There is nothing more awesome than seeing gleeful nerds basking in their dorky-yet-enfranchised element.  It’s the real reason people like going to Comic-Con.  Until today, the best place to see this warm glow of malformed social deviation has been in documentary – the classic video game obsessives in The King of Kong, Scrabble freaks in Word Wars and the always ripe-for-gawking Trekkies.  My personal favorite of these films is Darkon, an action-packed journey into the dangerous and mighty world of Live Action Role Play.  Live Action Role Play (or LARP) is, essentially, people acting out the scenarios of Dungeons and Dragons in real life.  With foam swords and home-made helmets.  And crests.  Lots and lots of crests. LARP ranks as arguably the most awesome subculture among the maladjusted Aspergers-lite set.  I’ve been waiting for it to get its Hollywood treatment (Mama’s Boy doesn’t count) and, by the by tip of Gandalf’s grey beard, my wait has ended.  Role Models, a very entertaining slacker comedy to begin with, doesn’t merely use LARP as a motif, it hinges its entire third act on it.  The rah-rah climax of ALL the characters’ journeys hinges on the mighty thrust of a plush broadsword.  It’s as though I died and went to Valhalla, Sto-Vo-Kor and Tempus’ Bosom all at once.

I was hoping with the release of the unrated DVD, that God could answer my prayers and give me answers to the unresolved mystery of The Happening.  No, I don’t mean why thousands of Americans are dropping dead in the streets of Philadelphia.  What I wanted to know was why this movie, with a decent cast and who I thought was a decent director who may have just taken a few missteps, could end up being such an utter failure on every level.  The story: sucks.  The acting: terrible.  I mean, Ben Affleck Surviving Christmas-bad (and at least that was trying to be funny).  The directing: simply, balls.

Zack Snyder brought the Watchmen “Road Show” to the Big Apple Tuesday night, five months to the date before the film’s release. Shortly after walking through the heavily guarded doors of the screening room within the Time Warner building, Paul Levitz, President of DC Comics, kicked things off with much praise of both the film and the work that Zack Snyder has done to bring it to the screen.  After Levitz informed us that, thanks in part to the teaser, the Watchmen graphic novel has sold more copies in the last two months than during the last seven years, Zack Snyder took the stage and spoke a bit about how he got involved in the project. Turns out Mama Snyder gave the young Zack a subscription to Heavy Metal, which the director-to-be would go on to stand every other comic-book presented to him against.  All would fall short due to their lack of sex or violence...until Watchmen came along. Then - the Warner Bros, DC and Legendary Pictures logos.  Non-traditional, non-3D, non-CG versions of the logos flash by in simple, plain yellow and black.  Followed by the first twelve minutes of the film.  Now, folks, we all knew this film would blow our minds.  We all expected it to be fantastic and change everything as we know it about the superhero and comic book film genre.  But, seriously - keeping it real....you have no idea what you’re in for come five months from now.  Regardless of what preconceived notions you already have.  No matter how high your expectations are.  This thing not only rises to everything you’re hoping for but goes well beyond.  It manages to be more than what we want.  Every aspect of what is up there on the screen seems too perfect.  Almost too good to be real.  I’m not sure if it was, in fact.  It all feels like a dream.

Aint It Cool News has some interesting words from Joseph Kosinski, the director of Disney’s upcoming TR2N. Kosinski also said the film would be a “twenty-four month process” and that it could be ready for late 2010.  He also confirmed that Tron’s Steven Lisberger is a consultant on the film and the project has his blessing.  Lisberger is also involved with the new lightcycle design which was seen in the Comic-Con teaser. Also of note is that the entire film will be shot in stereoscopic 3D, which was also what the teaser was shot in. Watchmen costume designer Michael Wilkinson begins work this week on the production’s wardrobe.  Jeff Bridges had some thoughts on the sequel which he shared with The Guardian: “Engaging in that world again feels just like it did all that time ago. Basically, I’m still a child, I love being childlike, and here was another chance to play with these crazy toys. And the cutting-edge technology makes it exciting...when we made Tron there was no internet, no cellphones. But now we have motion capture, so I think we’ll get a far more successful version of the story, which is someone literally getting sucked into a video game. When we did King Kong in the 70s, one minute you’d have a shot of Rick Baker in this big suit and then you’d cut to this 80ft stiff model, and they looked nothing alike. Compare to that Peter Jackson’s King Kong the technology is there and they did a wonderful job. I thought they created a beautiful Kong. So I hope that’ll be the same for Tron.” So remember, folks.  The next time you get depressed after turning on the news late at night - don’t fret.  It’s okay.  Tron is coming.  It’s going to all be okay. 

MovieWeb caught up with M. Night Shyamalan to talk about the upcoming release of The Happening on DVD and Blu-ray.  During the interview, Night had some words on his next project, The Last Airbender. “It is gonna be really cool (Laughs). I’m at the stage where we have pre-vized the last act of the movie. Because my normal approach to filmmaking is almost like making an animated movie, you take out every shot and analyze everything, it kind of lays out really nicely for a big CGI movie. That is such a helpful thing in the process with all the pre-viz. I feel like I’m making the movie right now. I’m editing it and stuff because doing the pre-viz, if you were here, I could show you the last 30 minutes of The Last Airbender in animatic form. It’s an amazing and emotional experience, just to watch that. This is so exciting. It’s such a different kind of movie that I’m used to making, but yet, we were all kind of born out of Star Wars, and somewhere in there is a desire to return to fantasy, on that level.” The Last Airbender, which could very well be The Last Studio Film for Shyamalan if it doesn’t make more than air at the box office, is “still on track for 2010, baby. July 2nd or 3rd or whatever it is,” according to the man himself. The Happening arrives on DVD and Blu-ray on October 7.

Harrison Ford told The LA Times that momentum is building for a fifth movie in the Indiana Jones franchise and that George Lucas is already cooking up a suitable plot for the project. “It’s crazy but great,” the 66-year-old Ford said. “George is in think mode right now.” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” grossed $318 million in the U.S. alone and $770 million worldwide and is expected to be powerhouse seller on DVD and Blu-Ray when it arrives in stores Oct. 14. It was a film that many people in Hollywood assumed would never be made considering the difficulty in finding the right time and the right script to reunite Ford, Lucas and franchise director Steven Spielberg after the 1989 hit “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” Now, though, the latest success and the fact that the franchise’s old machinery was revived has Ford thinking a fifth movie is not only a viable idea, but an attractive one. “It’s automatic, really, we did well with the last one and with that having done well and been a positive experience, it’s not surprising that some people want to do it again,” Ford said. Ford said, though, he would not be game to making an animated “Indiana Jones” film, a notion that became at least a possible option after Lucas took his “Star Wars” theatrical saga into the computer-generated realm with “The Clone Wars” this summer.

In this exclusive clip we enter the condemned horrors of our lovely abode in Quarantine. Rent prices are bad enough, but when you have to deal with tenants like this, really, it’s time to become a homeowner. Quarantine comes out Oct. 10th, and stars Jennifer Carpenter. Yeah, even after being posessed and related to a serial killer, she still comes back for more!

Changeling opens - as did George Romero’s Land of the Dead - with a semi-ironic use of an old-time Universal Studios logo, hearkening back to lionized days of old from a present-tense vantage point. The joke of it is that the sentiment, in both cases, is a pose. Like Romero with Land, Changeling director Clint Eastwood is as lost with where movies came from as with where they are - his film (based on the late-20s/early-30s era true story of Los Angeles-residing mother/martyr figure Christine Collins) is a rootless jumble of tones and plots, a desiccated nowhereland, like something waiting to be feasted on by Stephen King’s ravenous Langoliers. There’s hope at first that Eastwood and star Angelina Jolie are using Changeling‘s kidnapping-cum-social reform narrative as a mere framework, the means by which to illuminate Collins’ tempestuous emotional inner life in the way of many a so-called, oft-derided “woman’s picture.” Eastwood’s clearly aware that Collins (with her weeping-willow flapper hat and scarlet letter lipstick) is not so far removed from a Crawford, Davis, or Hayward heroine, but he’s incapable, and quite embarrassingly so, of delving into her psychology. Clint’s emotional/visual cues throughout are strictly film school (most hilariously: an inches-long shard of cigarette ash slow-motion falling to the ground to emphasize a lurid, murderous revelation) and he shifts focus so often that Collins eventually ceases to be the center of her own tale, something that throws Jolie’s awards-baiting shenanigans into even harsher relief.

“I am what I say I am.  I am a monster.” Inspired by the classic Universal film that launched a legacy of horror, Universal Pictures’ The Wolfman brings the myth of a cursed man back to its iconic origins. Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro stars as Lawrence Talbot, a haunted nobleman lured back to his family estate after his brother vanishes. Reunited with his estranged father (Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins), Talbot sets out to find his brother ... and, on April 3, 2009, will discover a horrifying destiny for himself. But why wait until April ‘09?  You can discover Talbot’s destiny right now…

George Lucas took one step closer the bringing his long-awaited ‘Red Tails’ into reality.  Lucasfilm has tapped Anthony Hemingway to direct the WWII action adventure about the Tuskegee Airmen based on a story by Lucas, says Variety. Old George will executive produce and finance the film through his Lucasfilm production company.  Lucas tapped scribe John Ridley to pen the script last year. Lucas’ Prequels yes-man Rick McCallum is producing with Charles Floyd Johnson. Production starts in March in Italy, Prague and Croatia. “Red Tails” revolves around the young pilots who overcame institutional racism in the military to form the Tuskegee Airmen, the fliers who become the first African-American fighter pilots in U.S. military history. Their planes featured the red-painted tails that give the film its title. Hemingway’s helming credits include episodes of “CSI: NY,” “Heroes” and “The Wire.”