The latest G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA movie posters have been revealed.

Stephen Sommers (director of VAN HELSING and THE MUMMY) is directing. I don't expect much beyond a mindless action romp of a movie.

Despite that, it's really cool seeing Snake Eyes and the women of G.I. Joe come to life. The Baroness was the first women with black framed glasses that that made my pre-adolescent body feel funny. Scarlett O'Hara was also hot. It helped that she had that awesome missile launcher tank (but damn, it was so EASY to lose those missles!).

Let's ignore that both women were fictional characters that solely existed as plastic figurines and cartoons. I was in elementary school!

The costumes used on these posters look more like METAL GEAR SOLID designs than G.I. JOE. I think the choices made for the women are very sexy and aggressive... accentuating the women's curvaceous form without revealling any skin. But the dudes look like a bunch of losers playing paintball.

I included some of the original METAL GEAR SOLID designs by Yoji Shinkawa for a point of comparison.

These lightened versions of the 5 posters were originally posted on the TOYSREVIL blog. Andy continues to kick ass on that blog!

Now this is the epitome of MONKEY NUTS! I love, love, love the monster designs... and that killer Japanese afro may inspire me to reapproach my hairdo.

There's been quite the buzz about "Slumdog Millionaire". It's gotten one of the highest ratings on RottenTomatoes. It's regularly found on Movie Critics 2009 Top Ten Lists.

After watching "Slumdog", I came out of the theatre in fuming anger. I found the movie to be completely irresponsible. It took the easy way with the language of film narrative, the viewers prejudice, and viewer experience to create an exploitative emotional experience.

In other words, "Slumdog Millionaire" was the movie equivalent of a really good prostitute. She knew all the ways to look good and please a man and mindlessly went through her masterful routine. While the majority of the US audience fell in love... I felt betrayed. I was duped into believing I was about to meet a fine Lady and ended up being with a beautiful Whore.

What makes it super frustrating to watch the film is to see the gobs of talent and craftmanship involved in making "Slumdog". From a purely stylistic standpoint, it's a beautiful film. Camera angles and direction are adeptly chosen to be beautiful and narrative. The cinematography was dazzling (but a little to close to the new Hollywood standard of rich blue and orange hues). The actors all gave marvelous performances.

Instead of using this amazing team to create a new kind of story, director Danny Boyle uses familiar exploitative story elements to convince the media and audience at large that the Indian backdrop is enough of a reason to hail "Slumdog" as something groundbreaking. It's all been done before; and "Slumdog" revisits the stories lazily. You have: the poor kids lured by male strangers with sweets into a life of violence, the friend who'd be loyal... if it wasn't for his greed, the innocent boy determined to find his lost love, a boy turning to evil after acquiring a powerful weapon. How can we convey a sense of loss? How about a really dramatic train scene where they try to hold hands as the person runs behind the train! How can we get people to feel the love this young boy feels for his first love? Make her hot, super hot! How can we get people to empathize with the main characters? Let's show them when they are super cute, charming children and torture them!

The movie is an efficient sum of all the tried and true dramatic visual and sound cues from previous films. It moves you... because you've seen it before. I wouldn't really mind the familiarity if the movie took you some place new. But it doesn't. It gives you the same good ol' Hollywood ending where everything concludes neatly and those left live happily ever after.

What do Indians think about the films portrayal of India? I found it to be a huge caricature of the Country. It took the darkest and poorest elements of the Country and made it the norm. I have no problem with exaggeration, but I felt that the way the film was marketed made you feel like the India in the film is the only India that exists. It reminded me of those old films about a safari in Africa where all the African tribes were cannibals with bones through their noses. People saw those film and thought that was Africa. I'm afraid people are going to see this film and think that this is India.

I'm glad I saw the film. It really brought about quite a bit of discussion. But I hated it. It was manipulative and disrespectful to it's audience and the Country and Culture that inspired it.

Dude... Tron 2? Or as they've absurdly dubbed it "Tr2n" (thanks Se7en!).

Footage for this was shown at this year's Comicon with the intent to raise enough of a buzz to get the film into production. Footage was shown. The fans drooled. And now we have the film intended for release in 2010 or 2011.

Since it's fan captured footage. The quality is piss poor. But from what can be gathered, it's looking like the eventual film will be a beautiful update to the Tron aesthetic.

With a bit more research I discovered that Pixar's John Lasseter is one of the Producers behind the project. The computer animation in the original Tron was one of the inspirations behind Pixar.

The attached Director is Joseph Kosinski. You don't know the name, but you know the work. Kosinski is a commercial director that's best known for his beautiful TV advertisements for Gears of War 1,2 and Halo 3. He's proven that his sense of style is very strong... but it'll be interesting to see if he can handle narrative.

As with most children from the 80s, that Tron bike scene jizzed all over my developing brain. I really like how they updated that sequence in this Tr2n teaser footage.

Well, we've got 2-3 years to see how it all turns out!

Much like we had done with the making of our Tequila Vinyl figure, Wired Magazine has decided to let internet readers into the step-by-step process of an interview from conception to publication. In and of itself it's a wonderful concept. But when the interviewee is the fascinating Charlie Kaufman it's absolute magic.

I found tons of kernels of inspiration from the complete audio interview. I love Mr. Kaufman's honesty, analysis and commitment to his craft. I MUST watch his Directorial debut "Synecdoche, New York" ASAP.

CLICK HERE FOR A DIRECT LINK TO MP3 FILES OF THE COMPLETE 2.5 HOUR CHARLIE KAUFMAN CONVERSATION.

CLICK HERE FOR SUMMARY OF MAKING OF WIRED'S CHARLIE KAUFMAN'S PUBLISHED INTERVIEW.

The latest Spirit Posters and Trailer's have been revealled... and things are starting to shape up really nicely. The whole marketing campaign I've been following has been all kinds of crazy. At first it looked like Sin City 2. Then it was some live action Tom & Jerry cartoon. Now it's looking like a Sin City James Bond hybrid with some wacky slapstick. That I can go for.

The use of color is pretty nice. It looks to build off of what Sky Captain did... hopefully it will succeed in ways that Sky Captain failed.

As a longtime fan, I'm still rooting for Frank Miller!