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.

This movie doesn’t really have anything that would be showcased in high-definition. Nevertheless, Universal has not failed yet to deliver an amazing transfer for Blu-Ray. The picture really pops off the screen in full 1080p (Bonus features are in 480i/p). The disc includes both the theatrical and unrated versions of the film, with the unrated version running an impressive 16 minutes longer than the original.

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.

This is all likely driving fans — having them walk a razor blade edge between the project being done the way they want or not seeing it at all. I think this has a chance of working out really well. It will be difficult to please fans with one particular storyline, but Sam Mendes is a very talented man and this can lead to very pleasing surprises [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

After a lot of teasing as to who would step into the female lead role (and basically replace Willem Dafoe) in Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, director Troy Duffy has finally revealed that it will be Julie Benz from Dexter!

This is the first big major casting announcement, as Clifton Collins Jr. was just sorta always there and most of the rest of the cast are returning from the first movie.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is not some romantic female lead. Considering Dafoe’s character ultimately chose to believe that what the brothers were doing was necessary, a new authority figure (Benz) has decided that someone needs to stop what’s going on and that it would be her pleasure [...]

The entire month of October is more or less devoted to doing something that is perceived as frightening, which it usually fails to do. As a child of the Internet age, there isn’t much I haven’t seen in terms of horrific, mind-numbingly evil fiction or “realistic fiction” (fake is fake is fake).

So instead of going down the a-typical list of things you should do as a horror geek, I decided to dig up real things that are way creepier than Halloween and the entire month of October combined. Actually, this stuff is so twisted, you should probably click the little “x” in the corner and call it a day. You don’t want to read this. (I’m F&#^$ serious, look away.)

But if you must, here are four real things that beat Halloween’s scare factor…

When I saw the first Joy Ride way back in 2001, I was pleasantly surprised by how effective the thriller was. The story, about three teenagers on a roadtrip who unknowningly play a trick on a homicidal truck driver was intense and held its own during a time when all Hollywood would make were “teenagers hunted by crazed killers.” Now, seven years later, someone has decided to make the direct-to-dvd sequel to the movie, Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead.

This time, the film follows 4 beautiful young adults on their trip to Las Vegas. When their car breaks down in the middle of the road, they are forced to take a car from what appears to be an abandoned house. What they don’t realize is is that the house belongs to crazed truck driver Rusty nail and Rusty does not like it when people take things that are his.

While not as entertaining as the first one, Joy Ride 2 hits all the right notes for a horror film [...]

On last night’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Sen. Barack Obama made a humorous guest appearance via satellite from Sunrise, Florida.

Watch the nearly 9 minute video here below [and then remember to vote FOR Obama on Tuesday, Nov. 4].

The highlight of the segment was the discussion of “The Bradley Effect,” a theory that white voters will say they will vote for an African American candidate, but then actually not do so on Election Day. Obama pointed out that he is still in the running for the Presidency, therefore, white voters may not have “gotten the memo” about the Bradley Effect. Since Obama is half white, Stewart was concerned that the Democratic candidate would have difficulty when voting on Tuesday because of this supposedly “Bradley Effect.” Obama jokingly responded that he was worried too!

The Happening is an unbelievably bad movie. When I say “unbelievably,” I mean it quite literally; as in I actually can’t believe how bad the movie was, especially in light of fairly positive reviews from some of my most respected sources when the film first hit theaters, such as Roger Ebert and, yes, Geeks of Doom. I can’t believe the depths of bad acting that generally solid actors like leads Mark Wahlberg and Zoey Deschanel can apparently sink to under M. Night Shyamalan‘s directing. And more than anything, I can’t believe major Hollywood studios are still bankrolling films by this continuously diminishing director.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit far. I should probably back off a little at this point and offer a confession: I haven’t seen a single M. Night Shyamalan movie in full since 1999′s The Sixth Sense (which I liked, but I was only in junior high when I saw it, so hell, who knows if I really liked it). Without trying to cast aspersions onto other reviewers, perhaps that’s part of the reason I was so astonished by how awful The Happening is. I haven’t become slowly more disillusioned with Shyamalan with each passing film, and I have yet to witness last summer’s apparently equally horrendous Lady in the Water. But whether it was a case of too-high expectations or something else entirely, the fact remains that The Happening left my mouth hanging open in a way that Shyamalan and crew likely didn’t intend [...]

On his production blog, director McG announced that Terminator Salvation has indeed wrapped principal photography and is now well into its post production work.

This is always a good sign that things are moving forward smoothly, you know, well-oiled machine and such. Now we just need to hope that not too many re-shoots have to be done; specifically for the ending.

A cut of the film was shown to stars Christian Bale and Sam Worthington who both seem to have liked where it was going.

While McG wants this particular installment to focus much more on characters and the storyline, he hasn’t forgotten what the previous films did for the world of special effects [...]

Being that his writing is highly sought after to adapt into great movies, it’s no surprise that Neil Gaiman‘s latest book, The Graveyard Book, is already moving forward toward becoming its own cinematic offering.

Gaiman explained that though many Hollywood studios were after the property, he’s going with top dog visual effects people in the U.K to bring his book to life. The studio is called Framestore and they apparently handled the Harvey Dent/Two-Face work in The Dark Knight, so they aren’t new to the big show. But, they are new to making movies on their own.

Gaiman explained why he chose Framestore…

They want to start making films, and start producing their own films, and they read it, and they loved it, and I spoke to them, and they said all the right things, and they seem to listen. So I don’t think it’s going to be transported to a graveyard in Los Angeles where they’ve been burying bathing beauties or anything. I think we’re actual going to stick with where the book is written and film that. And I think part of the idea is that they know they can also do the special effects cheaply.

Marvel has officially announced where both Iron Man 2 and The Avengers movies stand and when you’ll see them, as well as information on who’s involved and what they’re doing.

Most importantly, they’ve confirmed that Robert Downey Jr. will appear in both Iron Man 2 as well as The Avengers movie as part of a 4-picture deal he has with Marvel. Jon Favreau (as is known) will direct the sequel and he will also serve as an executive producer on The Avengers.

Marvel also confirmed that Don Cheadle is replacing Terrence Howard in the role of James Rhodes for Iron Man 2, The Avengers, and any other Iron Man movies that will be produced. What they did not confirm, is why Howard was replaced [...]

USA Today has posted the first official images from director Ron Howard‘s Angels & Demons, the prequel to 2006′s The Da Vinci Code.

The film, based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown, sees the return of Tom Hanks as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, whose last adventures led him through Europe following an intricate trail of codes in order to solve a murder and expose a centuries’ old religious conspiracy.

This time around, Langdon assists in a murder investigation which turns into another code-cracking adventure through crypts, catacombs, and cathedrals where the Harvard professor must stop the Illuminati from destroying the Vatican City.

You’ll notice from the photos that while Hanks is back, his weird slicked-back lengthy hairstyle is gone, as is a few extra pounds. Hanks’ Da Vinci Code look was nothing like I imagined Langdon (always pictured Bill Pullman in the role), who is described in the book as having a swimmer’s build. It seems like the filmmakers finally took that into consideration…

Empire has unveiled the cover image for their upcoming issue, which features Star Trek XI stars Zachary Quinto as Spock and Chris Pine as James Kirk.

The cover photo is an homage to an old promo still of Leonard Nimoy as Spock and William Shatner as James Kirk from the original 1960s Star Trek television series (see Empire’s comparison photos here below).

The issue will feature new images from the film of Pine and Quinto aboard the USS Enterprise, as well as new photos taken of the actors in uniform.

Empire also got to talk to the stars of the film and its director JJ Abrams about the highly anticipated Trek prequel. As a sneak peak, the magazine offered up what Abrams said about updating the characters’ wardrobe …

For me, the costumes were a microcosm of the entire project, which was how to take something that’s kind of silly and make it feel real. But how do you make legitimate those near-primary colour costumes? How do you make legitimate the pointy ears and the bowl haircut? It’s ridiculous and as potentially cliched as it gets. How do you watch Galaxy Quest and then go make a Star Trek movie?”