New image round-up: The Last Stand, The Host, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

If you’ve read the movie news at all in recent months, you’ll know that Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in the film business with the kind of fury normally reserved for the newly-A-Listed. 

The first starring product of that drive will be THE LAST STAND, due out in theaters on January 18th.  A wild and violent example of the Western being brought kicking and screaming into a contemporary setting, the flick looks to be loads of rip-roaring fun and even a pic as plain as this sparks my juices a little.

On more or less the exact opposite side of the spectrum, there’s the latest in Stephanie Meyer adaptations – directed by Andrew Niccol (GATTACA, IN TIME), THE HOST is a sci-fi story that “takes place in a world invaded by a parasitic alien race known as “Souls.” One teenage girl, Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan) doesn’t take the mental overtaking lightly. Instead of succumbing to her extraterrestrial visitor (a Soul named “Wanderer”), she fights back mentally, flooding their shared consciousness with her memories and creating a bond between the two. Together, they set off on a mission to track down Melanie’s missing family (while outrunning more nefarious Souls aka The Seekers).”

Then shit gets real when two guys fall for Melanie even as her conflicted attractions pull her back and forth between the two handsome devils, and the stares begin…

And finally, in what will probably not be your last news related to THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY today, Entertainment Weekly has released a lovely little still that showcases a confrontation between Gandalf and the Goblin King.  Suitably grotesque in appearance alone, consider me plenty curious to watch how the Goblin King moves, speaks, and fights  – his kingdom (of sorts) will, I imagine, provide the backdrop for a good chunk of the story, and his ultimate fate is a pivotal one to the journey of Bilbo and his dwarven companions.

The only options to see AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY around my neck of the woods is IMAX 3D and Standard 3D – is that the same for everybody else out there?