I must have had too many cups of coffee when I agreed to take on a Cinematical Seven covering the hunks of sports films. (Erik had the easy job, picking the Hottest Sports Girls.) Trying to pick the studs is like having hundreds of 4-star, wonderful movies thrown on your desk and being asked to pick the 7 best. Yeah, right! No problem! To make the task easier, I decided to pick a range of sports, and never double up on one particular type. That cut out a whole slew of possibilities, and what I came up with is what you see below.

What have I learned from picking the Seven Sexy Sporting Studs from cinema? The best of the best (pun intended) were in the '80s and '90s. I also learned that you should never share the list with a friend beforehand -- they'll remind you who you're forgetting, and that's why you'll find one tie down below. Enjoy!

The Eight Men Out Team

The only thing I knew when I took on this assignment was that Eight Men Out was going to be featured. Bull Durham is great and all, but this is the baseball movie. It's John Sayles, and it has the best baseball team to ever make it on the screen. They might have let their morals loosen a little, but they still kept their looks. Foolishly, I tried to pick between John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney, and David Strathairn. Forget that! I'm taking the easy way out. Cusack's Buck Weaver was super cute as a "future jailbird," Charlie was always tasty in those days, and it's beyond me why women weren't falling all over David Strathairn the minute he jumped into film with Return of the Secaucus Seven, or any of the bigger movies that were soon to come. And Sweeney was cute, too, in that dorky way.

With the majority of casting out of the way, and production currently in full swing, Variety reports that Nestor Carbonell has signed on to play the mayor of Gotham in The Dark Knight. Aside from Carbonell, they've also confirmed the casting of Eric Roberts as a Mafia kingpin (which we already knew), but did not mention the name Sal Maroni even though a number of sources have indicated that Roberts will indeed play the infamous gangster. For those familiar with Carbonell (who was last seen on screen in Smokin' Aces), it's kind of comical that he would be involved with a Batman-related film. Back in 2001, Carbonell played a character called Batmanuel (picture the opposite of Batman -- I mean, dude drove around in a gold Buick) on the short-lived series The Tick. Remember that? Then again, maybe it's best if you don't.

There's no word on how big of a role Carbonell will play in the film; the mayor isn't necessarily a major character, so I wouldn't count on him appearing in too many scenes. As far as when we'll get to see some of The Dark Knight, recent rumors suggest there might be a teaser trailer playing before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Since there's no possible way they've cut together enough footage to show us something substantial, I imagine if they do shovel out a teaser, it will be more along the lines of flashy graphics followed by some rough written-for-the-teaser dialogue. Oh, and perhaps Warner Bros. will take that opportunity to show us a pic of Joker -- I'd like that. Currently, The Dark Knight is scheduled to arrive in theaters on July 18, 2008.

More casting news for The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's new foray into the Batman mythos. Just a few days ago Jessica Barnes mentioned here on Cinematical that William Fichtner had joined the cast, and now, according to the LA Daily News, comes word that Eric Roberts will be playing a mafia kingpin. Not much else is mentioned about the role, but Cinematical's own Erik Davis posted last month that the character Sal Maroni will figure prominently in the new film, so it's probably not a huge stretch to assume this may be the character Roberts will play. In the comics, Maroni was the crime boss who threw acid in the face of District Attorney Harvey Dent (being played by Aaron Eckhart this time around), scarring him badly and driving him to become the villain Two-Face.

This isn't actually Roberts' first role with fanboy geek appeal. In 1996 he appeared in the U.S. made-for-TV movie Doctor Who, based on the long running British TV series, in which he played The Doctor's longtime nemesis The Master. And, of course, he currently plays the villainous Thompson on NBC's Heroes, so butting heads with super heroes should be second nature to him. His more mainstream roles of late have included the series The L Word, and Pandemic, a Hallmark Channel presentation in which he stars with Faye Dunaway and, surprisingly, does not play a bad guy.

One thing Roberts does make clear is that he likes to work. "I don't stop working. I'm a workaholic. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm too overexposed to ever be a superstar, so I'm happy to be a working actor every day," he says in the LA Daily News piece. He also jokes about losing out on the Academy Award in 1985 when he was nominated for Runaway Train. "Once they gave my Oscar to the wrong person, I called my agent and said, 'From now on if there's one good thing about a project, I'll do it.' If the character is good, I'll do it. If the director is good, I'll do it. If the location is good, I'll do it."

Check out this cast: Roy Scheider, Daryl Hannah, Eric Roberts, and Sean Young. In an indie flick, for which each is probably earning about $30/day, plus meal money. How crazy is that? I mean, if it was, say 1987, this would be a huge studio picture, complete with lots of posh trailers and personal assistants, glamorous magazine layouts for the ladies and talk show appearances for everyone except, possibly, nutso Sean. Ah, memories.

Anyway. This new, cheapie-flick is a thriller called Dark Honeymoon, and sounds like it could easily be either over-the-top terrible, or subtle and creepy. The story is about a man who marries a hot woman he barely knows, only to "[uncover] the terrible truth about her as those around them begin to die mysterious and violent deaths." Me, I'm worried mainly about the men here: despite the fact that Scheider played a nearly impossible part perfectly in All That Jazz and was wonderful in Jaws, the horror of his performance in Romeo Is Bleeding has never left me - and you never know what the hell Eric Roberts is going to get up. Do you see what I'm saying here? The chances for a lot of screaming and yelling are dangerously high. That said, I'm intrigued in spite of myself.

Shooting is due to being in May.

Starring Eric Roberts-spawn (and Aquamarine's girl-who-finds-the-mermaid) Emma Roberts, the Nancy Drew movie has had a lot of people (many of whom totally won't admit it) in a nostalgic frenzy since news of its existence was announced way too long ago. Now, finally, there's some good news: production has begun. Woo hoo! Not only that, but we've got a plot (the news of which is possibly slightly less good).

In order to get her somewhere with lots of pretty people and parties (and, of course, because the title is Nancy Drew: The Mystery in Hollywood Hills), Tiffany Paulsen and Andrew Fleming's script has Nancy traveling to Hollywood with her dad (Tate Donovan) on what is apparently a very, very long "business trip," since Nancy ends up enrolling in Hollywood Hills High School and meeting a boy (Josh Flitter). Because she is a girl detective, Nancy inevitably "stumbles across evidence about a long-unsolved crime involving the mysterious death of a beautiful movie star." However, in addition to wearing her play dress and solving the mystery, innocent little Nancy also finds herself temped by the "fast-living, self-indulgent world of Hollywood." Now, I don't know anything for sure, but knowing our girl, I'm pretty sure she'll come out of it ok.

While the relocation to Hollywood is a little scary, the fact that Fleming, who co-wrote and directed Dick, is also writing and directing here is just awesome news. If anyone can effectively balance sweetness with the smart sense of humor that's going to be required to deal with this whole Hollywood thing, it's him. The movie's not slated for release until 2007, though, so we've plenty of time to sit and worry.