You know that room Willy Wonka takes everyone in -- the one full of candy, and then the fat kid gets sucked into the chocolate pipe? For a geek, Comic Con is that room. Actually, Comic Con is like visiting 60 or 70 of those rooms for an entire weekend. I'm not even what you'd call a geek, gamer or fanboy, and I get absolutely overwhelmed each and every time I attend one of these conventions. It's seriously like losing yourself in another universe for awhile -- and then you get to watch a really sick trailer ... or three.

NY Comic Con blew the f*ck (pardon my French) up this year. Last year, they hosted Hostel II and The Hills Have Eyes 2. This year, they had Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Wanted, The Incredible Hulk, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Speed Racer, The Dark Knight, The Spirit, Prince Caspian ... and much more. Yup. In one year, NYCC has seriously kicked things up a notch and I was happy to be a part of the fun.

I'll do a whole recap thingy tomorrow (the scene they showed from Hulk brought the house down -- huge highlight for me), but in the meantime check out all these pics I took throughout the day. They're not all perfect, but they give you a pretty good idea of what it was like walking around, oblivious and in desperate need of some lunch. (Photos include: Hellboy panel, Spirit panel, Star Wars, Wanted panel, Iron Man video game, Hulk video game, hottie girls with guns, stormtroopers, and lots and lots of action figures.)

More Coverage:

Tony Stark's Cameo in The Incredible Hulk/Third Dark Knight Trailer Screens
The Spirit Trailer Premieres
Guillermo Del Toro on The Hobbit and Future Projects

Last weekend, everyone and his brother laughed and cried and kissed 10 bucks goodbye watching Admiral Squidpuss and that amazing monkey...I know, that's sour grapes, since Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was the little movie that could, and besides the monkey even has his own fanlist now. The next must-watch destination, then, is Knocked Up. And I'm creeped to go there for the simple reason that the subject matter frightens me too much. The sheer scare power of Knocked Up makes Hostel 2 look like National Lampoon's European Vacation. Another pregnancy muddled through by a couple who can't stand each other? and we're supposed to be laughing? It sounds too much like my parent's generation.

Back then you used to see couples so oddly matched, that the only way to explain how they ended up together was to compare the amount of time between the date of their wedding and the birth of their first born child. And Knocked Up is another movie, just like Waitress, that bypasses the possibility of an abortion with hardly any discussion. (People are still having 'em, you know, whether the politicians, the priests, or producers like it or not.) Which is why I'd prefer to return to a cinematic era when people actually slowed down and discussed the idea of whether or not it was a good idea to bring another hungry vulnerable kid into this global mess. Has any film mulled over those anxieties as well as Mike Leigh's 1988 comedy/tragedy High Hopes?

Considering the problems surrounding marketing for horror films, the latest and supposedly final poster for Eli Roth's Hostel: Part II seems downright tame. Until now, there have been close-ups of viscera, a headless Bijou Phillips, and a poster that was a combination of the two. Then we got another close-up of a woman bound and gagged in the nude hanging upside down. Considering the strange combination of violence and sex in the previous posters, I'm kind of surprised that this was the choice for the final poster. On the other hand, though, I know that uninspiring poster or not, fans of Roth will still run to the theater in droves to watch half-naked girls beg for their life for two hours -- not to mention some truly stomach churning special F/X.

The eagerly awaited sequel to Roth's 2005 horror has been providing plenty of different teasers and promotional clips over the past months, and Roth himself has been making the rounds in the media, being vocal about his lack of self-censorship when it comes to violence. But, in light of all the hoopla surrounding the posters for films like Captivity and debates about violence against women, maybe that's why Lionsgate finally went with a poster that could be put up on a billboard without causing public outcry. As most of us probably know by now, the story follows three American art students in Rome, who head to a remote location for a relaxing vacation with horrifying results. Considering this is a Roth film after all, I can only guess as to just how horrifying it is going to get.