Readers of this blog are well aware that Mr. Guillermo Del Toro (aka Mr. Awesome Genre Film) is about to spend the next several years helming a pair of Hobbit movies for producer Peter Jackson ... who is certainly no slouch in the action / horror / fantasy department. And we all know that Del Toro has long yearned to do an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness -- which he probably will be doing at Universal some time in the future.

Ah, but there are two words you'll hear a lot regarding Guillermo Del Toro: "Universal" and "future." More specifically, the filmmaker and the studio look to be teaming up for the next two decades! According to one doozy of a Variety article, Uni and Guille will be teaming up for (get this) new versions of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and Slaughterhouse-Five*, as well as an adaptation of Dan Simmons' upcoming "alternate reality Charles Dickens" novel Drood! Oh, and he'll also be producing Hater with Mark Steven Johnson and Crimson Peak with Matthew Robbins!

This guy's like the Derek Jeter of genre directors! And frankly, it couldn't happen to a cooler moviemaker. I'll include a few choice quotes after the jump, but you should probably just peruse the whole article for yourself. It actually makes you want to look PAST The Hobbit so you can get a peek at (dear lord) Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.

(* Gotta feel bad for Frank Darabont. He really wants to make this movie.)

Flash of Genius is a conventional crowdpleaser but not, I'm pleased to report, a shameless one. Chronicling the true story of a college professor's fight to reclaim his invention – the intermittent windshield wiper – from the car company that stole it, the film does many of the things you'd expect, but it may also surprise you. Don't let its Telluride placement fool you: this is a staunchly mainstream, unchallenging film, the sort of underdog-vs.-corporate-behemoth story you've seen time and again. But it's a decent rendition, hitting the right notes without insulting our intelligence.

Now, the intermittent windshield wiper is not exactly the light bulb. If you're not familiar with the term, the wiper is "intermittent" in the sense that it can pause between wipes – a problem that apparently puzzled engineers at all the major car companies until Kearns cracked it the late 60s. But part of what's nifty about the film is its ability to create suspense and curiosity around something so seemingly mundane. Kearns' first demo of his device to Ford is exciting in a very goofy way, but exciting nonetheless.

Bastards, bastards, bastards! The best part about Quentin Tarantino appropriating the title for his upcoming movie from Enzo Castellari's high-energy original is that I get to satisfy my inner 11-year-old and tell you all about the latest Inglorious Bastards withour fear of recrimination from parental figures. Diane Kruger is the highest-profile new bastard, according to Variety, joined by Christoph Waltz and writer / actor / comedian Paul Rust.

Kruger, the hellenic beauty who first made a splash on these shores opposite Orlando Bloom in Troy -- which also starred soon to be chief bastard Brad Pitt as a bit of a heel -- will play Bridget Von Hammersmark (not "Hammer Snark," smart guy), a German actress. Kruger is fine casting since, of course, she is a German actress, and already has experience playing WWII theatrics with the flick Joyeaux Noël (Merry Christmas), but I'm sorry that Nastassja Kinski will not be playing the role. She's the kind of 40-something actor that could use a juicy role to remind people of who she is.

Waltz is an unknown quantity to US eyes, though he's done plenty of TV work in Germany. He snared the role of Col Hans Landa, the main Nazi antagonist, the part that Leonard DiCaprio was "in talks" to discuss. If nothing else, Waltz shouldn't have a problem with the accent. Paul Rust has written for Adult Swim's Moral Orel and MTV's Human Giant and appeared in Semi-Pro. Let me go out on a limb and guess that he's been cast -- as the comic relief? I'm sure somebody out there in Commenter Land has read the script and can guess for the rest of us.

There is no denying that 'origin tales' are all the rage, and it's not just for superheroes anymore. In an interview with MTV Movie Blog, director Alex Proyas gave a few updates about what he has planned for Dracula Year Zero, and the word of the day is 'realism'. Proyas told MTV, the film will be, "sort of the origin tale that mixes [the historical] Prince Vlad of Transylvania with sort of [fictionalized] Bram Stoker [take]" -- I guess if it helps, just think of it as 'Portrait of a Bloodsucker as a Young Man'

Proyas (like so many before him) is planning to mess with the mythology of the big, bad, Transylvanian. But, don't worry, there are still plenty of fangs to go around, Proyas tells MTV, "Oh, you've got to have teeth, I mean, the teeth are really important. I think Frank Langella in the 'Dracula' movie that was made in the 70s, I think he didn't want to have teeth in the movie. But, no, I like the teeth. I want to see girls with a lot of teeth." -- and maybe most importantly to fans, "...lots and lots of blood!"

Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless were hired to write the script for Universal, who are probably expecting this project to dovetail nicely with their other classic 'monster' flicks (The Wolfman and The Mummy). But is a realistic Dracula really the way to go? If you do a little digging on the life of Vlad the Impaler, it's not exactly the romantic tale that Coppola provided us with back in 1992. So keep your fingers crossed that Sazama and Sharpless have a copy of The Legend of Dracula lying around, and hopefully they have something like this in mind for Year Zero.

Dracula Year Zero is expected to arrive in theaters in 2009.

If ever there was a pairing to hipster fan-boys everywhere; it is Michael Cera and Edgar Wright. Think about it, Cera made a name for himself being the awkward hero, and who can write an unlikely hero better than the man who helped write the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy? In an interview with Wizard Universe, Wright got the chance to update the status of his indie-comic feature, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (if you have also been waiting with bated breath for news on his Ant Man adaptation, there are a few tidbits to be had as well). So if you were worried that Pilgrim would fall by the wayside in the light of some of Wright's other projects, fear not, all is well in Pilgrim-land.

The original series was about a young Canadian and wannabe-rock star who falls for an American girl with the memorable name of Ramona V. Flowers (aka, the perfect girl). But in order to win the lady fair, our slacker must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends in hopes of winning a date with his dream girl. Cera plays Pilgrim, the bassist for the terribly titled band, Sex Bob-Omb, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead will star as Ramona. Wright isn't counting on making any more sequels the film as the comic was originally a 6-part series. Instead, Wright told Wizard that, "The script that we've written essentially covers all six. If it was at the level of Harry Potter we might be able to talk about doing six films but in this case our film is very much an adaptation of the entire six."

I suspect that this trailer for Fast and Furious -- that's The Fast and the Furious, Part IV: Articles Result in Wind Resistance, or 2 Fast 2 Furious x 2 -- just made a wide number of gearheads moist over the triumphant return of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as they drive fast and glare hard in a combined effort to save their careers.

Diesel and Walker find themselves reunited with Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster of the hollow but entertaining original, and the whole photogenic ensemble find themselves directed by Justin Lin, a.k.a. the guy they brought in to direct the hollow but tiresome three-quel that none of these actors were themselves a part of (okay, so Diesel made the briefest cameo, yippee for that). The stunts, though, appear to be more along the practical lines of the first two films, so perhaps a happy medium can be struck between their relative entertainment value and the numbing antics of Tokyo Drift.

Fast and Furious leaves skid marks in theaters next June.

The gang over at Collider got their hands on a new picture from Land of the Lost -- and as I'd like them to keep their scoop (particularly since the trades like ripping them off), you'll have to click on the bug-eyed lizard to see the whole photo. Devin Faraci has confirmed the photo is the real deal, and that it's the first look at Enik. If you adored the show (which I didn't, the Sleestaks scared the crap out of me), you might remember this kind fellow as the guard of a time portal. He's played by John Boylan, who's really quite handsome under that make-up.

Enik represents what the Sleestaks once were -- a proud civilization called the Altrusians, a race that could talk and wear clothes, and who eventually devolved into the mean and naked Sleestaks. (Humanity, take note.) I'm not sure how they managed to make Enik look friendlier and less soul-destroying than the other Sleestaks, but his black eyes don't scare me nearly as much.

Land of the Lost opens July 17th, 2009.

Okay, so the Monsters vs. Aliens and My Life in Ruins trailers may have been leaked and subsequently pulled earlier this week, as was the case with certain awards contender Frost/Nixon, but now we can offer up the trailer straight-up, fully legit, by way of Yahoo! Movies.

The incongruous song selections aside (honestly, though: going from "Baba O'Riley" for the sake of nostalgia to Clint Mansell's wondrous score from The Fountain for the sake of drama in a matter of minutes just distracts me), I have little reason to think that this won't deliver on its considerable stage pedigree.

Frank Langella won a Tony Award for his portrayal of disgraced prez Richard Nixon, and as British talk show host David Frost, Michael Sheen looks to tap into that same sense of dignity under pressure that served him so well as Tony Blair in The Queen. It doesn't hurt that both political dramas share the same writer, and it also doesn't hurt that this looks to be the punchiest thing that Ron Howard has directed in quite some time.

Landing smack-dab in the middle of the Oscar drama blitz, Frost/Nixon should open in select cities on December 5th and will expand through Christmas.

Medical science tells us that there's a portion of the brain called the R-complex that, nestled low and close to the spinal cord, governs simple, automatic brain functions like respiration and reflex and heart rate; other outlying, larger brain structures cover language, culture, memory and art. I mention this because Death Race, writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson's re-visitation of the 1975 trash-classic Death Race 2000, is wholly, entirely and perfectly designed to appeal to the R-complex portion of your brain. Death Race roars, rages and races down the track, all velocity and visceral violence, unencumbered by logic, sense, reason or dignity. My more evolved brain structures kept objecting to Death Race's more ludicrous contortions as it whipped around its curves, but my R-complex didn't want to hear the high-pitched whining voice of logic and reason; it simply grunted, settled into a soft cushion of popcorn topping and said "Shut up, bigger brain; bald man who talk cool killing now."

In what appears to be part of a most thorough campaign to botch Entertainment Weekly's Fall Movie Preview, a recent press release wholly admits that the North American opening of the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, back from November 7th to the 14th marks an effort to capitalize on last week's sudden Harry Potter shift.

Although the removal of the 007th from any coming marketing blitz sure is a shame, it does place this film closer to the release of its predecessor, Casino Royale, which opened on November 17, 2006 to the tune of almost $600 million worldwide. Solace will still premiere in the United Kingdom on October 31.

For those keeping track at home, this now leaves Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and the just now shifted Paul Rudd comedy Role Models on November 7th, and the 14th is now between Bond, Baz Luhrmann's epic drama Australia, and Bernie Mac's final film, Soul Men.

Now, think fast! When does Something of Boris open again?!