Joining HeyUGuys back in June of this year, I was eager to put my personal popcorn addiction to good use. A Psychology student by day and an usher by night, I had built up an encyclopaedic knowledge of film over three years of part time work, ever broadening my horizons with a determination to watch anything and everything I could. Finally blessed with an outlet for my burgeoning opinions and limitless enthusiasm, HeyUGuys has offered me opportunity after opportunity resulting in an inordinate number of cinematic highlights this 2010.

With Hollywood finally dropping the tiresome “darker is better” mantra to provide two of the very best comic-book adaptations to date – Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, in case it needed pointing out – and DreamWorks raising the bar with a series of above studio-par animated releases, it has been a year of many memorable moments. Inception was mind-bending, Four Lions was ground-breaking and The Crazies showed that not all horror remakes had to be rubbish. Shrek got good again, Joe Dante finally returned to comedy-horror with The Hole 3D and Ron Weasley got to step up to the plate and destroy a Horcrux. From Monsters to My Name is Khan, Piranha to Paranormal Activity 2 and Buried to Burlesque, this year has been full of stand-out cinema, whatever your tastes.

From home I have reviewed Eat Pray Love (OK), Streetdance 3D (better) and A Town Called Panic (best), I have been equal parts shocked and delighted by movie news, I have revisited Alien vs. Predator for a commemorative Video Vault and have each week found something new to recommend or ridicule as I work to develop my understanding and opinions of the film industry in general.

Not all high points took place onscreen, however, with a sojourn to London this November affording me the opportunity to get behind the scenes and out from behind the counter. Eager to sample the capital’s infectious film culture after months of relative isolation across Aberdeen and Edinburgh, I attended press screenings, visited sets and shared oxygen with actors. I met Noomi Rapace following a screening of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo when she took to the stage for an audience Q&A, I held a scorpion in the foyer of Empire Leicester Square prior to a screening of Disney’s Tangled and had the chance to visit Warner Brothers’ London headquarters to view one of their upcoming releases.

Outside of the auditorium, and London itself for that matter, I had the chance to visit the set of Best Laid Plans, an upcoming feature from David Blair that is attracting somewhat of a buzz in anticipation of its 2011 release. Arriving on set in Nottingham, I interviewed the film’s writer and star in addition to director Blair. Stephen Graham, fresh from shooting Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, spoke at length about his back catalogue, his hopes for the future and the recent student protests – proving almost as otherworldly as he did completely grounded.

However inspiring the above proved, the sentimentalist inside me cannot help but note another occurrence as the true stand-out of the year. Even better than the news that Ridley Scott is planning a return to his Alien franchise, outshining the chance to write news, reviews and features for the web, surpassing the return of Road Runner and Coyote to the big screen and trumping even the final act of How To Train Your Dragon was the opportunity to meet the rest of the HeyUGuys team. For months I had followed them on twitter, read and admired their articles and it was a pleasure to finally meet a collection of the nicest and most enthusiastic like-minded movie-lovers in a small pub in London. Forgive the sentiment, but it really was the highlight of my year.

It really has been a great year for cinema, 2010 teasing the awesome potential for the new decade it has inevitably started. With Scream 4 on the way, the end of the Twilight saga in sight and Marmaduke mercifully behind us, the scene is set for a truly amazing new year.

Dimension Films have posted a new UK poster for their upcoming 3D horror film, effectively titled, Piranha 3D. The film is a remake of the 1978 comedy horror film, Piranha.

Synopsis: After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area’s new razor-toothed residents.

Piranha 3D was directed by Alexandre Aja, from a script penned by Pete Goldfinger, Grégory Levasseur, Alexandre Aja and Josh Stolberg, and stars Christopher Lloyd, Kelly Brook, Richard Dreyfuss, Adam Scott, Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O’Connell, Ving Rhames, Paul Scheer, Dina Meyer and Ricardo Chavira.

Despite concerns that the film is a cheap money-making dud, the marketing campaign up to now has been solid. Combine that with a decent supporting cast and a studio who know the material and target audience, Piranha 3D could end up surprising a lot of people. From the trailer, it certainly looks like it could be a hugely enjoyable B-movie.

Check out the UK poster below, courtesy of Bloody-Disgusting:

Piranha 3D will hit UK cinemas on August 20, 2010.

It seems that Yahoo have been smashing out all the content that we’ve been posting over the last couple of days. Yesterday they posted the first image of Chris Hemsworth dressed as Thor, then a new poster from Tron Legacy and now they have the new full length trailer for Piranha 3 directed by Alexandre Aja.

Piranha has a pretty good cast of Hollywood has-beens but a lot of them are still legends in my mind. Elizabeth Shue reappears after a while away from the big screen, Christopher Lloyd pops up alongside Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames and Eli Roth. It really is an eclectic cast in a movie that looks like it’s going to be rather average. The CGI on the fish looks pretty ropey from the trailer but i guess we’ll have to wait and see what the finished product looks like.

All that said, will i go and see it?! Heck yeah!!! Piranha 3d is released in the UK 20th August and the US 27th so it looks like we get another film before them over there again! YAY!

Check out the new trailer below and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Synopsis: Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for Spring Break, a riot of sun and drunken fun. But this year, there’s something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers; A new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria. After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area’s new razor-toothed residents.

The 1978 film Piranha, produced by Roger Corman and directed by Joe Dante, is set to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on the 3rd of August this year, the same month the remake of the film hits theatres. I am looking forward to the home theatre release of the original a lot more than I am the theatrical release of the remake.

Predictably this new Piranha film,directed by Alexandre Aja, is being released theatrically in 3D. Although it has hard to have high hopes for this remake the film  looks truly terrible based on the teaser below. Although I am a fan of schlocky B movies I wonder if Piranha 3-D actually has anything new or interesting to offer. Check out the teaser and see what you think.

Released in the UK on the 20th of August the synopsis and UK teaser are embedded below.

Synopsis: In Lake Victoria Arizona, a tremor causes the lake’s floor to open, setting free scores of prehistoric piranhas… Theyre back! Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for a single, wild weekend – the 4th of July, a riot of sun, drunken fun and sex-crazed mayhem. But this year, there’s something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers. Lake Victoria sits in the crater formed by a prehistoric volcanic eruption, and when earth tremors tear open a crack in the lake floor, all hell breaks through. Piranhas – a million ravenous, razor-toothed monsters, unchanged since the dawn of time. Unstoppable killing machines acting blindly under one primeval impulse: to hunt down anything that moves and strip it to the raw, bleeding bone. In seconds.

Image source: Bloody Disgusting

The Teaser can also be found on Youtube here.

Because it’s now my job to sit down and watch trailers, look and posters and watch movies all day long, it’s not often that I go to the cinema and see a trailer for a film that i haven’t seen already! That changed over the weekend when I saw the trailer for Piranha 3d. Although it had the style of Deep Blu Sea or Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, it still reeled me in (see what I did there?!) and has me actually wanting to see it!

Piranha 3D is directed by Alexandre Aja and has a pretty impressive cast which includes Adam Scott, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Dina Meyer, Richard Dreyfuss and the woman I wanted to be my girlfriend when I was 10, Elisabeth Shue! In fact, could this be the first time that Shue and Lloyd have been reunited since Back to the Future?! You heard it here first folks…. unless I’m wrong!

Synopsis: In Lake Victoria Arizona, a tremor causes the lake’s floor to open, setting free scores of prehistoric piranhas… Theyre back! Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for a single, wild weekend – the 4th of July, a riot of sun, drunken fun and sex-crazed mayhem. But this year, there’s something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers. Lake Victoria sits in the crater formed by a prehistoric volcanic eruption, and when earth tremors tear open a crack in the lake floor, all hell breaks through. Piranhas – a million ravenous, razor-toothed monsters, unchanged since the dawn of time. Unstoppable killing machines acting blindly under one primeval impulse: to hunt down anything that moves and strip it to the raw, bleeding bone. In seconds.