It's football season, which means it's also the season for at least one heartwarming and inspiring movie about the sport. This year the film comes from Universal -- The Express, a biopic of Ernie "The Elmira Express" Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, back in 1963. However, the movie divides its time between Davis and his coach at Syracuse University, Ben Schwartzwalder, and shows the ways in which the two characters changed one another (for the better, natch).

The movie opens during the notorious Cotton Bowl game of 1960, when Davis (Rob Brown) was a running back on the Syracuse University team that played The University of Texas, which had not yet allowed black varsity team members. It's a rough game, but Davis is handling himself until all hell breaks loose ... and then we flash back to Davis's childhood in the 1940s and see how he learned to handle nasty racist situations even at an early age. He's stubborn and he's speedy, and eventually decides to use those assets to strive for his goal of playing professional football. His idol, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, advises Davis to play for his alma mater Syracuse because Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) is such an excellent head coach. But Davis encounters difficulties in the ways Schwartzwalder handles the black team members. The coach's primary goal is to avoid "trouble," so they're warned away from the white female students, and worse yet, at certain Southern games they're not allowed to score touchdowns. The real action culminates when the film returns to the Cotton Bowl game in Dallas.

A few weeks back I received an early copy of the Iron Man SE DVD, and although we all griped a little bit about the lack of an audio commentary -- I'm pretty sure the fans are still happy with that purchase. So now let's try it again, only instead of Iron Man, we'll be picking through the 3-disc Special Edition of Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk. And while it's definitely a good package (provided you dig the film), here's one simple warning right out of the gate: The third disc is nothing more than a "digital copy" platter. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see the big appeal of "digital copies." Why the hell would I want to overstuff my hard drive -- when I have the DVD sitting right here??

Anyway, the Special Edition has lots to recommend it, and the main feature is certainly something to see -- doubly so if you happen to have Blu-Ray. (I do not.) Even better the second time around, The Incredible Hulk is a simple yet very well-made action adventure flick in which a fugitive scientist must avoid the military while trying to get a powerfully monstrous alter-ego out of his system. Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, William Hurt, and Tim Roth bring an excellent air of professionalism to "yet another" superhero movie, and while it might not have been the Action Event that Iron Man was, I think it's safe to assume that Marvel and the fans were pleased with the big green semi-sequel as well.

So on disc one we get an audio commentary with Leterrier and actor Tim Roth, as well as six deleted scenes that run about 14 minutes total. The deleted footage is mostly early (Brazil) stuff and a few villainous rants between Hurt and Roth. (All good cuts if you ask me.) As far as the commentary goes, it sounds a lot like a cool Brit and an enthusiastic Frenchman talking about their action movie. I'm only about fifteen minutes into the chat-track, but it's pretty amusing stuff...

Read on for the Disc Two delights.

Remember Broken Lizard's Beerfest? Whatever you thought of that 2006 comedy, it's difficult to dispute how incredibly astute the filmmakers were with rattling genre expectations in just a single scene. See, the American team's greatest beer guzzler, "Landfill", has passed away under shady circumstances, and right when everyone's ready to throw in the towel, in walks Landfill's identical twin brother, who they knew nothing about but who happens to have been told everything about each of them. Better yet, he's more than willing to even adopt Landfill's name, in an effort to bypass that whole awkward 'getting-to-know-you' stage.

It's every end-of-second-act "what do we do now, coach?" dilemma from an inspirational sports movie mercifully condensed to a couple of rapid-fire beats, and even if the rest of the film otherwise adheres to said sports movie formula, it's nice knowing that audience and actors alike were not going through the paces entirely unaware of how clichéd the entire narrative was.

In this weekend's well-meaning docudrama, Flash of Genius, Greg Kinnear portrays an inventor who struggled for years to sue car manufacturing behemoth Ford and get them to admit that they helped themselves to his patent on the intermittent windshield wiper. (Eugene reviewed it back at Telluride, and I basically agree with his assessment.)

Despite the real-life case being settled a couple of decades ago, Ford has taken this current opportunity to point out the factual inaccuracies in the movie that they've taken issue with, doing so in the form of this handy timeline, without causing any sort of formal stir, as covered in this accompanying text. Especially considering that the film's subject, Robert Kearns, passed away over three years ago, I doubt it would (and hope it won't) come to any sort of renewed head.

Maybe in thirty years or so, we'll get a movie about a blogger battling impossible odds to get all the facts straight on either side of a movie in which an inventor battled impossible odds to get just some facts straight. Now, to just work the word 'Genius' back into the title...

I'm finally writing a post here that my sister will read. You see, she adores Russell Brand almost as much as Brand adores Cinematical and Scott Weinberg (see image above as proof of this fact). Maybe even more, because unlike most Americans, she was avidly following his British career via his podcast and BBC America. There have been many humbling moments in my Cinematical salad days, but none quite so humiliating as when I told her Brand was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. "I know. I followed the filming on his podcast." At least Weinberg promptly humiliated her by getting all cozy with her favorite Englishman.

As my sister wasn't one of the casting directors for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Brand had to make an audition tape to convince them of his weirdly-coiffed worthiness. In honor of its DVD release, MTV has the exclusive, and I've embedded it below for your viewing pleasure. And if you're like my sibling and can't get enough, I've also included the karaoke version of his in-film music video, Infant Sorrow.

5-1 my sister writes "I've already seen both of those videos" in the comments. Hopefully, you'll be more appreciative.

The wires (yes, I still think of them like that) were buzzing all weekend with MTV's big scoop -- that while Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott were out promoting Body of Lies, the network cornered them about the long-delayed Nottingham, Scott's revisionist Robin Hood story. There have been a lot of names attached to the role of Robin Hood, ranging from Christian Bale to newcomer Sam Riley.

Forget all of that because now, from Scott himself, comes the announcement that Crowe will be playing both roles. Mum on the details, the director would only say it was "a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes." I would take that to mean that the Sheriff of Nottingham becomes Robin Hood after having to steal from the poor one too many times ... or they're twins, which would be pretty lame, especially for Scott and Crowe.

But wait -- there's more! CHUD points out that in reading the original screenplay, they noticed the Sheriff was caught between a tyrant king and a less-than-heroic Robin Hood. Nothing in this script indicated the Sheriff and Robin Hood could be played by the same actor. Now, Brian Helgeland came in and did a rewrite, and much depends on that.

The medievalist in me suspects this is less shockingly revisionist than a return to the old medieval legends, where Robin Hood was merely an outlaw who beheaded people from time to time, not the Robin of Locksley we all know and love. It's a pretty flexible legend, and I'm very anxious to see what Scott does with it ... when it finally heads into production, that is.

Click poster to enlarge

The last time Angelina Jolie received an Oscar nod was for playing a mental patient in 1999's Girl, Interrupted, for which she took home the statue for Best Supporting Actress. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, consider this: Winona Ryder -- and not Jolie -- was a box-office draw back then.

Now, after years of strong and sometimes overlooked performances (ahem, A Mighty Heart), Jolie is once again receiving battalions of Oscar buzz, this time for her role in Clint Eastwood's Changeling (get your exclusive first look at the poster above).

Based on real events that transpired in 1920s Los Angeles, Changeling is the tale of a mother (Jolie) whose abducted son is seemingly returned to her by the LAPD. Turns out the boy is not her flesh and blood, however -- or so she adamantly claims -- and thus Mama Jolie sets out to wring the truth from a corrupt police department unwilling to listen to her.

Changeling opens in limited release Oct. 24 and expands wide on Oct. 31.

I would be a huge dork if I began this post with the sentence, "This is the best news ever," but it kind of is. One of my favorite (and yours too) scriptwriters is making a return to the big screen -- and may it be a triumphant one. According to Variety, Shane Black is directing Cold Warrior for Universal Pictures from a script penned by Chuck Mondry. This will be his second outing as a director -- his first was, of course, the fantastic Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

And frankly, Warrior sounds like a film from the heyday of 80's action. It centers on a spy from the Cold War era who comes out of retirement and teams up with a younger agent to thwart a Russian domestic terrorism plot. It couldn't be more timely given how icy relations are with our Eastern neighbors. (The Russians didn't get to take much of a break from big-screen villainy, did they? I thought their comeback would just arrive via the Russian Mafia, not as terrorists again.)

This is going to be a blast to watch -- from the description, I want to believe it's old-school Black, but it could just as easily go into dark and serious Breach territory. Obviously, my fondness for macho men, snappy one-liners, and heavy gunfire hope it's the former. That's the kind of movie that can cure all ills and make you forget your economic woes, isn't it?

This may be the oddest mix of director and material that you might read all year. According to Variety, Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) will be directing an adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick for Universal, who made a big pre-emptive buy of this revisionist take. Not surprisingly, it won't be the "Call me Ishmael" version that you remember from school. In fact, Ishmael probably won't even be in it.

Adam Cooper and Ben Collage are penning the screenplay, and taking what they call "a graphic novel approach" to a book considered to be one of the best in the English language. (In Hollywood talk nowadays, this means "It will look like 300.") Moby Dick becomes a kind of Jaws in this version, where we will see him wreaking havoc on the seas long before he encounters Captain Ahab and the Pequod. Ahab won't become the obsessive and destructive captain, but a brave and charismatic leader. (Yeah, there was a moral there, but who needs that nowadays?) Bekmambetov is looking to apply his frenetic visual flair to the story of the great white whale. I think we all know what the style is, and what this will look like. Moby's white body will look terrific splattered with blood as he drags ships down to the depths at high speed.

Honestly, Moby Dick is not one of my favorite books, and it's only an academic snarkiness that balks at a Bekmambetov version. Besides, it's going to be pretty funny when audience members rush to Borders to buy a copy of the book, imagining it to be packed with gore and brawny heroes, not "to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!"

It looks like another quiet week in the land of the geek -- particularly since all my friends are off at Fantastic Fest. If you're one of the lucky people attending, eat a Wild at Artichoke Hearts pizza for me at the Alamo Drafthouse. I lie awake at night thinking about it, and wishing for the skill to replicate it.

• The biggest news of the weekend was a story that hit Variety late Friday night: Stephen Chow has landed the role of Kato in The Green Hornet and the director's chair. Rumors and Seth Rogen's wishes have attached him for some time, but now it's official, and definitely shows that the project is going to be heavy on the comedy. (Incidentally, I never realized before now what huge Green Hornet fans my geek parents were -- let's just say Rogen's ears must be burning.) The movie is scheduled to be released June 25th, 2010.
  

• Tintin has run into some major financial problems. According to the LA Times, Universal has passed on the film, leaving Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson to scramble for a new studio to financially back them. It's as embarrassing as you can imagine -- not only because its two of the biggest names in the business, but because Spielberg may have to make nice with Paramount (who's financing half the film) just as he and David Geffen are trying to extricate themselves from it. It also leaves Spielberg without a project to direct, as Tintin was supposed to be next in line, and it delays the whole thing even longer. But hey, at least struggling directors the world over can now do something they never thought possible -- feel just like Spielberg!