The Cup of Tears trailer has been gathering momentum with fans claiming its beautiful CGI puts that of many Hollywood studios to shame. It’s a unique hybrid, featuring ancient samurai empires battling in a post-apocalyptic future – something you might associate with Asia, but no. Believe it or not, filming was done in Slovenia and post production in Ireland.

And while it looks sci-fi, the plot reads like a fairy tale:

The Cup of Tears follows a scorned geisha who creates a magical cup made of tears that causes any man who drinks from it to fall into a permanent sleep. One night the cup is stolen, setting off a chain of events that threatens civil war amongst the clans. Taro, a gifted samurai, sets out to find the cup and one who can break the spell.

Though this summary and what’s in the trailer don’t seem to match, the visuals look so great that I don’t think you’ll care. Samurai dodging rockets? Pixelated geisha dancing across digital billboards? Bring it!

Here are two names we never thought we’d see in the same sentence: Roland Emmerich and William Shakespeare.

In a collision of high and low culture that sounds like something The Onion might have cooked up, Emmerich, director of such cinema spectacles as 10,000 BC, The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, and the upcoming 2012, is set to direct a movie about the great Bard.

Up in the Air came off the festival circuit with raves, many of which cried Oscar. The trailer did nothing to put out the fire, in fact, it only stoked our interest here at Screen Rant. Now, a new clip from the film is online and it looks great!

The film is directed by Jason Reitman of Juno fame and stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a professional down-sizer. He’s the guy execs hire when they can’t bring themselves to drop the F-word in front of their employees – “you’re fired.” The job keeps Bingham on the road most of the year and he’s developed a life goal of racking up ten million frequent flier miles, for reasons he explains in the clip below.

Universal Studios has posted synopses of some of their major 2010 films, and two are piquing our interest here at Screen Rant.

The first is “Untitled Robin Hood Adventure,” directed by Ridley Scott of Blade Runner, Alien, Black Hawk Down, and I could keep going, fame. Russell Crowe steps into the tights (well, more like armor this time around looking at the Crowe’s Robin Hood costume) of the mythic English folk hero who enacted his own economic stimulus package for the peasants of Nottingham village.

This story has come to the big screen countless times, twice in one year even, with 1991 seeing Patrick Bergin in Robin Hood matching barbs with Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Some would say neither film, which played up the bandit’s romantic soul and added period realism, hit the bull’s-eye, and still consider Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling The Adventures of Robin Hood the gold standard. Scott’s version sounds a bit bloodier than that classic:

I have a love/hate relationship with the work of director Richard Linklater. His Slacker and Dazed and Confused films were great, and School of Rock was fun. But the romantic borefests Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, like the animated Waking Life, put me to sleep.

So, I’m not sure what to expect with his upcoming feature, Me and Orson Welles. The new trailer Linklater’s latest work recently debuted and you can watch here, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.

Since 2003’s much-panned Paycheck, American audiences haven’t heard much from the often-imitated action auteur, John Woo.  But he hasn’t been resting on his laurels.  In fact, he’s been adding feathers to his cap.  His latest film, Red Cliff, is an over four-hour-long historical epic that broke the record for the highest-grossing film in China (a title once held by Titanic).

However, Red Cliff, like Woo’s next project, Jianyu Jianghu (The Swordsman’s World), is in Chinese.  And we all know that subtitles – especially on an action film that won’t play with the art-house types -  dooms a film to limited release in America.  So when WILL the director return to American screens with an English language film?

Since The Italian Job snuck onto screens in 2003 and got away with over 170$ million in box office gold, buzz has been building about the proposed sequel, The Brazilian Job.  The hope, stoked by hints from producer Donald De Line (currently working on Green Lantern),was for a 2011 release with all the major players returning.  That’s a lot of schedules to coordinate, seeing as how we’re talking about Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Ed Norton, Donald Sutherland, Jason Statham, Seth Green and Mos Def, all recognized stars with any number of projects to choose from.

So what’s the news?  Since our last update the new news is…

Chances are you’re familiar with Jason Reitman’s last movie, Juno.  The film garnered him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Director, though screenwriter and former erotic dancer Diablo Cody, along with “it girl” Ellen Page stole most of his thunder.  For most people, Reitman’s name probably doesn’t ring any bells.

With Up in the Air, that might be about to change. And we have a trailer that will show you why.

Just looking at the first photograph from the upcoming Steve Carell and Tina Fey comedy, Date Night, makes me smile. Carell and Fey, the king and queen of NBC’s Thursday night comedy line-up, are both known for making even the most ridiculous of characters sympathetic and human (Fey’s Sarah Palin being the best example).  They’ve earned so much comedic credit along the way and they look cute together. Knowing that, I want to say this is sure to be the funniest movie of 2010.

Even better, they’re supported by a cast of standouts from both the comedy and dramatic world: Kristin Wiig, James Franco, Ray Liotta, Mila Kunis and Mark Wahlberg.

So then why aren’t I more enthused?

It seems no childhood franchise is safe from being re-imagined (and, more often than not, ruined) for the movies. Today comes news from The Hollywood Reporter that a Thomas the Tank Engine movie will be arriving in theaters sometime in spring 2011.

This won’t be the Thomas you grew up with on PBS. The hokey yet cool, old-school wooden models are being thrown out in favor of – you guessed it- CGI and live actors. And not just the look is changing; In advance of the movie, a new animated series will be coming to TV next year that gives a voice to Thomas, Toby, James, and the rest of the traditionally silent train gang. Chances are the feature film will do the same.