Check out this trailer for Sucker Punch, and let us know what you think. We thought it looked… interesting…. Zach Snyder seems to have done it again. After Watchmen and 300, is there anything he can’t direct?

For those of you who enjoyed Disney’s 80′s sci-fi flick TRON, it might interest you to know that a sequel has been in the works for a while now. Here’s the latest trailer….

I’ve always admired Edward Norton’s choice of film role, and this trailer for Stone looks the goods. Alongside Robert DeNiro and Milla Jovovitch, this could be a great little dramatic thriller. What do you think?

We  look at Hollywood’s fascination with the Man vs Machine story, and why these films are so successful…

It’s a strange paradox that’s evolved since the birth of the World Wide Web, where humans have become closer than ever before while gradually losing our ability to connect. Social networking has become the buzzword of the first decade of this new century, with major websites MySpace and Facebook leading the way, often to the detriment of actual human interpersonal relationships. The fact that we now have the ability to connect with anybody, anywhere in the world, at the click of a mouse button, has led to a dilution of social depth filled with Tweets and Status Updates no longer than a paragraph at best. Rather than a handful of real, actual friends with whom we have genuine bonds and interaction, we’re left with a gaggle of world wide networking “friends” that have no meaning in our lives save for bolstering our increasingly bloated “friend list”.

The fact that social networking on the web has led to a fracturing of actual relationships, rather than an improvement of them, is indicative of the apparent human desire to live our lives in a world of electronic bytes and disconnected “pokes”. We’d rather update our status than go out and meet people. Apparently.

The closer we get, the further apart we grow?

Using this kind of new age thinking, it’s appropriate that we dissect a current thematic trend in Hollywood over the last decade. Recently, I had the pleasure of perusing a couple of similarly themed films, Gamer and Surrogates, and it struck me that Hollywood has really embraced the concept of a humanity so isolated from itself that we resort to a kind of avatar lived lifestyle. The Matrix (1999) took us into an alternative world where humans lived in a state of induced hallucination. For many fans, the idea that we could live in a world where bullet time existed was almost too much: and the film asked the question of us… are we indeed living in a world run by our minds? Recent films such as Gamer, which had a psuedo-Crysis style theme of humans controlling others via a web-based mind link, and Surrogates, where humans lived in their houses and controlled robotic representations of themselves out in the world, have tapped into the theme of living our lives through some sort of fantasy. Even Avatar, James Cameron’s most recent blockbuster, swam with the theme of living a life outside your own body via a machine connected to a constructed body: so the themes of externalising our lives have really taken hold in recent years. Robin William’s role in Final Cut even went to the extreme of having our memories recorded and edited down upon our death for our loved one’s edification – admittedly no direct “machine” interaction occurred here, but the film portrayed our lives as being little more than a series of adventures recorded on a machine in our brains.

For the sake of argument, we’ll focus our arguments on a few films which capture the essence of the man-machine theme in film: The Matrix, Surrogates, Gamer and Avatar. No doubt there are others we’ve forgotten about, but these in particular stand out in the public conscious.

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Thought you guys might be turned on by the newest teaser trailer for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new film, and it ain’t family friendly! Woot!! Putting the G-rated shambles of Tooth Fairy, Race to Witch Mountain and other Brendan Fraser inspired rubbish behind him, Dwayne finally steps up to take the mantle left askew by Arnold. Faster looks pretty sweet….

James Gammon - 1940-2010

Just a quick update to the news of another talented actor who has left us this week, and I speak of American character actor James Gammon. His name might not immediately be recognisable, but his face sure is.  Gammon is best known for his work in the Western genre, in films as diverse as Silverado, Wyatt Earp, Cold Mountain and most recently in Appaloosa. He has also appeared in numerous other films, including Major League, Any Which Way You Can, Natural Born Killers, Point Break, The Iron Giant, The Cell and In The Electric Mist.

Gammon also appeared in numerous television series across his career, including Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Waltons, Charlie’s Angels, Murder She Wrote, The Equalizer, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and most recently, Grey’s Anatomy.

Considering the quality of projects he was involved in, you’d think his name might be more recognised!

Gammon passed away this week from a variety of cancers. He was 70.

Considering the power of websites such as Myspace and Facebook, I guess it was only a matter of time before the phenomenon of Fb was utilised in a movie setting. A kind of “biographical” film about the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Network indeed looks interesting. It’s directed by David Fincher, the man behind such genius films as Fight Club and Se7en. Let us know what you think…

Alan Hume - 1924-2010

Quick post today, to let you know of the passing of one of Britains legends of cinema, Alan Hume. Hume was a cinematographer on films as diverse as Return Of The Jedi, the James Bond classic A View To A Kill, A Fish Called Wanda and Shirley Valentine. But it is for his work on many of the British Carry On… films that he gained his reputation in the industry. We tip our had to his body of work today.

Mr Hume was 85.

The trailer for this new film starring Liam Neeson, Christina Ricci and Justin Long, after.life, looks creepy as…. Great concept, will be interesting to see if they can pull it off…

When director Robert Rodriguez attached a series of faux trailers to the front of the Grindhouse films, the one which received the most applause was undoubtedly the Machete one. After much clamouring for Machete to actually be turned into a movie, Rodriguez and his team have obliged, expanding the trailers original narrative arc into this: a film filled with sexy women and guns, leading man Danny Trejo with guns, Robert DeNiro with guns, Steven Segal with guns and knives, “introducing” Don Johnson and even part-time-man Michelle Rodriguez in a very skimpy outfit. One thing is for sure, this film is going to be messy. Enjoy the latest trailer!

Look, I’m not really a huge fan of Seth Rogen per se, I usually find his shtick quite laborious and overstated. Still, if this trailer is anything to go by, at least there’ll be explosions in the new Green Hornet movie to distract me. And plenty of Cameron Diaz, which is nowhere near a bad thing.

Ilene Woods - 1921-2010

Just a quick tip of the hat today, in honour of the original voice of Cinderella, Ilene Woods, who passed away last week aged 81. Woods came to fame as the voice of Disney’s animated princess in 1950, and while her career never reached the same heights again, she remained active well into her senior years. She was awarded Disney Legend status in 2003 for her work on Cinderella.

Woods died on July 1st, at a nursing home in LA, from complications of Alzheimers Disease.

From the director of Pirates of the Caribbean, The Mexican and MouseHunt, Gore Verbinski, comes Rango, an animated feature about a lizard in Mexico. Looks….. interesting…. Check out the teaser (thanks to comingsoon.net) trailer below…

Still haven’t seen the original Paranormal Activity (since my wife doesn’t want the film in the house…) but this trailer for the sequel looks creepy as ever. I’m not sure if the scares can continue in the same vein as the original, but it will be interesting to see…. Hold on tight to something and click “play” below…..

Finally. It’s here. Well, the trailer is, at least. Part one comes out in November, and the second instalment arrives mid-2011. Click the screen below to invest more time in JK Rowling’s excuse to roll in money.