What can you expect from the MPAA when you make a movie with "some some graphic sexuality"? Yup, the kiss of death. Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno has been slapped with a rating of NC-17 by the MPAA, according to a list posted today by The Hollywood Reporter.

The rating was posted on the MPAA film ratings site at least as early as last Saturday, but News Askew noted that it was marked as "pending appeal" and had received the rating for "some graphic sexuality." I just checked the MPAA's site, and now the film doesn't show up at all. What happened? Was the appeal lost? Will cuts be made to secure the R rating? Who made the "some some" typo -- the MPAA or THR?

The ratings tussle is not entirely unexpected. Seth Rogen complained about the MPAA last month because of the film's difficulty in securing an R rating, and Smith took down a raunchy online-only teaser until the MPAA approved it. I would imagine that Smith is contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated version, but I wonder what nightmares he faces to please the MPAA?

As it happens, Smith will appear at Comic Con on Friday evening to talk about his film, and I'm sure he'll have something to say about the rating. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is still due to hit theaters on October 31.

UPDATE: Check out the newly-released Watchmen trailer right here!

It was awesome to see character stills from Watchmen, and then get a glimpse of the Minutemen, but the news that has just gone up on Collider is even sweeter. Some of it is location-specific, so let's start with the stuff we can all enjoy. As if there wasn't already enough reasons to watch The Dark Knight, it looks like a trailer for Watchmen will slip in with all that dark bat goodness. Zack Snyder didn't say for sure, but when Collider asks, his smile and word scramblage are pretty darned revealing. It better be true! It's been a while since I've gone gaga for a trailer as much as a film.

But that's not all. Yeah, he says Doc Manhattan looks cool, which is a relief, but he's also got some great Comic Con news for you lucky buggers that get to go: First, there will be a few minutes of footage to ooh and ahh over. But it also looks like some Nite Owl rumors could be true. When asked whether Nite Owl's ship would land at Comic Con, Zack once again tripped over his words and let out that revealing smile as he discussed how expensive it would be to do so. Expensive, but so very sweet. I can only hope that bit is true for you fans out there. The ship is awesome. Really, absolutely awesome.

Other nuggets you can check out in the video interview: the battle for running time, making the release date, and other nibblets.

Excited yet? No? Then check out our Watchmen gallery below ...

While tooling around the internets yesterday, I came across this post on Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog which pondered what, if any, affect the ongoing writer's strike (as well as the potential DGA and SAG strikes) could have on this year's Comic-Con. We already know the WGA strike has shut down The Golden Globes, and folks will start talking Oscars next, but in April we have the New York Comic-Con and in July we have the biggie -- San Diego Comic-Con. Last year, New York didn't give us too much by way of Hollywood product. However, after all the complaining, one would think the studios would pay closer attention to New York and pimp out some of their summer fare, along with bigger flicks coming down the pipeline. If the writer's are still on strike in April, and if they decide to picket the Con in New York, that could potentially mean no talent showing up for panel discussions and the like.

Now I'm just talking about film here; TV is already f**ked. Even if all this strike nonsense is over and done with by early summer, I imagine the after-shocks will still affect the geeked-out TV presence at the San Diego Con. Remember, after the writer's cut a contract, we're still looking at deals that need to be made for SAG and the DGA. Both of their contracts expire at the end of May. Should SAG go on strike at that time, how on earth will Hollywood promote movies like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Watchmen, Star Trek XI and G.I. Joe if none of the talent will show up to partake in panel discussions? San Diego Comic-Con was perhaps the biggest fanboy-ish event of 2007, and I imagine there are plans to make it even bigger this year (in terms of Hollywood presence). The show will go on either way (after all, the convention is supposed to be more about comics than anything else), but I wonder how much of Hollywood will be there in 2008? Thoughts?

So, it's been just over a week since Comic-Con wrapped up, and I've had time to catch up on sleep, dig all of my geek gear out of my bag, delouse my Captain Marvel costume, and process all of the pop culture I was exposed to without a radiation shield. For awhile it left me weaker than Green Lantern's ability to affect the color yellow, if you know what I mean.

You can read my bullet-pointed, bite-size-chunked roundup of the news that hit closest to home for me after the break, and also check out our massive gallery of shots from the show floor and the panels below. Comic-Con always seems like such a massive buildup each year, but when it's over you scratch your head a bit and say, "Was that all there was?" Then you start looking forward to next year.

While Kevin Bacon was absent from the Death Sentence breakfast, we did manage to corral Garrett Hedlund over eggs and ... bacon. He talked to us about starring in the movie, his relationships with co-stars Kevin Bacon and John Goodman, how he grew up with guns, and shooting very long action sequences with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

Garrett Hedlund isn't a household name just yet, but you've probably seen him on the big screen at Patrocles in Troy. He played the brash, young cousin of Achilles (Brad Pitt), and is somewhat of a chameleon. He's also been in Friday Night Lights, Eragon, and Four Brothers. With a shaved head and tribal neck tattoos in Death Sentence, he's looking to extend that streak. Click on his picture for the audio interview and read the highlights below.

• He plays Billy Darly, the son of Bones Darly (John Goodman) and is the older brother of Joe Darly (Matt O'Leary).
• He leads a gang of thugs who run a meth lab in an abandoned insane asylum. Sounds like a nice place.
• There is a great scene between John Goodman and Kevin Bacon in the movie, where John realizes that Kevin Bacon is after his son ... who in turn had killed Kevin's son.
• He's worked with everyone from Brad Pitt, to Terrence Howard, to Billy Bob Thornton, but his dad was most impressed when he told him he was working with John Goodman. "He finally feels proud of me."
• "I don't care for working with actors that just come in and read the lines and pretend that the character is them, instead of them the character. A lot of people think that they're the one to bank off of, as their personality as a celebrity. They feel that people just want to see them. Where I like trying to do something different with each role."
• They did extensive research for the role by gathering as a "gang" at strip clubs and bars, and calling each other by their gang names.
• "I had my rifle permit when I was eleven, kids couldn't wait to deer hunt ... even girls. I grew up with an environment of guns. I've always used them, and always learned how to be safe with them. If I did something like pointing the gun at the sun or did anything stupid with it, I'd get slapped in the back of the head."

Kevin Feige has what most fanboys and fangirls would consider to be a dream job. He gets to play around in the Marvel Comics toybox and bring classic superheroes to life on the bigscreen. It's like having life-sized action figures and a really big backyard to pose them in.

We spoke with him during the Iron Man press event at Comic-Con, and besides wanting his Stark Industries hat, we also asked him a few questions. Click on his picture for the audio, and read the highlight reel below.

• On asked how we could score one of those 'Stark Industries' hats, "Well, you can go back in time, and work really hard on the movie and ... I shouldn't have worn it, I know."
• "It was a challenge to decide which one of his many costumes to go with. The red and gold was a given, but there are a number of incarnations throughout the film."
• The classic red and gold armor in the film is based somewhat on the Adi Granov's artwork from the (really great) Iron Man series 'Extremis.'
• When asked how many of the actors were attached for sequels, he replied. "All of 'em." They're in multi-picture contracts, which seems to be the standard these days.
• "What I love about the Iron Man villains is, yes ... you could call a lot of them goofy these days, but the truth is they're all tech-based villains, just like way Hulk has all gamma-based villains, and Spidey has genetically altered villains. I love the tech aspect to it, and you'll start to see some of that in this film."
  
• "We're working on an animated Iron Man series right now." It even includes Unicorn!
• How different are things at Marvel Studios, now that they are independent? "Well, other than the fact that we're signing the checks now, things aren't that different."
• "There's only been a handful of times where I would have done something different [on the films] ... Elektra." He says this one in a deep voice, and I have to agree with him on that one.
  
• They currently have scripts in development for Captain America, Thor, Ant Man, Dr. Strange, Submariner and more.
• When asked about the negative fan reaction to Spider-Man 3, he said, "It was the biggest movie of the summer, I'm pretty pleased with it ... my favorite thing was watching people react to that birth of Sandman sequence." Granted, that sequence was cool. But did he see the rest of the movie?!

Okay, seriously ... that title isn't a joke. Fox Atomic invited us to have "Bacon with Kevin Bacon" at Comic-Con for a movie he's in called Death Sentence. Granted, putting those together in the same sentence makes it appear worse than the Bataan Death March, but it was actually a lot more pleasant. Although a more apt title would have been "Bacon Without Kevin Bacon," because he wasn't at the breakfast. We did manage to catch up with him later, though.

We were treated to the promised bacon (along with other breakfast acoutrements) and some footage from Death Sentence. Kevin Bacon stars as Nick Hume, your average, boring, subarbanite "nerd" (as Bacon calls him) whose life changes dramatically when he witnesses his son being murdered. After that, things click into revenge mode, and before long Bacon is a badass, hunting down the gang who did him wrong. However, it's not like a switch gets flipped and he's instantly a commando. He slowly builds from hockey dad to serial killer, although by the end of the footage we saw, he has a shaved head and is a fairly expert hand with a shotgun.

Jon Favreau has really come a long way since Swingers (and thankfully, an even longer way since Made) and I'll be the first to admit that when he was attached to direct Iron Man, I breathed a sigh of ... disappointment. I mean, how could the director of Swingers and Elf possibly do a good job with a massive Hollywood summer tentpole film? My hopes were dashed. I pictured scenes of an over-the-top villain in black hat and mustache chasing Iron Man around with a can opener. Camp style, you know?

However, after seeing the footage from the movie, not once but three times, I'm totally sold on this. In my opinion, this is going to be the big movie next summer. When you first get a glimpse of that armor (both versions), it's chilling and cool at the same time. Plus, hearing Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" is just perfect. You sold me, Favreau. Go ahead and chalk up my ticket and popcorn with a medium soda, please.

Click on Jon to activate the audio, of which the highlights are below.

• On working with Vince Vaughn again: "Vince is riding high on the comedy train right now, and we have a lot of ideas that we could do. The Marshall of Revelation, which is the Western we talked about doing, is a little gritty and darker ... although we're getting a bit too old to play the roles as I wrote them."
• Is Jarvis the Butler in the movie? "Jarvis is in the movie, let's leave it at that. In some form."
• There are three different versions of the Iron Man armor in the movie. In the footage we saw, it's the Mark 1, and Mark 2 armors ... Favreau wasn't giving up the good on the other version, consarnit.
• "I'd love to do some version of Fin Fang Foom, but you can't do that in the first movie. Maybe in the second."
• On showing the footage to the Comic-Con fans: "If you have a misstep ... you could be Catwoman overnight."
• "Downey's not a guy that you cast to put asses in seats in a huge Hollywood blockbuster, he's the guy you put in the movie when you want a great actor who will bring integrity to a project like this."

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man is probably some of the most bizarre, and most genius, piece of Hollywood casting in a comic-book movie ever. I still remember when people were scratching their heads over the whole Michael Keaton as Batman news ... but he didn't have the same reputation as a dabbler in the pleasures of recreational drugs that Downey has.

However, if you're familiar at all with the "Iron Man" comic books, then you know that Tony Stark has had similar problems, including a love affair with bottles of booze. He's a troubled hero, hidden behind armor, and Downey looks to be doing an amazing job of showing the human side of a Man of Iron.

I caught up with him at Comic-Con and asked him about wearing the new suit. Click on his picture to hear the audio, which includes tidbits like:

• "This is a karma superhero, really. More than anything else."
• "Stan Lee created "Iron Man" on a dare.
• He quit smoking during the filming of Iron Man, and Jon Favreau went on a diet. (I'm sure that caused some tension on-set).
• "I can relate to someone who sees things a different way, having any sort of spiritual awakening, even if it's an out and out trauma."
• "Tony Stark is Iron Man ... he just doesn't know it yet."
• "The armor was probably tailored to the most in-shape, tallest of the stuntmen."
• He says he'd "like to do a whole bunch more of them" -- meaning sequels to this one.
• When asked who would win in a fight between Terrence Howard and himself, if they were both in a superhero movie, he coyly says "You'll see."

Kevin Smith has had a panel at almost every Comic-Con since for the past umpteen years, and the line for it is always out the door, around the corner, down the block, across the street, and stretches into Mexico. You can be sure of one thing at most Cons, and that is the fact that you're going to need to line up early to get into this thing.

Wait, I meant to say you can be sure of two things. One, line up early for anything Kevin Smith related, and two ... be prepared for a lot of swear words. This really isn't the sort of thing you want to be bringing your seven year old daughter to in her Pokemon costume unless you want to be explaining some fairly graphic things to her. If you do, get ready for an incessant stream of, "Daddy, why is everyone laughing?" Although the eleven-year-old kid in front of me sure seemed to get a lot of the oral sex jokes. Wow.