Although the quick description of Alex Proyas’ “Paradise Lost” project is, at first glance, not very intriguing, the large-scale project has been slowly layering on new elements that make it sound both interesting and intelligent. The short story on the film is that it’s based on John Milton’s epic poem of the same name and will star Bradley Cooper as Lucifer, with a heavy emphasis on visual effects. And while that sounds a bit silly, Proyas’ dedication to solid effects (not ones that feel overstylized or that slip into Uncanny Valley territories), plus a commitment to installing a talented cast in the film show that “Paradise Lost” might far exceed expectations. That all said, every Lucifer needs an Archangel Michael to battle, and that’s where Proyas has again made a sage step – as

Deadline reports that Benjamin Walker is negotiating for the role.

Don’t know Benjamin Walker? You will. The up-and-coming thespian just wrapped up his first major starring role as Abraham Lincoln in Timur Bekmambetov’s film adaption of Seth Grahame Smith’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” Booking the role of Michael in Proyas’ film will only further show that Walker’s star is on the rise.

The film will be an “action epic battle between good and evil” that revolves around a series of battles the cast-out angel Lucifer wages against heaven and the other angels. Proyas has promised “to say as faithful as possible to Milton's text, particularly its focus on Lucifer's evolution and the birth of evil.” In Proyas’ mind, the story is “a family saga, about a group of brothers, two in particular, who are on divergent paths.” The director also reports that there are three major battles set for the film – one in Heaven, one in Hell, and one in Eden.

Even Proyas acknowledges the difficulty of the production ahead of him, saying that he’s “thought that only an insane person would want to make this movie, because it's visually audacious and has to live up to a classic poem that is so beloved.” But Proyas is also very excited about the technology now available, and believes that it, combined with the talents of Cooper and Walker, will make the film work, and work well.

Okay, I admit it, I’m a little obsessed with Kate Winslet. Not in a restraining order kind of way, just in the sense that I’d crawl across broken glass to see her in any film, mini-series, or dog food commercial. (Maybe that restraining order shouldn’t be ruled out just yet.) I’ve admired the actress since the first time I saw her on screen—as the teenaged Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson’s brilliant “Heavenly Creatures,” and I’m not embarrassed to admit that I’ve watched her as Marianne Dashwood in “Sense and Sensibility” at least a dozen times.

My least favorite of her films, “Titanic,” is the one that catapulted her to true stardom but I was thrilled to see that instead of embarking on the usual A-list sure-thing trajectory, the actress continued to make very quirky films, often about difficult topics. “Hideous Kinky,” “Quills,” “Enigma,” “Iris,” “The Life of David Gale,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Little Children,” “Revolutionary Road,” and her Oscar-winning performance in “The Reader” have cemented Winslet’s status as the talented upstart who is not letting others control her career. My wife and I recently subscribed to HBO solely for the duration of Winslet’s Emmy-nominated turn as “Mildred Pierce.” I loved it. 

The first trailer for Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” was already excellent, striking the right chords between intellectual engagement and emotional involvement, and this new trailer only expands on that. The film has an excellent pedigree, with Miller directing from a script that’s been worked on by Stan Chervin, Steven Zaillian, and Aaron Sorkin. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Chris Pratt, and Kathryn Morris.

In short, “Moneyball” looks like a home run.  

The film is based on Michael Lewis’ book of the same title, and it chronicles the unbelievable true story of baseball manager Billy Beane (played by Pitt), who turned the art of crafting a team on its head when he joined up with Ivy League egghead Peter Brand (Hill) to reassemble the Oakland A’s in a way that defied what other managers and teams had been doing for years. Tasked with putting together a working baseball team on a serious budget, Beane and Brand rebuffed old-school thinking and used sabermetrics (essentially, the hard scientific data gathered about baseball) to turn “an island of misfit toys” into a winning baseball team.

For those involved with baseball, an American pastime so rooted in tradition and superstition, what Beane and Brand (based on real-life A’s assistant general manager Paul DePodesta) did was unwelcome, and the film will show the repercussions of what others perceived as bastardizing the game and destroying the way it’s always been done.

Check out the expanded second trailer for "Moneyball," thanks to JoBlo, after the break.

The trailer for “The Darkest Hour” starts out in classic alien invasion form – we meet most of our main characters, all of them living it up before everything goes terribly wrong. In this case, we meet four young and hip Americans who are in Moscow with the express intent to party down. But as they toast the good life in a Russian nightclub, the lights go down. When they come back up, all the typical aliens-take-over tropes are present – things falling from the sky, panicked news reports, terrified citizens, ravaged cities, but “The Darkest Hour” boasts something a little different. The aliens in “The Darkest Hour” are invisible, and they feed off electricity.

So how do you defeat a vicious race of aliens you can’t see who are determined to take over your planet by way of a meticulous plan? Well, if we knew that, what would “The Darkest Hour” have to tell us?

Directed by Chris Gorak, the film stars Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella, and Rachael Taylor as said young and hip Americans who are marooned in a ruined Moscow after the attack.

The trailer gives away a lot of the look and feel of the electrical currents and fire that signal that the aliens are near, and how the characters within the film use that to their advantage – maybe too much. Invisible aliens are a clever twist on a tired genre, but this trailer reveals way too many of the tricks and scares that will likely form most of the aliens’ “screentime” in the final film. Check it out, thanks to Apple, after the break.

In “Good Will Hunting,” Oscar-winning screenwriter and actor Matt Damon showed how important a teacher’s role can be in the life of a troubled kid. But his strong feelings about education were not just a ruse to get the attention of Hollywood. Damon’s mother is an early childhood education teacher and the two appeared together on Saturday at the Save Our Schools March in Washington. In response to the growing attacks on teachers by the right and the obsession with high-stakes standardized testing put in place by the odious No Child Left Behind Act, this organization  strives to help teachers and parents reclaim control of our schools.

The former “Sexiest Man Alive” and star of Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming thriller “Contagion” gave an impassioned, articulate speech about teachers and the state of education. I’m guessing that many of these educators arrived at the rally already in love with Matt Damon—by the time they left, they probably would have taken a bullet for the actor! Even better than his speech was the response I saw to an idiotic reporter who was trotting out the absurd arguments that would have us believe that teachers are somehow overpaid, overprivileged public sector employees. Damon didn’t let the reporter get away with her ignorant statements and immediately rebutted each point with polite fierceness. President Obama could take a few pointers.