The holiday season is coming up and The Drill Down would like you to be ready for it. So as we do every year around this time, we’ve prepared a list of what we consider the perfect gifts to give… and get this holiday. So before you stand around for hours this Black Friday, spend some time with us

Greetings all. BAADASSSSS! here to announce the beginning of a new series of detailed articles I will be posting each week this Summer: The 10 Best Unproduced Comic Book Movie Scripts! At the end of this post is a sneak peek at what those 10 selections will be, so be sure to take a look and see if you can guess what they are.

Each summer the multiplexes are packed with the latest mega-budget action extravaganzas, enhanced by the finest visual effects and top-lined by the biggest stars in the industry. Every year you are guaranteed to locate at least two or three comic book-based spectaculars in the bunch. Last summer brought us the two most anticipated superhero movies of all time – Marvel Studios’ The Avengers, which grossed over a billion dollars worldwide in less than three months of release, and The Dark Knight Rises, the conclusion of the standard-setting Batman trilogy helmed by visionary filmmaker Christopher Nolan. That one also did very well financially as I am told.

Both movies – and many more like them released in the past and still yet to come – were granted exorbitant budgets and A-list casts and developed over the years with patience and care by exceptionally talented writers and directors working in tandem with teams of professional craftspeople. Their productions were overseen by studio executives who respected the filmmakers and the material they were working with and wanted nothing more than to create memorable screen entertainments that would captivate audiences the world over and be enjoyed by generations to come, not to mention make them mountains of cold, hard cash. This year alone has brought us the record-smashing successes of Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel, with The Wolverine and Thor: The Dark World to follow and Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy both on deck for 2014.

The times have certainly changed.

Good Ol’ Freda
Director: Ryan White
Cinematographer: Austin Hargrave
Editor: Helen Kearns

On their 1963 Christmas record, The Beatles give thanks to “Good Ol’ Freda!” in Liverpool, their devoted secretary and friend. Directed by Ryan White, Good Ol’ Freda is a documentary about Freda Kelly, who was just a shy Liverpudlian teenager when she was asked to work for a local band hoping to make it big.

The Beatles were together for 10 years, but Freda worked for them for 11. She had no idea how far the band would go, but she had faith in The Beatles from the beginning, and they had faith in her. Many people came and went as they sky-rocketed to international stardom, but Freda remained a staple of the inner-circle because of her unfaltering loyalty and dedication. As the band’s devoted secretary and confidant, Freda was witness to the evolution of the greatest band in history.

Upstream Color
Director: Shane Carruth
Screenwriter: Shane Carruth
Cast: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig, Thiago Martins, Kathy Carruth, Meredith Burke

Synopsis: A young woman is abducted and seemingly brainwashed via an organic material harvested from a specific orchid. She later meets a man and after the two fall for each other, they come to realize he may also have been subjected to the same process. The two search urgently for a place of safety within each other and struggle to assemble the fragments of their wrecked lives as they are unknowingly drawn into the life cycle of a presence that permeates the microscopic world, moving to nematodes, plant life, livestock, and back again.

Shane Carruth‘s Upstream Color premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to an abundance of hype. Carruth’s follow-up to his fantastic 2004 time travel film, Primer, Upstream Color screened as part of SXSW‘s opening night festivities at The Stateside Theatre and ran the gauntlet of audience reaction. As moviegoers left the screening I heard “brilliant,” “profound,” “confusing,” and “fucking atrocious” within seconds of each other – a divisive, peculiar film that feels equal parts Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), Mike Cahill (Another Earth), and Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko).

Hello Geeks and Ghouls, Famous Monster here. Well, it’s finally October and you know what that means? Breast Cancer Awareness 5Ks? Good guess. Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Delicious, but no. Halloween? YES. Horror movies? DOUBLE YES!

Welcome to 31 Days of Horror, where I’ll cover two noteworthy horror films a day for the entirety of the month. That’s 31 Days of Horror and 62 Films perfect for watching on a cold, dark October night. Be sure to visit Geeks of Doom every day this month for a double-shot of chills and thrills!

Today’s monstrous double feature includes James Whale‘s 1931 film, Frankenstein, and Tim Burton‘s latest film, Frankenweenie, now in theaters!

When The Muppets hits theaters the day before Thanksgiving the movie will be missing one of the original “Muppeteers”: Frank Oz.

Before becoming a director with films as diverse as the 1986 musical remake of Little Shop of Horrors and the DeNiro/Brando/Norton crime drama The Score to his credit, Oz provided the voices and movements for several of the most iconic Muppet characters including Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal as well as Grover and Cookie Monster on Sesame Street. He also did the voice and puppeteering for Yoda in the original Star Wars trilogy (for the prequels Oz only did the voice, as Yoda was now a CGI character).

The t-shirt deal of the day over at RIPT Apparel is the movie-themed shirt called “One Nation Under Cinema.”

The tee, by artist Scott Schneider, went on sale at RIPT today, Friday, March 4, 2011, at midnight CST, and will continue for 24 hours from then, and once it’s over, it will not be sold on the site anymore.

The design is of the United States with the titles of popular movies making up each State. Each movie title creates the State where the movie took place. So, for example, in my home state of New York, the actual State is created by the movie title “Ghostbusters.”

A new film based on the comic book super-hero Black Panther is in development by Marvel Studios.

Black Panther is the alter identity of T’Challa, king of the African nation of Wakanda, who made his debut in Fantastic Four #52 and later starred in a solo title that is credited as being the first to feature a black super-hero as the lead.

Marvel has tapped documentary film maker Mark Bailey to pen the new movie, which may give some sort of indication about the overall tone we’re likely to see on the big screen.

One notable element present in Black Panther comics has been the ability for the fictitious African nation to juggle its political relationships with other countries who would like trade deals of Wakanda’s most valuable resource — a nearly indestructible metal called Vibranium. It would be interesting to see a District 9-style telling of Black Panther as opposed to the standard super-hero movie that has become all too common in the last decade.

As you suffer through the post-Christmas hangover and wait for the New Year celebrations to begin, you need something to keep your mind ticking over. Well, you’re in luck!

The Daily Mail has created a giant Blockbuster Quiz picture. Within the picture are clues to the titles of fifty movies. This is very similar to last year’s Cryptic Canvas from Empire magazine, so some of them are very tricky. But us movie geeks love a good challenge, don’t we!

As tempting as it is, I’m not going to look at the answers. I managed to race through the first 30 or so, but since hitting the 40 mark I think my brain is about to explode.

TRON: Legacy
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde
Rated PG
Walt Disney Pictures
Release date: December 17, 2010

There are plenty of movies that I can point to as being part of my geek DNA, and the original TRON is one of those movies. I have very strong memories of watching the movie as a kid and it helped to make me the sci-fi fan that I am today. So I have been excited by the prospect of TRON: Legacy since the first announcement was made that it was coming. Now, after almost 30 years since the first film, we have the sequel. Does it live up to the original?

In the original TRON, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) was sent into the world inside the computers, and saved that world from the Master Control Program. TRON: Legacy picks up twenty years later. Kevin Flynn has disappeared, leaving his son Sam (Garret Hedlund), an orphan, desperately holding out hope that his father is still alive. Of course, Sam also gets sent into the computer world, just as his father did before him, and he must track down his father and save the world.