I think Scott Weinberg's getting set for Comic-Con as I write this, so I'll briefly fill in on the gorehound beat. Mirrors director Alexandre Aja has released what he calls "a new tasty visual from one of my favorite scenes" in the film. Per Aja's penchant for extravagant gross-outs, the picture is -- how do you say? -- aggressive. I'm putting it under the jump. It's gruesome -- watch out.

It's also -- and some of you may petition to have me committed for this -- strangely beautiful, albeit in a way only a horror freak could love. Unlike, say, the work of Eli Roth, who's like a giddy kid in a candy store when it comes to gore, Aja's imagery has been kind of artful in its grandiosity. Of the Splat Pack membership, I think he's the most concerned with the egghead aspects of horror movie aesthetics: shot composition, the color palette, symmetry, etc. That's a large part of the reason I'm looking forward to Mirrors, which otherwise looks pretty standard-issue. A truly great-looking horror film might be able to get away with not having much of a concept.

Anyway, Aja will be at Comic-Con promoting Mirrors, and I'm sure Scott, Eric or Elisabeth will have something for you from there. Meanwhile, click through for the photo -- if you dare. Not Safe for Work.

Let's take a moment to talk about the internet and the people who use it.

As someone who writes for a fairly prominent blog and who, from time to time, gets a fact wrong or overlooks something (when you do several posts a day, it's hard to be perfect), I am familiar with the wrath that internet commenters can unleash. But I am quickly coming to realize that you, gentle readers, have indeed been gentle. If you have a moment, take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes page for The Dark Knight, and click through some of the comments that users have left for the critics who have dared give the film a negative review. Or, to save time, take a look at this piece by Hollywood Bitchslap's Rob Gonsalves, which discusses some of the worst (best?) examples. If you're not inclined to click, suffice it to say that the likes of The New Yorker's David Denby have been told that they "do not deserve to live," that they should "contract AIDS," that they "rode the short bus to school," that "I should go over to your house and beat the living ***** out of you low life son of a b!tch," and so forth.

It's funny: there's been a long, ongoing discussion about RT user comments in the internal forums of the RT-hosted Online Film Critics Society. Some of the critics, outraged by the insulting, often racist missives that appear on the review pages (a Brazilian critic writing in Portuguese is often informed that he should go back to Mexico, etc.), have called for comments to be deleted and for users to be disciplined or banned. I've resisted and discouraged that impulse: it's always preferable to laugh at people like this than to censor them.

Well, assuming you live in New York, L.A., or Fort Lauderdale, that is. Those are the cities that will get TLA Releasing's mini-fest this summer, with six gay-themed features playing for one week in each location. You can see a somewhat NSFW trailer for the fest at TLA's YouTube page, but here's a brief rundown of what's happening:

First you got your Bangkok Love Story, a thriller about a hitman who falls for his victim. Then there's Chuecatown (Boystown), a comedy involving bathhouses and murders (I'm thinking of that scene in Eastern Promises, but gayer). Next: I Dreamt Under Water, which TLA's press release describes as "graphically sexual" and involving a young man's search for love. Dog Tags is a romantic drama about a soldier who does a bit of asking and telling, if you know what I mean; 3-Day Weekend has eight fellas bonding and bed-hopping over a getaway weekend; and Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon is a documentary about 1970s porn icon Jack Wrangler.

Though all six films are about gay men and their sex lives, there is some notable diversity as well, in that three of them are foreign (Thai, Spanish, and French), and one's a documentary. So you can feel like you're being cultured, too, while watching the randy movies about pretty people.

So we still don't quite know what Rob Zombie's Tyrannosaurus Rex is. The new, somewhat profane, surprisingly artful poster for the 2009 film -- which I've placed after the jump because we don't like cussin' on our family-friendly front page -- seems to confirm the earlier notion that the plot involves a biker gang; Zombie himself has said that the movie has nothing to do with actual dinosaurs, though an image of one appears in the background. There had also been speculation that Tyrannosaurus Rex will be based on a comic book called Nailed, which was co-authored by Zombie, but the filmmaker has denied this.

All of Zombie's efforts to date have been bad in interesting ways. His latest, Halloween, was not a good film, and it pretty much defecated on the classic movie it was trying to tribute, but it confirmed his talent for creating arrestingly lurid, over-the-top milieus. His main problem seems to be an inability to settle down, chill out, and think things through -- he just attacks whatever he's working on with a brutal, untamed voracity. But I'm holding out hope that soon he'll find a project worthy of his, shall we say, distinctive gifts.

Check out the poster after the jump -- and watch for the foul language, if that kind of thing bothers you.

I would have embedded the clip, but I want to make sure no children or men accidentally push play without being either of proper age or sufficiently warned. It's definitely NSFW, and the fact that it features rising star Brittany Snow (Prom Night) repeatedly punching a guy in the crotch makes it a truly uncomfortable moment for males to witness. Sure, it's got nothing on the cringe-worthy castration sequence from Hard Candy or the end of Little Children or most of Teeth or, for that matter, any number of horror films, but it's still pretty painful to watch (and listen to -- the sound effects really make it). So, click at your own risk.

The clip comes from On the Doll, the feature debut of Grammy-nominated music video director Thomas Mignone (Slipknot's "Wait & Bleed"), which opens in New York June 13 and then is released on DVD and online June 17. Snow plays one of several sexual abuse victims whose stories are interwoven throughout the apparently dark and twisted film (see the R-rated trailer here). The rest of the mostly young cast includes relative unknowns Clayne Crawford (A Love Song for Bobby Long), Stephen Sowan (TV's The Riches) and Josh Janowicz (The Chumscrubber), who is best known for being the soon-to-be-ex-husband of Lost star Emilie de Ravin. Fans of the Oceans Eleven series may also recognize Eddie Jemison, who plays a teacher who's propositioned by two of his students.

[via Defamer]

I was just about to eat lunch when ComingSoon.net directed me to this super violent and gory clip from Mother of Tears, the latest flick from Italian horror legend Dario Argento. Now I've lost my appetite. Before you click on the link (which brings you to an exclusive from ShockTillYouDrop.com), be warned: you may lose your lunch or have some serious nightmares or both. Also, it's likely not very safe to watch the video at work.

The film is the final installment in Argento's The Three Mothers trilogy, which also includes the horror classics Suspiria and Inferno. Mother of Tears stars the filmmaker's goth-sexy daughter, Asia Argento (unfortunately best known in the States as Vin Diesel's co-star in xXx), as an American studying abroad at the fictional Museum of Ancient Art in Rome. She unearths a sort of Pandora's box-like urn that unleashes a witch known as the Mother of Tears and the apocalyptic chaos that comes with her.

Reviewing from the Toronto Film Festival last fall, Cinematical horror hound Scott Weinberg called the film, "the master's best flick since ... hell, since at least the mid-'80s ... fans of the old-school Argento splatter-fests will find a handful of truly gruesome sequences here, while those who are on the lookout for a bleak yet tongue-in-cheek tale of the apocalypse will most likely appreciate what's in Tears." Now we can see what Scott meant by "truly gruesome."

Mother of Tears opens in limited release this Friday.

I'm sure this has happened before -- in fact, I seem to remember X-Men posters long before Wolverine was definitively cast, but it is a first for me on Cinematical. Weeks after Top Cow and Platinum Studios announced an upcoming Witchblade movie, a teaser poster has surfaced courtesy of the newly launched official site. The lead actress has not even been cast, no rumors have even reached my ears (which doesn't mean a darn thing) ... but here she is, in all of her sexy glory. What I want to know is what unlucky girl gets to pose for the poster, but not land the lead role. She's lovely, who ever she is.

It's nice to know that the team behind the movie has resisted the Hollywood urge to mess with an iconic superhero costume -- or in this case, the lack of. As this poster is definitely not safe for work, young eyes, or the easily offended, you'll have to click on it to see a larger version. Sigh. This is definitely not what I had in mind when I begged for a superchick movie.

Here's a doctored-up poster for the film Pretty Woman which is currently circling through email this morning and was forwarded along to me by my wife with the line: "You HAVE to see this -- soooo funny!" This wasn't the only picture attached; there was also one of our former Governor in a purple pimp suit, one of his face on a bottle of No. 9 Client cologne, and then one of him sprawled out on a bed with money in his hand and a half-nekked woman in the background. But this image up top was the only one film-related, and since everyone here in my hometown of NYC is getting a few good laughs out of this, I figured the poster might do the same for you. 80 grand on a hooker? Is it just me ... or do I smell a real-life Pretty Woman sequel in the works?

Quickly capitalizing on the still that rocked the world, Dreamworks has released a teaser trailer for Tropic Thunder. Watch it here on the official site. It's age restricted for language and evisceration. Naturally, the key answer here is your zip code -- there's whole states populated with children under 17.

I echo the majority when I say I don't think I've ever looked forward to a Ben Stiller comedy -- but this looks hysterical. And please tell me they're going to keep that 1970's film stock look. I'm laughing hardest at Robert Downey Jr.'s pop up. "Arrrgh!" It's practically proof they cut this after the still was released. "Downey doesn't need to say anything! Just have him pop up in that make-up!"

I really want a Tropic Thunder patch. Right now. Send me some swag, Dreamworks! I will put it on my jacket and wear it proudly.

Strange Wilderness is a new comedy starring Steve Zahn as the host of a wilderness television show with plummeting ratings. To increase viewership, he assembles a motley crew and sets out on an expedition to find Bigfoot. The cast includes Jonah Hill, Justin Long, Ashley Scott, Peter Dante, Jeff Garlin, and -- believe it or not -- Ernest Borgnine! The red band trailer for Wilderness just hit the internet. (Need a little incentive to check it out? There's nudity. You're welcome.) Cinematical spoke with two of the film's stars -- Kevin Heffernan (of Broken Lizard fame) and Allen Covert (pretty much every Adam Sandler movie, Grandma's Boy) -- about this film and their careers. First up is Kevin Heffernan...

Cinematical: Who do you play in the film?

Kevin Heffernan: I play a character named Whitaker. When they go out on this trip, they need to hire an animal wrangler. I'm a car mechanic and I have no animal wrangling experience. Basically, I'm just looking for a job. So I go and interview with them and I win the job but I have no knowledge of animals. I don't even like them that much really! It's got this great ensemble cast and some great cameos...

Cinematical: It does have such a great comedy cast, was improvisation encouraged on the set?

KH: Yeah man. The script was so good, I mean it was written by Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke who have a lot of comedy writing experience, but it was just one of those kind of movies where there's always like six or seven people on the screen. And they left it free for us to do the improv stuff that we all love to do. So there were a lot of people going off, and they had to kind of pull you back to the script a little bit.