The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Blu-Ray Edition – Unrated
Directed by Judd Apatow
Starring Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Romany Malco
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release Date: September 30, 2008

The 40-Year-Old Virgin is one of the best “Frat Pack” films out there. Steve Carell really stole the spotlight and showed he can be a leading man. The film also showcases one of Paul Rudd‘s best characters and gave us our first real look at Seth Rogen‘s comedic talents. Even with an enormous amount of low-brow humor, the film still manages to connect with real people facing real relationship issues. Despite the implication of the title, the film does not brand virginity as the worst complication in an adult relationship.

The film stars Carell as the title virgin, who works at a large electronics store and is basically a loner. He’s managed to keep this secret all these years, but when his co-workers (Rogen, Rudd, and several other hilarious supporting roles) find out he’s never been with a woman, they make it their mission to get him laid.

In an apparent effort not to let fans suffer too much, Columbia Pictures has acquired the rights to Preacher, the very popular, very violent comic. Their current plan seems to be to make this into a big-screen adaptation with Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) — an interesting choice — attached to direct.

Preacher was recently heading for a HBO TV series run, which most fans seemed to think was the best option; they wouldn’t have to squish all the good stuff in a two-hour movie and they could violently squish a lot more things without fear of the dreaded NC-17 rating. These plans didn’t play out, however, and the project was killed off by HBO before now being picked back up by Columbia.

Legendary horror director Wes Craven has taken over the front pages of Google and YouTube for Halloween!

Google’s home page today features a Halloween-themed logo designed by Craven (see it here at right). It’s a much different style than most of their themed “doodles” with its computer-animated look, but it’s definitely fitting for the holiday.

Craven — best known for his A Nightmare on Elm Street film series, as well as the Scream trilogy — has also been given free reign over YouTube’s front page today picking out a few videos that are spooky and funny take-offs of popular horror flicks and other Halloween-related topics. A few of his choices are “Scream Bunnies, a 30-second recap of Craven’s own Scream made with bunnies, and “Trick or Vote” where classic horror monsters talk about voting.

Check out Craven’s intro video here below.

There hasn’t been a ton of production news for the sequel to the mediocre movie based on the massively popular book, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. But now comes the first teaser trailer to Angels & Demons.

The teaser is definitely a teaser, but it shows a good amount of stuff to get fans of the books and first movie excited — especially Tom Hanks and his seemingly slightly toned down hair!

Joining Hanks will be a new cast including Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgård. The film is again directed by Ron Howard and will be released May 15, 2009.

Check out the teaser trailer and official synopsis here below.

David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) has been hired to direct the movie adaptation of the graphic novel Freaks of the Heartland.

Freaks of the Heartland deals with a small town where kids are becoming monsters or “freaks” of sorts and one boy’s effort to save his brother, who is one of them.

The graphic novel is written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Greg Ruth. David Gordon Green will also be producing the project with Dark Horse Comics president Mike Richardson, with Niles executive producing.

The comic isn’t extremely well-known, so many won’t be sure what to expect, including myself. But from the names attached to the project and from the looks of it, Freaks of the Heartland has the potential to be a very interesting movie.