Imagine an art show that focuses on “prominent characters of fiction and their often creative ways of getting around.”  If that sounds cool, then I recommend checking out the new Hero Complex Gallery show called “Righteous Rides…And the Dudes Who Drive Them” that opened in Los Angeles tonight.  The show is located at 2020 South Robertson Blvd., Studio D (90034) and it’s filled with artwork based on the rides from Blade Runner, Akira, Bullitt, Back to the Future, Star Wars, James Bond, Ferris Bueller, Prometheus, Transformers, Up, Star Trek, and so many others it’s too many to list here.  The most important thing to know is that the artwork is really well done and it’s definitely worth the drive.

However, since most of you live outside of Los Angeles, I took pictures of everything on display and after the jump you can check out about 70 images from the show.

For one night only, Target is sponsoring AFI’s Night at the Movies, a screening of 13 classic films hosted by the stars that helped make them famous.  2012 AFI Life Achievement Award recipient and Oscar^®-winning actress Shirley MacLaine and Oscar^®-winning actress Sally Field will reunite to co-present Steel Magnolias, Harrison Ford will present Blade Runner: The Final Cut and Kevin Spacey will present The Usual Suspects, just to name a few.

Tickets for the Wednesday, April 24th event are available now at the Arclight Hollywood website or box office.  You can head to AFI’s website for more information or hit the jump to read the press release for the event.

Opening this weekend is director Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects.  Written by Scott Z. Burns (Contagion, The Informant!), the film is about “a successful New York couple (Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum) whose world unravels when a new drug prescribed by Emily’s psychiatrist (Jude Law)—intended to treat anxiety—has unexpected side effects.”  The film also stars Catherine Zeta-Jones.

At the recent Los Angeles press junket, I landed an exclusive interview with Burns.  We talked about his feelings regarding Soderbergh’s retirement, how he originally wanted to direct Side Effects himself, changes to the script during development, his writing process, and much more.  In addition, I got updates on rumors he might be writing the new Blade Runner, what happened to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and what it was about, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, David Fincher’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and more.  Hit the jump to either read or watch the interview.

When it was first announced that Ridley Scott was heading back into the world of sci-fi with the pseudo-Alien prequel Prometheus, fans were doubly excited about the prospect of Scott dabbling in sci-fi again and the fact that he was returning to one of this classics.  The finished film was a bit of a mixed bag, but Scott didn’t seem to mind all that much and is eager to get moving on a sequel.  Alien isn’t the only past film that the legendary director is revisiting, though, as he’s also been working on a new Blade Runner movie for the past couple of years.

At one point, it was reported that screenwriter Scott Z. Burns was being eyed to pen Scott’s new Blade Runner film.  This news was quickly debunked, but Steve recently sat down with Burns to discuss his upcoming film Side Effects directed by Steven Soderbergh, and the scribe clarified his relationship with Blade Runner, saying that he and Scott did indeed have discussions about it.  Hit the jump for more.

The Mondo Gallery’s Brandenburg and Drake showcase will almost certainly be remembered as 2012’s biggest pleasant surprise:  it totally snuck up on us, delivering an uppercut of awesome that no one saw coming.  Two months later, at the most recent Mondo Gallery opening, people were still talking about how thoroughly they’d been caught off-guard by that show.   Since then, Craig Drake has gone from being one of the more obscure contributors on the Mondo payroll to one of its most respected.  Even fans that aren’t hip to Drake’s style (basically: “Pat Nagle by way of a Harry Knowles fever-dream”) seem to respect the fact that his work is unlike anything else currently being produced in Poster World.

And tomorrow, Drake is scheduled to drop a huge batch of APs via his online store, giving the newly-converted (and everyone who missed out the first time around) one last chance to snatch up some of the guy’s best work.  Wanna know what’s dropping and what it’s gonna cost ya?  Meet me after the jump, folks.

Seventy years separate the timelines of Ridley Scott’s directorial efforts Blade Runner and Prometheus, but a new Easter Egg suggests the plots take place in the same world. Available on DVD/Blu-ray in just a couple of days,  Prometheus will have a special feature that reveals a few lines of text supposedly written by Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce).  The text, which you can read after the jump, talks about Weyland’s mentor, a creator of synthetic lifeforms who will be instantly familiar to fans of Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic, Blade Runner.  This may be a simple nod to the fans that connects Scott’s works or perhaps it hints at a potential crossover in the planned sequel to Blade Runner.  Hit the jump to check out the Easter Egg.

Back in March– when Mondo opened their first-ever Gallery space in Austin, Texas—they made it clear that they wouldn’t be using their new digs to showcase anything typical.  In fact, it was made clear to everyone that Mondo intended to use the site to celebrate some of their lesser-known artists, to showcase artwork based on some of the more obscure licenses in their catalogue, to provide something a little weirder and more personal than the work they produce in conjunction with Hollywood’s studios.

Since that first Gallery show in March, Mondo’s definitely made good on that promise.  And tomorrow, they’re giving us our latest dose of atypical, obscure, lesser-known, and weird.  Tomorrow, Mondo will unveil the Brandenburg and Drake show…and from what we’ve seen thus far, it’s gonna be something special.  Wanna know (and see) more?  Meet me after the jump, folks.

Earlier this month, Sight & Sound released its list of the Top 50 Films of All-Time as decided by critics along with Top 10 lists from various big-name directors.  The major “news” was that on the critics’ list, Vertigo overtook Citizen Kane as “The Greatest Movie of All Time™”.  Sight & Sound is worth talking about because they only make it once a decade.  However, the list should really only be used as a guide for what every cinephile should see in their lifetime.  The fact that Vertigo has a number “1″ in front of it doesn’t really mean much since you could watch Vertigo and Citizen Kane together in an afternoon.  Today, Sight & Sound has released its full Top 250 list and that’s where you’ll find other classics like Blade Runner, North by Northwest, Modern Times, and more.  Sight & Sound has also released the critics’ individual Top 10 lists, and that’s worth exploring into if you have the time.

Blade Runner celebrated it’s 30th anniversary at Comic-Con this year, and I was on hand during the celebratory panel to take notes of all that occurred.  Art director David Snyder, journalist Paul M. Sammon (Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner), and DVD/Blu-ray producer Charles Lauzirika made up the very informal panel that basically consisted of them moderating themselves and fielding a slew of questions.  The reason, according to Sammon, was because at the last panel the year before they simply had too many people on the panel and it was a slog to get the banter and information beyond the simple answers.

During the panel they talked about filming at the Bradbury Building, the replicant issue, their preferred version of the film, how they shot at night because the set wasn’t complete, where the props went, and how much deleted footage was kept off of the special features.  So hit the jump for all of that and more.

As Jeremy Smith wrote on AICN:

On December 20, 2009, Paul Prischman lost his valiant two-year battle against brain cancer. He was a dedicated husband to his wife Cristin, a proud father of two wonderful daughters, and as loyal a friend as I’ll ever have. When Steve Weintraub and I launched Collider in the summer of 2005, Paul was constantly brainstorming ways he could help the site. In early 2006, he came through in a ridiculously big way with a special screening of the Director’s Cut of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (the DVD for which he’d worked on as an associate producer). Collider was barely a blip on the movie website radar at the time (high school kids with LiveJournals were kicking our ass in traffic), but there we were hosting an event at the Hollywood Arclight with Scott and screenwriter William Monahan in attendance. It was an early, critical boost for the site. It made us feel like we belonged. And it would’ve never happened were it not for Paul’s efforts.

After Paul became ill, a number of his friends formed Paul’s Brain Trust and it’s dedicated to helping out his wife and daughters.  Since many of his friends work in Hollywood, they’ve donated some awesome props, original production artwork, signed DVD’s, books, posters, and they’ve even got screenwriter Hampton Fancher‘s original first draft of Blade Runner.   They’re some incredible stuff and all the proceeds are going to a worthwhile cause.  Hit the jump for more or click here to start bidding.

Fans have been waiting patiently for a mere 30 years now for director Ridley Scott to return to the sci-fi genre, and the wait will finally be over with the release of Prometheus this week.  As if one Alien-connected return to the genre wasn’t enough, Scott is also developing a sequel to his 1982 classic Blade Runner.  We know that the follow-up takes place “some years after the first film” and it was recently announced that the original pic’s writer, Hampton Fancher, has been brought on develop and write the sequel for Scott to direct.

Steve recently sat down with Scott to talk about Prometheus, but the director also shared a ridiculously exciting gift regarding the Blade Runner sequel: he described a full scene.  In order to give us an idea of the visual style he’s planning for the follow-up, Scott took the opportunity to map out a scene from the project that could easily serve as the opening to the film.  Hit the jump for more.

No matter how much time you get with director Ridley Scott, it’s never enough.  After all, you could spend an entire interview discussing the original Alien, Blade Runner, or his under-appreciated gem, Kingdom of Heaven (specifically the director’s cut with forty additional minutes that completely changes the film).  So when I got to participate in a roundtable interview with Scott yesterday in London for Prometheus, his first sci-fi movie in thirty years, you could say I was a bit excited.

During the twenty minute interview, Scott talked about how Prometheus came about, it’s relation to the original Alien, the viral marketing, technology, his fascination with robots and artificial intelligence, and so much more.  In addition, Scott talked about other projects like Monopoly, the Blade Runner Sequel, what ever happened to Tripoli and what it was about, and reveals that he already has ideas for the Prometheus sequel, assuming he gets to make one.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to the interview.

In today’s opening paragraph I feel compelled to share this bit of wisdom with all of our readers: don’t ever attempt to renovate a house without ample professional help. Never. Just don’t do it. For the past three weeks I, the least handy person you may never meet, have been tasked with doing things that only Bob Vila and a few select others could be reasonably prepared for. It’s an all-consuming, seemingly neverending process that leaves you as the only movie blogger in the history of the civilized world who hasn’t yet seen The Avengers. Trust me, it’s a lonely place…

All warnings aside, in store for you in this week’s Top 5 is the first poster for the Anchorman sequel, Anchorman: The Legend Continues, pleasant news regarding the Blade Runner sequel, interviews with Cameron Diaz, Anna Kendrick and more for the rom-com What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the first trailer for producer Sam Raimi‘s The Possession, and a 4-minute “super preview” of The Amazing Spider-Man. Per usual, a brief recap and link to each falls after the jump.

All eyes are on Ridley Scott’s pseudo Alien follow-up Prometheus this summer, but the director is also working on revisiting another one of his sci-fi classics.  Last August it was announced that Scott would be directing a new Blade Runner movie.  He’s been developing the film—now confirmed to be a sequel—while putting the finishing touches on Prometheus, and now it’s been announced that Scott is bringing an old friend into the fray.  Hampton Fancher, who wrote the original Blade Runner, is in talks to develop and write a sequel to their groundbreaking 1982 film.  Hit the jump for more.

The summer movie season keeps getting bigger but rarely does it get better.  There are always some standouts, but in 30 years time, will we have nine movies that will all be remembered as classics?  I’m not sure, but it’s only been done once before in the last 30 years, and that was in the summer of 1982.  From May through July, the world received (in chronological order) Conan the Barbarian, The Road Warrior, Rocky III, Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Thing, Blade Runner, and TRON.  Let that sink in for a moment.

The Alamo Drafthouse is paying tribute to the summer of 1982 by letting audiences relive it in the summer of 2012.  The Alamo will re-release the film on the same day that it was released in 1982, and a geek site will co-host a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz in Austin.  So for example, we’re co-hosting the screening of Rocky III on May 25th.  Select films will have big events with special guests and new Mondo posters.  Hit the jump for all of the release dates along with Alamo’s trailer for the summer of 1982.