Few characters have made as powerful or as lasting an impression on international popular culture as Astro Boy. The little robot first appeared in 1951 as a character in the celebrated artist and animator Osamu Tezuka’s legendary manga (Japanese comic book) and became an instant icon. He was subsequently featured as the star of his own television series in both black-andwhite and in color, eventually airing in over 40 countries. Astro Boy created the standard for a new form of animation that has become world famous as anime. Now for the first time, Astro Boy will be brought to life on the big screen. Created with breathtaking computer animation from Imagi Studios, the film Astro Boy is a thrilling tale of a true hero. The film is set to debut in theaters on October 23, 2009.

Set in futuristic Metro City, Astro Boy is about a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist named Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage). Powered by positive “blue” energy, Astro Boy (Freddie Highmore) is endowed with super strength, x-ray vision, unbelievable speed and the ability to fly. Embarking on a journey in search of acceptance, Astro Boy encounters many other colorful characters along the way. Through his adventures, he learns the joys and emotions of being human, and gains the strength to embrace his destiny. Ultimately learning his friends and family are in danger, Astro Boy marshals his awesome super powers and returns to Metro City in a valiant effort to save everything he cares about and to understand what it means to be a hero.

“Astro Boy” stars Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Euguene Levy, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland, Charlize Theron and Nicolas Cage. It’s written by Timothy Hyde Harris and David Bowers, with Bowers directing.

Kristen Bell and Freddie Highmore presented the worldwide premiere of the “Astro Boy” trailer, which exhibited animation that stayed very true to the animated cartoon.

“Astro Boy” is Summit’s first animated film and shows Summit’s vast film range, complimenting “Twilight” and “The Hurt Locker”. It hits theaters October 23, 2009.

Although it has been mentioned by the cast, and rumored around the Internet, Summit Entertainment has not confirmed anything yet. However, Summit recently sent out an open casting call for the roles of Seth and Leah Clearwater in “Eclipse,” inviting actors and actresses to send in audition tapes reading the given scenes. The scenes clearly portray plot lines from “Breaking Dawn.” Are you thinking what we’re thinking?

Take a look at the casting call, as well as the scenes, and let us know what you think.

The secret of “Knowing” is that it’s three movies woven together. The first is about an hour long, and is a creepy, moody, dreary movie about determinism and free will. The second is 30 minutes of disaster movie, with stunning effects happening at breakneck speed.

The remaining half hour is a Sci-Fi Channel Original movie, with choppy editing, bad acting and no idea on what it wants to be. Despite the first two aspects, the third aspect rears its head at in appropriate times and basically ruins the movie.

The story is simple: Man finds a note that says the world is going to end, and then man tries to stop the world from ending. Can’t get anymore generic and action movie-esque than that, but “Knowing” takes this straightforward idea and spins it in the right ways.

You have the hero (Nicholas Cage) who has a piece of paper showing every major tragedy, but the last three dates on the list haven’t happened yet. The kicker is that the last one is the end of the world. Now he spends the rest of the film trying to figure out what could possibly cause the end of the world, and even if he figures it out, will it matter?

There’s where the first aspect of the movie come in. Determinism is the idea that everything that happens is predetermined, and that even your act to deny determinism is merely just an act of determinism. That’s pretty deep territory for a Nicholas Cage movie, but it’s tackled very well. The question of “Are we able to influence anything, or is it all going by some cosmic or religious script?” is brought up constantly, and illustrated deeply in the movie. So now we have a man trying to save himself and his family from certain disaster, knowing that he can’t change the outcome. The numbers are written down and thus far have been flawless. Why should he be able to change the future? Even if he tries to save people, was that calculated in by the mystical numbers or did he deny fate? These deep philosophical questions are not things I was expecting out of this movie.

The second aspect is the most familiar to Hollywood: Action. There are four major action sequences in this movie. Transportation takes a bad rap here, as the incidents involve a car, a train, and a plane. The fourth is the end of the movie, which I won’t spoil, but does actually involve some form of transportation too. The big special effects scene in the film is the plane scene in which (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS) a plane crashes into a traffic jam. It’s a single shot, which follows Cage, running from his truck over to the remains, trying to save people. It’s truly a miraculous shot and one of the best I’ve ever seen. I won’t spoil the end but the scene looks a bit cheesy, but it’s hard to pull someone off on that scale attempted.

Now after all that praise, here comes the part that destroys an otherwise good movie. We’re not talking 30 straight minutes of bad. If that was the case, I could just go get some popcorn, take a trip to the bathroom and chat up the girl at the front counter while waiting for the pain to be over. It’s not that easy. Five minute bursts here and there of poorly done filmmaking ruin the tension, the atmosphere and sometimes the story.

“Knowing” also contains two of my big hates in movies. First is the Shyamalan ending, in which they throw around red herrings all movie, then tack on a twist ending. The shock value wears off quick, and you feel confused on why they didn’t go with the hundreds of better ends they hinted at. The second big peeve of mine is a man losing all his faith over the death of a loved one. Its cliché and insulting, with religious believers being shown to have weak convictions and atheists always being portrayed as scornful. It’s just overdone and bad story telling.

Overall, the movie had a decent shot, but it fell far short. It feels like “Signs 2: This time with Nic Cage”. The ideas and atmosphere are all there, but it tried to cram too much in. It danced around, unable to decide whether it was a movie about aliens, religion, philosophy or just an action movie. It never knew what it was. The ending was wrong, and directors need to stop looking for “Raising Arizona” Cage, because he’s not ever coming back.

Not everything was bad and there was a lot to build on. You’ll never hear me say this again, but I want a remake of a movie. Twenty years down the road, I want them remaking this and learning from its flaws, because the story is strong but the overall product is weak. They would be better off knowing not to cast aging stars and not to jam every possible theme in. And Knowing is half the battle.

Comic-con has grown from a convention featuring solely comic books to include video games, movies and television shows, but all have a similar nerdy trend that ties them together.

“The Hurt Locker,” directed by Kathryn Bigelow (“Point Break,” “The Weight of Water”) and starring Jeremy Renner, is a serious, weighty film that already has earned critical acclaim at the 2008 Venice Film Festival.

At Comic-con, Blast had an opportunity to sit down with Renner and talk about the long and difficult filming process the film required, which took place over three months in Jordon.

For the film, Renner spent weeks training with an actual EOD team, and found out they weren’t like he was expecting.

“First I was in shock at how, for lack of other words, nerdy they are,” said Renner when describing them and how they operate.

They weren’t the stereotypical meatheads he expected, but rather interesting people with stories and lives like everyone else.

In the movie, Renner plays Staff Sergeant William James, a hot shot bomb diffuser. Renner said that it took a while for him to fully develop the character. Despite jut being a “cowboy” on the surface, as the movie goes on, James becomes more of a person, and that took some work to develop.

Much like the actual EOD team that they shadowed and trained with, these characters aren’t what they appear on the outside. They are people, with the war as a backdrop, not the same soldiers with different names.

Renner made it clear that this was a war movie, not a critique on a war many have come to despise. It’s about the people in these poor situations, not about any of the politics of war.

That fact might save this movie from damning reviews that other movies set in the Iraq war have received. It isn’t political; it isn’t about why the war happened, but rather about three people getting through their time in the sun soaked desert.

Renner discussed how his roles in “The Hurt Locker” and “SWAT” familiarized him with military knowledge, specifically with gun use.

He seemed a bit tense when this subject came up saying only “Do I love guns? I think they are interesting” and explaining a respect for the tool.

The mood got a lot lighter when the discussion of the movie’s signature bomb suit came up. For everyone who hasn’t seen an EOD bomb suit, picture a cross between the first Russian cosmonaut suits and the old deep sea diver suits. The suit weighs over 100 pounds, and is meant to absorb the impact of a bomb detonated mere feet away.

Renner said the suit was so heavy his “whole body and spirit were crushed under it’s weight.”

Eventually, he said, the suit became an escape for him. Inside its giant bell of a helmet, he watched the world go by while listening to Beethoven. Explaining that the suit was 10 to 15 degrees hotter than the already scorching Jordon, made him feel unbreakable. When he finally would take the suit off, it was felt like taking a dip into a pool, he said.

Renner said the crew behind “The Hurt Locker” was one of the best crews be has ever worked with and they ended up becoming close because they were filming so far away from home.

When questioned about director Bigelow, he said she was the toughest person out there. When the reporters started to laugh at his comment he stopped them, saying that it wasn’t a joke, and he had no idea how she put up with everything, all while under the rays of the hot sun.

Renner said he surprised that Jordon, the United States biggest ally in the Middle East, wasn’t all wind and sand but was actually incredibly westernized. It didn’t have all the amenities the United States is known for, but he was surprised to see that the world was not as far behind as he thought.

Renner is staying in New York after New York Comic-con for some reshoots on “The Unusuals,” a new ABC dramady that follows police detectives who have to solve the unusual cases, hence the name.

He said he also has expressed a lot of interest in the not-yet cast “The Losers,” a film based off the comic of the same name.

Keep an eye on Renner as press for “The Hurt Locker” continues, because he’s going to be huge after it hits theaters and gets the Oscar cred it duly deserves.

It’s a remarkable sensation when you’re watching a film and you realize it doesn’t matter whether all the critics in the world put it on a pedestal other movies in its genre will forever be compared to or whether they beat it to a bloody pulp on the ground.

“Push” is that type of movie.

While Oscar season was filled with films that both brought us soaring with hope (“Milk”) and crashing with despair (“Revolutionary Road”), it was refreshing to watch a film that didn’t take itself so seriously.

Movies like “The Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars” reached for the greatness they rightly deserved, but you can feel that stretch for a deeper meaning when you’re watching them. But other movies, like the 2008 remake of “The Day The Earth Stood Still” reached for that greatness and fell flat.

After the disappointment that was “Twilight,” which was a product of Summit Entertainment like “Push,” it was a pleasure to see the fledgling studio do something right.

“Push” has the same kind of edgy feel to it Catherine Hardwicke tried to bring to “Twilight,” a trademark I hope Summit continues to develop. The camera work has an aspect of honest realism to it, sometimes even shifting to the shoddy video you’d expect from old family movies. It gives the film a feel that is necessary to keep it down to earth.

There’s nothing worse watching a movie and having the special effects be so awful you can’t concentrate on what is actually occurring. “Push” kept the special effects to a minimum which, for a movie about psychics and their various abilities, is a blessing more than anything else. There were no green screens used in the film and you can tell. It’s a nice change in a film industry increasingly reliant on computers and CGI.

The Bleeders, whose special abilities is to emit a high pitched noise that makes the brain explode, were corny. What can you expect? It was a bunch of screaming men from odd angles. But the fight scene between Nick (Chris Evans) and Victor (Neil Jackson), both of whose characters are Movers and have telekinetic powers, was well done by any film’s standards. It lacked the awkwardness movies like “Jumper” faced when trying to incorporate badass fights with special powers faced.

“Push” was also Dakota Fanning’s first venture into Hollywood as a grown up. At the ripe age of 15, she is no longer the little girl who stole viewers’ collective hearts in “I Am Sam” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” Instead, she swears like a pro and walks with the swagger of a teenager who knows what she’s worth. With a hint of braces peeking out from her top row of teeth, Fanning has grown up and is on the fast track of becoming one of the best teen actors of the coming years after being one of the greatest child actors Hollywood has seen for a very long time.

Don’t expect this movie to change your life. It won’t. But “Push” properly balanced how to take itself seriously without taking itself too seriously. Its jokes are funny and its fight scenes are outlandish and it has its fair share of moments where you ask yourself, “Did they really just do that?”

My one major fault with the movie came at the beginning: The film was introduced with a “10 years earlier” subtitle but, when it switched to the “present,” the subtitle described the time period as “2 days from now.” “Now” was never defined and the entire movie I was expecting a switch back to the past – sorry if that spoiled it for anyone.

The film ends on a slightly confusing note which leaves enough loose ends for a franchise (or at least the comic book series that has already been launched). So the ending was a total set up for a sequel — who cares? If you still go around yelling “This is Sparta!” and kicking the air, or thought there was no better sex scene then Angelina Jolie adeptly avoiding bending herself backwards on that train in “Wanted,” then you are going to love “Push.”

But if you’d rather burrow in a dark room analyzing the numerous layers of Fellini’s “8 ½” then this is not the movie for you.

SAUGUS, Mass. — The teenage girl came out of the Hot Topic store, eyes glazed with a silly smile on her face. Her mother ran up to meet her, just as the words started tumbling out of the daughter’s lips.

“He talked to me,” she gasped, as her mother smiled along but tried to calm the teen down.

“She has epilepsy,” the mother explained, “and I don’t want her to seize.”

Then she scooped up her daughter and hurried away, without giving her name, to make room for the next giggling girl.

Fan dedication: defined.

She was just one of hundreds who flocked to the Square One Mall north of Boston on Friday. The object of their fanaticism wasn’t one of the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus, but rather a soft-spoken, spiky-haired Brit named Robert Pattinson.

In the words of one indignant passerby who was turned away from shopping at the barricaded Hot Topic: “He isn’t even famous.”

Though Pattinson, 22, may not be a household name yet, to the fan community of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire “Twilight” series, (and hardcore Harry Potter fans who remember he played Cedric Diggory) he is second to none. Playing the lead male character Edward in the upcoming vampire film “Twilight,” the fan hysteria has reached peak heights.

“At first I thought maybe he wasn’t as good for Edward, but now I think he’s perfect,” said Selys Rivera, 14, of Worcester. “He’s completely perfect for Edward. He’s amazing.”

Pattinson, along with co-stars Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Edi Gathegi and Rachelle Lefavre, is headlining the Hot Topic-sponsored movie tour to promote “Twilight” in the final days before the film’s release on November 21. The Saugus event was Pattinson’s third and final stop on the tour after the event scheduled in San Francisco was canceled after fans mobbed the mall.

Pattinson, Stewart, and the trio of Lautner, Gathegi and Lefavre toured to 13 cities across the U.S. from November 10 through November 15.

“[The hysteria] hasn’t died down at all,” Pattinson told Blast in a brief interview at the Saugus Hot Topic. “It happened in [Italy], it happened in Mexico. It’s completely ridiculous.”

Here in Saugus, the crowd was much tamer than the events in San Francisco and Chicago. Wristbands were given, starting at 9 p.m. Thursday, to the first 500 people who bought the Hot Topic official “Twilight” tour T-shirt. The Saugus police were no-nonsense about the event and were a steady presence around the mall throughout the night.

“We got here at about 9 p.m. yesterday and we were there like all night long,” said Attleboro resident Amanda Pease, 20. “We only left to go to Starbucks.”

At 5 p.m. Friday, a crowd of a couple hundred girls had gathered around a stage that was set up for Pattinson to speak to the fans for the question and answer portion of the event. Some had camped out for more than 20 hours just for the chance to meet their beloved “Edward,” while others had arrived only moments before to wait around until Pattinson spoke at on the stage.

A security presence was felt. A barricade was set up like a moat around the stage to protect Pattinson from the overzealousness of any rabid fan-girls.

According to the vampire flick’s producers at Summit Entertainment, the eagerly anticipated “Twilight” movie release date will be moved up from December 12.

“When Warner Bros. decided to move ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ to the summer of 2009, we saw a unique opportunity to slot in our film which has been gaining tremendous awareness and momentum over the past several months,” Summit said in the statement Friday. “We by no means are trying to fill the shoes of the incredible POTTER franchise for 2008, rather we are just looking to bring the fans of Stephenie Meyer’s incredible book series the film as soon possible from a programming perspective.”

While Summit declines all suggestion that they are trying to replace “Harry Potter” in the holiday season, it looks like “Twilight” is going to be the “it” kids movie of Christmas break. We at Blast speculate that it could soon be filling another big set of shoes that the witches and wizards have left empty … big screen, possibly three-dimensional shoes.

When asked what they could possibly be waiting for outside the entrance to the convention center’s massive Hall H entrance, the reply was unanimous.

“Twilight.”

They would wait 16 more hours.

“Twilight” was released in 2005, and has spawned two sequels: “New Moon” and “Eclipse.” Collectively, the series has sold more than 5.5 million copies worldwide.

Taylor Lautner, who plays the character Jacob Black in the upcoming movie adaptation of the books said, “The fans are the driving force behind this thing.”

The series tells the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan, who meets the intriguing yet elusive Edward Cullen upon her arrival at Forks, Wash. Edward, as well as the rest of his family, turn out to be a secret coven of vegetarian vampires; they don’t kill humans. Bella and Edward’s inevitable love is doomed from the beginning as her being a human draws various “bad” vampires to come and kill her. In “New Moon”, a second love interest is introduced in the form of Jacob, Bella’s best friend who just happens to be a werewolf.

For the August 2 release of  “Breaking Dawn,” Meyer’s fourth and final book in the series, distributors have printed more than 3.2 million copies; more than half the copies of the rest of the series now in print, and a record first-printing for “Twilight” publishing company Little, Brown and Company.

“Breaking Dawn” will answer the big Twilight questions: Who will Bella choose, and will she become a vampire?

Meyer’s saga has become a cultural phenomenon, though this year is by far its biggest yet. In addition to the release of “Breaking Dawn”, a movie adaptation of the novel will be released December 12 starring Kristen Stewart as Bella and Robert Pattinson as Edward.

This year’s San Diego Comic-con hosted a special event Thursday to promote the upcoming film. Meyer, director Catherine Hardwicke, and some of the movie’s cast attended the panel. Waiting anxiously for them were thousands of screaming fans, though only about 6,500 were admitted to the hall.

“I saw the book as a film before I saw it as a book,” said Meyer of her excitement for the “Twilight” movie.

The Comic-con event was the first experience the cast had of the true intensity behind the “Twilight” fan base, and it was clear from their faces and the nervous hitch in their responses that none of them were prepared for the thousands of girls, women and even men who were screaming their hearts out for the characters that had captured their hearts.

“I fell in love with ["Twilight"] just like you guys did,” said Hardwicke to the audience. “I wanted to see Bella and Edward living, breathing. You know we tried to do the best we could [for the movie].”

Stewart said that, as a “sappy, sensitive girl”, she took the role of Bella to try to depict the “perfect-but-not-perfect-but-perfect-in-its-ideologicalness love” felt between Bella and Edward.

“Bella and I are really different if you get inside my head,” said Meyer, who said she gets just as frustrated with Bella’s decisions as the rest of her fans. “I’m actually a lot more like Edward.”

Meyer was able to confirm that a song by Muse; her favorite band and some of the inspiration behind the series, had been signed for the movie soundtrack, while Hardwicke confirmed that two songs written by Robert Pattinson will be included in the soundtrack of the movie, and that his spontaneous piano playing during filming might be used as Bella’s Lullaby.

The three “bad vampires” were a large part of the panel; Cam Gigandet as James, Rachelle Lefevre as Victoria and Edi Gathegi as Laurent.

“I wanted to be a part of [Bella's] world in every way I could,” said Lefevre. “If that meant I had to terrorize her than so be it.”

Trailers and clips of the film, especially the extended “ballet studio scene” aired at during the panel, show the movie version of “Twilight” focusing more on action than the novel did. This is good news for Gigandet, Lefevre and Gathegi because that means more screen time for them before their inevitable deaths. For Gigandet, his comes at the end of the first movie.

“We don’t actually die because you’re stuck with us on DVD forever,” joked Lefevre.

Fans have been initially hesitant about how the cast compares to the characters, and none have felt this sting more than now-”Twilight”-golden-boy Robert Pattinson.

“I just wanted to play [Edward] because he’s the hottest vampire in the world,” said Pattinson with a laugh, causing a deafening scream from the crown.

“[Vampires are hot] because that’s how I write them,” Meyer added, which turned the screaming into a deafening roar.

Although movie adaptations of “New Moon” and “Eclipse”, the second and third novels in the series, have not yet been confirmed, the idea that the “Twilight” fan base will not cause “Twilight” to be a box-office smash, regardless of the quality of the film, seems nearly impossible.

“I would love to be in [a sequel]. Love to,” said Gathegi .

“So would I,” said Gigandet wistfully.

Released in 2005, Stephenie Meyer’s novel Twilight follows the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) as she moves to the new town of Forks, Washington and unsuspectingly falls in love with vampire (Robert Pattinson). The third installment of teen series booted the last Harry Potter novel out of the number one spot on the New York Times best seller list three weeks after its release.

We will lovingly keep you up-to-date on the countdown to December 12 and the release of Twilight the movie. For now, enjoy this: