By the beard of Zeus the hammer of Thor- the footage that was shown at Comic Con has now finally hit the internet (I’m pretty sure unofficially). Marvel look like they’re going all out it with this flick, it looks immensely ambitious. That’s probably the reason I’m pretty skeptimistic. It could either be completely awesome, or it could be ludicrous. I like what I see though.

Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment present the epic adventure, “Thor,” which spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is the mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and is forced to live among humans. A beautiful, young scientist, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), has a profound effect on Thor, as she ultimately becomes his first love. It’s while here on Earth that Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth. Thor is Directed by Kenneth Branagh and stars: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Stellan Skarsgard, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Josh Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, Idris Elba, Clark Gregg, Colm Feore.

This poster for Mark Romanek’s film, “Never Let Me Go” perfectly captures the tender, yet brooding trailer that hit the interwebs last month. The film is based on Kauzo Ishiguro’s much acclaimed novel of the same name and is Romanek’s fist film since 2002’s One Hour Photo – he was set to direct The Wolfman but left due to creative differences. I’m a big fan of both Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield (the new Spiderman), Keira Knightley is meh-ness/10 for me, I’ve never been the biggest fan. All in all this looks fantastic. Check out the synopsis below.

Never Let Me Go is a poignant love story, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling, Booker Prize short listed novel of the same name. As children, Ruth (Keira Knightley), Kathy (Carey Mulligan) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield), spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them. Never Let Me Go comes to theaters October 1st, 2010 and stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Sally Hawkins, Andrew Garfield, Charlotte Rampling, Domhnall Gleeson, Charlie Rowe, Andrea Riseborough. The film is directed by Mark Romanek.

This weekend at Comic Con Director Jon Favreau, along with Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach and Harrison Ford unveiled Cowboys and Aliens with roughly ten minutes of footage and a quick panel Q & A . For those not attending Dreamworks/Universal have now unveiled the first photo from film, with Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan. The cast is stacked with talent – Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, Keith Carradine and Paul Dano, I for one have a hunch that this will be spectacularly awesome! Cowboys and Aliens will be hitting cinemas July 29, 2011. Check out the synopsis below.

1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger (Daniel Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents-townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors-all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival. Cowboys and Aliens comes to theaters July 29th, 2011 and stars Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, Daniel Craig, Jon Favreau, Noah Ringer, Paul Dano, Keith Carradine. The film is directed by Jon Favreau.

This film looks like it will be ten kinds of awesome, it looks so intense! The people behind the film are definitely going for the Hitchcock suspenseful mystery angle with the marketing. Buried is easily one of my most anticipated films of 2010, the buzz from the Sundance Film Festival was glowing and as I’ve stated before I’ve loved the marketing for the film, hopefully it will live up to my great expectations. Buried is set for UK release October 1st 2010, while the US get’s it September 24th 2010.

Paul Conroy is not ready to die. But when he wakes up 6 feet underground with no idea of who put him there or why, life for the truck driver and family man instantly becomes a hellish struggle for survival. Buried with only a cell phone and a lighter, his contact with the outside world and ability to piece together clues that could help him discover his location are maddeningly limited. Poor reception, a rapidly draining battery, and a dwindling oxygen supply become his worst enemies in a tightly confined race against time – fighting panic, despair and delirium, Paul has only 90 minutes to be rescued before his worst nightmare comes true.

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Thehollywoodreporter have released the first image of Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard in the upcoming movie Winnie. Hudson -who deservedly won an Oscar for her role in ‘Dreamgirls’- is playing Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, while Howard is playing Nelson Mandela.  The script is based on the Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob biography “Winnie Mandela:A Life.” Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman to say the least, I’m really interested to see how this film pans out, on paper it looks like a gem! Winnie is set for release sometime in 2011.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, 72, remains a popular figure in South African politics despite her 1991 conviction for involvement in the kidnapping, assault and death of a 14-year-old alleged informer, Stompie Moeketsi. She and Nelson Mandela had been married for only a year before he was forced into hiding and then imprisoned in 1962 – he would only be freed in 1990. While he was in gaol, she became an increasingly powerful figure in the African National Congress and went on to run the ANC Women’s League. She was deputy minister of arts, culture, science and technology in the first post-apartheid government for 11 months, until allegations of corruption led to her dismissal.

MTV have got their hands on a trio of behind-the-scenes featurettes from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows films. These two film’s looks so much better than the previous Potter films, I’ve never been the biggest fan of the series but with these two films I’m stoked as a goat!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I will hit cinemas November 19th, while Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II is slated for release July 15, 2011. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Jim Broadbent, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall, David Thewlis, Julie Walters and is directed by David Yates.

La Times: Hero Complex Blog have released the first official picture of Anthony Hopkins as Odin and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor. To boot we also get our first look at Thor’s (Chris Hemswroth) hammer. Along with the photo comes the announcement that both Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger will officially be going 3D. Thor also stars Darth Vader’s baby mama (Natalie Portman), Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgard and Jaimie Alexander amongst a whole host of others. Check out the article for more information and to see what director Kenneth Branagh has to say about 3D. Below is a short quote from the story.

“We came to feel that in our case 3-D could be the very good friend of story and character for a different kind of experience,” Branagh said, taking a break from post-production. The filmmaker said the terminology of the 3-D process initially made him cringe — at first, it was “math and physics and way over my head,” he said with a chuckle — but then he started to pulse with the unexpected artistic opportunities.

A ridiculously talented director + a great cast + an interesting and original story + amazing imagery + jaw dropping action + heartfelt emotions= win win win win win win win win win win……and more win. Inception is finally in cinemas now and believe you me it does not disappoint. By a stretch it’s my favourite film of the year, Christopher Nolan has truly become the modern master of balancing entertainment and substance. 2010 has been a great year for Leonardo DiCaprio after an amazing performance in Shutter Island and now with an even more astonishing performance in Inception. I caught up with Christopher Nolan and Leonardo DiCaprio – two men at the top of their games - at the London Press conference for Inception. Check out what they had to say below:

What was your initial inspiration behind Inception, and how did it develop into the movie it is today?

Christopher Nolan: I’d always wanted to make a film that addressed dreams, and do something set in that world. About ten years ago I focused in on the idea of a exploring a technology that might allow people to share dreams, and the uses and abuses of that, and came up with this idea of doing a heist film set in the world of dreams with a technology that could be used to penetrate a person’s subconscious.

Inception is an emotionally complex and complicated film. When you were first approached to appear in the film, did you understand it?

Leonardo DiCaprio: It certainly took a couple of readings, but it was really the interaction with Chris, one-on-one. It’s an idea that’s been locked in his mind for eight years now. So for me a lot of the preparation was understanding what he wanted to accomplish and achieve. Being able to sit down with him and understand that he had this concept of doing a highly entertaining Hollywood film, that is existential, cerebral, surreal, and that delves into various states of the subconscious. The way that he wanted to put that up on screen involved us really talking with him at great lengths to truly understand his concepts.

How did you find the process of creating the rules of Inception’s dream worlds, as compared to the realism of The Dark Knight?

Christopher Nolan: I think that with every film you take on, you try to establish the rules and the tone of what you’re working with. In taking on the idea of dreams, you have a real burden on the rules of the film, because dreams are infinite and have infinite potential, which is the thing that really makes them fascinating in the first place. But it also makes them hard to address in drama, because anything can happen, and therefore how does anything matter? The rules of the world were designed to impose limits. The key thing for that, in my head, was to make it the story of a con, as soon as you take on the idea of trying to fool somebody and creating a reality for somebody else, naturally the team have to adhere to certain rules within the dream to avoid fracturing the reality of it.

Did you have get up to scratch on the world of dreams when researching your role?

Leonardo DiCaprio: I tried to take a very traditional approach to researching this film and read the analysis of dreams immediately and tried to pick apart the psychology of what things represented in the dream world. But I quickly realised that this was a whole new type of preparation, that meant basically talking with Chris at great length about this cathartic therapy session my character goes on, the psychoanalysis. In doing that we created this really powerful emotional journey.

As far as the analysis of the dreams in this movie, and how Chris was going to make four different states of the human subconscious interact with each other in a cohesive plot structure, I left that ENTIRELY up to Chris (laughs). I did not want to get involved, because Chris is obviously very capable of pulling off complex narratives like this and making them emotionally engaging for an audience. It’s reassuring as an actor to know you’re dealing with someone who has a great track record of accomplishing stuff like that. As far as my own dreams, I’m not a big dreamer, I think obviously we suppress things in life, emotions and thoughts, we wake up, and we should look at that. Ironically I had a really powerful dream the other day, I won’t get into the details of what it was but I remember sitting there saying to myself, forgetting totally that I’ve done this movie, but saying to myself, wait a minute, these details in this dream are real and I can create these dreams and manipulate the environment, I’ve heard this somewhere before (laughs). And I started to play with the dream in a very surreal way. I had that moment of knowing I was dreaming and being able to combat my surrounding so it was kind of cool. I had no previous knowledge I had done Inception or heard of this movie in that dream state so it was kind of fun.

The film was kept under a wraps. Why was this, and was it difficult to maintain such secrecy?

Christopher Nolan: It’s difficult to keep anything fresh in movies these days, with technology being what it is people seem to know everything there is to know before you’ve even made it. For me, as a film goer, I like nothing more than to sit in a cinema, have the lights go down and not know what I’m about to see and every time we go to make a film we do everything we can to just systematize things so we’re able to make the film in private. So then once it’s finished it’s up to the audience to make of it what they will.

What were the challenges of making this movie?

Christopher Nolan: For me, the underlying tone of the thing is best summed up by Leo’s character in the film when he says that dreams feel real while we’re in them. So everything we did in a production sense was an attempt to try and retain a tactile sense of reality to the world of the dreams, so they felt like possible worlds even as impossible things were happening. This creates challenges for all departments, for example, when you have a freight train barrelling down the street smashing cars and things. We wanted to do these things for real, so they would feel possible to the audience and that we wouldn’t have an obviously surreal quality to things. That’s why we went to all these locations and travelled all around the world, and shot in blizzards and so forth.

Inception is in cinemas NOW (finally!)

I’m starting to warm to this film, these posters are great and I was hugely impressed by the trailer. At first I was a tad sceptical with how this film would pan out, director Robert Schwentke’s previous film’s (which include Flightplan & The Time Traveller’s Wife) haven’t exactly rung my bell. The ensemble cast is stacked with class – Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Richard Dreyfuss, Helen Mirren and Karl Urban. I’m hoping this doesn’t disappoint, I’ve got a soft spot for wacky action flicks!

Red is the story of Frank Moses (Willis), a former black-ops CIA agent, who is now living a quiet life. That is until the day a hi-tech assassin shows up intent on killing him. With his identity compromised and the life of the woman he cares for, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), endangered, Frank reassembles his old team (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren) in a last ditch effort to survive. Also in the cast are Karl Urban, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine, Julian McMahon, James Remar and Rebecca Pidgeon.

To be honest this doesn’t look like my cup of tea, I’m sure it will be a good film to take the family, but for me it looks like something Disney have put out before. Everything I’ve seen so far from the film just reminds me of the National Treasure films, but with wands, pointy hat’s, dragon’s and magic. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest that it’s directed by the same guy who helmed those two films – Jon Turteltaub. On a more positive note, I like the cast, I’ve really enjoyed Nicolas Cage on screen lately, he was great in Kick Ass and if you haven’t seen Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans you need to do yourself a favour and check it out, it’s fantastic. I’m a big fan of Alfred Molina and Toby Kebbell as well. They who both recently starred in Producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s other film in 2010 – Prince Of Persia: Sand’s Of Time (which was a steaming turd).  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is in US cinemas July 14th and August 9th for the UK.

Loosely adapted from the classic story from Fantasia, and based in modern-day Manhattan, Nicolas Cage plays Balthazar Blake, a sorcerer who recruits and trains a young protege (Jay Baruchel) to help fight the forces of darkness. Celebrity illusionist Drake Stone (Toby Kebbell) joins forces with an evil sorcerer named Horvath (Alfred Molina), to “gain ultimate powers.” The film, also features Teresa Palmer (Bedtime Stories) as Baruchel’s love interest and Monica Bellucci (Passion of the Christ, The Matrix Reloaded and my favorite MILF!) as Veronica, a sorceress and the long-lost love of Cage’s character. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is set to hit theaters on July 16th 2010.