Guillermo del Toro's prodigious creative output makes me hang my head in shame. He's not content to just direct, write, and produce internationally acclaimed movies; he's not satisfied torturing Ron Perlman and Doug Jones with freakish makeup or giving grown adults the sobbing heebie-jeebies. No, while you've been sitting on your couch, drinking beer and playing Guitar Hero, he's splicing and dicing The Hobbit and getting ready for the first part of his vampire trilogy to hit bookshelves. Yes, bookshelves.

Del Toro and Chuck Hogan have written The Strain Trilogy, the first volume of which will be available June 2nd. William Morrow has put up a really neat video interview with del Toro about his interest in "the otherness, the scary void of an animated corpse that lusts after your blood." (He also takes a nice dig at the sexy sparkly vamps of Twilight.) Expect gory deets on "how each of the feedings of these vampires is acutely detailed and painful to read, so you will experience this sense of dread and horror..." His vamps will be "as menacing, and as real, and as absolutely disgusting and alien as possible."

"I hope you enjoy the book!" he signs off cheerily.

Del Toro is such a character that I love reading or seeing any interviews with him. I really have to commend William Morrow on doing a video interview with him to promote the book; it's a cheap, easy way to drum up buzz and it speaks really well to the target audience of The Strain. Horror fans are tuned in to the Internet as much as sci-fi or comic book fans are, and although his pre-existing fan base would seek out The Strain anyway, other publishers should follow WM's lead for innovative online marketing. There are plenty of other great books out there that are falling between the cracks.

So we all know that Spike Jonze is famous for a few things; some of us love his music videos (and with over 50 under his belt, you can't deny the man has made some of the most interesting videos over the last 17 years), some of us love his films, and there are some of us that just know him as that guy who married (and then divorced) Sofia Coppola. But if you've been a follower of his career then you know that one of his great loves is skateboarding. In the new video for UNKLE's song, Heaven, the director reedited footage from his 2007 skateboarding film, * Fully Flared -- and the result is a little hypnotic (not to mention strange), but more importantly it's pretty damn awesome.

But as much as I love Jonze's work on the small screen, I can't wait for the man to make it back into theaters. Jonze's last traditional feature was the Orchid Thief-inspired Adaptation, and the man has been steadily working over the years on everything from Jackass to concept art. But in spite of a rocky beginning, finally Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are is inching closer to its October release date -- not to mention earning more respect after we finally got a good look at those 'Wild Things' the other day, and, as an added bonus, the first trailer will arrive in front of Monsters vs. Aliens on March 27th. But I guess until then we're going to have to content ourselves with Jonze's genius in a much smaller dose.

*Correction: Fully Flared was a group effort from Ty Evans, Jonze and Cory Weincheque.

What do you do when you need a pretty actress with limited facial expressions? Well, if Nicole Kidman is busy, I guess you call Keira Knightley (only kidding ... well, maybe not completely kidding). Believe me when I tell you I have nothing personal against the girl, but darn it if I can detect a facial movement in most of her performances other than the example provided to the right. But Knightley's 'reserved' approach to emotion might come in handy now that Variety has announced that the perpetually pouty Ms. Knightley will star as a clone alongside Carey Mulligan in Never Let Me Go, a romantic sci-fi thriller based on the acclaimed novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.

The story centers on three friends who grow up together in a posh boarding school; unfortunately for them, however, this charmed life is a short one and the three learn the disturbing truth that they have been bred for organ donation. Don't worry if this sounds an awful lot like the 2005 stinker, The Island, because unlike Bay's exploration of 'happy organs' and Xbox competitions, Ishiguro's story is much more concerned with existentialism and the meaning of humanity (not exactly Bay country).

Mark Romanek is on board to direct the adaptation, and Alex Garland (28 Days Later) is already at work on a script. Romanek made his name making music videos (even though he didn't make the cut for Monika's list) but has directed only one other feature film: the slightly underwhelming One Hour Photo. But the pressure is on, because unlike The Island, if this flick is a flop we won't be able to blame Michael Bay.

Look, I love these "Hey, I'm on the set and everything is going super awesome" reports from actors, directors and what have you, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to do with this latest one from Zack Snyder on the set of Watchmen. When I first spotted the video, on a site that promoted it as "Zack Snyder Offers a Watchmen Update!!!," I thought -- cool -- he's going to be giving us something we haven't seen before. Why else would they use three exclamation points? So then I clicked over to the video, it started playing and Snyder -- all unshaven and disheveled, as if he'd been up for 48 hours straight -- is standing in front of a door. "Oooh, is he going to open the door and introduce someone in costume?" No. He's not.

Here's what I took away from the video, which you can feel free to check out for yourself: Snyder is stoked to be directing the film, he's "excited," things are "amazing," it's been super "fun," lots of "fun," the cast have been "really cool," and he's promised more stuff in the future. Oooh, Zack, will you be standing in front of a window next time? I know, I'm being a bit of a loser about it, but I just really wish these videos would do more to get me excited about the film. Give us something! The guy looks tired as all hell, he just wrapped the first week of filming -- help him out a bit, give him a prop. All that being said, I am pretty excited about the film as I truly believe it will be unlike any of the superhero-themed flicks we've seen over the past few years. I mean, heck, it's set in a gritty and alternate 1985 -- hopefully that means Snyder will throw a little Whitesnake on the soundtrack. Little Def Leppard, maybe. See, that's what this video needed -- a Pour Some Sugar on Me intro, followed by Snyder and Patrick Wilson (who plays the Nite Owl) rocking out on set. Hell yeah! Oh well, maybe next time. Watchmen is due out in theaters on March 6, 2009.

For the record, I'm not a huge fan of the recent crop of "horror" films such as House of a Thousand Corpses, Hostel or Captivity. I prefer my horror with more brains and a little less seemingly senseless over-the-top gore. As Alfred Hitchcock once said: "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." I tend to agree with him. After all, he did make a few pretty good films. That said, I did actually like the first Saw film and found it to be the most clever and intelligent of the franchise so far.

Of course, my opinion didn't stop the Saw franchise from becoming hugely successful, and it shouldn't have. Many people obviously love this kind of film and that's great for them to feel that way. To each his (or her) own. Naturally, as the films were so successful, we were treated to a Saw II, III and the soon-to-be-released Saw IV. Which brings us to today and the fact that, via IESB, you are now able to watch the supposed first five minutes of the new Saw IV right now online.

After watching the footage, however, I don't know for sure if it is, in fact, the first five minutes of the film. What I can tell you for sure is that this is the same footage shown during the Comic-Con presentation given by Lionsgate. At the time, it wasn't identified as the first minutes of the film, but it's definitely the same footage. Given the quality of the video, I would bet that it was probably recorded during the Comic-Con panel even though that is a strict no-no and it was repeatedly announced that anyone caught video taping during the panels would be ejected. I guess maybe someone was able to make a recording after all. Then again, judging by the amount of time it's been up on IESB, perhaps it was "leaked" on purpose.

I was able to catch up with Sean Young during the special Blade Runner: The Final Cut DVD event where she says the rumors about her and Harrison Ford not getting along on set are false, talks about some upcoming projects, and wants to get back on the A-list.

She also wants to return to comedies like Ace Ventura, and wouldn't mind meeting guys like Will Ferrell. Will, are you watching? Maybe she needs to star in a Quentin Tarantino comeback vehicle as a leather-clad vixen who offs loud cell-phone talkers or something. I'm just saying.

Anyhow, check out the video above, and let us know what you think would be Sean's best shot at climbing back up the alphabet onto the fabled A-list.

Some raw behind-the-scenes footage of Cloverfield has popped up online, and someone says they snapped a photo of the possible teaser poster. All of this ... and Andy Rooney ... on this edition of Unsolved Cloverfield. Cue theme music, raise lights -- and here we are, back again with more Cloverfield nonsense to keep you busy for all of about five minutes. First up, someone has posted a minute or so of video showing Cloverfield shooting a few "everyone run for their lives" scenes over on YouTube. The clips are cut together pretty well, so either this person is a spy who knows how to edit (which wouldn't surprise me in the least considering this is the footage that was shot in Los Angeles), or this person has something to do with the production. Meaning, all of this was leaked on purpose. I guess we'll know soon enough; Paramount loves to go after these sorts of things. Interestingly enough, I saw no cameras present. And that last shot is positioned so well, it definitely leaves me a bit skeptical. But it's Cloverfield (supposedly), and those people are running for a reason.

Apart from this video, some dude named Tom emailed us a tip regarding a cellphone photo the photographer claims is some sort of teaser poster for Cloverfield. It's important to note that in no way do I think this is legit, but I figured I'd toss it out there for you folks to judge as well. The poster itself features the Statue of Liberty without a head, the New York skyline in the distance, the date 1-18-08 in the bottom right-hand corner and the title -- wait for it -- Monstrous. The photo itself is a blurry mess, and the entire thing wreaks of photoshop. Coupled with the fact that the person who shot the pic claims they saw the poster at some sort of collectibles booth probably means there ain't much truth to this. Then again, you never know. Cloverfield/Slusho/Monstrous is due out in theaters on January 18, 2008.

Long before I was a writer for this fine online publication, I was an avid reader of both Cinematical and TV Squad. One of the things that made me very jealous about TVS (aside from the fact that all their writers are more talented than I am) was that they got to write about two series I'm very passionate about: The phenomenally brilliant Arrested Development and the hilariously geeky Futurama. And now that the latter series is about to make the leap into movie-ville, that means that now *I* get to write about it! As Tobias Funke would say: Huzzah!

Granted, the four Futurama movies are being produced directly for the DVD marketplace, but with Matt Groening and all of his original producers / writers / cast members on hand, I predict that these animated flicks will prove to be a real gold mine for the old-school Planet Express fans. While browsing through my bible I came across some info that might not be brand-new to the die-hard Futurama freaks -- but it was the first I heard about it, so I got all excited and logged in to Cinematical to start sharing the nerdiness.

According to the IMDb, the Futurama movies are called Bender's Big Score!, Bender's Game, Into the Wild Green Yonder and The Beast with a Billion Backs. Aside from those titles, that's about all the info that the IMDb has to impart. But being a longtime and unquestioning supporter of The Hypnotoad, I'm of course very familiar with the excellent fansite called CGEF.com. If you need a website to bookmark and refresh constantly in an effort to learn the latest on these Futurama movies, I highly recommend the CGEF.

Anyway, their news bin informs us of the following: Actress Lauren Tom told IGN that the voice-work on all four movies is done. (Apparently the movies will also break down into 16 episodes for Cartoon Network Comedy Central, which is just fine by me. Just give me the DVD versions!) A little more poking around yields the news that the first flick (Bender's Big Score!) will be in DVD stores before the end of the year with the others to follow in short order throughout 2008. Awesome. (And really, if you've never seen Futurama and you're wondering why I'm this psyched about the new flicks, just do yourself a favor and buy / rent the first two seasons. And then the second two. And then you won't wonder anymore.)

Leave it to the eclectic director Todd Haynes to come up with the wacky idea of getting Cate Blanchett in the role of Bob Dylan -- and if anyone can pull it off it would be Blanchett, who is easily the best actress working today. Ain't it Cool News has a clip from Haynes' Dylan biopic I'm Not There in a scene that shows Dylan (Blanchett) receiving an impromptu pep-talk from the poet Allan Ginsberg, as played by comedian David Cross. Cross is another unlikely casting choice in the movie, but he does bear a passing resemblance to the late great poet. Last month, Erik had news of the first poster for the film, and there had already been a few glimpses of Blanchett decked out as Dylan, but it's something else to see the actress doing a pretty admirable job of channeling the legendary singer.

Haynes is obviously going for poetic spin on the narrative here and the film will feature Dylan's original music, so at least fans aren't going to have to sit through another thinly veiled caricature à la Factory Girl. This is Haynes' second feature film steeped in music history, having also directed Velvet Goldmine, a loose retelling of the relationship between David Bowie and Iggy Pop. Blanchett's role in I'm Not There has garnered the most attention obviously, because of the gender-bending, but the cast also includes well-known names like Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere -- they're all playing Dylan in different stages of his career. So if you like what you see in this clip, then you'll be happy to know that I'm Not There is set for release on September 21st.

The more time they go between Superman flicks, the easier it is for people to forget who Brandon Routh is ... or was. IESB recently stopped Routh for a little video interview, and the dude said he's "itching to get back into the suit." The Superman suit, that is. But here's my question: Why wouldn't he be itching to get back into the suit? I don't see anyone else knocking down his door, and all the guy really has going for him right now is the fact that he's the new Superman. Problem with that is, you need to have a Superman film out or in the pipeline in order to be enjoying some decent work. Look, I'm aware the guy is doing a few little indie films here and there, but, for example, it's nothing like the work Daniel Craig is getting in between Bond pictures. So, is Routh really the right guy to talk to about these things?

Naturally, the Justice League movie also came up, and -- guess what -- Routh said he'd be down for that as well. Really? There's a shocker. Of course, Routh knows nothing about the project except that a script has been turned in and Superman is rumored to be involved in some capacity. If he is needed, though, Routh said he'd love to work alongside Christian Bale's Batman. As far as that Man of Steel (aka Superman Returns 2) project goes, Routh said he's currently scheduled to begin working on it early next year. "The sooner, the better," he noted. Exactly. You have to figure at some point those unemployment checks are going to run out. Last thing we need is to show up to some Hollywood restaurant and realize -- holy crap -- Brandon Routh is our waiter!