Having gotten the chance to visit the Watchmen set, I thought nothing could be cooler. But even though I saw a little of what was coming, nothing compared to the trailer that came with The Dark Knight, and the long-awaited appearance of Dr. Manhattan. But there wasn't a nibblet of Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter.

But now I give you two doses. Above there is a pin-up that was sent to AICN by artist James Jean, who created the pin-up pic for the movie (see it full-length over there). Of course, this was back during her heydey, before her daughter took over and found herself some different superhero action. After the jump, you can check out a pic that Warners sent us late last week (along with other images). It's the interlude between Jupiter and The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

You know, I remember going to see Spider-Man when it came out in theaters a handful of years ago, and being all excited, but that was like finding a dollar on the side of the road compared to the bag-full-o-cash fangirl excitement I have for this film.

Can you believe it's almost May? Another month of 2008 is almost over, and we've got more casting news, courtesy of Variety:

• New York, I Love You already has a flipping huge and intrigue-inducing cast that ranges from Ethan Hawke to Julie Christie. Now we've got two more players in the mix. Both Carla Gugino (Sin City) and Goran Visnjic (Elektra) have signed on for a segment directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev. There's no word on what this segment will focus on, but I'll go out on a limb and say it'll feature some sort of love in New York City.
• Then there's a young actress by the name of Emilie De Ravin. If you're one of those Lost fiends out there, she's Claire Littleton in the series. On the big screen side of things, she had a lead gig in The Hills Have Eyes. But now she gets to deal with some Public Enemies. While enemies usually aren't a desirable sort of group to hang with, this melange has Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Channing Tatum, Billy Crudup, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff, Rory Cochrane, David Wenham ... basically, a ton of great actors, plus a bunch of beloved indie boys from the '90s. According to IMDb, she'll play Anna Patzke.
• Finally, there's the girl who made the world of Gossip Girl all the more intriguing -- Ms. Serena van der Woodsen herself, Blake Lively. She's picked up a lead role in the upcoming film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, which stars Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder. There's no word on who she will play in the feature.

Remember David Goyer's Jewish-themed thriller that Scott told us about back in February? About the dybhuk -- "an angry, undead spirit that possesses a human being?" The spin was that it would be the dybhuk of a boy who died in Auschwitz, and is now terrorizing a young woman played by Cloverfield's Odette Yustman. Gary Oldman signed on to play a "spiritual specialist" and The OC's Cam Gigandet took the role of the haunted girl's boyfriend. Now, The Hollywood Reporter posts that the film has a name -- Unborn -- and more cast -- Meagan Good (Stomp the Yard), Carla Gugino (Sin City), Jane Alexander (Fur), Idris Elba (American Gangster), and Rhys Coiro (24).

With the players in place, this is how it's breaking down -- Yustman's haunted girl is getting Good as a best friend, Coiro as a college professor, and Gugino as a mother. Meanwhile, Alexander is playing a Holocaust survivor and sister of the slain boy, and Elba will be a priest helping Rabbi Oldman with the exorcisms.

Oldman is enough to have me intrigued, but more in a Hebrew Hammer sort of way -- a down-and-dirty Rabbinical Spiritual Specialist. Dig it? Heck, I'm even itching to see Alexander as the sister. However, a serious Holocaust spook story? I'm not so sure. Eh, we'll see soon enough -- principal photography got underway today.

I always thought Carla Gugino looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place it until Scott Weinberg mentioned Troop Beverly Hills in his post about the actress becoming burlesque superheroine Sally Jupiter in the upcoming Watchmen flick. She's come a long way since her first movie role! After really making a name for herself with Spy Kids, she made men across the planet drool for her Lucille in Sin City. Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Gugino is taking on another law role in the upcoming Righteous Kill movie that's headed by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro -- the flick about two cops trying to catch a serial killer.

50 Cent has already been cast as a drug dealer who helps the duo, and Donnie Wahlberg has signed on for an unspecified role. Gugino will play the female lead -- "a crime-scene investigator with a dark personal life who enters into a relationship with De Niro's character." Lucky man! The film comes from the pen of Inside Man scribe Russell Gewirtz, which should mean good things for the script, and will be directed by Fried Green Tomatoes helmer Jon Avnet. Topping all of that off, IMDb lists that Martin Scorsese has a role as "Lieutenant Winnfield." It's looking to be an interesting production, and at the very least, it'll be nice to see Pacino and De Niro together, and to see the latter all tough again. And, of course, more tough Gugino.

For some reason, the lovely and talented Carla Gugino has really struck a chord with the movie geeks over the last several years. Let's start at the beginning and see if we can figure out why. Like a lot of actress, Ms. G cut her teeth on bit parts in TV shows like Who's the Boss?, ALF and Saved by the Bell. Her first movie appearance came in the dire Shelley Long* comedy Troop Beverly Hills, and she followed that up with parts in Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, This Boy's Life, Miami Rhapsody, and the only halfway-watchable Pauly Shore comedy: Son in Law. She also contributed a fine supporting role in De Palma's Snake Eyes, if memory serves.

But it was the role of "hot mom" Ingrid Cortez in Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids series that made Gugino a semi-household name. (Well, around my household anyway.) That role led to a very memorable part in Sin City, which...

Oops, I think I just figured it out why all the movie geeks love Carla Gugino these days. This is a family-friendly blog, so I'll keep this PG-rated, but ... she bares her boobies quite clearly in Sin City, and (to quote a beloved Seinfeld episode) they're fabulous spectacular! Since that wondrous revelation, Ms. Gugino has appeared in Night at the Museum, The Lookout and (yuck) Rise: Blood Hunter. She'll also be appearing opposite Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott's American Gangster later this year ... but here's the big news already:

According to ComingSoon.net (who got it from The Hollywood Reporter, although I can't find it on the THR website), Carla Gugino has joined the (very slick) ensemble cast on Zack Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen. She'll be playing a character known as Sally Jupiter (aka Silk Spectre, aka the mom of another Silk Spectre), who is not only a superheroine, but an (ahem) burlesque dancer as well. (As if I didn't already want to see this movie, right?) Carla joins a cast swollen with solid names: Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, etc., etc. (For more on this highly-anticipated project, check out our previous reports here, here and here. Or heck, just throw "Watchmen" into our search bar. Everyone's been covering the hell out of this project!)

* I do believe this marks the very first time that Shelley Long's name has ever been mentioned at Cinematical. A toast to Shelley Long!

Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller collaborated on, in my humble opinion, the best-ever adaptation of a Miller work -- Sin City (Although admittedly, I didn't see Elektra, so don't hold me to that!) Sin City did pretty well at the box office, and critics and audiences loved it. You'd think the powers that be would be thrilled to have a sequel in production. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case. There's been much talk lately that Sin City 2 has been officially delayed, and some are saying it might not even happen. The sequel, an adaptation of Miller's A Dame to Kill For and a prequel to The Big Fat Kill, has been pushed back due to Miller's gig directing The Spirit and Rodriguez's planned remake of Barbarella. Miller is pretty sick of waiting, telling mtv.com "Robert (Rodriguez) and I have a script and we're all raring to go. We're aching to get started. I want to work with that crew again ... that wonderful cast."

Miller says "There was just some problems above us that I don't understand ... that I don't really want to understand." Still, Miller insists Sin City 2 is happening, and that he fully expects a Sin City 3 as well. Rodriguez has said the third film will focus on Miller's Hell and Back, about a hallucinating artist named Wallace -- a role that has repeatedly been linked to everyone's favorite pirate Johnny Depp. "I ain't talking cast until we're actually shooting or close to it!" says Miller, but the article makes it seem like Depp is a definite ace in Miller's sleeve. I sure hope we get a couple more of these flicks, because I thought Sin City was awesome. It took me a second viewing to come to that conclusion, but that is where I now stand, in case you are interested. From a nudity standpoint alone, the movie deserves two ... no, three thumbs up. Carla Gugino, if you're reading this -- wanna go out for a burger or something? Or get married?

First there is Carla Gugino. My appreciation for her comes mainly for her work with Robert Rodriguez -- Sin City and the Spy Kids series, as I'm actually one of those people who was entertained by the latter. Then again, she was also in the super-awesome Troop Beverly Hills, so how could you knock her? Then, there is Ellen Burstyn. She's a flipping acting powerhouse and Oscar winner for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, although she should be a dual winner for Requiem for a Dream. (Robbery!!!) Finally, there's the overly-pensive vamp and spazzy dancer-turned-Bones loving Special Agent David Boreanaz. Wow. This movie could be about drying paint, and I'd still go see it out of curiosity.

Luckily, it's a bit more interesting than that. The trio are starring in the indie sports drama, Our Lady of Victory. Written by the film's director, Tim Chambers, the movie is about the Immaculata College women's basketball team which flew up the rankings to win the National Women's Collegiate Championship in 1972. They were called the Immaculata Mighty Macs, and they won the first three national titles for women's basketball. Just to give some perspective -- this came just on the advent of letting the women play full-court with more than three dribbles. But that's not all -- at the time, a number of teams still played in skirts, which I imagine was all sorts of convenient for between-the-leg dribbling. Gugino is playing the coach and Boreanaz is playing her husband. There's no word on Burstyns role, but I bet it's safe to say that she will not be one of the players. (Although that would be an interesting twist if she was!) Production has just started, and there is no word yet on release dates or player casting.

You've got to like a movie that gives us a nude Lucy Liu, shot high and from behind, and then moves her slowly over to a full-length mirror where all will be revealed ... but she's a vampire, so no reflection! Rise: Blood Hunter, from director Sebastian Gutierrez, is a cheap and dirty mash-up of the vampire and revenge genres, following L.A. reporter Sadie Blake (Liu) as her quest to find out who murdered a goth vampire wanna-be lands her on the menu of the real vampires behind the crime. Unfortunately for them, some potent blend of reporter moxie and girl power prevents her from staying dead like they planned -- she ends up kicking open and crawling out of the morgue drawer she was stuffed into, pissed off and shaking like a heroin addict for want of blood. Soon enough, she'll adjust to her new lifestyle and even acquire two must-have accessories: a girly little crossbow as a signature weapon and a vampire mentor who encourages her to "embrace your shadow side," whatever that means.

Sadie's shadow side is apparently the side that allows her to kill and dine on innocents, and not even particularly annoying innocents, as is sometimes the loophole. Picking up a reasonable young hitchhiker at one point, she quizzes him: "Do you have a wife? Have a girlfriend?" After giving all the wrong answers, he's lunch. Hey, she's a vampire -- vampires gotta eat. I have to say I wasn't expecting such a morally troublesome hero to emerge from those paragons of virtue at Sam Raimi's Ghosthouse Pictures, but I like it! Blood Hunter succeeds through edgy little moments like that one, along with an assortment of nude scenes, each one shot in such conspicuously low light that it smacks of actress protest, which somehow makes more enjoyable, in a perverted way. Sadly, there's no virtuoso special effects or cinematography -- there was more visual originality in a ten minute vampire short included in the anthology Paris Je T'Aime, released this weekend -- but there is enough here that works to make up a picture that's good for a Saturday night.

When last we checked in with Lucy Liu's vampire flick Rise: Blood Hunter, Monika told us about a juicy scene from the film supposedly "leaked" to an eager audience of rabid fanboys looking for some blood, gore and hot lesbian vampire action. Sadly, almost as soon as the clip was on YouTube's servers, it was taken down -- I'm sure to preserve the dignity of all involved. At that time we also learned the film had been languishing "on the shelf" for awhile (as they say in the biz) but had finally been given a release date.

Fortunately, especially for fans of the aforementioned hot lesbian vampire action who didn't get a chance to see the clip on YouTube, the release date seems solid and to prove it, distributor Samuel Goldwyn Films has dropped the first one sheet poster for the film for your consideration. I'm a big fan of Lucy Liu and would pay good money to watch her kick some vampire ass, or really, do almost anything. Plus, I'm also a horror fan who usually likes these kinds of movies. So, following that logic, this movie should be right up my metaphoric ally. Oddly enough though, looking at the poster I had the opposite reaction. I was rather amused instead of interested. Why? The tag lines.

I don't know about you, but when I see tag lines on a poster that say things like: "From the Producer of the Grudge franchise and the writer of Gothika" I tend to worry a little. It just seems like quite a stretch and a bit like desperation time on the part of the distributor. Or maybe I'm just too sensitive. The poster looks just fine and pretty much follows the standard horror conventions for films of this genre. Plus Lucy Liu looks great (as expected) and the film also features the excellent Michale Chiklis of TVs The Shield and my soon-to-be-wife, the super-sexy Carla Gugino too. Put that all together and you really might have something. To find out exactly what that "something" is, check out the flick when it hits theaters June 1st. Or go to Tribeca.