Nazis by numbers: Your guide to the greatest cast ever?

In the current race to produce World War II flicks, I'd have to puy my money behind Spike Lee's being the best, if he ever gets around to making it, but it certainly seems Bryan Singer will at least be first with "Valkyrie." And his flick should be pretty darn good too, especially with the cast assembled above.

That photo, swiped directly from London's Daily Mail, has those big red numbers on it for a reason (you may have to click on the photo to make them out.) The Mail was kind enough to provide a breakdown of exactly who's who, in case you couldn't make them out. Here goes:

1. Carl Goerdeler
Kevin McNally plays Carl Goerdeler, the former mayor of Leipzig.

2. Albrecht Riter Merz von Quirnheim
Christian Berkel plays von Quirnheim, once a committed Nazi officer who became disillusioned with Hitler's conduct of the war in 1943.

3. General Friedrich Olbricht
Bill Nighy (huge huzzah!) plays the general who was one of the main architects of the Valkyrie operation.

4. Count Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Tom Cruise (yes, he's in this too) plays the leading role of the nobleman who planted a briefcase containing two pounds of explosives in Hitler's conference room at his headquarters.

5. General Ludwig Beck
Terence Stamp plays one of the only officers to stand up to Hitler in the early days of his regime.

6. Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben
David Schofield plays one of the conquerors of France in the Blitzkrieg of 1940.

7. Henning von Tresckow
Kenneth Branagh plays Stauffenberg's closest accomplice in the Valkyrie plot.

It feels more than a little weird getting geeked up about Nazis, but I just can't help it. To read more about the historical figures these actors will be portraying, you can read the entire Daily Mail article here.

Faith hits comic book shelves!

And that's something that, despite my advancing age, I can get fully geeky about with no apologies. With Vol. 6 of Season 8 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" hitting comic book stores today, the attention does indeed turn to Cleveland's baddest broad, and thankfully she still looks a lot like Eliza Dushku (at least on the cover.)

As the second arc of the first season begins, Joss Whedon hands over the writing duties to Brian E. Vaughn (Y: The Last Man, Pride of Baghdad.) Dark Horse's marketing folks offer this simple but effective teaser: " The fugitive slayer is given the assignment that could change her life ... if Giles's specialized training doesn't make her want to end it first."

I'm definitely in for that. Artist Georges Jeanty continues his great work with the series, and Whedon will remain as executive producer. These have been selling out on the first day they hit shelves, so I'd recommend you act fast or maybe order a copy at TFAW.com (though you'll pay for delivery, of course.)

To see four or five pages beyond the cover, you can catch Dark Horse's preview here.

Could it possibly have been a mob hit?

Well, it doesn't seem so, but when you're talking about something like this it's only seems responsible to be as sensational as possible.

It seems that an explosive device, originally thought to be a pipe bomb, detonated outside the studio Dante, owned by "Sopranos" star Michael Imperioli. It's located two blocks south of Madison Square Garden. Given the times we live in, I guess it's not surprising that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was called in to diffuse the situation.

"There was an explosion in the street, it blew out windows of a van parked in front of the building, and thankfully no one was injured. While there certainly is no evidence that this was terrorism, we are taking this and every act of violence extremely seriously."

Well, for the good people of New York City, I'm glad someone is, and that it doesn't have to be me. That leaves me free to fantasize that, even though Christoper Moltasanti is dead, some of the gangsters he maligned in "Cleaver" are still out for revenge. That's so much more fun than the reality of bombs in NYC, isn't it?

"The Wachowski Brothers are no more"

Though folks like me might hope that means they're gonna stop making movies, it's a whole lot weirder than that.

It seems that, and if you haven't heard this already be assured that I'm not making it up, Larry Wachowski is well on is way to becoming (or indeed may already be) Lana. Apparently, and I'm not going to hazard any psychosexual guess as to why, he had a sex change operation about a year ago.

I wanted to post a photo of his rather oddly evolving appearance, but I can't get it to work, so instead you can go and read all about it at the source, Rated-M.com.

Into the "Golden Age" with Elizabeth

OK, it's been awfully goofy here today, so I'll try and class things up just a bit with this new trailer for the upcoming Oscar-magnet "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." Starring Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush and, though you only get glimpses of her in the trailer, la bella Samantha Morton, this one promises to be both a sumptuous period piece and pretty darn good action flick to boot. Enjoy, and have an entirely suckfree Wednesday.

The first video game movie I'll pay to see?

Well, that's not quite right, since I certainly loved "Tron," if that counts. Of the recent stream of movies based on video games, however, I can't think of a single one I've bother to see, at least until now.

It seems that producer Samuel Hadida has purchased the rights to "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" and handed the reins to ... Roger Avary? Yes, that Roger Avary. Adding the writer of "Pulp Fiction" as director might be enough to hook me, but on top of all that "Wolfenstein" is simply an insanely entertaining game.

To sum it up briefly, you play Army Ranger B.J. Blazkowicz (if there's a better name for a character in a first-person shooter game, I haven't found it), who, in the course of investigating Himmler's SS Paranormal Division, gets trapped in Castle Wolfenstein. Your mission? To blast your way out and, of course, stop Himmler from developing a massive army of Nazi undead and other creepy creatures.

It's even more fun than I make it sound here, and Avary, who also penned the script for the upcoming "Beowulf," clearly has the right spirit to take all this on.

“I’ve been playing the character of B.J. Blazkowicz since the epic ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ first bruised my brain and have ever since wanted to bring his adventures to life on the bigscreen,” Avary said. “It’s time to bust some dams, storm some bunkers and blow up some bridges.”

Amen, brother. And in the course of all that, you might just finally create a video-game movie I can fully endorse.

Jack Black, archeologist?

Though I'm aware Jack Black has a growing number of haters for his Nickelodeon attention-craving antics, I still stand behind the man for one reason: He's extremely funny. I'll take "School of Rock" and, yes, "Nacho Libre" as timekillers on any rainy Sunday afternoon.

And while I'm as excited as anyone for Indy 4, the rogue archaelogist concept is certainly ripe for spoofing, and now Mr. Black is taking it on.

According to Variety (and perhaps old news by now, but I did take yesterday off), Mr. Black will star in and produce "The Lost Adventures of Stone Perlmutter Jr.," which is described as "a faux documentary made from recently "discovered" footage from 1979 chronicling the disastrous journey of a self-styled Indiana Jones-type adventurer who traveled the world trying to find the Yeti, El Dorado, the lost tomb of Jesus and other great mysteries."

I was laughing already from reading that, and the script for this is definitely in good hands, with writers Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory having contributions to "The Larry Sanders Show" and "King of the Hill," among others, in their body of work.

Besides, who wouldn't want to be chasing the yeti instead of, say, going to whatever actual job you have to do today?

Michael Imperioli grabs star-making role

It seems odd to even write that, since he recently nabbed his fifth Emmy nomination, but I'd have to imagine Mr. Imperioli isn't exactly a household name yet, though he certainly should be.

Now, however, having finished his Mob days as Christopher Moltisanti (sp?) on "The Sopranos," he's crossed over to the side of law & order to take on the role of detective Len Fenerman in "The Lovely Bones," being directed by someone you just may have heard of, Peter Jackson.

And being Peter Jackson apparently gives you the power to hire just about whoever you want to star in your movies. Already, "Bones" has attracted Rachel Weisz as the mother of a young girl who is murdered but continues to observe her family on Earth after her death, Ryan Gosling as her husband, Stanley Tucci as the killer and newcomer Saoirse Ronan as the young girl at the center of it all. Add Mr. Imperioli into the mix, and you've got a solid contender for best cast ever.

And, in my conscious effort to read more books before they hit the big screen, I've added Alice Sebold's novel to my reading list, just after the two latest Harry Potter books (right now I'm close to page 400 of "Half-Blood Prince," so please don't tell me anything about what comes next!)

Duo sign on for 'Young Victoria'

This flick already had quite the royal pedigree, with Martin Scorsese involved, but one sure way to get my attention is to add two of my favorite people to the cast.

Jim Broadbent and Miranda Richardson (double huzzah!) have joined the cast of "The Young Victoria," which is being produced by Mr. Scorsese. Broadbent will play King William, Victoria’s uncle, while Richardson has been cast as the Duchess of Kent, Victoria’s mother. They join the simply radiant Emily Blunt, whose picture I've of course included as a public service to everyone, as Victoria and Rupert Friend as her husband, Prince Albert.

This should be a star-making turn for the lovely Ms. Blunt, especially with Julian Fellowes of "Gosford Park" writing the script for French-Canadian director Jean Marc Vallee. And with a cast like this, I can now only say bring it on.

Poster for Tyler Perry's latest

Sure, Tyler Perry's movies are often sappy tripe, but I like them, and to me at least, that's all that matters. Besides, there are few more therapeutic movie moments than watching the great Idris Elba beating the hell out of a drug dealer at the end of "Daddy's Little Girls" to the tune of Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come."

I doubt we'll get anything nearly that dramatic in Mr. Perry's next flick, "Why Did I Get Married?" The romantic comedy, set to star Mr. Perry, Janet Jackson and Jill Scott, is about a group of couples undergoing marriage counseling (not terribly promising, I know), and it's set to be released Nov. 16. Tyler Perry certainly doesn't need support from the likes of me, but I'll still be there to see it, even if this rather bland poster does little to inspire me.

Two doses of YouTube fun

Both of these come directly from the floor of Comic-Con, so please excuse the rather shaky camerawork. The first clip is of Kevin Smith responding to a heckler, and as should be expected, his response is hardly PG-rated, so please, please, please don't play this clip at work unless you have headphones on! It does, however, provide assurance that Mr. Smith isn't going to grow up anytime soon, and I can only say thanks for that.


Next comes something much, much better: The trailer for the upcoming straight-to-DVD "Futurama" movie. The show will eventually be returning to Comedy Central with new episodes (not sure when, but I'll definitely be keeping my eyes on that), but first we get this movie, for which the trailer, at least, is friggin hilarious. You have to put up with a lot of cheering from the audience, but who wouldn't riotously cheer the return of "Futurama"?


And now, unfortunately, I have to go to work. Peace out.