In just one week: SONS returns with DANNY TREJO!

The 4th season of Sons of Anarchy premieres on September 6th, featuring Machete icon Danny Trejo in a recurring role that involves SAMCRO's supplying guns to a Mexican drug cartel. 

The premiere will run 90 minutes and also features The Shield's Benito Martinez.

Guess fall must really be right around the corner if fave shows like Sons are back on the pavement.

Getting Trejo on board is a major score and bodes well for the mayhem factor this year!

Replicating Success: Ridley Redux...times two!

Incredibly, director Ridley Scott has committed to directing another installment of Blade Runner. Prequel? Sequel? Ford? No Ford? Nobody knows. But this certainly bodes well for Sir Ridley's current experience revisiting the world he created in Alien for his new film Prometheus, due next summer. He must feel good going back to the well, if he's signing up this soon to revisit his other sci-fi classic.

That we'd get another Alien movie from The Man seemed miracle enough. But since Alcon Entertainment acquired the rights to the Blade Runner property and has actually wooed him, the involvement of Scott takes this into a whole new realm.

This feels like the biggest news since PJ announced there's be Hobbit movies. Hard not to get a little excited, no?

Get your stinking paws into a theater: Apes rules!

Wow, do you ever need to run out and catch Rise of the Planet of the Apes! A phenomenally crowd-pleasing entertainment, Rise just about does the impossible - it's a modern popcorn film with 21st Century sensibilities, but it's also a splendidly old fashioned revenge picture that delivers the goods and actually makes a lasting place for itself alongside all the previous Ape movies of the past.

There's been some talk about an Oscar nom for Andy Serkis as Caesar, and I'm more than happy to get on that train - er, cable car. In many ways, Rise is like a great silent movie. Sure, James Franco gets top billing, but the star of this show is Caesar. His feelings, his reactions, his indignation and ultimate rage - Serkis conveys so much emotion that it's almost overwhelming. Like those great Seventies revenge pulps where the protagonist endures endless amounts of indignity and suffering, all to justify the mighty can of whoop-ass he opens up in the finale, Caesar is like a simian Charles Bronson. You could watch Rise with the sound off and get completely caught up in Caesar's struggle.

Franco's father, John Lithgow, has Alzheimer's so he tests his genetic cure on Apes in the lab. Franco inherits young Caesar after early clinical trials go awry and as Caesar grows up, we experience the world through his profoundly soulful eyes. Freida Pinto is the girlfriend/veterinarian - and well, the less said about her character the better. When Caesar is forced to stay at a primate "rehabilitation" facility run by Brian Cox and Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), the movie erupts into high gear. Just wait until you get a load of the other apes at Caesar's Shawshank. They are amazingly brought to life, truly characters in their own right and utterly compelling. As they - and Caesar - realize that he is not like the rest, things begin to escalate and you couldn't pay me to leave the theater at that point.

Rise is full of clever and affectionate nods to the original Apes films and leaves plenty of room for more sequels. Tom Felton's character is Dodge Landon -- named for two of the astronauts who accompany Heston on his space voyage in the original. Director Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) dares to continue the storytelling even into the end credits. I can't wait to see what they come up with for the next one.

Edited by Mark Goldblatt and Conrad Buff, James Cameron's Terminator cutters, Rise is relentless and emotional and satisfies like few modern blockbusters I can think of recently. Lithgow could really have toned it down a bit, as his Alzheimer's portrayal is a little too Blanche Dubois at times - there are also way too many shots of Apes exploding through plate glass windows. But these are minor carpings. If you have any fondness at all for the original Apes pictures, or if you ever wonder what evolution may have in store for us, you need to escape from your captors and get into the theater to see this right now! It's one of the best movies of the summer and easily finds its way onto the Sacred Scrolls alongside what's come before.

What comes after Harry Potter? Stand and deliver.

As a team, you've written and directed some of the most colossally successful films in cinema history. What do you do for an encore? As reported earlier this year, Warner Brothers was talking about doing Stephen King's The Stand as a series of theatrical films. Now comes word that David Yates, director of the last four Harry Potter films has signed with Warners (who also did Potter) along with screenwriter Steve Kloves, who adapted all of the Potter books into films.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has recently become the third most successful movie of all time, so it's very likely that Kloves and Yates have been given complete freedom to do justice to one of the greatest horror epics of all time.

This is making me laugh, as I recently had to traverse the Lincoln Tunnel to go visit the Harry Potter Exhibition in Manhattan! Ironic foreshadowing?

If you don't know why that's funny, then you have some reading to do, as you will never be able to think of that tunnel the same way again, after you've read The Stand.

This is pretty sensational news, as Warners is clearly looking to give this story the deluxe treatment and reap the rewards of a fan-driven box office bonanza. Are you listening, Universal??? 

A while back I started mulling over who'd make a good cast for The Stand these days. Just for fun, here's what I came up with, given who's popular right now...

Stu Redman Timothy Olyphant

Frannie Goldsmith Ellen Page or Mia Wasikowska

Randall Flagg Stephen Lang

Mother Abigail TBD?

Lloyd Henreid Walton Goggins

Harold Lauder Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Larry Underwood Justin Timberlake

Nick Andros Charlie Hunnam

Nadine Cross Evangeline Lilly

Trashcan Man Crispin Glover or Johnny Depp

Glen Bateman Martin Sheen

 

Thanks, Warner Brothers! You continue to be a bastion of commitment and class. This should really be something special.

Farewell, old friend...

After almost 17 years, we had to say goodbye to a very beloved member of the family this afternoon. Follow the link for some more pictures of Arnold, a friend like no other.

How about a nice hot cup of freedom?!

Three Cheers for The First Avenger! And a hearty slap on the back for director Joe Johnston, who has delivered what's easily one of the best movies of the summer. Johnston helmed The Rocketeer, another gem steeped in bygone retro/deco flourishes and wisely stays true to the World War II era that spawned Hitler-clobberin' Steve Rogers in the first place. The pacing and style of the movie feels old fashioned, too. It was a smart stroke to make so much of the film's beginning focus on "4F" Steve, before he takes the super serum that makes him the ultimate soldier. Because we see first and foremost that Steve Rogers is just a nice guy, a decent man who's always been dismissed as a runt, whose fondest wish is to just do good and contribute.

Captain America: The First Avenger opens with a dynamite prologue and keeps the entertainment comin' at ya the entire time. Chris Evans delivers a terrific performance -- the Stars and Stripes pride of this movie could have gone so wrong in clumsier hands, but Johnston's Greatest Generation characters just make you love them on sight. Ya see, Hitler just isn't evil enough, and Cap stands alongside other great Nazi-era triumphs of adventure as Hellboy, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, really transporting you back to a time when it was just good vs. evil - and they don't come much more evil than Hugo Weaving's Johann Schmidt, aka The Red Skull.

It's a role that demands chewing the scenery and Weaving has been seeing his dentist. He's just perfect. Tommy Lee Jones, Haley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Stanley Tucci and the ever-fabulous Toby Jones all deliver like FedEx.

It's a veritable love-fest for Marvel True Believers - you get all kinds of good stuff with Howard Stark (Iron Man's dad) - and a little Winter Soldier set-up, maybe, with Bucky Barnes? You get Dum Dum and the Howling Commandos, for cryin' out loud. You get snappy dialogue, a flying wing, all kinds of insanely cool retro-atom Hydra vehicles and a terrific ending. And of course like any film from Marvel, be absolutely sure to stay past the end credits (they're splendid in their own right, an eye-popping collection of American propaganda posters) for a tremendous additional scene that gives a pretty good taste of The Avengers mayhem to come next summer.

I caught Cap' in 3D, but it's not necessary to. Just do yourself a favor and see this movie, because it's Fun with a capital F. And that stands for Freedom, got it, bub?!

On location: New Jersey Sacred Ground...

Hmmm, look familiar...?

I better get a grip. Should I be nervous?

There's no turning back...

BECAUSE IT'S

TONY SOPRANO'S HOUSE!!!

Yes, in this sleepy New Jersey hamlet, lies the home of a legend -- and this is the actual location.

Let's see if Ton'll come out and say Hello...

Uh, but let's not make too much noise, alright?

The front doors!

Where Tony parks the Escalade!

The bedrooms...

Hmm...maybe Tony's takin' a nap...

I'll just bring up his newspaper for him.

Hey, what's with that black car parked out front...?

THE actual spot where Tony gets his copy of The Star Ledger.

Hey, I gotta go, but I'll see you next time, Ton'!!!

Harry Potter and the Lincoln Tunnel...

Like an idiot, I had the incredibly rare Harry Potter - The Exhibition on tour just up the road in Seattle for months, but procrastination caused me to let it slip through my fingers. So when work found me across the river in New Jersey with half a day on my hands, it was just a quick trip under the Hudson to The Discovery Center on West 44th Street and a fortunate shot at a second chance!

A Ford Anglia flying out of the building -- this must be it!

I should mention that any photography is strictly prohibited. Otherwise a Centaur will get you!

You're greeted by an indoor version of the Hogwart's Express on Platform 9 & 3/4

Umbridge's Office -- dig those kitten plates!!!

Umbridge's Educational Decrees...



Gilderoy Lockhart's shrine of narcissism



You get to pull a screaming Mandrake out of its soil!

Hagrid's Hut!!!

Quidditch uniforms!

They let you hurl an actual Quaffle through a ring!

 

The Riddle family grave!!!



The elusive Tri-Wizard Tournament Cup!!!

PHEW!!! After all that I need a butterbeer or two to quench my thirst!!! I felt unbelievably lucky to get to experience the exhibit. Once it leaves New York in September, it travels all the way to Australia, so this was the last hurrah for North America. Yes, they have quite the gift shop. If you're in New York, don't miss this magical treat!