With his easy manner and disaffected attitude towards his good looks it comes as no surprise that 26 year-old actor English actor Ben Barnes was tapped to star as the lead of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Having had a small part in Neil Gaiman's "Stardust," his career path didn't immediately suggest he was a likely candidate to play this heroic yet flawed character in the mythic Narnia saga (written by the late British author C. S. Lewis).

At the time of his auditioned for this film, Barnes was set to tour with the National Theatre's production of "The History Boys." Narnia director Andrew Adamson did not expect to cast a British actor as Caspian, but he noted that the young Londoner fit well into the surrogate family of Adamson and the four actors who played the Pevensies in the 2005's “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." In the series debut, set in 1940, the four Pevensie siblings - eldest brother Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and the youngest Lucy (Georgie Henley) – are evacuated to the country home of Professor Kirke (Jim Broadbent) avoid the devastating Nazi blitz of London. In the house they come upon an old wardrobe.

No one ever expected a special-effects laden epic conceived and crafted by producer/director Roland Emmerich to be concerned about gaps in logic or story structure. So it goes with the German-born impresario’s latest faux-legend, the prehistoric "10,000 BC." From his civilization-destroying tent pole pictures like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Independence Day" to myth-reworking sci-fi flicks like
"Godzilla" and "Stargate," the 52 year-old has made films that go for dramatic effects not meaningful subtext.

Following in the grand tradition of the 1940's "One Million BC" (and continued in high camp fashion with the 1967's re-make "One Million Years B.C." starring a fur-clad Raquel Welch), "10,000 B.C." follows a young mammoth hunter's journey to secure the future of his tribe and save the Cro-Magnon girl of his dreams from enslavement.

In this a historical tale, 21 year-old Steve Strait plays D'Leh (German for hero spelled backwards) a near-outcast from his tribe whose father had left to search for food to save them. In contrast, Strait’s previous roles included playing a rock star wannabe in "Undiscovered" and a supernatural cultist in "The Covenant."

What pulled actor Samuel L. Jackson into doing "Jumper," director Doug Liman's excursion into science fiction? It was Jackson’s fascination with the theory of teleporting. Although his character Roland, the Paladin, does not have the power to "jump," he has the power to stop and kill the "Jumpers." As to why, well that's what intrigued Jackson and the plot of the film.

Jackson is a man who loves films and fantasy. He's the first to admit he's a hardcore comic book fan and that he enjoys playing roles that allow him to push the envelope. When director Liman explored the spy genre in the first installment of the Bourne saga—"The Bourne Identity" —his hyper-kinetic style set in motion a whole series. Jackson figured Liman would do the same with "Jumper,” which is based on a series of novels by author Stephen Gould.

For independent filmmakers, George A. Romero is one of the great culture heroes. Back in the 1960s, this Pittsburgh resident (he went from NYC to Carnegie Mellon U.) reared himself up and decided he was going to make movies with no studio connections, film school education, or even a New York based advertising career. He just jury-rigged a crew, a cast, and sets found throughout the Pittsburgh environs and made his cheap genre film, "Night of The Living Dead." That film not only became a cult classic but it kick-started the zombie phenomenon and influenced every generation of filmmakers since, whether in the horror realm or beyond.