Season 3 of Inside Amy Schumer premiered last night on Comedy Central, and the Trainwreck comedian's show is so popular that it's already been given a fourth season by the network. Like Key & Peele, this is one of those shows that I missed during its initial run and have only seen glimpses of in video clips that make the rounds online, but after seeing this new parody of Friday Night Lights, I'm going to have to make a point of catching up with old episodes and jumping on the Amy Schumer bandwagon. This sketch is just the right balance of having awkwardly realistic subject matter and some great visual gags (Amy's wine glasses), and she and Josh Charles do some pretty good impressions of Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. Check it out below:

At this point, it's no longer a surprise when Disney's live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast adds another insanely talented actor. After bringing Ewan McGregor into the fold yesterday as the slick candelabra Lumiere, director Bill Condon and his team are now welcoming Stanley Tucci to the cast. Variety reports that he'll play "Cadenza the grand piano, a new character to the realm who is described as a neurotic maestro." Thought the movie is said to be taking most of its inspiration from the animated classic, they're clearly not afraid to tweak the formula a little bit; I've heard they're adding a few extra songs in the mix as well, so maybe we'll hear Tucci get to belt out a song or two of his own.

Beauty and the Beast stars Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as The Beast, Luke Evans as Gaston, Josh Gad as Le Fou, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, Kevin Kline as Maurice, Sir Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, and Ewan McGregor as Lumiere. The film arrives in theaters on March 17, 2017.

Bonus tidbit: for my money, Tucci's delivery of "Oh my God!" in Transformers: Age of Extinction is the best since that kid from Troll 2:

The latest illustration from artist Marco D' Alfonso features Fozzie Bear reimagined as the Joker from classic comic The Killing Joke. Like most of the artist's work, this piece is part of The Line is Drawn collection from CBR. This last collection featured Muppets being mashed together with comic books. I included a couple others from the series below for you to check out.

To see some of D' Alfonso's other work, click on the following links: What if Deadpool and Harley Quinn Had Kids?, Iron Giant vs. Optimus Prime, and Boba Fett and Deadpool Are Mercs for Hire.

Philip Horton

Rob Peters

Scarlett Johansson will be back and kicking ass as Black Widow in Captain America: Civil War. I haven't seen Avengers: Age of Ultron yet, but I imagine they open things up a little more about her past. In an interview with IGN, she is asked if would she would want to see her shady past explored more in upcoming films like Civil War, or if she would like to see the character move forward. This was her response: 

"I think that the Widow's past will always haunt her. She's trying to move forward, she's trying to pick up the pieces of her life. I think we'll see parts of that in Cap 3 when we find her. And certainly she has a greater purpose, and I think that greater purpose is charged by this need [for her] to escape her past. So, it's always kind of right there, kind of looming over her shoulders."

In a separate interview with Reuters, Johansson teased the darker tone of Civil War, saying:

"I can't elaborate too much on it. But as the scope of these movies is larger and larger and the danger kind of looms larger and larger, I don't want to say that the film has a darker tone, but the film has a darker tone and I think it's maturing along with the fans." 

I can't even imagine how crazy things are going to get into the Marvel cinematic universe as the characters evolve through Phase 3. Civil War is sure to spin things completely out of control though, and it will change things in the MCU forever.

That film is set to open on May 6th, 2016.

As the owner of both Marvel and Lucasfilm, it's safe to say that The Walt Disney Company is going to have a very, very good year at the box office in 2015. Avengers: Age of Ultron comes out in just a few days, and the most recent trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke a record as the most viewed trailer in a 24 hour period, so anticipation is through the roof for both of these films. It's doubtful that we'll ever see a true crossover between those two franchises (unless you count Patton Oswalt's spectacular Parks & Rec rant), but that doesn't mean that there isn't any homage paid to the classic sci-fi film series.

In an interview with CinemaBlend, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed that every movie in Marvel's Phase 2 slate included a nod to the Star Wars movies in the form of someone getting his or her arm or hand cut off.

So is this a spoiler for Ant-Man… not really. I’m obsessed with Star Wars. Who’s not? I’m 40 years old. I’m in the movie business. I went to USC. So I’m obsessed with Star Wars - and it didn’t start out as intentional, but it became intentional, including that beat that you referenced. It sort of happens in every Star Wars movie, but I was sort of looking at it, ‘Okay, is Phase Two our Empire Strikes Back?’ Not really, but tonally things are a little different. Somebody gets their arm cut off in every Phase Two movie. Every single one.

This is something that happens with alarming frequency in the Star Wars universe, and when you take a look at the following breakdown, it makes sense that Feige is referencing George Lucas' movies. Pretty cool stuff. Keep an eye out for similar things in Age of Ultron and Ant-Man when they debut this year.

Stop what you’re doing now and watch this insane trailer for Takashi Miike's new film Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld. The story follows a young Yakuza foot soldier whose boss is killed by an assassin. He then sets out on a dangerous mission of revenge that takes him into a seedy underworld. What takes this concept to a crazy level is the fact that the boss was a vampire, and he turned the hero into a creature of the night before he died. This thing looks like an amazingly wild and entertaining flick!

Akira (Hayato Ichihara) admires Genyo Kamiura who is the most powerful yakuza. Genyo Kamiura has been targeted numerous times, but has never died. He is called the invincible person. 

Because of Genyo Kamiura, Akira enters the world of the yakuza. His yakuza colleagues treats him like an idiot, Akira can't even get tattoos because of his sensitive skin. Akira becomes disappointed in the yakuza world, because it's not like what he say in the movies. Especially, in terms of loyalty and charity depicted of the yakuza. 

An assassin is then sent to take out Genyo Kamiura. The killers know that Genyo Kamiura is a vampire. 

The movie is set to be released on June 20th, and hopefully it makes its way here to the states. Oh! It also stars Yayan Ruhianthe, who kicked some major ass in The Raid films. You'll see him in the trailer.

A video has found its way online from Star Wars Celebration that features R2-D2 interacting with a young boy in a wheelchair, and it's awesome. R2-D2 seriously made this kid's day, and as you'll see in the video the boy had a blast playing around with the droid. One of the things that I love most about these events is the joy that they bring to kids. I was able to bring my own little girls to the event, and it's an experience I know that they'll never forget, just like the kid you'll see in the video below. 

Johnny Depp is staying busy reprising old roles in things like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Alice in Wonderland 2: Through The Looking Glass, but there's one movie that fans of the old Depp — before he became a parody of himself — should be very excited about, and that's Black Mass. In it, Depp plays real life Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, a crime boss who ratted out his rivals to the feds while managing to become one of the most feared men in the country. (He inspired the creation of movie characters like the one Jack Nicholson played in The Departed.)

EW has our first look at Depp in the role, and a few quotes from director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace):

“[Whitey Bulger] could be charming. He could be ruthless. He was like a cobra—you never knew where he could strike...He murdered [a guy] in front of numerous witnesses in broad daylight. In a word, Whitey was brazen...It’s easy to be the mustache twirling villain but this performance couldn’t be further from that. [Depp] is truly gifted."

Black Mass arrives in theaters on September 18th.

Shows like the 1960s Batman, The Flash (1990), and Smallville paved the way, but there's no denying that superhero TV shows are hugely popular right now. And while many of them sprout from opposing source material at DC and Marvel and air on different networks — and sometimes even not a network at all (ahem, Netflix) — this infographic from The Daily Dot reveals that there aren't as many differences in these shows as you might think. Sure, there are surface level distinctions, but when you break it down, a lot of these shows share some pretty major storytelling components with each other. It's a fascinating look at some of the most talked-about mainstream TV shows on the air right now, and I'd be interested to hear what you have to say in the comments below.

For a few years now, a lot of people have compared the struggles of being a mutant to the struggles of being gay. Now, we have had gay mutants and superheroes show up in comics before, as seen in Northstar, the old Green Lantern, and Batwoman. But with the exception of Green Lantern, none of these caused too much controversy. The only reason Green Lantern caused controversy is because we thought he was a different Green Lantern. In a recent leak of comic pages from issue #40 of All New X-Men written by Brian Michael Bendis, however, it was revealed that an original X-Man, Bobby Drake, aka Iceman, has come out of the closet. This answers so many questions but also leaves a lot of questions and issues unanswered. 

The Iceman in question is from the past. It's a long story, but I'll try to keep it short. About 40 issues ago, Cyclops was a terrorist (still kinda is), and Beast thought that the best way to help him not be a terrorist was to help him remember the good old days when they were all kids. So he created a time machine and brought the kid versions of them into the future. That basically sums up what young versions of the X-Men are doing in our time. So this Iceman is a young version of the Iceman that exists currently. We'll call him Snowball, because that was basically the extent of his powers back then.  

In this new issue, Jean Grey reads his mind after he makes a joke about how hot someone is and takes him aside and basically says, "Dude, c'mon." I'm paraphrasing, but if you want to see the whole conversation, you'll just have to buy the comic. It's at that moment he comes out to her, and they have a heart to heart.

This leaves a lot of questions kinda unanswered. The leaked pages try to answer them, but mostly gloss over the big issue. If young Iceman is gay, how come older Iceman isn't? They mention this, so much so that they go over how much older Iceman is a ladies man, but they resolve that he must have just chosen to be straight instead of dealing with being gay and a mutant, because struggling with persecution with both would be too hard. But that would mean that he just powered through it and came out the other end not gay? As far as I know, that isn't how it works. Now I understand their desire to keep the older Iceman straight but open up new opportunities to show well-known mutants struggling with issues, but it’s a bit of a stretch.  

Also, Jean Grey isn't the first psychic older Iceman has met. There could have been plenty of opportunities for psychics to out him in the past, or even come to him as a friend and talk to him about it. Are you telling me that if Emma Frost knew Iceman was secretly gay, she wouldn't have used it against him at some point? Maybe even blackmailed him? Or do you think when he dated Mystique for that short while, he ever asked her to change into a guy? Just some questions to keep in mind. To be fair, Iceman does seem to compensating a bit in the comics.

Now all this being said, I feel like having our young little snowball-boy come out is very brave, not only for the character but also for the writers. This is one of the founding X-Men. Part of me thought that if anyone would have come out from that group, it would have been Beast, or maybe Cyclops. Not Angel though — that dude is way too up in the ladies. I'm interested in seeing where this new direction takes the character and what stories can be told. Although it has somewhat come from left field,and left the older Iceman with a lot of unanswered questions about his life, I feel it is risks like this that make good storytelling. In the end, that’s what's most important.

Via: CNN

You never really know what you are going to get with a deck building game. Sometimes a game will emphasize an “easy to play” mentality on the box, only to leave the player awash in confusion midway through putting together their first deck. Others that promise mechanics nirvana end up being too convoluted to be fun. Overall, it's kind of a crap shoot.

That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised at just how easy Cryptozoic’s DC Deckbuilder is to get into. For those who have not played these types of games before, there is a very quick and easy learning curve. For those who have, they can pretty much pick up and play with no issues. That said, more experienced players might not be astounded by the game's original ideas, but to be fair ,those are not where the game excels — it's is how effectively it uses those systems during play.

I'm putting the cart before the horse a bit there. Let's go over how the game works, shall we?

In a two player affair (the game supports up to five), both players randomly draw their Superhero, of which each one has a unique ability. For example, Green Lantern allows you opportunities for extra power during each turn, while Cyborg allows you to draw a card or get +1 power depending on what cards you play. Your initial deck is made up of 7 Punch cards and 3 Vulnerability cards, and every card in the game has a power rating, which acts as your currency to buy more powerful and rarer cards. You purchase your cards from the lineup, which always contains 5 cards to possibly add to your deck.

As you can see in the image above, there are three other piles on the right hand side, those being Kicks, Super Villains, and Weaknesses. Kicks are a cheap way to quickly stack power (worth +3 each), while Weaknesses take away from your total points at the end of the game (called Victory Points). The super villain deck contains 8 villains for you or your opponent to defeat, and once defeated they become a part of your deck. The villains typically have high Victory Point point values as well, so it's in your best interest to collect as many of them as you can. You defeat villains by simply having enough power in your current hand to defeat them.

For instance, let's say you defeat a villain. You put the villain in your discard pile (eventually it will become part of your deck), and then reveal the next villain in the stack. The newly-revealed villain will have a First Appearance Attack, which can vary wildly. Take Captain Cold as an example. He takes your Superhero, and their ability, out of play until he is defeated. Depending on your hero and their ability, the effects of this can vary. For someone who is using Wonder Woman, this hurts significantly, as her ability is whenever a villain is bought or gained from the lineup, she gets to put another card in her hand for the next turn. When you get used to that and it's suddenly gone, it feels like Buffy moving to UPN all over again.

(sigh)

It was never the same after that.

Back to the game: there are also location cards, which highlight memorable landmarks of the DCU, such as the Watchtower, Batcave, Floronic Man’s Chinese Takeout Spot (best lo mein in the city from what I hear), etc, while also granting extra benefits. Once bought and cycled through your deck, they stay permanently drawn for the rest of the game.

There are other variables to the gameplay, and even other modes that you can use once you get bored with the core mechanic, which you can peruse here. Ultimately what matters is that the game is extremely enjoyable to play, whether it be with two people or 5. The game moves at such a brisk pace that you can easily fit 2 to 3 games into a 60 minute time span. That doesn't mean it gets tiresome. After numerous games there were still cards that I hadn't seen yet, and most of the heroes you can choose from alter your strategy just enough to keep things interesting. I actually preferred this to Legendary, and that surprised me. I've always been more of a Marvel fan, truth be told, but the game itself just flowed better and was easier to pick up and play.

I’ll be reviewing the Crisis Expansion soon, but in the meantime tell me what you thought of the game and why!

With Disney owning Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, the studio is basically the king of Hollywood. They have some of the biggest and greatest franchises, and they are going to be pumping out one great film after another for years to come. 

During the studio's presentation at CinemaCon, a graphic was revealed showing off their upcoming theatrical slate through 2017. I know we already know most of these dates, but it's still kind of cool to see it all put together in a graphic like this, and remind us what awesome film we have to look forward to. 

Here are the films and release dates listed:

• Avengers: Age of Ultron – 5/1/15
• Tomorrowland – 5/22/15
• Inside Out – 6/19/15
• Ant-Man – 7/17/15
• Bridge of Spies – 10/16/15
• The Good Dinosaur – 11/25/15
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens – 12/18/15
• The Finest Hours – 1/29/16
• Zootopia – 3/4/16
• The Jungle Book – 4/15/16
• Captain America: Civil War – 5/6/16
• Alice Through the Looking Glass – 5/27/16
• Finding Dory – 6/17/16
• The BFG – 7/1/16
• Pete’s Dragon – 8/12/16
• Doctor Strange – 11/4/16
• Moana – 11/23/16
• Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One – 12/16/16
• Beauty and the Beast – 3/17/17
• Ghost in the Shell – 4/14/17
• Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – 5/5/17
• Star Wars: Episode VIII – 5/26/17
• Toy Story 4 – 6/16/17
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales – 7/7/17

That's everything that the photo shows, but here are the films that have already been announced which go beyond that:

• Thor: Ragnarok – 11/3/17
• Untitled Pixar Animation – 11/22/17
• Untitled Disney Animation – 3/9/18
• Avengers: Infinity War Part I – 5/4/18
• Untitled Pixar Animation – 6/15/18
• Black Panther – 7/6/18
• Captain Marvel – 11/2/18
• Untitled Disney Animation – 11/21/18
• Avengers: Infinity War Part II – 5/3/19
• Inhumans – 7/12/19

That doesn't include the other Star Wars Anthology film, which will most likely be out in 2018, and Star Wars Episode IX, which will be coming in 2019.

Thanks to Christian Warren for the photo.

Here's a cool video for all of you aspiring actors out there. Film4's Self Portrait series has just completed its latest entry called "On Acting," which compiles interviews with A-listers like Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hiddleston, Anne Hathaway, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Judi Dench, Zoe Saldana, Ben Stiller, and many, many more as they discuss their craft.

I don't necessarily think they provide loads of insight that you won't learn in an acting class, but it's still cool to hear some of the biggest names in entertainment discuss how (and sometimes why) they do what they do. It gives you a little bit of a peek into the heads of people who aren't often questioned about their process, so it may be beneficial for those of you looking to break into the industry to learn from their experiences. Watch it below:

Via: The Playlist

Paul Rudd, who not only stars in Ant-Man but also co-wrote the script, went on Late Night with David Letterman to pay his respects to Dave as the late-night stalwart approaches retirement, and while he was there, Rudd debuted the first clip from Marvel's upcoming superhero heist film.

In it, we see Scott Lang (Rudd) busting open a safe and discovering Hank Pym's Ant-Man suit for the first time, while his thief friends (Michael Peña and David Dastmalchian) communicate with him from a van nearby. Lang appears to be a pretty smart thief, but he's clearly disappointed with what he's found.

Rudd also joked a little with Letterman about the movie, which you can watch below. Ant-Man hits theaters on July 17, 2015.

Darren Pearson (no relation) has managed to create a short film called Lightspeed that uses light paintings as characters, and the result is a breathtaking piece that makes me wonder how he pulled all of this off. It's not only the creation and execution of multiple light paintings (he apparently hand-drew all of them, over 1000 in total), but it's combining them with moving timelapse photography that seems like it would often be gorgeous just on its own. Look at the :48 second mark as an example: there's a painted wolf in the foreground, but there's also a timelapse of the night sky that's pretty stunning to behold when you take the entire image into account. What a cool idea.

Via: Sploid

I thought for sure that Marvel would hold off on fully showing The Vision like this in any marketing material for Avengers: Age of Ultron until audiences got to see the movie. I figured that's why they were keeping him hidden in the trailers. I guess I was wrong. 

This new scene that Marvel released shows us the first time that Vision is introduced physically in the story, so I wouldn't watch it if you don't want it SPOILED for you. If that doesn't bother you, then watch away! This new clip for the film comes from BBC’s The One Show which Paul Bettany appeared on as a guest. You will actually hear some commentary from Bettany over the clip.

Warning the clip is a SPOILER

We wrote about how some theaters are hosting The Ultimate Marvel Movie Marathon that will last over 27 hours and show all ten films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and culminate with a screening of Joss Whedon's Avengers: Age of Ultron. But let's pretend for the sake of argument that you, I don't know, have a job, or don't feel like spending all of your waking hours catching up with all of the relevant MCU films that have come out over the past seven years, but you still want to see Age of Ultron in theaters? Where's your cheat sheet? Well, Vulture has created one for you, and it's better than an infographic: it's a video compilation of the most important moments in MCU history thus far, and in 7 minutes, it gives a pretty comprehensive recap of the highlights of what you need to know.

I realize that if you're reading this site, you're probably the type of person who has seen all of the MCU movies (maybe even multiple times), but feel free to pass this on to any friends or relatives who may not be quite as into the whole superhero movie scene.

ABC is developing a new TV series for The Muppets. According to EW, it will be created in a mockumentary style and feel like The Office, 30 Rock, and Arrested Development, and it will dive deeper into the personal lives of the Muppets. It will also be a “more adult” show than previous versions of the franchise. 

The story will follow Jim Henson's iconic characters behind-the-scenes as they launch a new TV show. The concept comes from Big Bang Theory co-creator Bill Prady and Anger Management writer-producer Bob Kushell. Here's ABC’s official new logline for the series:

“The Muppets return to prime time with a contemporary, documentary-style show that—for the first time ever—will explore the Muppets’ personal lives and relationships, both at home and at work, as well as romances, break-ups, achievements, disappointments, wants and desires; a more adult Muppet show, for kids of all ages.” 

This actually sounds very intruging. I've always enjoy The Muppets, but we've never seen them in this kind of light before. I love that they're doing this as there is so much to explore, especially the on-again off-again relationship between Kermit and Miss Piggy. I'm sure there are a lot of issues there. It will also be interesting to see how "adult" they actually go with this series. 

I really love the animated characterizations of Batman and Superman that the gang at How It Should Have Ended created. I've been watching their videos for years, and it's always fun to see how they envision those two iconic heroes interacting. (The way they often make Batman the butt of the joke is particularly hilarious to me, considering his ultra-serious personality.)

Zack Snyder recently unveiled the first trailer for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and now there's a new video that shows the HISHE versions of the characters sitting around at a coffee shop and talking about it (along with a few other recent trailers, too). It's a very meta conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Ever since Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures announced they would be working together to bring Spider-Man back to the big screen, fans have been wondering who would step into the role of Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man.

TheWrap claims to know five young actors who are currently on the studios list, and they iare:

Asa Butterfield (Hugo, Ender’s Game) 

Timothee Chalamet (One and Two, Interstellar)

Tom Holland (Locke,The Impossible)

Liam James (Psych, The Way, Way Back)

Natt Wolff (The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns)

Out of all the actors listed here, my favorite choice is Asa Butterfield. He's a talented young actor, and he would really fit the part. Who on this list would you choose?

Talking about the Spider-Man in a previous interview Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige explained, “There is a young kid [already] running around New York City in a homemade version of the Spider-Man costume in the MCU. You just don’t know it yet… In Spider-Man’s very specific case, where there have been two retellings of that origin in the last whatever it’s been – [thirteen] years – for us we are going to take it for granted that people know that, and the specifics.”

Spider-Man is set to show up in the Marvel cinematic universe in Anthony and Joe Russo’s Captain America: Civil War, which is set to be released on May 6th, 2016. He’ll then get his own solo film on July 28th, 2017.