screen character so alluring. But this role of the bad guy with likable charm isn’t a new one, though, there’s been plenty in cinematic history. Here’s a look at 10 Charismatic Bad Guys in Film.

Keyser Söze from The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects brought us so much as a movie. It exposed Bryan Singer to the mainstream, collated a lot of stars in a great ensemble cast (including one of Stephen Baldwin’s few good performances)… but most of all it brought us Keyser Söze.

Söze’s involvement in the criminals’ dealings is never actually confirmed at any point in the movie — everything we hear or see about him is pure conjecture. And this is what makes the character such a great bad guy. Verbal Kint describes him perfectly in the following sentence:

“Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Söze. You never knew. That was his power.”

As we all know, this past week or two has been incredibly unfortunate with the passing of many beloved celebrities, including David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. As depressing as all of this loss was, at one point in the chaos that occurred on the day that Fawcett and Jackson were lost, there were also various reports that actor Jeff Goldblum had also died after falling off a cliff in New Zealand while filming. This news never really seemed legit and we later found out that it was in fact false — but it had actually gotten as far as foreign news programs reporting that police in New Zealand had confirmed it as true.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to bring a little laughter to us at a time where many are mourning, Stephen Colbert decided to report the sad demise of Jeff Goldblum on The Colbert Report while touching on the journalistic accuracy of Twitter.

Click on over to the other side to watch the amusing video.

At this point, most of us are aware of Sacha Baron Cohen, the British actor who has portrayed a Kazakhstanian reporter in Borat; a gay Austrian fashion buff in this summer’s Brüno, and a French car racing star in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby — among many other things. What many of us are not so much aware of is that Sacha has a cousin named Ash, and he’s been here in America and working in movies for much longer than his superstar relative.

In the July issue of Esquire, they did a small story on Ash Baron Cohen, and while he hasn’t made the most well-known films we’ve ever heard of, his story is wonderful and decorated with the praises of cinematic legends. Some of the films he has made are: Bang, which Roger Ebert called one of the best movies of 1997; Pups, which had Mischa Barton and Burt Reynolds; and probably his biggest project was This Girl’s Life, which starred James Woods, Rosario Dawson, Michael Rapaport, and Ioan Gruffudd. He also currently has three movies on the way that are in various states of production.

Most of his projects were directed under the one-name format: Ash. This was because he was initially here illegally. Apparently Oliver Stone loved his movie Bang so much, that he said “We need to get you legal,” and actually wrote the INS to make it happen.

Click over to the other side for one of the best Hollywood stories I’ve ever heard — WITH video! Pre-click warning: this video has some heavy NSFW language from thespian Richard Harris (that’d be Professor Dumbledore from the first two Harry Potter films, for you younger generation folks). Now you’re too curious not to look, aren’t you?

The in-progress story of film maker Duncan Jones is an impressive one. The director took $5 Million on his debut film, and turned it into one of the more popular movies of this summer, Moon. The movie — which stars Sam Rockwell as an astronaut on a three-year mission who ends up dealing with the pains of extended seclusion — is still slowly-but-surely expanding to more and more theaters, and hopefully by the end of its run, it will have made much more than it cost. Even though its box office success is still unknown, Jones is now moving on to his next project, which will be called Mute.

Not much is known of the movie yet, only that it will have many more actors than his previous one-man-show, it will be reminiscent to the classic Blade Runner, and also this brief description: “Mute is about a woman whose disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender. When she disappears, he has to go up against the city’s gangsters.”

What we do know, is that Jones will be given a much larger $25 Million budget for this next project — a number that has fans excited after seeing what the director did on Moon with such a small amount of financing to work with.

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon today is the Stargate SG-1 - The Complete Series Collection for only $131.99 (reduced 60% from $329.98).

This is a 54-disc set with all ten seasons of the scifi series, with four of those discs being hours’ worth of bonus features like commentaries, video diaries, behind-the-scenes footage, and much more.

By now you’ve all seen the wonderful trailers for Shane Acker’s 9, the computer animated post-apocalyptic adventure about a band of 9 ragdolls and their fight to survive (Read: Check Out The Original Short Film & Trailer For ‘9’ Right Now). It’s dark and scary-yet strangely beautiful look immediately steals your eyes and won’t give them back until its done with you. Now from io9 comes some great new visual sustenance in the form of eight posters that feature the nine brave ragdolls! Just a note, two of the ragdolls are twins, and are featured in one poster, hence the nine dolls in eight posters deal.

Here is the movie’s official synopsis:

Click over to check out these eight fantastic posters.

LOST
The Complete First Season, Blu-ray Edition
Starring: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Dominic Monaghan, Terry O’Quinn
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release date: June 16, 2009

Remember when the average Lost episode had a plot about finding drinkable water, shelter, and learning which survivors could hunt and which could help build shelter? Those were the days, the days before the average plot revolved around time traveling, ageless strangers, ancient Egyptian statues, and electromagnetic anomalies.

There’s nothing wrong with the new seasons of Lost, but even the most dedicated fans must admit the show’s plot has become increasingly complex over the years. The first season is possibly the only season Lost writers could refer to as “simple.” After all, this is a season where an entire episode is dedicated to looking for Sun’s (Yunjin Kim) missing wedding ring.
Lost was the first TV series to be released on Blu-Ray, but they started with Season 3. So now they’ve gone back and released the first two seasons.

You would be hard pressed to find a better TV show to have in high definition than Lost, too. The beautiful Hawaiian backgrounds stand out more in the earlier seasons when the island’s natural scenery was still important. The picture quality is, not surprisingly, incredible at 1080p.

See here, mug. We pinched us some sweet kitty right off the set of one a’ dem moving pictures. We got a hat for your melon, a poster to pretty up that mess of a hidey hole, and some cloth covers for your getaway getup. Ya get me? We know what you’ve been upta… don’t think we can turn a blind eye to your goings on for much longer, so git before I sic one a my molls on ya.

One (1) winner will receive:

• One (1) Public Enemies Movie Poster
• One (1) Public Enemies Hat
• One (1) Public Enemies T-Shirt
• One (1) Public Enemies Long Sleeve Shirt

What do you have to do to get a chance to win? Glad you asked ’cause it’s really easy. Just make sure you’re a subscriber to our email digest, and then go ahead and fill out the handy dandy form below. Done.

Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, opens in theaters on July 1, 2009!

Good luck!

TO ENTER: There’s just two simple steps: (1) Make sure you’re subscribed to the Geeks of Doom email digest. If you’re not then click here and sign up. (If you’re already a subscriber, then go right to the next step.) (2) Fill out the entry form here below and submit. (Form is here after the jump.)

For a decade now, Frank Darabont has been trying tirelessly to adapt the classic Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 into a movie, with nothing but bad luck and fallen plans keeping the project in a deep hole. The closest it seemed to be to actually happening is when they were able to score Tom Hanks for the lead, but when he eventually exited the project, Fahrenheit disappeared from the radar for some time. Now comes word via Sci Fi Wire from the Saturn Awards that Darabont has a new actor in mind and that he’s determined — even in the face of death — to make this movie now.

Frank Darabont isn’t someone who makes movies in quick-succession, but when he does make them, they usually find high-praise. Most-notably, Darabont has written and directed the comparable Stephen King adaptations of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. He also wrote and directed the remake of The Mist, which was liked by many people, but not nearly at the level of his other King adaptations. Because of this uncanny ability to adapt a book into a successful movies, most have been itching to see his version of Bradbury’s tale of anarchy as the future America has completely collapsed and important works of literature — including the Bible — are illegal and burned. The main character is Guy Montag, a Fireman (someone who burns book) who eventually realizes what’s wrong with his society and starts to question his own life’s purpose.

Days after making the brave and surprising move to double the amount of Best picture nominees from 5 to 10 (Read: 2010 Academy Awards To Include Ten Best Picture Nominees), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science has also decided that if there’s not a song worthy enough of an Oscar, then no Oscar will be given for Best Original Song.

Basically, this new rule states that if a song does not receive a minimum average score of 8.25 during the nominations voting, then it will not be considered for nomination. If not one song is given this minimum average score, than the category will just not be presented at the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony. If only one song gets the 8.25 average score, then that song and the next highest-rated song to it will be the nominees; if only two songs are deemed worthy, then, again, there will be only two nominees. This is also new as the minimum number of nominees used was three prior to this.

This is the second consecutive change made to the Best Original Song category. The year before last’s ceremony included a sickening three nominees from the movie Enchanted up against the lonely (and eventual winning) nominee from the movie Once — this was then changed to only allow a movie a maximum of two songs nominated.

The LA Times is reporting that world famous product endorser Billy Mays was found dead in his home this morning by his wife. He was 50 years old.

Famous for his loud, in-your-face delivery of information of such products as OxyClean, Orange Glo, and Mighty Putty, Mays was also more recently featured on the fantastic Discovery Channel show Pitchmen, which followed him and Anthony Sullivan as they pitted “made for TV” products against one another, picking the superior one to provide their services to.

The cause of death is unknown, but a full autopsy is expected.

Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
Rated PG-13
Release Date: June 24, 2009

When Transformers came out in 2007 and was a huge hit, you had to have known that a sequel was waiting in the wings. While it was an entertaining movie, it was far from perfect, due to the fact that it had to set up a lot of the origin story. Now with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sequel can hit the ground running, but does it deliver like its predecessor?

It has been two years since our main protagonist Sam (Shia LaBeouf) has encountered the Transformers and life has moved on. He is going to college and trying to maintain a long distant relationship with his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox). He has all but put the Transformers behind him but unfortunately, the Decepticons have other ideas. Apparently remains of the All Spark, the cube that brought all electronic machines to life, are still on Earth and hold the key to giving the Decepticons the upper hand in the destruction of the Autobots. This puts Sam smack dab in the middle of the war between the Transformers once again.

Now, just so no one gets the wrong idea, if you have seen the first movie or have seen trailers of this movie, I am already assuming that you are not paying money to see Revolutionary Road. Revenge of the Fallen is about as big a popcorn flick as can be. The explosions are bigger, the action sequences are more eye-popping, and the overall story and dialogue are virtually non-existent. This is one movie that is all about eye candy folks, but that is not to say that that is a bad thing.

Kyle Ward, who wrote the script for the Kane & Lynch movie, and was just reported to be writing the sequel to Hitman, has now been given a third video game movie writing job: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

The popular Playstation 3 game from Sony Computer Entertainment is being developed into a movie by Columbia Pictures, with Marvel Studios founder Avi Arad and his brother Ari Arad’s Arad Productions producing the movie. Also producing will be Charles Roven and Alex Gartner of Atlas Entertainment.

Drake’s Fortune tells the story of Nathan Drake, an adventurer and descendant of actual explorer Sir Francis Drake, who discovers a diary by his late ancestor that leads the way to the fabled city of gold: El Dorado. As usual, when trying to discover some of the universe’s greatest treasures, things don’t go so well; between rival seekers of the gold city and mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis trying to stop him, Nathan Drake is obviously in for a challenge and a kick-ass adventure.

Squidbillies
Vol. 2 DVD
Created by Dave Willis and Jim Fortier
Written by Dave Willis
Turner Home Entertainment
Release date: April 21, 2009

So Adult Swim has come up with some odd cartoons in their time, but I think Squidbillies takes the cake. Squidbillies, created by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and Jim Fortier (Brak Show), follows the story of the Cuyler family, a clan of hillbilly squids that happen to live in a town in Georgia. The Culyers’ penchant for violence and racism are always getting them in trouble but their bacon is usually saved by the town sheriff, thanks to a previous federal law passed that makes them an endangered species.

If you are even a bit familiar with Willis and Fortier’s previous work, you should like this series. The episodes are short and concise, and always really have no continuity whatsoever. Characters from the cartoon are often shot, brunt to a crisp, and eaten in every episode, but show up unscathed later on, sometimes even in the same episode. The storylines are also outrageous and over the top. One of the episodes involves Grandma Cuyler getting into a botched tanning accident and rather than have plastic surgery, the Cuyler family kill various animals and sew the animal skins onto her. Though be warned: A lot of the comedy is broad, with jokes ending with the death or dismemberment of another character, and might not be for all viewers, even for yours truly who happens to like Aqua Teen and Brak.

Vampires. These bitey little rascals have always been popular sources of entertainment — a fact that remains strong today with multiple movies and TV shows. Some are immensely popular like HBO’s True Blood and foreign film Let the Right One In; others are maybe not so good — depending on who you are, of course — such as Twilight and 30 Days of Night.

Whether you adore these creatures of the night, or if they’re really not your thing, the fact of it all is that they’re just not going anywhere. And with that assessment, here’s presenting the trailer for a brand new vampire tale that is well on its way: Daybreakers.

Daybreakers looks pretty interesting. It has a creepy Dark City with a touch of Guillermo del Toro’s Blade II look to it and deals with the vampire race trying to discover a way to survive when it becomes apparent that the human race is endangered and blood is running out. The movie stars Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem Dafoe. It is directed by Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig, who have also directed Undead.

Click over to the other side for the trailer and official plot synopsis.