It's football season, which means it's also the season for at least one heartwarming and inspiring movie about the sport. This year the film comes from Universal -- The Express, a biopic of Ernie "The Elmira Express" Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, back in 1963. However, the movie divides its time between Davis and his coach at Syracuse University, Ben Schwartzwalder, and shows the ways in which the two characters changed one another (for the better, natch).

The movie opens during the notorious Cotton Bowl game of 1960, when Davis (Rob Brown) was a running back on the Syracuse University team that played The University of Texas, which had not yet allowed black varsity team members. It's a rough game, but Davis is handling himself until all hell breaks loose ... and then we flash back to Davis's childhood in the 1940s and see how he learned to handle nasty racist situations even at an early age. He's stubborn and he's speedy, and eventually decides to use those assets to strive for his goal of playing professional football. His idol, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, advises Davis to play for his alma mater Syracuse because Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) is such an excellent head coach. But Davis encounters difficulties in the ways Schwartzwalder handles the black team members. The coach's primary goal is to avoid "trouble," so they're warned away from the white female students, and worse yet, at certain Southern games they're not allowed to score touchdowns. The real action culminates when the film returns to the Cotton Bowl game in Dallas.

Comedies don't have an obligation to be particularly insightful, but you'd think an indie aimed at an adult audience would have something to say about its characters. Smart People stars Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, and Thomas Haden Church; the cast and the multitude of laughs scored at the expense of easy targets might justify a rental, though I liked it much less after I started thinking about it. I'm in the minority -- James Rocchi expressed all kinds of love in his review. The DVD, out on Tuesday, includes an audio commentary by director Noam Murro and writer Jude Poirier, deleted scenes, bloopers / outtakes, and "the smartest people," which I'm guessing is a "making of" feature. It's also out on Blu-ray.

Also out on Tuesday, How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer has been described as "a comedy about three generations of Mexican-American women enjoying their sexuality." I heard all kinds of good things about it when it had some festival play a few seasons ago. America Ferrera, Elizabeth Peña, and Lucy Gallardo star. The DVD looks bare bones, but distributor Maya Entertainment has more about the film on their site.

An appealing romantic comedy set in and around a citrus grove in Sicily, The Orange Thief (pictured) played several film festivals, including Woodstock and AFI Dallas, and is now out on DVD. I'm not going to claim that this low-key charmer is some kind of lost classic, but it's amusing, looks gorgeous, and has the benefit of an incredibly restful, bucolic setting, which make it worth a rental. The DVD from Lightyear appears to feature only the movie.

Occasionally Hollywood cobbles together random members of the A-list to play family members on film, even if their genes obviously come from opposite ends of the earth. If the actors are good enough or if the chemistry is there, sometimes the combo can work, such as Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead or Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor in Cassandra's Dream. Other times, it stretches credibility, such as Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman in The Darjeeling Limited. My all-time favorite oddball casting is in Sidney Lumet's Family Business (1989), with Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick playing grandfather, father and son. (Huh?) At the same time, there are actor combos out there who just scream to be paired up in a family capacity. Remember Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick in Something to Talk About? Well, neither do I, but that pairing was perfect. Here are a few others that could work:

1. Helen Hunt & Leelee Sobieski

They're so similar it's spooky, from their hair and foreheads, right down to the tonal quality of their voices. Anybody check the hospital records for mixed-up babies? (Helen is about 20 years older.) Not too long ago, both careers hit a peak: Helen won an Oscar while Leelee was working with Stanley Kubrick and playing Joan of Arc on TV. Now they're both in decline. For some reason, whenever Helen's name comes up, I hear "I HATE Helen Hunt!" And Leelee's last movie was for Uwe Boll. Now would be the perfect time for these two to team up in a mother-daughter drama. If they cooked up something along the lines of Terms of Endearment, with a good, solid writer and/or director, it could be interesting. Or better yet, how about something really strange and kooky with Spike Jonze or Harmony Korine? (Note: apparently the two once went head-to-head on "Celebrity Death Match.")

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If you happen to be a fan of mystery novels from the 60's and 70's, then the name John D. MacDonald probably rings a bell. If not, it looks like you are going to get the chance to get to know him, but on the big-screen instead. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Fox is planning on a feature film version of McDonald's The Deep Blue Good-By, and that Gary Fleder (the man behind Kiss the Girls and Runaway Jury) is in talks to direct.

Good-By was the first novel in McDonald's Travis McGee series. McGee is a Korean War vet and amateur sleuth who works as a "salvage consultant," recovering property and money for his clients (for a tidy fee) while operating out of a houseboat in Florida -- sadly without an alligator named Elvis. MacDonald wrote over 20 novels starring Travis McGee, so the project could be a great opportunity for Fox to get a new franchise up and running.

Fleder's feature debut was Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead back in 1995. Since then, Fleder has mainly made thrillers, but, he recently got the chance to flex his biopic muscles with the Ernie Davis biography, The Express, starring Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton. Fleder might have the most experience when it comes to thrillers, but MacDonald was known for having a dark sense of humor in his capers. So if Fleder does sign for the film, he might have to lighten up a little this time around.

There's a really neat-sounding small-scale sci-fi project in development at Overture Films called Pandorum. But for the news that Paul W.S. Anderson is involved, I'd be really excited. Pandorum will be about two spaceship crewmen who wake up on their ship with no idea who they are or what they're supposed to be doing. Soon, they "make a discovery that threatens the survival of mankind."

Anderson didn't write and won't be directing the film -- those tasks both fall to relative unknowns -- but he is reteaming with his Resident Evil cohorts to produce it. He's not exactly on my must list these days, since the Resident Evil franchise has pretty much died under his supervision and AvP isn't exactly a venerable addition to the list of ongoing big-name series. Pandorum's premise sounds cool, but then so did Event Horizon's until you actually learned what was going on. In any case, Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster (in a possible rare non-psychopathic role?) have signed on to star as our heroes, which is good news. I guess the big question is what exactly the two of them "discover" on that spaceship.

Pandorum is supposed to start production in August in Berlin, according to the Variety piece; no word on a release date. Sci-fi fans, make a note of it.

We brought you a bunch of brand new G.I. Joe character photos yesterday, but Paramount just sent over a whole batch of those same images (plus a few others) in beautiful hi-res. These photos include characters like Duke (Channing Tatum), Hawk (Dennis Quaid), Ripcord (Marlon Wayans), The Baroness (Sienna Miller), Destro (Christopher Eccleston), Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui), Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee). With the exception of Cobra Commander (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), that's our primary cast.

Check out all these images (in hi-res) in the gallery below. G.I. Joe hits theaters on August 7, 2009.

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UPDATE: Check out all G.I. Joe images in our brand spanking new gallery!

Above: Lost star Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Heavy Duty, who serves as the G.I. Joe Team's heavy ordnance specialist with a passion for classical guitars and Bach. He is described as being unafraid of any situation despite heavy enemy fire. (for a larger look, head over to Coming Soon).

Paramount has released a crop of new photos from the upcoming live-action G.I. Joe flick; most of which appear to be different from those that leaked online not long ago. This seems to be a pretty easy film to market -- there's, like, 250 characters to eventually show us, and so they may as well unveil them a little at a time. Still not crazy about this whole special-ops look, but what can you do. Who's not in this film? I'd love to list the entire cast (which also includes folks like Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller and Dennis Quaid), but I think my fingers will go numb. There's a lot of folks in this thing; trust me. After the jump, check out the three other photos, as well as a little bit of info via our good friend Mr. Wiki.

G.I. Joe is due out in theaters on August 7, 2009.

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Variety reports that Paul Bettany's Legion has just added a whole crowd of actors, including the star power of Dennis Quaid, Kate Walsh, and Tyrese Gibson. They will be headlining a cast that includes Jon Tenney, Charles S. Dutton, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Kevin Durand and Willa Holland. They've signed on just in time, as the movie is about to start shooting in New Mexico.

Legion is a thriller that stars Bettany as the archangel Michael, who is all that stands between mankind and an apocalypse after God has lost faith in humanity. But the Almighty apparently hasn't lost all hope -- a child is on the way who is the second coming of Christ, and a group of strangers who recognize the fact must band together to save it. It is director Scott Stewart's first feature film, from a script he co-wrote with Peter Schink.

I am quite intrigued by the movie, as I am a sucker for any kind of Biblical thriller. The problem is that they are almost always terrible. (Though I will always give props to The Prophecy for proving that the Devil does, in fact, wear a mullet.) The combination of Paul Bettany and Dennis Quaid gives me some hope though, since they generally pick good scripts. We'll see if this is one of them.

I hardly have to explain why I'd go fetch this one from the vaults, since it's the only known anecdote for 10,000 BC. Roland Emmerich certainly hasn't lost his delicate touch, has he? I feel the pain of people who had ten year old sons and thus were dragged into it. You get force marched through the tundra for what seems like hours only to arrive at the Pyramid of the Fancy Boys. And the only real diversion besides 3 minutes of saber-toothed tiger, are those devil-ostriches. After I got out, I couldn't wait to have a look at director/writer Carl Gottlieb's satire of the all-purpose caveman movie. Unfortunately, I never saw Caveman back in the day, despite the high-spirited tagline on the posters: "Back When You Had to Beat It Before You Could Eat It!" I think the reason I skipped it was because of all the genial oafs I knew who kept quoting the dinosaur poop joke in the film. They are there, alright, but happily it's only a tiny part of the comedic inanity set in "One Zillion Years BC...October 9."

Cinematical has just received this exclusive final poster for the film Smart People (click on the image for a larger version), starring Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church. Smart People first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January where our own James Rocchi called it "so well-made, so well-acted and so impressively (for lack of a better word) smart that anyone who seeks it out will find something to admire and enjoy in its craft and heart." Here, Noam Murro makes his feature directorial debut with a story that follows a widowed professor (Quaid) who's life takes an unexpected turn when his adopted brother (Church) shows up for a visit. For more on Smart People, feel free to check out our Sundance audio interview with Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Quaid and Thomas Haden Church.

Smart People arrives in theaters on April 11.

Like many recent thrillers, Vantage Point is set against the war on terror, as U.S. President Ashton (William Hurt) arrives in Salamanca, Spain to announce new international treaties and efforts in the fight against freedom's enemies. We open in a news van, as harried, hard-bitten producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver) is orchestrating her camera team and reporters on scene. When reporter Angie Brooks (Zoe Saldana) breaks from the celebratory mood to talk about the protesters outside the courtyard where the crowd awaits the President's words, Rex is miffed about the departure from the script. "We're here for the summit, not the sideshow." Rex has a very definite plan for the day in her head. As shots ring out, the President goes down and explosions ripple through the courtyard, it's clear someone else does, too. ...

Directed by Pete Travis, Vantage Point's plot unfolds as a series of recollections and first-person stories; we begin with Rex's by-the-books coverage turning into a nightmare of murder and mayhem; we flash back to follow Secret Service veteran Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) as he and partner Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) transport the President to the location; we follow American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) as he winds up accidentally videotaping what may be the key to the attempt on the President's life; we follow President Ashton as he weighs the security risk of the speech against the importance of what he's going to say. ...

Okay, so we lied -- it's just one photo. But it's the first photo of Dennis Quaid as General Hawk in the live-action version of G.I. Joe, due out in theaters next summer (2009). IESB snagged the first look, and it's not a terribly exciting one. Quaid pretty much looks like he usually does, except his hair is pushed down a bit and he's wearing the outfit of a general. I imagine when this photo was taken, he was on break and chatting up his wife on the cell phone (checking up on his new twins, perhaps?). Starring Quaid, Sienna Miller, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marlan Wayans, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park ... and more -- G.I. Joe will be directed by Stephen Sommers, and will arrive in theaters on August 7, 2009. Filming began this week, so expect a lot more photos to show up in the coming days.

Well, I guess this means General Hawk won't die in the first film. While making the press junket rounds for his latest film Vantage Point, Dennis Quaid spoke a bit about his role as General Hawk in the upcoming live-action G.I. Joe flick to Collider. Not surprisingly, Paramount is hoping to turn G.I. Joe into the next big action franchise, and Quaid confirmed that he had signed on for three films. Did you ever think, at this point in his career, that Dennis Quaid would sign on for three G.I. Joe films? Apparently the dude is looking to get dirty, and more power to him. On the film and his character, Quaid says, "We grew up with G.I. Joe and it's kind of a cartoon thing...it's a big popcorn type of tent pole action movie that...it's not deep. The character of General Hawk that I'm playing is kind of a cross between Chuck Yeager and Sgt. Rock and maybe a naïve Hugh Hefner thrown in there. General Hawk's aide to camp is a Victoria Secret supermodel so how serious can it be?"

Quaid also admitted that he might go "a little blond" with regards to his character's look, and that he's currently lifting weights, "trying to look like the cartoon." He compared the tone of the film to "the old James Bond's -- like the Dr. No's -- where the mastermind has his own private island and all these people are wearing matching coveralls." Finally, he says he's only shooting for two weeks out of five. For this new, live-action film, Stephen Sommers will direct a cast that already includes a ton of folks like Channing Tatum (Duke), Sienna Miller (The Baroness), Rachel Nichols (Scarlett), Ray Park (Snake Eyes), Marlon Wayans (Ripcord), Arnold Vosloo (Zartan), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Heavy Duty) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. G.I. Joe is due out in theaters on August 7, 2009.

I must have had too many cups of coffee when I agreed to take on a Cinematical Seven covering the hunks of sports films. (Erik had the easy job, picking the Hottest Sports Girls.) Trying to pick the studs is like having hundreds of 4-star, wonderful movies thrown on your desk and being asked to pick the 7 best. Yeah, right! No problem! To make the task easier, I decided to pick a range of sports, and never double up on one particular type. That cut out a whole slew of possibilities, and what I came up with is what you see below.

What have I learned from picking the Seven Sexy Sporting Studs from cinema? The best of the best (pun intended) were in the '80s and '90s. I also learned that you should never share the list with a friend beforehand -- they'll remind you who you're forgetting, and that's why you'll find one tie down below. Enjoy!

The Eight Men Out Team

The only thing I knew when I took on this assignment was that Eight Men Out was going to be featured. Bull Durham is great and all, but this is the baseball movie. It's John Sayles, and it has the best baseball team to ever make it on the screen. They might have let their morals loosen a little, but they still kept their looks. Foolishly, I tried to pick between John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney, and David Strathairn. Forget that! I'm taking the easy way out. Cusack's Buck Weaver was super cute as a "future jailbird," Charlie was always tasty in those days, and it's beyond me why women weren't falling all over David Strathairn the minute he jumped into film with Return of the Secaucus Seven, or any of the bigger movies that were soon to come. And Sweeney was cute, too, in that dorky way.

In one of Smart People's many funny (yet real) scenes, several beers have loosened the inhibitions and tongue of bright, highly motivated teen Vanessa Wetherhold (Ellen Page). As she staggers out of the bathroom, she pauses to ask a bottle-blonde, denim-clad woman "How's it feel to be stupid?" The woman snaps back: "How's it feel to eat lunch alone every day?" Vanessa's drunk enough to be honest: "It f***in' sucks." And that scene, in a nutshell, is what Smart People is about -- how it's one thing to be bright and aware and clever and perceptive, but it also sucks to eat lunch alone. Vanessa's dad Lawrence (Dennis Quaid) is a burly, bearded professor in the English department at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University - sluggish and surly and sleepwalking through his days. It's established -- carefully and well -- that Lawrence lost his wife not that long ago. His son James (Ashton Holmes) is attending Carnegie; his daughter Vanessa busies herself as Lawrence's right hand woman -- preparing meals, thinking of new titles for his book, advising him on office politics. This has two advantages for Vanessa; she gets to help her dad with his problems, and it keeps her too busy to think about her own.

The Wetherholds don't have much of a life, but at least it has some order to it -- order that's disrupted by the arrival of Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), Lawrence's adopted brother. Chuck is a slow-motion wreck of a man, a financial and professional failure, but he knows things his brainy brother and niece don't. Chuck wants to crash with Lawrence for a while, but Lawrence isn't very interested in that; when Lawrence has a seizure that means his driving license is revoked for six months, Chuck leaps in that window of opportunity headfirst. Chuck, by his very presence, destroys the status quo at the Wetherhold home. What we come to grasp is that maybe that status quo needs destruction.