Trailer: Boyhood

Of all the highly anticipated films coming out this year, Richard Linklater's Boyhood is certainly right up there for me. Starring Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane, this groundbreaking coming-of-age drama is unique for being shot over a period of 12 years, using the same actors -- so we actually see them age on-screen before our very eyes. Kind of like Michael Apted's Up series, but not a documentary. Boyhood has already received plenty of rave reviews at festivals, and one imagine it screening at the NZIFF later this year. The first trailer is a thing of beauty:

Gravity: An exclusive alternate scene that redefines entire movie

I think I'm a little late to this (at least in "meme time"), but this is good... very good, in case you missed it...

Only God Forgives: VFX Showreel

To say that Nicolas Winding Refn's Thailand-set crime-noir Only God Forgives arrived last year to hugely polarising reactions would be an understatement -- it definitely didn't garner the same kind of consistent acclaim as his previous film, Drive. In fact most Fatso customers hated it, if this sampling of reviews are anything to go by:

But if you're a fan of the film and/or the director, you'll want to check out this clip that breaks down all the special effects shots. Love or hate him, you can't deny that Refn knows exactly what he wants to see on-screen... down to blinking eyes....

I'll be the first person to say that CGI is overused these days, BUT when it's used as smart and subtly as this, it can be a brilliant tool to help you achieve a very specific artistic vision that doesn't involve cities getting decimated. Good stuff.

Action Movie Kid is All Kinds of Awesome

What do you do when you're a special effects wiz at Dreamworks Animation with a kid? If you're Daniel Hashimoto, you turn your three-year-old's imagination into action-packed reality. Check out this super-cute compilation of short videos he's created with James, who gets to wield a light saber, fire rocket launchers, amongst other things...

Mash-Up: "James of Thrones"

Just perfect. Here's a beautiful marriage of James Brown's soulful 1966 single "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" and Ramin Djawadi's opening credits theme for hit HBO series Game of Thrones...

Trailer: Lucy

It appears Luc Besson has yet to completely get ass-kicking femmes out of his system; I guess that's why we've got Lucy, an action thriller starring Scarlett Johansson -- who currently can be seen ass-kicking in Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- as a woman who swallows a super-drug that turns her into an superhuman ass-kicking femme, or something. Trailer definitely has a strong whiff of been-there-done-that about it, but hey, if you need some ScarJo/Black Widow action to tide you over until The Avengers 2 comes out, this could be your ticket. Watch her make Old Boy scream in the trailer below:

A few words: The Raid 2; Captain America: The Winter Solider

The next two weeks are gonna be pretty good to action fans: this Friday sees the release of the highly anticipated Indonesian martial arts actioner The Raid 2, and a week later, Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier is unleashed. Both films could not be more different, but I'd wager that they will each deliver enough to satisfy their respective fans.

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The Raid 2 picks up soon after the first one ends, and throughout the film, writer/director Gareth Evans finds ways to expand on its criminal underworld, introducing a bevy of new characters and subplots that make it more of a sprawling gangster saga than a straight all-out fight-fest. That said, once the action kicks in, you ain't seen nothing like this... The brutality is amplified, but better still, there's more variety in fight choreography, with ballsy usage of weaponry like baseball bats and hammers that's guaranteed to make you squirm in your seats. Plus there's one hell of a car chase that makes anything coming out of Hollywood pale immensely in comparison. The Raid 2 is one vicious, unrelenting movie, but if you can stomach it, I swear you'll be coming back for more. Don't miss it on the big screen!

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I'm far from a Marvel fanboy, and I generally tend to find all their films samey and disposable, but the first Captain America flick I really dug and find to be a somewhat underrated entry in their universe. As far as sequels go, The Winter Soldier ain't bad at all, and definitely contains the grittiest action set-pieces yet for Marvel. With a background largely fixed in comedy (Community, You, Me and Dupree), directors Anthony and Joe Russo seem like an odd choice to be handling this kind of fare, but they've done a fine job here; even though they succumb to all-too-frenetic staging at times, the grounded, punchy, battering-ram feel of the action is a nice change from Iron Man et al. Of course, the finale consists of mucho numbing gargantuan destructo-vision that's the norm for superhero films now, but otherwise it's a solid, entertaining sequel, and Steve Rogers continues to be one of Marvel's more likeable characters.

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We'll be giving away double passes to Captain America: The Winter Soldier later this week so keep your eyes out for that. Also, if you're feeling retro and want to catch the old '70s Captain America TV movies, we do have them, here and here.