Hold on to your butts, everybody who has been waiting years to see Orson Scott Card's most beloved novel make it to the big screen.  Ender's Game is going down, and there's no shortage of casting news to prove it.  The latest concerns a supporting role amongst the kids at Battle School, the orbiting military space station where pint-sized military geniuses are taught the ways of war.  With Asa Butterfield ready to go as the tiny military messiah Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, Hailee Steinfeld is not in active talks to play Petra Arkanian, one of Ender's closest friends and confidantes at the space-based boot camp.

As Rooster Cogburn in Joel and Ethan Coen's take on True Grit, Oscar winner and all-around awesome dude Jeff Bridges ably portrayed a crusty but formidable old gunslinger in the Old West.  In the Dark Horse Comics adaptation R.I.P.D., Bridges plays Bo, another gunslinger whose been around for awhile.  This time, though, he's been dead for centuries and patrols the afterlife as a member of the titular Rest in Peace Department, a supernatural cop squad dedicated to supernatural policing. 

A new batch of unofficial photos from the Boston, Massachusetts set of R.I.P.D. have revealed our first glimpses of Jeff Bridges in costume as Bo, long with Ryan Reynolds as Nick, a freshly-deceased cop and Bo's partner who is looking to find out just who murdered him.  Earlier this week, we saw Reynolds shooting a scene with Kevin Bacon, who is playing the bad guy.

When you think of the idea of a “movie star” you still can’t help but think of John Wayne. He is truly an American iconic. It’s been over thirty years since the late Academy Award winning actor’s death but his name is still synonymous with Western themed movies. Wayne virtually invented the modern day onscreen cowboy in classic films like Rio Bravo, The Searchers, El Dorado, True Grit (the film that earned him his Oscar), and The Comancheros, which was released on Blu-ray on May 17^th.

I recently had the rare opportunity to have a conversation with the Duke’s son, Ethan Wayne about his father, and his legacy. Among other subjects we discussed the Duke’s approach to acting, his love for making Westerns, his friendship with fellow actor Robert Mitchum, and The Comancheros. Here is what he had to say:

It's the Friday before Oscar Sunday, and all of America prepares to bask in the reflected glow of such glorious pomp and circumstance.  By now, you've probably had your fill of Oscar predictions, which are all just semi-educated guesses anyway.  Nonetheless, you have the insatiable Oscar hunger, and you're going to gluttonously devour this particular set of Academy Award predictions,  in which the title of each award explains the Academy's reason behind their choice.  Keep in mind that these predictions (unsubstantiated guesses) do not reflect the actual tastes of myself or anyone else here at IAR; they are instead attempts to set aside personal tastes and accurately call the Academy's tastes.  So read away, and see how my predictions compare to your own.

There are no fancy dresses or sexy superstars associated with technical awards like the Cinema Audio Society Awards, and most of the talk surrounding them is Oscar prognostication, but you know you were on the edge of your seat anticipating the 47th Annual CAS Awards.  True Grit won the theatrical award for sound mixing, while 30 Days of Night: Dark Days won for the straight-to-DVD category.  The CAS is made up of Sound Mixers and Associates from both film and television, and the awards recognize achievements in both media.  Check out all the television winners in the full list by simply reading on.

The battle for box office supremacy in the year's first really competitive weekend came down to a photo finish, with the Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy Just Go With It beating out pocket-sized pop star Justin Bieber's 3D concert documentary Never Say Never by less than a million dollars, with an estimated $31 million and $30.3 million, respectively.  Though it was by a narrow margin, this marks the 11th consecutive number one opening from reigning comedy king Sandler.  Disney's animated Gnomeo and Juliet opened strong as well, with an estimated $25.5 million in third place.

Director of photography Wally Pfister was the winner in the feature film category at the American Society of Cinematographers' 25th Annual Outstanding Achievement Awards this weekend.  Pfister won for his work on Inception with writer/director Christopher Nolan.  He was previously nominated for his cinematography in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but this is the first time he has won the award.  Jonathan Freeman and Stephen Windon also took home awards for their work on HBO's Boardwalk Empire and The Pacific, respectively.  True Grit cinematographer and ten-time ASC Awards nominee Roger Deakins received a lifetime achievement award.  Check out the official press release.

There’s no doubt that 9 time Oscar nominee Roger Deakins knows how to shoot a pretty picture.  The cinematographer’s work with frequent collaborators Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit, has earned him his latest nomination, just one of ten for the film. Peter Sciretta over at Slashfilm, posted a nice little three minute featurette on Deakins and his stunning work on the film, which we’ve embedded here as well.

Paramount Pictures and iamROGUE.com have joined forces to offer IAR readers something pretty dang impressive. How is this for a prize? If you go to iamROGUE.com’s contest page and fill out the correct form, you’ll be entered to win an autographed poster for the critically acclaimed, ten-time Academy Award nominated True Grit.

No, your eyes do not deceive you. Enter and you may win one of three True Grit posters, signed by Joel and Ethan Coen, Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Roger Deakins and Hailee Steinfeld. This is an amazing collector’s item that is bound to make all your film geek friends incredibly jealous. Just think how cool that will be when you have your next Coen Brothers’ movie marathon.

Enter now! Of course, if you need a little convincing, check out the trailer for the film below.

Joel and Ethan Coen have said time and again that their True Grit, which stacked up an impressive Oscar nominations, is not a remake of the 1969 film starring John Wayne, but is instead a straight-up adaptation of the original Charles Portis novel.  The brothers have also said that they haven’t even seen the older film since they were children.  Well, Entertainment Weekly has a cool little video comparing a few scenes between the two adaptations.  The dialogue is nearly identical, but the tone and style are wholly different.  Check it out.