Why Watch? What if you found out your father was a superhero? What if he only played one in the movies? This short film has a giant heart beating beneath its emblem-covered chest, and it contains a brilliant use of Kid Logic – that pesky logic that children use which makes absolute sense but is completely untrue. Here, a young boy discovers a picture of his actor father on the cover of a magazine touting the return of a spandex-wearing hero, and he jumps to the most natural conclusion: that his father has super powers. What does it cost? Just 12 minutes of your time. Check out the trailer for The Legacy for yourself:

Director Nicolas Winding Refn is making quite a name for himself in the film lover community by making stylish, testosterone-filled films for guys. He blew everybody away by casting Tom Hardy in a movie about an alpha male criminal named Bronson that was so mannishly awesome my meathead, physical trainer cousin watched it three times a week for a year. And recently he started taking his newest effort Drive around to festivals. It’s about cars, robberies, stunt driving, and violence, and everyone who sees it completely gushes about how much it rules. Refn has done other things too, like Valhalla Rising and the Pusher trilogy, that all explore manly themes of violence and grimacing. He’s a man’s man of a filmmaker. It’s a little strange then, that Refn keeps saying his dream job is to make a movie about the girliest of all superheroes, Wonder Woman. Or maybe not so much, if you really look at it. Wonder Woman is a warrior born, an overpowering presence that inspires everyone around her, and she was raised in a culture of violence. Despite getting her face plastered all over little girl’s underwear for the last fifty years, she’s actually kind of a badass, much in the same vein as Bronson. And whenever Refn randomly brings the movie up, he always manages to throw in the notion that he thinks Drive actress Christina Hendricks would be his dream choice to play the character. What could be more appealing to male sensibilities than putting

We live in a movie-making world where performance doesn’t matter nearly as much as it used to. The audience as judge and jury is an outdated concept, and if you’re movie doesn’t earn its money back, that doesn’t mean the funeral pyre needs to be erected. Green Lantern wasn’t exactly dead as a doornail when it hit the box office – it just didn’t shoot up through the stratosphere the way Warners undoubtedly hoped it would. Now, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the studio wants to move forward with the franchise even while admitting their disappointment.

Due to an inventory error, we’re now overstocked with Green Lantern merchandise and twenty-three thousand wacky, inflatable, arm-flailing, tubemen. But our loss is your gain, because we’re hosting a contest to give away a ridiculous amount of very cool Lantern stuff. This may take a bit more effort than our other contests, but the prize is worth it (especially if you’re a fan or the friend of a fan who wants to make them insanely jealous). So how do you enter? Glad you asked!

Whether you’re trying to avoid the releases this week or augment them with even more movies, Your Alternate Box Office offers some options for movies that would play perfectly alongside of (or instead of) the stuff studios are shoving into the megaplex this weekend. This week features one major release that has blue naked women, a political subplot, and huge action set pieces. Avatar 2? No! It’s X-Men: First Class, and it’s a movie that demands to be double featured.

The news that Natalie Portman might be in the running to play Lois Lane in the new Superman is a glimpse of hope for the franchise in a weary world. Sure, it would be fantastic. Portman can do just about anything and stands out as the rare movie star that can actually perform. The question is whether it’s worth it to get Darren Aronofsky to direct the film in order to make sure Portman takes on the role. Of course it’s not. In analyzing the possible directors, Aronofsky meets the dark criteria. However, he’s a talented but mercurial director who delivers movies that are only considered mainstream when compared to David Lynch, and he’s already proven that he can’t quite get a strong grip on an enormous scope or an enormous budget.

The classic response to the first look of a costume is to mock and deride it, especially because in the comic book world, costumes show up a lot differently on screen than they do in amateur photographs. We caught a glimpse of a costume test for Chris Evans as Captain America back at Comic-Con, but it was ill-fitting (probably because they weren’t making custom fits for each of the possible actors). Here, we finally get to see him in action – riding a motorcycle that I want to buy immediately, hunting down Nazis, and being chased by what appear to be the black-suited versions of what pulled young James Kirk over in Star Trek.

With all that Comic Book Convention 2010 stuff slowly dying out, someone out there in the superhero world had to pipe up and keep the train rolling down the track. After all the Marvel talk, it might as well be a DC property. The rumor of the day is that Jon Hamm – the actor known as Mad Men’s Don Draper and Liz Lemon’s impossible boyfriend – might be up for the role of Clark Kent (a man who, if you look at him without the glasses, resembles Superman an awful lot). This isn’t a done deal, but if it’s headed that way, it’s enough prompting to take a look at the pros and cons of what casting him might mean.

For some reason, they also show Ryan Reynolds with bleached out hair. Because that’s what Superheroes do.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, Brian Gibson and I break down what’s hot and what’s sweaty here at South By Southwest.

He doesn’t brood like Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk. He’s not as charming as Tony Stark in Iron Man. And he isn’t totally lame like Hancock in Hancock.

Are you planning on catching Hancock this week for some 4th of July fun? What better tool to take with you than this drinking game so you can be like the drunken superhero.

Hancock isn’t all chuckles and has a serious darker side to him that Sony has decided not to market as aggressively, or at all.

Tony Stark ain’t like other superheroes. He’s a drunk, and that’s what makes him so fun. So if Tony Stark can fly around in a metal suit to fight crime while he’s drunk, why can’t you sit in a theater and watch Tony Stark fly around in a metal suit to fight crime while you’re drunk. Here are some pointers.

Films like this week’s Iron Man give me hope that not just the huge, iconic characters like Superman and Batman are going to get their own film. Knowing that the comic book market is fresh for the picking, here’s ten superheroes who deserve their own movie… and some might actually get it.

Eleven great new photos from the upcoming Will Smith superhero comedy Hancock have hit the web, and we will probably be promptly removed once Sony finds out that they have been leaked.

First we put it up, then we took it down. Then we put it back up and they made us take it down. Now it’s back — officially.

A brand new International trailer has risen this morning for Jon Favreau’s highly anticipated Iron Man flick.