UPDATE 7/21: USA Today bring’s us the latest one — Thor in more earthly surroundings. Chris Hemsworth is stacked!

Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment present the epic adventure, “Thor,” which spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is the mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and is forced to live among humans. A beautiful, young scientist, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), has a profound effect on Thor, as she ultimately becomes his first love. It’s while here on Earth that Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

By the way, a note to the Ryans, I wasn’t complaining. Honest. Keep it up, please!

Jake was still a pup for Donnie Darko – it was released when he was 21 – and while he doesn’t actually take his shirt off, there’s a great scene where he starts to undo his pants while under hypnosis. We thought it was worth stretching the rules a little bit to include it. Donnie Darko is also a fantastic film about a trouble boy who has visions of a demonic rabbit. It’s a sci-fi thriller that gives audiences plenty to chew on. The film is also rife with fantastic one-liners, many of them delivered by the phenomenal Beth Grant. Here’s hoping that director Richard Kelly’s next film is more like Donnie Darko and less like The Box (read Tim’s review of The Box here).

Mental instability aside, who wasn’t won over by Jake’s big eyes and floppy hair in The Good Girl? Directed by Miguel Arteta, who also helmed Youth in Revolt starring Michael Cera, created a mesmerizing relationship between Jake and Jennifer Aniston complete with shirtless sex scenes (for him, not her). And Jake looks much better without a shirt on than Cera does.

It’s still outrageous that Crash beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture in 2006, and only slightly less ridiculous that George Clooney beat Jake for Best Supporting Actor. In this “gay for pay” role, Jake is absolutely wonderful as Jack Twist, a man who falls in love with his friend, played so well by Heath Ledger. As the two find their passion for each other in the great outdoors, they also manage to find a little time together in the sack. More than just some eye candy, the whole film is stunning.

The toughest movies to watch tend to have the most scenes in them, and that certainly holds true for Jarhead. Based on the autobiography of Anthony Swofford, director Sam Mendes recreates the often-horrific experiences of jarheads (Marines) in Desert Storm. Strong (and sweaty) performances by Jake, Jamie Foxx, and Peter Sarsgaard make this war movie compelling, and it’s always interesting to see what sort of trouble bored men in the desert with get into.

It’s co-star Tobey Maguire’s turn to play the soldier in Brothers. When Captain Cahill (Maguire) is presumed dead, his widow (Natalie Portman) finds unlikely comfort in her felonious brother-in-law’s arms (Jake). Can you blame her? When the captain makes a miraculous reappearance, the two brothers go at it. Though Maguire bares much more than Jake, there is one scene of Jake so brief that you could easily miss it. However, a shot of hunky, furry, tattooed Jake in only a towel is not to be missed.

We’ll update this post with further details on the film, but I’m sure we’ve all seen what Prince of Persia has in store.

/Film points us to an inventory of photos and videos that have been released surrounding the 2011-slated film’s production. A man-anorexic Henry Cavill (“Tudors”) headlines the Greek mythology actioner as Theseus, while Mickey Rourke plays King Hyperion. Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) plays the female lead, Phaedra.

The early synopsis goes like this:

A purported bastard who retains an allegiance to his mother despite the fact that he longs to join the quest of a king who is battling demons in ancient Greece later embarks on a grail of discovery that has him finding he is the king’s son and also fated to become his country’s greatest hero as he leads the successful war against long-imprisoned Titans who are hoping to use the demons to restore their power.

Rogue has put out six on-set videos from the set so far, chronicling the film’s production.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Video 5

Video 6

What this photo appears to confirm is that Reynolds suit is most likely going to be entirely CGI, as previously speculated, given the motion capture get-up he’s wearing. Obviously, it’s too early to tell if that’s a good or bad thing.

I guess I can no longer call myself a die-hard Alien fan, since when news broke that Ridley Scott would helm a prequel to the series surrounding the “Space Jockey,” I drew a total blank. Perhaps I saw the first film just too long ago, or simply forgot about the early events of the film. After all, everything that follows the first 15 minutes is the real interesting part.

To sate my curiosity, I turned to Netflix and Wikipedia and am now fully up to speed. For those that might be equally in the dark, this post is for you.

On the prequel (which apparently is a two-part prequel now), Scott has said:

It’s set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver's character Ellen Ripley]. It’s fundamentally about going out to find out ‘Who the hell was that Space Jockey?’ The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer’s chair. … [The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life.

And Wikipedia describes the Space Jockey as:

The Space Jockey is discovered in Alien when the commercial starship Nostromo sets down on the un-surveyed planetoid LV-426 to investigate an unknown signal. The crew finds a crashed derelict spacecraft with its fossilized pilot—the Space Jockey—inside, with its ribs bent outwards from the inside. Strangely there is no trace of the Alien which was born from the Space Jockey.

The derelict ship contains several thousand alien eggs. Scott suggests in his Alien DVD commentary that the Jockey’s ship was a “bomber”: alien eggs could be dropped on an enemy planet, and the aliens would proceed to kill the population as they spawned. According to Cameron, the Space Jockey’s craft picked up alien eggs and the pilot became infected by the dangerous cargo; the ship landed on LV-426 and the Space Jockey transmitted the signal as a warning.[1] John Mollo and Ron Cobb’s “The Alien Portfolio” and Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Alien state the Space Jockey encountered the aliens on LV-426.

In Foster’s Alien novelization, Ash describes the Space Jockey’s race as a noble people and hopes that mankind will encounter them under more pleasant circumstances. It also states that they were larger, stronger and possibly more intelligent than humans. Foster’s novelization states that the Jockey was trying to warn humans away from the aliens.

Reynolds plays an American contractor in Iraq, who wakes up buried alive. Hopefully the Middle Eastern context is played down, as that influence could quickly sour the film. From what we’ve heard, however, much of the film takes place simply within the confines of the coffin. What fun.