We've got a fun clip from an extremely cool-looking sci-fi film called The Machine to share with you today. We posted a trailer for the movie a few months back, which you can check out here in case you missed it. The clip we have features a team of programmers testing out some advanced prosthetics on a man who is given new arms and hands.  

The film was written and directed by Caradog W. James and stars Toby Stephens, Caity Lotz, Denis Lawson, Sam Hazeldine, Pooneh Hajimohammadi, and John Paul Macleod.

Set in the near-future Britain, two computer programmers fall in love as they create the first-ever piece of self-aware artificial intelligence, designed to help humanity. But things go terribly wrong when the British Government steals their breakthrough and teaches it to become a robotic weapon. 

The movie is currently available on VOD and will be released in theaters April 25th! 

The lead Jaeger in Pacific Rim, Gipsy Danger, gets the femme cosplay treatment. Cosplayer Nona Neon's work on the aging and weathering on the paint job is solid, and the way she has adapted the armor's construction around her frame while keeping the Gipsy Danger feel is truly impressive. Thanks to Fashionably Geek for finding this. Additional photos by SGH PhotoArt.

Check out this poster for Denzel Washington’s latest action flick, The Equalizer. Based on an ’80s detective show, this one reunites Washington with Antoine Fuqua, who helped him score an Oscar for Training Day. Here’s the premise:

Washington plays a former black ops commando who faked his death for a quiet life in Boston. He comes out of his retirement to rescue a young girl, Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz), and finds himself face to face with Russian gangsters.

In the original TV show, Edward Woodward played a retired intelligence officer, not a black ops commando who faked his own death, but you expect them to ratchet up the drama in adaptations like these. There have been some excellent movies based on shows from the ’70s and ’80s, including Maverick, The Fugitive, and the Mission Impossible franchise. On the other end of the spectrum you have Dark Shadows and Lost in Space. (Remember when people thought the cast of Friends would have successful movie careers?) The movie Traffic was based on the British miniseries Traffik and was great. The movie State of Play was based on the British miniseries State of Play and was… not great. So it can go either way. Based on the talent involved with this one (Melissa Leo also stars), I have pretty high hopes, though.

The Equalizer hits theaters September 26, and the first trailer comes out next week.

via: Yahoo!

Check out “Action Bill,” a charming LEGO stop-motion animated short. LEGO William Shakespeare is trying to break through his writer’s block in a charming Tudor playset. Suddenly, William Shatner descends in a mech suit, desperate for revenge against the Bard. He has his reasons, and they are hilarious. Our hero seems outmatched when help arrives in the form of… Actually, I’ll let that be a surprise, because it is just too perfect to spoil. The short is full of small, witty details, and it’s only about 4 minutes, so watch it right now.

"Action Bill" was directed by Gareth Witte and produced by Dustin Butler and Rachel James. It was written by Kenneth Haney, Witte, Butler, and James.

Ryan Gosling is a man of many talents, and he has now added directing to the list of things he can do. The first film he has directed is called Lost River, which was previously titled How To Catch a Monster. I'm really excited to see how this movie which has been described as weaving "elements of fantasy noir, and suspense into a modern day fairytale." The first image from the film shown above give us our first look at the tone we'll see, and it looks like something straight out of one of my nightmares! If you can't tell, that's Christina Hendricks with a terrifying look on her face while her head is being enclosed in some kind of… thing. For those of you not familiar with the story yet, here's a short synopsis:

Set against the surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city, BILLY, a single mother of two, is swept into a macabre and dark fantasy underworld while BONES, her eighteen-year-old son, discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town. Both Billy and Bones must dive deep into the mystery, if their family is to survive.

While doing an interview with Empire, one of the actors, Iain De Caestecker, talked about working with Gosling on the film and explained the plot a little bit more saying,

"Ryan [Gosling] works in a very free way, he’s constantly in an artistic frame of mind. All I can really say is that it centers around a family. There’s my character, Bones, his mother and his younger brother. There’s also a girl next door played by Saoirse Ronan, called Rat. It’s about this family living in a town called Lost River, which is perhaps a place that was once full of family and happiness and love, and is now this town that’s slowly descending into a place without any hope. This family is holding onto the foundations of their house and everything they think they need to hold onto."

There's no word on when we'll get to see the film, but it is being distributed by Warner Bros. and it's set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie also stars Ben Mendohlson, Matt Smith, Barbara Steele, and Eva Mendes. I've also included a photo of Gosling directing the film. 

In today’s installment of GeekTyrant Is Obsessed with Disney Princesses, we have a digital painting by Deviant Artist Alexandra Mihai, aka madam-marla. The princesses have all gathered for a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Elsa and Anna are missing because you know Elsa would roll too low of a number and throw a big ice-fit, and Anna boycotted because they dissed her sister. Or because the artist started the piece before Frozen came out. Whichever.

The artist did a great job capturing the different princesses’ personalities. I think Snow White is an interesting choice as Dungeon master, because she is so dull. I would have put her in charge of snacks and clean up, honestly, but she is really into it. And Ariel is apparently in love with her, which should make for some nice slash-fic. Mulan has her fake interested face on, and Jasmine isn’t even trying. Cinderella is worried she forgot to clean something. Pocahontas is zoned out, pondering the genocide of her people. The only one who seems actually interested in what Snow has to say is Rapunzel, and she was locked in a tower for her whole life, so what does she know? Tiana is wondering why she’s the only black person at the table. Belle is ignoring everything and reading the rules, Aurora is majorly pouting, and Merida wants to shoot an arrow at something.

What character class would you put each Princess in?

Via: Geekologie

Matt Mueller: Hi Trent, thank you so much for taking some time to go over your Kickstarter project Armello with me. I know things are crazy hectic over there at the moment, so your time is greatly appreciated. How are you holding up?

Trent Kusters: PAX was wild, then with a Kickstarter running too, Wow. But yeah, I'm holding up. Back into the swing of things now. Working with some indies in Boston at the moment.

MM: First off, for those who aren't familiar, why did you and your team set out to create the game, and what exactly is Armello?

TK: Armello is a digital board game that mixes elements from a lot of tabletop games (card games, board games, pen and paper RPGs, etc) and then leverages the medium of video games to really make them as awesome as they can be. This crazy mission came about because when we formed LoG we were deciding upon the first game to make, all of us were playing board games on our iPad and they were just horrid. So incredibly bad. We knew we could do better and that the digital board game genre (so-to-speak) had so much potential. It was somewhere we knew we had a real shot at contributing to the medium.  

MM: How has the Kickstarter process been so far? With the amount of positive feedback you’ve received, would it be something you would do again down the road?

TK: Kickstarter is a harrowing process. A fellow developer and Kickstarter vet referred to it as the "30 Days of Despair." They're not wrong. It's an emotional rollercoaster. I worked for 42 hours straight when we launched. Saying all that, however, it's an incredible platform and we love how empowering it is. I don't know if we'd bet the studio on a Kickstarter again, but we have a couple of pretty incredible side projects that would perfectly suit a Kickstarter campaign, so you'll see us on KS again some day.

MM: I will offer a bit of kudos and a thank you for developing this for PC and Mac, as I have resolved myself to the fact that the only way I get cool Mac games that aren’t from Blizzard is through Kickstarter, so thank you for giving me something cool and worthwhile to play next year on my gaming deprived platform. Just thought I’d mention that.

TK: You're welcome. I play games on my Macbook Pro all the time, so I can relate. ;)

MM: Following up on how the process has been, Kickstarter funded projects have become more closely scrutinized over the last 2 years or so, as it’s great when it works out, but more and more projects fail to either manage budgets, expectations, or fail due to overpromising features that never make it to release. With that said, how are you attempting to mitigate those pitfalls from your project and keep consumer confidence high that Armello will deliver on everything it’s promising?

TK: You're completely right. The Kickstarter community has gone from a hyped bunch of rabid consumers to a collective of very sophisticated, discerning consumers. The best, most critical and most observant questions and feedback we've received yet on Armello and LoG has come from our backers. As for how we move forward with that in mind, it actually doesn't change anything. We need to deliver this game and run the studio to the best of our ability anyway. Now the stakes are just higher. Going into it we were very careful about the promises we made, and are still careful about that now, but yeah, we've still just got to do what we set out to do in the first place.     

MM: $200,000 is actually pretty reasonable when it comes to funding a game, as games are not cheap to make. Is the amount a bit lower just because you have already laid most of the foundation down prior to starting your fundraising campaign?

TK: Yes, exactly. We're at alpha. At risk of minimizing the notion of what's left to do, it's kind of paint by numbers from here on out - whilst changing a couple of the colors on the fly. We're at Alpha so the majority of mechanics are in the game already. Also, our production model where we have collaborators on from all over the globe working for profit share permits us more development muscle than most studios can buy at that price. Our future and things will be more comfortable if we hit stretch goals of course, but we were very sure to make sure we had enough money to see the game finished.  

MM: One of the features you mention is how there is never any downtime in Armello. Can you go into some detail on how you are minimizing wait time, say when someone else is taking their turn, and what options are out there for you after your turn ends?

TK: Yeah, sure. We call these phases your 'on-turn' and your 'off-turn'. When it's your turn, that's your on-turn. This is when all the action occurs basically. Moving, exploring, fighting, capturing settlements, questing, etc. When the other players are having their turn, that's what we refer to as your 'off-turn'. Your off-turn is really your time to strategize, upgrade and plan. You'll be equipping items, recruiting followers, purchasing talents, chatting with other players, playing Perils to the board and more.  You can play cards during both of these phases too. So yeah, there's always something to do in Armello. It's a fine balance of knowing what to be paying attention to at the right time.

MM: You mentioned recruiting allies or laying perils for other players or even forming alliances. Can you go into some detail on how those features work?

TK: I don't want to drill down too far into them as they may change still, but I'll give you a taste. Each hero can have up to three Followers in their party. Followers are powerful characters in the form of cards that players can uncover by encountering them on the board, meeting them on a quest or exploring dungeons. As for Perils; the majority of Spell and Trickery cards can be either played to the board or onto a hero. When played to a hero, the effect is instantaneous. When played to the board, the card is played as a 'Peril'. A Peril is a trap of sorts. When a player walks onto a tile with a Peril on it, they must roll the corresponding stat and match the designated symbols in order to escape the card's effect. Most importantly though, perils are great ways at affecting and shaping your opponent's stories by having mercenaries try and track them down, or having their name smeared in court, etc. Perils are great storytelling tools.    

MM: Those sound like a blast, and for those who will be playing this in the future with me, the answer is yes, your name will be constantly smeared in court.

Players might get distracted on off turns by the gorgeous artwork alone. What inspired the designs of the heroes and the world? Seeing it for the first time I couldn’t help but think of my constant viewings of Robin Hood (The Disney Version) when I was a kid. I have a very special love for that kind of animation and art style, and Armello definitely strikes that same chord for me. I half expected Sir Hiss to pop up on one of the cards.

TK: There are a few inspirations in there. Perhaps most notably is the work of Eyvind Earle and Mary Blair from Disney's golden age. Also a lot of Miyazaki/Ghibli influence, as well as some The Dark Crystal. We draw from a lot of things though and I know that Ty Carey our art director spent a lot of time ensuring we struck that unique place where we had something that was familiar, yet uniquely Armello.

MM: I love that you made a physical board game prototype before fully starting on the digital version. Its hard to know what is fun and what isn’t without first getting around the tabletop and throwing some dice with friends. Speaking of physical media, I know there aren’t any plans to make a physical version of the game for mass release, but were there ever any thoughts given to making physical add-ons? One of the reward tiers offers limited edition figurines of the featured heroes, and I wasn't sure if there were plans at some point to make them transferable into the game, ala Skylanders or Disney Infinity?

TK: For a while we looked at having dice that players could roll and the results would show up in game, but in the end the tech just wasn't there yet. It needs a few more years. However, the game is a video game. That's the experience we're going for so physical additions or interfacing methods aren't at the top of our priority list.

MM: I gotcha. I love how there are numerous ways to win a match. Of those mentioned the political option perked my ears up the most. How in depth is that system, and how exactly would someone’s playthrough work using that as their play-style?

TK: To be named successor to the throne of Armello, the player has to have the highest prestige at the time the King dies to the Rot. There are a few ways to achieve this, but a lot of this tactic relies upon the trickery deck, in which are cards and plays akin to political moves you'd see in an episode of Game of Thrones. You'll be forming allegiances, hiring assassins, slandering people in court, feigning support for the King and more. Most important to your strategy though is that the King must not die at the hands of another hero, so whilst playing the political angle you're also defending the King anyway you can. It's a super interesting path and I've seen people approach it successfully in a number of ways.    

MM: While we are talking about ways to win a match, one of the other features mentioned was following royal edicts, which get more and more preposterous as the king loses more and more of his gourd to the rot. I absolutely love that feature, and think it will lead to even more investment in the fiction and in the final goal of trying to take the crown for yourself. Are edicts available to all players, or just to people who choose to go along a certain path to taking the crown.

TK: The King's Declarations as they are called affect every player on the board. They usually take the form of global rule shifts that remain active for two rounds (Day and Night). However, the most interesting factor is that the King will recruit the player with the highest prestige as counsel, permitting them to make a decision on what the King's Declaration for that day will be. There's a real sense of power that comes from being that close to the throne.

MM: How crazy do the declarations get? Is there one that ranks among your favorites?

TK: We actually haven't sat down and designed them all out just yet, however the one that is the most interesting currently is not permitting the heroes to fight each other for two rounds. It's incredible how fast such a simple rule shift can change up the dynamics of play.  

MM: The cards themselves are beautifully designed. How intensive was the process of refining those down to only 100 cards for the full retail product, and were there any that you wanted in the game that did not make the cut?

TK: We're still going through that process right now. It will be an ongoing process for the entirety of the game's life, even post launch. With so much going on in this game, I don't think we can ever hope to get 100 cards 'right'. Magic are still tweaking cards that were invented 20 years ago.  

MM: While the game will have in app purchases later on, its interesting that other decks of cards will not be a part of those downloadables offered. You’ve made it very clear that it will not happen, even further down the line. What was behind that decision?

TK: We don't want Armello to become an exclusive environment only catering to those who have spent the most money or have the latest cards. From the start we wanted players to be able to have their first game of Armello and for the playing field to be level. Other players can only ever bring their mastery and knowledge of the game's systems to a match. There's no levelling or purchasable power ups, or anything like that. There is no pay-to-win in Armello. Repeat play in Armello is rewarded by increased understanding of the systems and their behaviours and permutations - this is where players gain their advantage! We strongly believe that will create a stronger community and longer lasting experience.

MM: While I love opening up packs of cards, for any reason really, it is nice that, whether a backer or someone who buys the game a year down the line, that person is equipped with the same resources to win, and isn't automatically at a disadvantage before they even boot up the game.

Before we let you go I’d like to thank you again for taking some time out to talk to us today. At this point you’re already over halfway funded, so congrats on getting there in just over a week. Is there one thing that you would like someone to take from this, and why should someone give Armello a chance?

TK: First and foremost, this is a passion project. This is something that 90% of the team has been working on for no upfront pay after getting home from a full day at work. We're on this project because we believe in it. The people we've shown it to believe in it and we know you will too. Not only is Armello going to be something truly special, but we've got plenty more ideas that we hope to be applying our talents to. The Armello Kickstarter is the best chance to get in on the ground floor.

MM: Well its been a blast, and I wish you and your team nothing but success!

TK: Thanks for reaching out! Glad to be able to chat.  

If you would like to back Armello, you can head over to their Kickstarter page right now. One of the reward tiers allows you access to four other heroes, which are featured below. Can't say enough about the character design on this game, so I wanted to give these guys a spotlight.

Dibbs on the squirrel!

Jock created this badass looking illustration of Batman that is based on The Black Mirror storyline that the artist did illustrations for. Jock has a fantastic and distinct style and always delivers great work.

In this storyline Dick Grayson, is the new Batman and it "deals with the return of James Gordon Jr. after a long hiatus, reintroducing him into publication as a remorseless killer. His cold psychopathic tendencies are a sort of black mirror of the soul that Dick Grayson sees himself reflected in, they're completely at odds as the son of Batman and the son of Gotham."

An intense trailer has been released for Ryan Reynold's new psychological thriller Captives, and it looks really good. The movie comes from director Atom Egoyan (Chloe, The Devil Knot), and it also stars Scott Speedman, Mireille Enos, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Durand, Alexia Fast, and Bruce Greenwood. 

The story follows Matthew (Reynolds) and Tina (Enos), "a couple torn apart by the circumstances behind the mysterious disappearance of their daughter, who seems to be alive in captivity eight years later with her unknown location being broadcast online, leaving official perplexed as they attempt to find her."

I've always enjoyed Reynolds as an actor, but he's had a long streak of bad films. The best movie I've seen him recently was The Voices up at Sundance, but this looks like it's a great project for him too. He just needs to make Deadpool already. The movie is set to premiere at Cannes Film Festival. There's no word yet on when we will get to see it.

Lionsgate has released another trailer for their new horror thriller, The Quiet Ones. The movie was developed by Hammer, and it was inspired by true events. It follows a group of students who participate in an experiment to create a poltergeist, because nothing but good things can come from that! The new trailer includes an eerie rhyme creepily read by a little girl to give it that bone chilling factor. 

The movie was directed by John Pogue and stars Jared Harris (Mad Men), Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), and Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel).

Tucked away in an estate outside of London, Professor Coupland along with a team of university students conduct an "experiment" on Jane Harper, a young girl who harbors unspeakable secrets. What dark forces they uncover are more terrifying than any of them expected.

The Quiet Ones is set to be released on April 25th, 2014.

Mark Englert’s “The Flowers Are Still Standing”

We've got some more cool Ghostbusters art from Gallery 1988's 30th anniversary traveling art show to share with you today. The show will go to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Diego. I've included the dates and locations for you below the art. It would be really cool to attend one of these. I'll most likely get my chance in San Diego during Comic-Con.

A majority of the artwork will ONLY BE AVAILABLE by attending one of the galleries in-person. A very small allotment of prints has been set aside for each city, with a smaller selection at our final Comic Con stop. This is the ONLY way to purchase this artwork. There will be small surprises at each stop as well.

A commemorative series of special 30th Anniversary screenprints WILL BE AVAILABLE in limited amounts ONLINE, in addition to in-store, at ghostbusters30th.com. These will be released sporadically over the next month. 

Thanks to /Film for the heads up on the posters!

Dan Mumford’s “Are You A God?”

Cuddly Rigor Mortis “There’s Something You Don’t See.”

Mike Mitchell

Nicole Gustafsson

DKNG

Anthony Petrie

Joshua Budich

Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Art Show: New York - April 19 – 26

69 Leonard Street (bewteen Church & Broadway), New York, NY 10013
Opening reception: April 19 7-10 p.m.

Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Art Show: Los Angeles - May 17 – June 1st

Gallery 1988 (West), 7308 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90046
Opening reception: May 17 7-10 p.m.

The show will hit Chicago on June 20-22 and, finally, San Diego Comic-Con July 23-27. 

This clip from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has Aleksei Sytsevich, aka Rhino (Paul Giamatti), escaping with stolen plutonium. Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) attempts to safeguard the plutonium before running into trouble.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 finally swings into American theaters May 2nd.

Face melting metal covers of popular songs seem to be all the rage on YouTube. I’m guessing that I’m in the minority (cuz those videos get millions of views), but I can’t stand that stuff. I appreciate the musical talent those people have, I truly do, it just all sounds like video game music to me. Hopefully that helps you understand that I love that Dan Newbie took the exact opposite approach with this particular video (he does popular covers as well) and turned classic video game music into a fun and creative musical performance. Armed with 48 wine glasses, 2 pencils, 1 frying pan, and lots of tap water, Newbie bangs out the Super Mario Bros. theme with style and precision.

"This place is bullshit!" 

I recently watched the first season of Orange is the New Black, and holy shit, it was good! I didn't think I'd enjoy it which is why I waited so long to watch it, but people kept telling me… "You gotta watch it!" So I did, and I was pleasantly surprised. Now I'm going to be that guy telling you to watch it if you haven't seen it yet. The series stars Taylor Schilling as Piper Chapman, a 30-something woman serving a 15-month sentence after being convicted of abetting her drug-dealing girlfriend. 

For those of you who have watched it, we have the first trailer for the second season for you to check out, and it looks like we're in for another crazy chapter in the series with the female inmates of Litchfield prison. 

Season two will be released on Netflix on June 6th, 2014. 

Here’s a marvelous set of custom action figures for The Awesomes by master builder Sillof. The artist was commissioned by show creators Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker to make the figures as gifts for the cast, which includes Meyers, Ike Barinholtz, Rashida Jones, Bill Hader, Bobby Lee, Taran Killam, Bobby Moynihan, Rachel Dratch, Kenan Thompson, and many more. The figures are modeled after the likenesses of the cast and are perfectly blended with their characters from the show. This series makes me ache for a live action movie. Almost all of the voice cast could inhabit their characters in a live action format. Perhaps they'll take a cue from these voice actors dressed as their characters and cosplay as The Awesomes later on down the road.

I’m looking forward to the second season of The Awesomes to see the continuing adventures of Prock and his misfit gang team of superheroes. There’s no word on when production will begin on Season 2, but Hulu ordered another 10 episodes of the series last year after the show was consistently in the top 10 most watched shows on the streaming service. Seth Meyers has a lot on his plate now that he has taken over hosting duties for NBC's Late Night. But if his band leader Fred Armisen can find the time to do the wide range of (real and fake) projects he’s involved in, I’m sure Meyers can do the same.

To see more detailed photos of the rest of the figures, head on over to Sillof's personal site.

via: Neatorama

I'm not the biggest gambler. Sure, I do it for fun every now and then when I'm passing through Vegas, and I always seem to come out ahead, but I don't want to push my look, so I gamble sparingly. It's always fun when I do, though, and I love the adrenaline rush! 

There have been some great scenes that revolve around gambling. I thought it'd be fun to point out awesome gaming scenes from ten different films. Not all of the films I pulled these scenes from revolve around gambling. This is just a collection of scenes that I've enjoyed watching over the years.

Look over the list and let us know what some of your favorite movie gambling scenes are!

Swingers

Vegas, Baby! One of my favorite scenes from Swingers is when Trent (Vince Vaughn) forces Mike (Jon Favreau) to go to Vegas to get him out of a funk. Mike goes over the the Blackjack table trying to act like a high roller, buying in for $300 at a $100 minimum bet table. This scene hilariously plays out as Trent is coaching Mike through the process telling him to always double down on 11. To this day, I always quote this scene when I play Blackjack, and I always double down on 11.

Rounders

I was nervous as hell the first I watched Mike (Matt Damon) sit down at the poker table against Teddy KGB (John Malkovich) in the final Texas Hold'em showdown. Acting out of desperation to repay Worm’s debts, Mike borrowed $10,000 from his old professor to buy in to the game. The scene plays out brilliantly, the intensity is through the roof, and the outcome is all you could ever hope for.

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

The stakes get insanely high during this game of Three Card Brag between Fast Eddy (Nick Moran) and Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty). During the game Eddy opens with a $20,000 bet, Harry raises to $30,000, Eddy re-raises to $50,000, Harry then takes it to $80,000, Eddy comes back with $100,000, Harry explodes up to $250,000. Eddy wants to call but he doesn’t have the cash to do it! So Harry offers to loan him the money at the same time he tells him it’ll be an additional $250,000 to see the cards—$500,000 all day! Holy shit! Watch the scene.

Tombstone

Tombstone is one of my favorite westerns of all time. They just don't make good, classic style westerns like this anymore. Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday is one of my favorite one screen characters, too. In this scene Doc finds himself all liquored up and in good spirits after 36 straight hours of poker. He's still sharp as a knife, though, and quick witted. "Let's have a spelling contest."

Goodfellas

“So he got shot in the foot. What is it? A big fuc*in deal?”

The character that Joe Pesci played in this movie, Tommy DeVito, was one of the most terrifying loose cannons ever put on film. I also think it's one of the  best performances of Pesci's career. This is a character that you don't want to piss off, even if it's just an honest misunderstanding.

Toy Story 3

The last thing I expected to see in Toy Story 3 was a gambling scene, but here it is, and it's great. They have several characters sitting around a See 'N Say, betting on where the spinner will stop. I loved that they took that toy and turned it into a gambling game. I'd love to walk into a casino one day and see that.

Ocean's Eleven

The poker scene at the beginning of the movie with Brad Pitt and George Clooney is just classic Hollywood. In the scene Pitt is teaching a small group of actors how to play poker, and it's so freakin' funny. There's a lot of great quotable lines in it, one of my favorites being, "I'm not sure what four nines does, but the ace I think is pretty high." I also love  "All reds."

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

I loved it when Austin Powers (Mike Meyers) sat down with Number Two (Robert Wagner) to play a round of blackjack. It was such a ridiculously funny scene with the whole liking to live dangerously aspect of it. I love it when Powers sticks with his fives. I also like that they are playing the game wrong. For example, at one point Number Two is asked if he wants to hit before Powers even gets his second card.

Run Lola Run

This whole movie is great, but the scene where the main character goes into a casino is so awesome. To save her boyfriend, Lola needs some really quick cash, and in an attempt to get it she enters a casino and drops down all that she has on a roulette table, ultimately putting it all on 20 black. Sure the odds are 1,296-to-1, but when you're in a movie, odds don't mean a thing.

Cool Hand Luke

Because Paul Newman is the man, the guy wins for having the best poker face of all time, and “Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.”

Artist Tony Warne, aka Jedi-Art-Trick, has created a lot of Star Wars art. We are featuring just a few pieces today, and the most interesting one he's simply titled "Leia and Vader," but as you can see, the art doesn't fit any canon storyline.

Warne had this to say about the piece:

This was just me really wanting to paint a redeemed (yet still alive) Darth Vader and Leia wearing a white getup like Padme wore in episode 2, just for fun. The idea came from the Star Wars Infinites Return of the Jedi comic, in which Vader is actually saved by Luke and Leia and turns away from the dark side, joining the rebellion. In the last panel, he dons a completely white suit of his armor. I thought that was a neat idea, but the white armor was a bit much. I just wanted to give a little more "sith-turned-jedi" vibe from him, while I wanted to give Leia a little more "hot-in-a-tight-white-suit" vibe.

Gareth Edwards is a relatively unknown director, but the strength of his 2010 film Monsters is the clear reason Legendary Pictures tapped him to remake Godzilla. In this interview Edwards talks about his approach to making Godzilla. Between this interview, his body of work, and his Q&A at last year's Comic-Con, I'm pretty confident that we are going to have the best Godzilla movie yet.

Godzilla will roar to the point of bothering adjacent theaters on May 15 (USA).

Comic Book Movie's NailBiter111 got ahold of game footage from a cancelled The Flash video game. The video features an early test to figure out how the combat might work. Greg Miller, lead designer on the game, sent CBM the footage and the following statement.

Miller on the game:

This was a very early test of the direction we were thinking of taking running combat. We were shooting for the old school feel of the “Road Rash” series where you could punch and pummel your opponent until you got him to wipe out. Our main difference was that you could assign a controller button to an opponent and this would allow you to bounce back and forth between multiple running foes. The bad guys were going to be Cadmus experiments into super speed who would terrorize Flash from time to time when he raced across the long city expressways. This video shows maybe about a weeks’ worth of work put into the system. It was only just coming online. We got a bit more work done on it before we closed down and we were starting to get some really amazing wipe outs happening but unfortunately I didn’t capture any of that. Regardless, it’s a nice little taste of what could have been.

I really like the light trail effect and the seemingly constant sonic booms as The Flash moves faster and faster. This would have made for a great Xbox marketplace game with its fun arcade action.

To see what Miller is working on now, check out the free to play iOS game Monster Rift.

Clint Eastwood is an amazing director, and his latest project is a big screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Jersey Boys. It's definitely a very different kind of project for the director, but it looks like he did a great job bringing this story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons to life. For those of you not familiar with these guys, we have a trailer for you to check out, and you're sure to recognize the classic songs in the film.

The film tells the story of four young men from the wrong side of the tracks in New Jersey who came together to form the iconic 1960s group The Four Seasons. The story of their trials and triumphs are accompanied by the songs that influenced a generation, including “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Dawn,” “Rag Doll,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “Who Loves You,” and many more.

The movie definitely has that familiar Eastwood vibe to it, and there's a bit more grittiness than I was expecting. With a solid story, good music, and a great director, I think this has the makings of a successful movie. 

Jersey Boys stars John Lloyd Young, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda, Vincent Piazza, and Christopher Walken. It opens up in theaters on June 20th.