Marvel Studios has dropped the international poster for the upcoming Thor. Whatever becomes of this movie, the idea of strapping Chris Hemsworth into some armor is nothing short of genius. I know this, because every time my girlfriend sees something from the movie, there are audible squeals of excitement from her.

And me.

Hit the jump for the poster.

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Some artwork has leaked today that has Red Skull concept art written all over it. I hope this is legit content from the Captain America movie, ’cause it looks gorgeous. Want to take a look at the full artwork? Hit the jump.

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I don’t think anyone was expecting much from Season of the Witch. So in that respect, I guess it doesn’t disappoint. The film has been rotting in distribution hell for 10 months now. It was originally slated for a March 2010 release, but sour business between Lionsgate and Relativity Media forced it to be shelved…until now. Cage’s presence is probably the only factor that saved this silly film from a direct to DVD ditch.

Personally, I will see anything with Nic Cage in it. I think he’s a genius. And in college I studied under one of the leading Black Plague scholars, Dr. Donna Vinson. So Cage starring in a Black Plague-related film? Sounded like a dream. But as more and more info trickled out, it became obvious SotW was going to be a throwaway in Cage’s oeuvre. I took the bullet anyway – just for you guys.

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While this may not exactly be nerdy news or the usual OL steez, I’ve been drooling over this news since last night and had to post. Mildred Pierce, one of the greatest tales of greed and sex from the oeuvre of roman noir, is getting a much-deserved treatment by HBO and director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven). The 1941 novel, by crime scribe god James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice) was originally adapted by Warner Bros. in 1945. That version, starring Joan Crawford, had its balls cut off to appease the censors and features none of the book’s complex narcissism or an ounce of its darkness.

Winslet is playing Mildred, a housewife turned pastry chef desperately trying to maintain her family’s social status during the Great Depression. She’s also desperately trying to win the acceptance of her ungrateful daughter, Veda (Evan Rachel Wood). She’s a total biotch. When Mildred falls in with dashing playboy Monty (Guy Pierce), a twisted tangling of wills begins between Mildred and Veda. Cain’s major works were always about sex and the fast-buck. While Midred Pierce isn’t my favorite of his work, it’s unarguably his most ambitious and “epic.”

Depression era LA looks abso-lutely gorgeous and Winslet definitely has the chops to pull of Mildred’s grim naivete. This pleases me.

Ok. Back to your regularly scheduled nerdiness and sexual euphemisms.

Oh yeah! How about some late Friday night news off your tits? Trent Reznor is once again working with David Fincher. After absolutely rocking out on the Social Network score with Atticus Ross, it’s been revealed that Mr. NIN is returning for Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remake.

Slashfilm:

Briefly: Not a lot of info right now, but during a New York Times livestream interview with Trent Reznor, the musician revealed that he is scoring David Fincher‘s version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and has been working on the film for about six weeks. He said to expect something different from his score for The Social Network, though things might change in the year before the film opens.

Bleeding Cool Update:

Little Bleeder Scorpio tells me that the news originated within a  Times Talk broadcast with Reznor, and that Atticus Ross  isindeed involved. The two of them have been working on the score for a couple of months now. Reznor apparently also talked about his non-soundtrack music career, and said that he had no plans for more NIN.

A “disgustingly huge” Reznor fan at  Filmonic was tuned in and offers this information:

In the interview, Reznor stated that words such as “ice” and “frozen” have inspired the new score, and that it is performance-based, with him playing strings (violin, ‘cello, etc.) to the best of his abilities, and then placing those performances through various processing. It sounds interesting. The score for  The Social Network used entirely electronic sounds and instruments. Reznor was due to perform / play some of the new music for  Girl with the Dragon Tattoo during the interview, but unfortunately was unable to prepare for it and thus perform it, due to the passing away of his mother last Sunday.

Fucking fantastic.  These two dudes have been collaborating together for a while now. Closer was used in Se7en, Fincher directed a video for Nine Inch Nails’ song Only, and there’s the aforementioned work on the Social Network. And since I have a pants ripping hard-on for both of the dudes, this is fanboy wankery to me.

There’s been casting rumors swirling around Elijah Wood, Sir Frodo himself, returning in The Hobbit. I know, you’re all like, wait, what? Jackson is hell bent on getting the band back together, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. How exactly are they going to inject some Frodo into The Hobbit, when he was never originally there?

Oh shit, framing sequence! A little bookending, to get Wood into the game.

The One Ring elaborates:

As readers of “The Hobbit” know, the tale of “The Downfall of The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit or There and Back Again,” are contained in the fictional “Red Book of Westmarch.” In Peter Jackson’s LOTR films, the book is shown on screen and written in by Bilbo and Frodo and handed off to Sam Gamgee. (Not explained on film are Sam’s progeny later having the book and being Wardens of the Westmarch – hence the book’s title.)

The fictional book, and either the telling from it or the reading of it, will establish Frodo in the films experiencing Bilbo’s story. Viewers are to learn the tale of ‘The Hobbit’ as a familiar Frodo gets the tale as well.

Interesting. I’m going to go ahead and still file this bullshit under shoehorning Frodo into The Hobbit flick. Why? Fan service. Marketability. Jackson’s love for Wood and the character. Still though, the framing sequence as th means to accomplish it? I can get down with that. If we need some Frodo in the flick, I like this approach. Better than him rolling up into some awkward scene.

Thoughts?

Some old lady in Britain dropped 14 dress sizes and decided to celebrate in the most logical way imaginable: getting an enormously creepy Twilight back piece. So basically she has a mural of teen virgins on her wrinkly back. Fucking brilliant!

But this lunatic instead done. No. From the DailyWhat:

She plans on covering the rest of her body with Twilight tats, starting with her arms: “There are still a few bits to do. I am going to get my arms done before my 50th birthday in summer. I love Robert Pattinson. I want to tone up so I can get his character Edward Cullen on my stomach.”

You do that, you fuck. Flip the script for a second. What if a 49 year-old man got a huge tattoo of Miley Cyrus or one of those other tween douchebags? He’d be called a pervert.

This old lady is a pervert. Case closed.

Earlier this week we got our first glimpse of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. Now today running throughout the various pipes and tubings of the internet are excerpts from The Los Angeles Times‘ interview with him. Taken from The Envelope, the awards blog for the Times, Garfield opens up about the first two weeks of filming the new Spider-Man flick.

Hit the jump for excerpts, and an insight into the new Peter Parker. Hint: he seems less doughy and dorky than Tobey McGuire. I like.

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French magazine L’Ecran Fantastique features an interview with Captain America production designer Rick Heinrichs. It must have been the allure of France’s elegance, philosophy (what up, Sartre, Descartes, Camus, and others!) and gorgeous women, ’cause Heinrichs spilled a considerable amount of details pertaining to the upcoming flick. There’s some spoilers afoot, though I wouldn’t call any of them cataclysmic or shocking. Here’s what the production designer had to say, if you’re interested. But I warned you.

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There’s no denying the fact that the holidays are over. It’s now officially time to clear the house of any reminders of merriment. Toss that tree out the window, decorations. Mop the floors clean of all the champagne and puke. Sober up, shave, and get back to work.

Shit. I hate this time of year.

Well, since we’re all getting back into the arduous grind that destroys souls and smears smiles, we might as well celebrate those wonderful bits of reprieve. This is the Monday Morning Commute and it’s the venue for sharing those activities we hope will keep us from going postal in the upcoming week. First I tell you what’s on the horizon for me, then you hit up the comments section and tell me what you’ll be doing.

Got it? Sick. Let’s do this.

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