If you just go by the plot synopsis and cast list, In Your Eyes sounds like an indie sci-fi romance that might be good, might be bad, but will probably come and go without getting much fanfare. But when you look at the writing credits, suddenly it looks like a film that’s probably going to get a lot of attention. This one is coming from a script by Joss Whedon, a man who’s not only already a genre deity, but who is also poised to direct a film that’s likely to break a bunch of records and dominate the cultural milieu come this summer, The Avengers. Yeah, it’s only a matter of time before Whedon becomes a big damn deal, so chances are this movie will be getting a lot more attention than it would have otherwise.

This info all comes from an article posted by Deadline Canton, who also have the scoop that Michael Stahl-David and Zoe Kazan have been cast as the romantic leads. Stahl-David will be playing Dylan, a guy who just finished serving time in jail in New Mexico because he took the fall for a robbery when he wouldn’t rat out the rest of his partners. Kazan will play Rebecca, the now-standard Whedon character of the attractive girl who’s also a little skinny and awkward. She’s married to an older doctor and living in Connecticut.

What makes this movie a sci-fi romance is that the two, very different, characters share a powerful connection that allows them to see and hear each other, even though they’ve never met and they live so far away from each other. One must assume that a bunch of mushy stuff follows. The whole thing is being put together by director Brin Hill, and looks like it should be starting production soon. Whedonites, rejoice!

If you look at Tony Scott’s IMDB page, the first thing you notice is that he has 31 movies listed as being in development. This is a guy who really likes to talk about what he might be doing next, so whenever his name is involved I generally take the news with a grain of salt. Fact is, Scott hasn’t actually sat down and got to work on directing anything since 2010’s Unstoppable, and any talk about him doing Top Gun 2, a Warriors remake, Hell’s Angels, or what ever else, has so far amounted to just that; talk.

With that in mind, Deadline North Shields has their eye on a story that they say seems different from the usual Tony Scott big show and no results. They say that things are heating up around a project called Lucky Strike in a very real way, as Emmett/Furla Films is on board to fund the film’s $80m budget and Vince Vaughn is supposedly attached to star. If Scott signs on officially, the film would look to have a late summer or early fall start date.

Written by Henry Bean, Lucky Strike is an action film about a DEA agent who has to team up with a drug runner in order to take on an entire cartel. That sounds pretty far out of Vaughn’s wheelhouse, and I think he’s a guy whose comedic schtick can get a bit tiresome, so I’d definitely be interested to see what Vince Vaughn: Action Star would look like. Hasn’t he been living in Chicago and getting fat for the past decade or so? It might be time to hit the treadmill, Mr Vaughn. Good luck, and stay away from the deep dish pizza and Italian beefs.

Either the mulitple-impling title of Juan Carlos Fresnadillo‘s Intruders is not entirely apt, or marketing for the film is playing some serious tricks on us. Titles aside, the 28 Weeks Later helmer is back with a new horror flick that might just scare your face right off – or, if not yours, perhaps some of the film’s stars. The film sees Clive Owen as a dad whose creative 13-year-old daughter (Ella Purnell) tells her class a story about a scary, faceless creature that visits kids during the night. And then the creature (“Hollow Face”) just goes ahead and shows right up – at least, that’s how it looks in this new trailer.

The film’s official synopsis explains the situation as such: “Though no one can see him, Hollow Face lurks in the corners, desperately desiring love but only knowing how to spread fear and hate…The line between the real and the imaginary blurs as fissures start to open within the family unit.” And while that’s terrifying enough, perhaps the film’s title is spot-on, because that same synopsis also tells us that this “is the chilling story of two children living in different countries, each visited nightly by a faceless being who wants to take possession of them.” So why are we only meeting Owen and Purnell? I wonder…

Keep your eyes open and your mouth wide, and check out the new trailer for Intruders after the break.

Intruders showed in limited European markets last year after its premiere at TIFF, and it will finally hit the States in March, with its U.S. premiere at SXSW and a limited release on March 30.

[IMDB, via /Film]

By the time you reach the minute-forty mark of the new trailer for Justin Kurzel‘s The Snowtown Murders (previously known just as Snowtown), when a pullquote from the Financial Times about the film pops up, you’ll probably know if the film is for you. After all, that very pullquote reads “Presents a world of moral nightmare, and sits us inside it, to feel the pulse and the processes of evil as if they were our own.” And before that one? A quote from Film Comment that exclaims that the film is “profoundly disturbing.” So, not one for family movie night.

The winner of the Jury Prize at 2011 Cannes Film Festival, an entry at other festivals across the country (including AFI FEST and Fantastic Fest), and the winner of no less than four Australian Academy Awards, Kurzel’s film is also his directorial debut and it looks to be a stunner. Based on the real life tale of Australia’s most notorious and shocking murders in the suburb of Snowtown, the film explores the relationship between some of those guilty of the crime. If it’s half as captivating as this trailer, that “masterpiece” billing just might stick.

The Snowtown Murders will be released theatrically in NYC on March 2nd, with a planned national rollout to follow.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s all the movie news that’s fit to print. So, please, print it out and read it on your morning commute. The videos are especially effective that way.

We begin this evening with four arms. This is just one of the ninety-seven images that Disney released in support of John Carter which means that if you make a flipbook of them, you’ve got a nice cheap version of the movie.

Plus, John Carter wants you to read!

Using a movie to display how reading can spark our imaginations. Interesting angle. Especially since now all the kids that pick up that book won’t be able to help envisioning those creatures and that world design while thumbing the pages.

Remember when Chris Dodd threatened politicians who didn’t support “Hollywood” during the SOPA fiasco? President Obama went ahead and raised a bunch of money from movie-types anyway.

Over at Movies.com, Mike Bracken does his homework by explaining the science behind spider webs as they apply to Peter Parker and to us non-bitten citizens. Apparently destroying 10% of the web actually makes it stronger, meaning we should be dominated by arachnids any day now. Or that they should build a web 10% broken to begin with.

Apparently credit is due to the internet for making The Vow a hit since Sony utilized Facebook and Twitter to get the word out. At first it seems a bit dated to think that using social media for advertising is anything special, but the article brings up good points about the brief history, the reluctance of studios to utilize these new tools, and the way marketing content has shifted. Now that it relies on more direct connection, we can expect more Facebook videos of Channing Tatum charming us directly through the monitor.

Good news! Michael Moore and Harvey Weinstein finally settled their legal differences over Fahrenheit 9/11! Terms are private, but it’s a safe bet that Moore is a few dollars richer.

Bad news…Brian Salisbury made a list of Nic Cage’s craziest performances for Movies.com and was blinded before losing his mind in the process. Brian now wanders the streets of Austin, asking trees that he thinks are people for spare squirrels and pineapple cores. If anyone has seen him, try to stop debating whether Con Air is crazier than The Wicker Man and help him out. Hang in there, buddy!

Like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston has left behind an unfinished project. The movie Sparkle is her first film appearance in 15 years and will, of course, be her last. The period piece features Houston as the mother of soul singers and is still slated for an August release. The LA Times points out that it might be insensitively too soon considering that the movie features addiction, but the real danger would be if it’s a crappy flick. August? A lot of confidence there, Sony. At least they didn’t push it up to more directly capitalize on her death.

One of the more ingenious marketing campaigns comes, of course, from Drafthouse Films and Bullhead. They’ve utilized the popular website Fiverr.com where you can pay people a sawbuck to do things. Devin Faraci at Badass Digest is chronicling the ads during the time he saves not trimming his beard. The latest? A boy and his goats. If this thing wins an Oscar, it’ll be this campaign to credit.

Speaking of the challenging Best Foreign nominee, our very own Luke Mullen recently penned an exploration of the film’s themes alongside Kurosawa and Star Wars. What do they have to do with a Belgian story about manliness and the bovine steroid black market? Probably a lot.

We close tonight with a promo for the new sketch show Key & Peele which features two movie hecklers that…actually have some good points. Put some information up in the frame, bitch!

Based on Win Lyovarin‘s novel, Headshot (Fon Tok Kuen Fah) is a noir assassin story that features a killer who takes a bullet to the brain – leaving him seeing the world upside down. Considering that it’s from Thailand, has a crazy premise and involves violence, there’s a word of warning that should come along with writer/director Pen-En Ratanaruang‘s film: it’s far more drama than action film.

For whatever reason, Ratanaruang and company chose to abandon anything about the story’s gimmick that makes it viable and loaded down their structure with faulty flashbacks and confused caricatures. It’s a fairly standard crime story with wasted potential, but it has a leading man that comes close to making it worthwhile.

Tul (Jayanama Nopachai) is a hitman, but he used to be a cop. The good kind. Unfortunately, the good kind of cop often goes after the wrong kind of bad guy, and Tul’s apprehension of a powerful politician’s brother leads him first to be bribed and then outright blackmailed, leading to a prison sentence. With a firm sense of morality but lost faith in the system, he turns to the enigmatic Dr. Suang (Krerkkiat Punpiputt) who doles out names and photographs of bad guys who need to meet the wrong end of a bullet.

That’s all well and good. It’s great in fact, but the presentation of that story is overly difficult and filled with padding.

The biggest crime the movie commits is jumping in time without much of a reason. Linear storytelling might seem too bland, but it would have done wonders here. Instead, we get scenes where context perfectly explains what’s happened to Tul, followed not by a brief flashback to enforce it, but a lengthy flashback sequence that places on display what we already know. Had they given details or used the opportunity to deliver an action sequence (or anything really), it would have made the film more muscular, but instead the long stretches come off as flat and uninteresting. Somehow, Ratanaruang did better with Telling than with Showing, and the result is a bit like being asked to listen to the lecture after passing the test.

On that same front, a great aggravation comes from the gimmick – Tul’s new-found sight. Without it, Headshot is fairly unremarkable, but with it, it’s maddening. Ratanaruang does nothing with it. There are a few POV shots where the entire screen flips upside down, but that’s about it. You would imagine that this profound change would affect the character greatly, but besides some early difficulty, he barely shows any signs that he has a problem. You’d also imagine that learning to cope and move around with the new angle on life would give him some sort of advantage with its mastery, but it doesn’t. The only ability Tul possesses comes from his early cop days where he practiced moving around with his eyes closed. So how does he win in fights? He has to hope he’s close enough to a light switch. You’d also imagine that a hook as innately visual as that would make a cinematographer and director squeal with delight, but there’s simply no evidence of that here.

Beyond that, Tul is affected internally by his ailment, but the production doesn’t do a good job putting that shift on display. After all, it’s difficult to show what’s happening inside a character’s mind in a visual medium, especially when he spends most of his time alone. As a stand in, Tul often stares off into the distance or at drawings or photographs. He narrates in voice over. He works out a lot while in jail.

Of course, this lack of emotional discovery is made more difficult by the sheer amount of things that happen to him. There’s the blackmail which involves the death of a woman he has sex with within moments of meeting her, the jail time, his life as an assassin, his life as a monk, and the shot that almost killed him. Where the entire film seems to focus on that near-death experience changing him, its his switch from cop to assassin that’s actually powerful. He may claim the shot to his brain figuratively changed the way he sees the world, but he himself doesn’t show any trues signs of change after it. It’s as if the character is asked to evolve twice in one story, which is interesting, but simply fumbled.

On the plus side, the handful of action scenes are shot capably with gun blasts and quick movements, but having a hero who does best fighting in total darkness doesn’t exactly make things easy.

It’s wholly unfair to judge a movie on what it could have been, but few films place their potential on a pedestal and fail to engage it like Headshot. All the unique advantages and challenges that come with a man who sees upside down went untouched and unanswered. To judge the film as is, without any worry about how another director might have taken a different take, the entire thing still comes off as dreadfully average and unnecessarily sloppy in its construction.

Rising above all of the shortcomings is Nopachai, a charismatic lead who shines with subtlety. Amidst a sea of flat characters (the femme fatale hooker Joy played by the ironically un-flat Chanokporn Sayoungkul, the mysterious assassin boss Dr. Suang, the revenge-seeking guy setting everything into motion), Nopachai turns Tul into something flawed and fully realized. He has a ton more screen time to do it, but it’s a credit to his abilities that when shoved into a paint-by-numbers noir, he can emerge as a powerful force that elevates the material.

As a result, it’s not completely a waste. Tul is a killer without viciousness, and Nopachai brings him to life in ways that are often fascinating. Still, with a director who celebrates the elements of the story that can’t be shown on screen while shunning a visual concept that seems perfect for the medium, perhaps this is one story that should have stayed on the printed page.

Complete Berlinale Coverage

Why Watch? This short from Lawrence Bourke shrugs off the challenges of small talk and quick poignancy as if they couldn’t have possibly caused problems for a quaint story. Although it feels at first a little too French, there’s nothing pompous about it. The result is a soothing look at a boy and girl meeting briefly at a bus stop. Nothing complicated, but still a lot to be found.

It could be the beginning of a huge love epic or it could be a brief moment like the last bite of desert that satisfies but disappears forever. It’s strength is possibility, and with a high concept and a cute couple, the camera helps immensely by keeping them separate until they truly make a connection. The result is a reminder that small moments of beauty happen every day – even while waiting for public transport. It’s sympathetic, smile-inducing work.

What will it cost? Only 4 minutes.

Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day (which I know came and went two days ago, but I wanted to keep the romance going) I decided to get into the spirit of things by looking not just into romantic movies, but movies that featured romantic moments where music played a big part in the delivery. We all know the moment when the music swells and our two leads finally lean in, run for or jump into that kiss or embrace created to make our hearts swoon.

But I’m not talking about those moments. I’m talking about the moments where the music was just as important as anything said or done and it was the music that truly helped bring the romance to the scene (granted most of these moments were usually also paired with two good looking actors making eyes at each other).

Grab your leftover chocolate and conversation hearts and join me in watching these love birds sing, dance and profess their love through the magic of music in these movie moments that are as much about the tunes as they are about the love.

Say Anything… – Boom Box Scene

The first scene that came to my mind that best captured this idea was the iconic boom box scene in Say Anything. Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) found himself wrecked by love and attempted to turn himself into “Ice Man, Power Lloyd” to turn off his heart and keep it from any future heartbreak. But his love for Diane Court (Ione Skye) wormed its way back in and he found himself standing outside her bedroom window, boom box lifted over his head, blasting the song they first got down to and made Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” forever synonymous with this moment.

The fact that Lloyd and Diane do not exchange a single word of dialogue during this scene makes the music all the more important, not just for the lyrics Gabriel is singing (“I drive off in my car / But whichever way I go / I come back to the place you are”), but because the song itself was actually noted during this important moment in their relationship, making Lloyd’s call back to it all the more meaningful.

10 Things I Hate About You – Patrick’s Serenade

Long before he became a full-fledged movie star, Heath Ledger stole young girl’s hearts in the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You (based on the Shakespearean play “The Taming of the Shrew“). And while many remember this movie for Kat’s (Julia Stiles) impassioned speech listing the ten things she hated about Patrick (Ledger) or the sweet (and totally implausible – paint balls hurt!) paint ball date they went on, it was Patrick’s declaration of love for Kat via Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” that always stuck out most in my mind.

Ledger not only proves he is a decent singer in this scene, it almost made being in a high school marching band cool (if it meant you could help the school’s rebel hit the climax of his song with full musical accompaniment.) This scene was the first sign of a different side to Patrick and worked to set the groundwork that his bad boy/rebel persona may not have been all there was to him (or even true to begin with.)

Love Actually – Carol Singers

Poor Mark (Andrew Lincoln) found himself in love with his best friend Peter’s (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wife Juliet (Keira Knightley) and after Juliet discovered the truth about his feelings for her, Mark did the only thing a respectable Brit could – came clean about his feelings (because that’s what you do at Christmas!) and walked away. But how does one do that without their best friend growing wise to their admission? Disguise it as Christmas carol singers going door to door! Even though Peter tells Juliet to dismiss the carolers, she stays put and one of the more romantic moments in movie history is born set to the sweet sound of carolers helping to drive home the point that, “at Christmas you tell the truth.”

Once – First Duet

In a story about two musicians who fall for one another, the most pivotal moment in their relationship would be when they first sing together and Once delivers this moment handily. Never known as more than Guy (Glen Hansard) and Girl (Marketa Irglova), the pair first sing “Falling Slowly” in the middle of a unassuming music shop, helping to add to the un-staged, almost documentary style of the film. The lyrics of the song worked as the dialogue in the scene, reflecting what Guy and Girl were starting to feel for one another. The moment comes across as not only incredibly sweet, but also very natural (probably due to the fact that Hansard and Irglova were falling in love with each other in real life as well) and helped to make “Falling Slowly” the Best Song winner at 2007 Academy Awards.

The Wedding Singer – Song Proposal

It was no question that Julia (Drew Barrymore) was engaged to a jerk (Matthew Glave‘s selfish and misogynistic Glenn), but when she meets Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) it becomes clear that despite his heartbreak over his own broken engagement and Julia’s impending nuptials, the two were made for each other. Equal parts goofy and sweet, Robbie puts on his most important performance during a flight to Las Vegas and professes not only his love for Julia, but does in an sweet and funny way that perfectly matched the tone of the film and the couple’s relationship.

The song title alone (“I Wanna Grow Old With You”) is a fun twist on asking someone to spend their life with you, plus you can’t really go wrong in any scene that features Billy Idol.

500 Days Of Summer – Dancing In The Street

Have you ever had one of those moments where you are so happy you could just break into dance? Well after his first night with Summer (Zooey Deschanel), Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) does just that in this adorable scene that has him dancing through the streets of Los Angeles along with some very coordinated passersby. The moment was more than a slight wink to the audience (with a cameo by Han Solo and an animated feathered friend to boot), but it worked in showing just how in the clouds Tom was over his relationship with Summer. And while it may have been the first hint that he was overly romanticizing their relationship, it was still a sweet moment that truly depicted what it’s like when you first start falling for someone.

Dirty Dancing – Dance Lessons

You can check out the clip here. In it, the teacher becomes the student as Baby (Jennifer Grey) takes the lead and gives Johnny (Patrick Swayze) a taste of his own medicine, directing him around the dance floor this time around. Johnny’s inability to pay attention and keep his form quickly devolves into the two having more than a little fun to “Lover Boy,” playing along with and acting out the lyrics of the song. The scene not only shows how comfortable the two had become with one another, it was a fun role reversal that works as a stark contrast to their first dance lessons together and has Johnny acting like a fool in love while Baby takes charge of not only the dance, but the scene itself. The final dance scene is certainly iconic and romantic in its own right, but this smaller one always spoke to me more because it felt like a true glimpse into their relationship and had them playing with the music rather than just dancing to it.

What are some of your favorite romantic scenes that worked thanks to the music featured in them?

Plug in to more movie music with Aural Fixation

Based on title alone, would you go see a movie called The Woman Who Brushed Off Her Tears? Probably not. It sounds like the kind of bland puffery that consists mainly of scenes where groups of women are crying and telling each other it’s going to be alright. The purple poetry of the name is unfortunate, because it almost guarantees that some will skip over a strong, unique revenge story with a killer lead actress. In this case, judging a movie by its poster is the wrong move.

From writer/director Teona Strugar Mitevska, it’s the kind of movie that toys around with convention and flirts with pretense while, for the most part, staying focused on characters and conflict. That conflict begins with a devastating opening scene which pairs timing, taboo and gripping performance to great effect. It’s a gut punch, but instead of picking you up off the curb, the movie kicks you when you’re down.

It’s a catalyst that greatly affects Helena (Victoria Abril), a parole officer who sleepwalks through work where everyone she deals with is brushing off crocodile tears. Her teenage son kills himself, unable to process being sexually abused at a young age by his father Emil (Jean-Marie Galey), and the way she responds to her world changes. Something invisible snaps.

The tragedy fills Helena with acid, and it’s in a weakened state that she’s convinced by parolee Lucien (Arben Bajraktaraj) to help him across the border into Macedonia to buy the love of his life, Aysun (Labina Mitevska) from a traditional father who’s pretty pissed that Lucien bedded her already and produced a boy who now mopes around the village in a Spider-Man mask. Helena needs closure, Lucien needs money and a ride. It could be the setup for a quirky indie comedy if things weren’t so dire and bleak.

But they are with incredible purpose. To be certain, it’s a story of strength and vengeance, but it’s atypical in almost every way. It’s the opposite of Taken, but it still involves a main character seeking retribution for an unforgivable sin. The core difference here is that Helena is a damsel in distress that decides to save herself. Lucien may seem manipulative, but he’s really a tool in a bigger plan from a woman changed.

To that point, Abril plays the character with saltwater veins and a face etched from whetstone. Mitevska is an empty vessel of a young woman, Bajraktaraj has the right amount of youthful angst, Galey is an asshole of the highest order, but it’s Abril that stands far above and beyond the other talent on screen. She’s a human knife, cutting through the density with zero tolerance even as she internalizes her husband’s hurtful idiocy. Instead of lashing out, she plots, making her far more terrifying in her nonchalance and calculations.

On the downside, the film suffers from the kind of faux-important padding that drags, but the camera work is surprisingly active – flinching between almost uncomfortably stark close-ups and a repeated trick of panning slowly to the right of left in order to catch characters moving to different rooms or (no kidding) to different mental states. The pans admittedly betray the insular nature of the story because they’re too noticeable as a film school-style trick, but DP Mátyás Erdély uses them enough to build them into something usable – like the jazz musician who hits a wrong note and then repeats it until it becomes an integral part of the solo.

The Woman Who Brushed Off Her Tears is effectively a crushing first and third act with some satisfying dramatic meat in the middle. It could do well with a tighter, less airy editing session to bring its angry tone better into focus, but there’s a lot to enjoy here. Is it a standard revenge story? Not at all. No one should expect ass kicking or action around every corner, but it’s in how the genre is manipulated here that’s commendable. There’s a dash of Chan-wook Park by way of Macedonia – often silent, but ultimately startling. Maybe just not as bizarre. What’s more, Helena’s motives are well-defined, making the ending not a shocking twist, but a release of tension that’s been smirkingly building from the moment she goes to pick up her son’s ashes.

Overall, it’s a pleasure that’s bathed in the dirty browns of the Macedonian farmland and the Belgium city center. It shares the same aged beauty as the lead whose performance cements it as an engrossing character study of a mind pushed off the edge of an apartment balcony. In short: funny name, serious movie.

Complete Berlinale Coverage

The horror genre gets a bad rap. Virtually all horror movies are dismissed out of hand when it comes to having something to say. Who can take a message out of all that blood and violence? Well when the world is bloody and violence, I say horror films are the perfect venue to tell some stories and in a graphic way. Undocumented, from first-timer Chris Peckover, uses the topical subject of illegal immigration in America as it’s setting.

Don’t run away! While there is obviously some politics at play here, the film doesn’t delve too far into the seriousness of the politics, but it does perhaps give you pause to think about the situation, at least some aspects of it.

The film follows a group of grad students making a film about illegal border crossings and those who take advantage of illegal labor. During a border crossing for their documentary, the group ends up getting kidnapped alongside the illegal immigrants by a violent border control group.

Kills

There are around eleven on-screen kills and one off-screen one. There are probably a few other people who wound up dead at the day’s end. In fact, we could assume anywhere between two and twenty-four additional deaths that we never see. Much of the killing and actual violence is off-screen, but there is a good amount of blood to be had.

Ills

As I was saying, while I think too many of the kills are only partially shown or off-screen, we do get to see some carnage. There are some gunshots, a head wound, a slit throat, a few vicious beatings, a dog bite, and various stabbings. There is a decent amount of blood and some of the gore bits are surprisingly graphic and good, while a handful are marred by obvious CGI blood. Why?

Lust

We see some people stripped down to their underwear, but it’s not sexy. What is sexy, though, is star Alona Tal who, if you’re reading, I will straight up marry you. You know, if you get divorced. Fingers crossed! Ahahaha, Happy Valentine’s Day! (Two days late)

Learning

There are several lessons to be learned here. Many movies have taught us that you should never smuggle drugs, this one adds people to that list (and still drugs). You also probably shouldn’t give your hostages guided tours and if you are a hostage, you might want to not always antagonize the violent assholes with guns, knives, and bats, who have shown no hesitation to violence and murder.

Review

When I first noticed that ‘found footage’ type stuff was being implemented in the movie, I was dreading it. I am not a fan of that method of storytelling. Thankfully, it’s not overdone and a lot of the film is shot traditionally.

I had more concerns too – I was afraid the film was going to be an overly liberal jaunt pointing the middle finger at middle America. While the film flirts very briefly with that territory, it never dives into it and stays fairly apolitical.

My fears allayed, I dug the film a fair bit. It wasn’t perfect and I found myself getting a touch bored around 65 minutes in or so (the film runs around 95 minutes), but it regained steam. Our heroes aren’t the smartest of people, as when they’re held captive they don’t play by the rules, get punished, and then repeat the whole situation. I definitely wasn’t a fan of the CGI blood and wish more of the violence happened on screen.

All the negatives out of the way (save one, coming soon), the film is a good, darkly comedic trip. The villains have two sides: idiotic and awesome (kind of). Most of the crew, once they speak, come across kind of dumb and overly “hickish.” It’s almost cartoony, one guy treats a Mexican servant like a dog, teaching her tricks for apple wedges, while another’s speech about creating a better scarecrow is part goofy, part cool horror stuff.

The awesome comes in from Peter Stormare, whose voice I recognized immediately despite the fact he wears a mask almost the entirety of the film. His character is obviously a flawed and sadistic individual, but Stormare makes him almost charismatic and likable. Almost. He does fantastic work in the film.

Chris Peckover makes his feature debut with the film, which he also co-wrote, and there are some good visuals within. He’s one to watch.

One problem I did have the film is pretty spoilery – so turn back now if you want.

Okay. At one point in the film, our grad students try to make an escape only to find the outside of the compound is guarded by at least one vicious dog and seemingly surrounded by barbed wire. However, when the survivors make their final escape, they exit a door and it’s a wide open field with no dogs and no barbed wire. This could just be some back area they didn’t guard, which makes our otherwise very competent villains seem incompetent, especially considering they left a truck with the keys in it sitting there. Further, our hero, Travis (Scott Mechlowicz), has ample opportunity to ambush, execute, or otherwise kill almost every bad guy, but fails to do so, leading to what we know is their escape and can only assume leads to the execution of every single captive still in the compound, which probably means about twenty people. Some hero!

That small ending stumble aside, overall the film is well put together, interestingly shot, has a great performance from Peter Stormare, the beautiful Alona Tal in many shots, and has a novel and topical idea handled pretty well.

While you’ll see that I’m giving myself a lot of leeway in the following list (one of the ten isn’t even technically a film), the general idea is that the list that follows singles out films that go beyond simple narration, but rather identify themselves as stories being told either in the universe or even at times outside of the universe. Narration to a film is like a frame to a painting, and while all frames hold their painting in place, there are some that do it with a little more style than others. These are some of my favorites.

10. The Royal Tenenbaums

This is as literal as a movie gets without ever actually showing someone telling the story to anyone else. The film is like a presentation of a book form of itself, making it technically the retelling of a story. It has a prologue, chapters, and an epilogue all visually laid out for the audience. Each character is not only presented with flat-out exposition upon their introduction in the story, but also introduced ahead of time in a single montage that simply sums up their name, who plays them, and gives a visual representation of their character.

Clearly the line is a bit blurred with this one, but I wanted to talk about it mainly for the reason.

This seems to be a regular thing for Wes Anderson films – his films exist in this weird semi-reality where through editing and sometimes characters the story is presented to us in this odd, made up formality – almost like a fancy three course meal that consists only of candy.

Alec Baldwin is the chocolate.

9. Forrest Gump

It feels like nowadays poor Forrest wouldn’t even stand a chance to get a fellow bench partner’s attention, let alone be able to keep their interest with a story. No – now we have something called smart phones and they are designed to keep the Forrest Gumps of the world safely muffled in the background. Don’t get me wrong, 9 times out of 10 that’s probably a good thing, but then there is that one time where the slow guy at the bus stop happens to be worth more than the lives of you and everyone you love – such as the story of Gump.

Of course what makes the entire story he tells so endearing is that along with his personal story, it’s the story of the United States – but through his eyes. That’s really the key to the whole film, following this one very simple, very kind man through every important historical event of the last several decades. He participates in it but almost as an outsider due to his lack of full understanding of the specifics. Because of Gump’s disinterest in the bad, we get a telling of history without any cynicism in the mix – a child’s perspective.

Over the course of the story you never really suspect that this Jenny, his number one priority throughout the entire film, is the reason he is sitting at that bus stop. Where he sits is actually the threshold to this love story’s third act, and it’s only in the last few moments of the story does that become apparent. Once it does – the story seamlessly transitions out of Gump’s narration and continues into the present, and for the first time we get to watch it all play out at the same time our hero does.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

8. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

This…probably doesn’t actually count. I’m not sure…

I’m not even sure how to classify the narration of this film, because it’s done by Robert Downey Jr. from the perspective of his character, but is also self-aware that the movie is well, a movie. It’s as if while all the events and characters and action and such exist in the universe of the film, the narration exists beyond the fourth wall. He’s not telling us a “story” – no, he’s telling us a “movie.” And while doing so he even comments on how well he is doing it – sometimes even commenting on the quality and believability of the plot itself. At one he even loses it when a character that you think is dead makes a cheesy recovery, talking about how studios executives are too scared to kill likable characters off and that they might as well bring everyone back – which for a moment the film actually does per his request.

It’s actually kind of the way you’d expect Robert Downey Jr. to narrate any film – he skips around, goes off on tangents, he even messes up a part and curses himself before getting back to it. In the end they do finally break that wall and show him telling the story – and yes, it’s just him sitting and looking right at us, recognizing us as people watching a movie.

7. Big Fish

Okay, it’s fifty/fifty with this one, as half the movie is a told story and the other half of the film exists in the world that the story is told in, with an eye to how the stories effect the characters.

This is not so much about the narration itself, but more about the personality of who’s telling the story. In this case it’s a man with a talent for exaggeration. This is, of course, kind of the point of the whole film, as it follows the struggle the man’s son has dealing with a father who never quite tells the truth about anything. It actually reminds me of an article on The Onion about the woman who regrets dating someone spontaneous. It’s all fun in games at first, but then if you have to deal with him regularly suddenly it’s a real pain in the ass. That’s the deal with this character – the stories are wonderful until you actually want to get a true account of something, then it’s incredibly frustrating.

Of course as the audience we could care less how much he exaggerates – which is why it’s so fun to watch the entire retelling of a man’s life done in grand form. It’s fitting as the storyteller is doing so at the very last days of his life – leading up to his son finally understanding the value of embellishment. The payoff is when the son starts actually investigating the man’s life on his own and finds that his exaggerated life story is actually surprisingly closer to reality than one would expect.

6. The Singing Detective

So, if I really wanted to, I could make this fit the film genre by choosing the Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson movie remake of the original BBC miniseries, but frankly I just can’t do that. Whatever – I’m not excluding this, so you’ll just have to sit there and take it.

The story being told in this case is rather unique – it’s your classic serial detective story, but the narrative is that of a man telling the story back to himself – or rather, thinking it all up. This is because this man, a novelist, happens to be in the hospital bedridden and covered in sores due to a skin condition. Refusing any painkillers, we not only follow his story in the hospital but also the detective narrative that runs in his own agony-diluted brain. Along with this story we also get to follow his memories as a child dealing with a mother who has an affair with his father and leaves him.

Things get especially fun when, due to our narrator losing his mind, the stories of his childhood and the singing detective begins to slowly melt into each other as well as coming into the waking world of the hospital. Suddenly you can’t tell what’s real and what’s just paranoid delusions as characters begin to scheme behind his back in the real world as they would in on of his novels. This is one of those things you kind of have to watch a few times – not only because the actual detective story, like any good detective story, is hard to follow – but also because the entire series is just one big beautiful mess.

After two years of operation, Flickchart has gathered an incredible amount of information supplied by movie fans on what their favorite movies are. On the cusp of finding out what “the best movie of the year is” from a bunch of people in tuxedos, the popular ranking website’s co-founder, Nathan Chase, joins me to discuss what makes us tick, the illusion of objectivity, and the mathematical search for greatness.

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On This Week’s Show:

The Best Around [Beginning - End]: What compels us to argue that one movie is better than another? Nathan Chase discusses his own Flickcharting habits as well as what he’s learned in two years as the site’s co-founder with insights that hit home.

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Three minds behind Oscar-nominated films share their stories and storytelling techniques.

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Last night, my Twitter feed coughed out a story from THR, an exclusive report about casting rumors for Lee Daniels‘ (Precious) potential next project, The Butler. At the time, I was too stunned (and too busy laughing hysterically) by how completely wrongheaded a few of the potential stars seemed to be for their respective roles to pen something on the subject. I’ve yet to fully recover, but my typing hands are itchy.

The Butler is the true life story of Eugene Allen, a White House butler who worked under eight presidents, spanning the years of 1952 to 1986. Danny Strong wrote the script (with a re-write from Daniels), based on Wil Haygood‘s 2008 Washington Post story “A Butler Well Served by This Election.” You can read the full story HERE, which is a wonderful tale not just about Allen, but about life (and race) in the White House (and America). The story also paid particular focus to the election of Barack Obama – it was published on November 7, 2008, just days after he was elected – and days after Allen himself cast his vote for the first African-American president.

But while the story behind The Butler is phenomenal, and Daniels’ apparent first choice to play Allen (David Oyelowo) is pretty great, the rest of the rumored casting for the film is a big bag of “wait, what?”

First off, the biggest name touted to join the project is Oprah Winfrey, who is reportedly “mulling an offer” to co-star as Allen’s wife. It would be Winfrey’s first live-action film since 1998′s Beloved. Winfrey’s acting work has been thin over the years, though she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for The Color Purple, her debut acting role. Despite that accolade, however, I’ve long thought that Winfrey is better utilized as a producer and champion of films (hello, Precious) than as an actual actress. What I’m saying is, I don’t think she’s that talented of an actress and I think she’s the sort of casting choice that proves distracting more than anything. Let us also mention that Winfrey is no less than twenty-three years older than Oyelowo.

But though Winfrey’s casting feels a touch too stunty, three other names being tossed around for roles are nothing short of bizarre (and even a bit laughable). Try these on for size – Mila Kunis as Jackie Kennedy, John Cusack as Richard Nixon, and Hugh Jackman as who-knows-who, but let’s just have some fun and say John F. Kennedy, because that casting would make as much sense as the rest of these rumors (and they are just rumors from “insiders” around Daniels). But, good goddammn, what? Mila Kunis is pretty adorable and funny, but Jackie O? And is Cusack even capable of playing a role that doesn’t stink of ham these days? (I say that as someone who loves Say Anything… and Better Off Dead with every fiber of her being). I’m really at a loss here.

However, these rumors might be a bit premature, as “financing is being still being cobbled together and no deals have been made,” though certainly should Winfrey sign on, the film would get a giant boost, so let’s sit tight for that inevitable news.

This is big news for people who like super famous actresses. August: Osage County is an adaptation of a Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning play of the same name. It tells the story of Violet, the pill-popping head of a family who must gather her daughters together in the face of a crisis. The film version will be directed by The Company Man’s John Wells, and it has the Weinsteins sitting in producer chairs. But that’s not why we’re all here reading this article, we’re all here to gush over the two actresses that they’ve cast in the leads.

Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts have signed on to play the mother and one of the adult daughters in this film. Maybe you’ve heard of them? Oscar winners? They’re kind of big deals. Of course, when a movie is able to pull a casting coup like this, there are a lot of self-congratulatory quotes that go around in press releases. To that end, Julia Roberts has already said, “After seeing Meryl Streep’s mesmerizing portrayal as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, it has me even more excited and proud to co-star with her.” The two have been attached to the film since back in 2010, but the Weinsteins have finally confirmed the pair in an official press release, along with the news that the film will start production this fall.

And Wells himself got in the flowery quote game himself by saying, “I’m delighted and feel very privileged to have the opportunity to direct Meryl and Julia in this magnificent piece written by Tracy Letts. Meryl’s extraordinary body of work made her the only conceivable choice to play Violet. Coupled with Julia’s effortless mastery of every role she undertakes and her fearlessness as an actress, I’m confident this first ever collaboration with Meryl and Julia will produce an exciting and moving film.”

No quotes from Streep were available, but, you know, she’s probably busy advising the president on Afghanistan or something. [Deadline Summit]

Do you have some interest in seeing more from Disney’s upcoming sci-fi adventure John Carter? Chances are that you do, as many of you are probably the types who are (a) familiar with the century-old source material or (b) just into that kind of thing in general. Based on this epic image gallery — 116 stills in all — we can see that Pixar alum Andrew Stanton’s first foray into the world of live-action (sort of) is heavy on spectacle. It’s a big story told over the massive landscape of Earth’s closest neighbor. Sexy martian princesses? Check. All-out war between alien races? Check. Giant white wolf ape motherf&*kers? Boom, you’ve got that, too. Forget whatever preconceived notions you have based on the trailers and check out the slick gallery of images that we’ve left for you after the jump.

John Carter is in theaters March 9, 2012. Check out the latest John Carter trailer and its part as one of our 52 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012.

A quick search of the site archives tells me that we haven’t done much reporting on the upcoming movie Switch yet, and that’s kind of a shame because it’s an interesting project for a number of reasons. The biggest and most obvious of these reasons is that it’s an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, and a sort-of prequel to Jackie Brown. What does that mean exactly? It means that this story features some of the earlier shenanigans of the Louis and Ordell characters that Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson played in the Quentin Tarantino adaptation of Leonard’s “Rum Punch,” which became Jackie Brown.

I said this was a sort-of prequel to Jackie Brown though, so don’t expect to see Tarantino or either of those actors back. This is a completely new take on Leonard’s material involving completely new people. But, the good news is that all of these new people kind of rule, too.

Okay, so most of them rule. The screenplay was adapted by and will be directed by Daniel Schechter, and admittedly that’s not very exciting because he hasn’t done much that most people have seen; but things get more promising when you look at the cast he’s assembling. For the Louis and Ordell characters he has John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey (rapper Mos Def) on board, and while they’re not exactly De Niro and Jackson, I think that they’re just as exciting a duo in their own way.

And that’s not the end of the casting news either. The story here has Louis and Ordell trying to make a quick buck by kidnapping a rich guy’s wife and holding her for ransom. Complications occur when it becomes clear that the rich guy has no interest in getting his wife back, so our beloved criminal duo then hatch a scheme with the help of said wife (who is now very angry) to rid said rich guy of a whole lot of money.

According to a report from Deadline Sherman Oaks, Schechter and his people are currently in negotiations for Dennis Quaid and Jennifer Aniston to come on as the husband and wife duo. If their signing becomes official, then that’s got to be seen as good news for this project. Aniston has the star power that this movie is, as of yet, lacking, and Quaid…well, he’s been doing nothing but solid work for a few decades now. He’s always a welcome addition to any cast.

While Switch might not sound quite as exciting as Tarantino working in the Jackie Brown universe again, it’s looking like it’s going to be a solid enough trip to the movies when you view it standing on its own. And really, that’s all I ask from anything.

Editor’s note: This review was originally published as part of our Fantastic Fest 2011 coverage on October 11, 2011. But since most of you have not yet had the chance to watch the devil himself practice good dental hygiene (and because the film is hitting limited theaters this Friday, February 17), we’re re-posting it here for your…enjoyment?

Masterpieces tend to be weighty. They tend to aggravate and enthrall both during the runtime and once the credits have rolled. They tend to have a heft that makes them difficult to carry even though they demand to live in your gut for months or years afterward.

On that front, and on many others, Michael defies the rules and expectations by being a shockingly breezy masterwork. Make that a shockingly breezy masterwork about a pedophile with a young boy locked in his basement.

Writer/director Markus Schleinzer has created a film that shoves all of the horrifying elements into your imagination without ever delivering the goods visually. It’s an incredible feat that makes its mark from the opening scene where our villain returns his dumpy self to his dumpy home and visits the cub scout he keeps locked away. They eat dinner, they watch a little television, and the scene cuts to a shot so suggestive post-act that it makes everything far, far too clear for comfort. This is the primary technique of the rougher segments of the movie, and it works with a stark skill that streamlines the nightmare.

Michael Fuith commands the screen as Michael – a middle aged nobody who is remarkable in his plainness. He keeps quiet at work even though he excels at what he does. He is neat and tidy around the house. He regularly molests a 10-year-old house prisoner. All part of the ho-hum tedium of Michael’s life. However, the young boy, Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger), manages to be an even more compelling character, standing at the center as either the heart of the film or the thing that stabs that heart.

The story, as a whole, would be dreadfully boring on its own. It’s mostly comprised of scenes of a pasty guy eating dinner, brushing his teeth, shopping, going to work, singing in his car, and generally being a suburbanite drone. It’s a cinema verite style that’s transformed by his singular character trait of active pedophilia. Everything becomes fascinating because of the unthinkable hobby Michael takes part in, and the level of dedication he has to it. It becomes like watching Hitler sing disco music in the car, like watching Satan brush his teeth.

In that sense, it’s a bit emotionally confusing. Since Michael is the main subject, and since there’s never anyone in the film to judge him, it’s easy to forget his evil while watching his acts of banality. There are even moments that are laugh out loud funny. Still, Schleinzer shows such skill as a filmmaker that he can ease you into those moments or choose to slap you out of them by following them up with something soul pounding.

Fortunately, it never gets negatively manipulative. It’s true that Schleinzer has us right where he wants us, but it’s never done callously or with cheap tricks. The mark of careful skill is on display here as he smashes a hammer against a locked basement door and creates something truly delicate. It’s also a testament to Schleinzer’s years of experience as a casting director that he found Fuith and Rauchenberger. The other characters (though solidly acted) are filler. Fuith is engaging with his subtlety (and with his ability to explode when the situation calls for it), and Rauchenberger astounds as a child actor who creates nuance and texture to a character who could have easily been mopey and flat.

The very definition of the film comes in a scene at dinner between these two wondrously talented actors. It involves a question and an answer that wraps up the feeling and intent of Michael in a crisp package. The scene is hilarious and terribly sad all at once. It displays Michael’s true nature and the point where Wolfgang has been brought to against his will. It’s also short, sweet and as clean-cut as any other moment – yet it’s still brimming with meaning and a cringe-worthy sense of humanity.

Michael is not a bombastic masterpiece. Everything about it is as quiet as your neighbor next door. That’s what makes it so damned effective. Schleinzer and company offer us a brief window into the boring life of a man who deserves to be beaten to death with wrenches, but somehow it’s the dull moments that are most telling for this monster. It’s so frighteningly everyday that it’s like being punched after a warm hug.

The Upside: A beautiful, disturbing movie told with simplicity and stellar acting.

The Downside: I’d be nitpicking to find one. The quick-in, quick-out editing can become repetitive by the end, maybe, but really the movie is a pure masterwork.

On the Side: Michael features the best use of a disco-era song of all time.

Editor’s note: This review was originally published as part of our Fantastic Fest 2011 coverage on October 16, 2011. But because this bonafide FSR favorite is hitting limited theaters this Friday, February 17, we’ve decided to re-post so that more of you can get intrigued by this modern masterpiece.

Fantastic Fest is always my favorite week of the year. The lineup is jam-packed with great films, many that have already garnered buzz on the internet or at other festivals, but plenty more that I’ve heard nothing about. Every year I’m surprised by some films and completely blown away by others. This year, I was surprised and blown away by the same film, Michael Roskam’s Bullhead.

If I told you that Bullhead is a brooding character study that would be true. If I told you that Bullhead tells a story about Belgium’s illegal hormone trade, the mafia that moves the chemicals, and the beef farmed from the animals injected with those chemicals that would be true too. But I doubt either of those facts would make you want to see this film. I’ll admit that it sounds boring and a tad ridiculous. It’s not. It’s an engaging, intelligent and powerful film that sticks with you.

As I said, the film is essentially a character study and the character in question is Jacky Vanmarsenille. Jacky is a stocky brute of a man with bulging biceps and a face like a boxer. He looks like a guy who’s gotten in too many fights over the years, fights he most likely started, and his face has paid the price for it. He’s inherited the family business, raising cattle for beef. And just like his father before him, he relies on illegal hormones supplied through mafia connections to raise bigger, fatter cattle quicker than nature could. When the possibility of a deal with a new supplier comes up, Jacky is skeptical but takes the meeting anyway, running into an old friend named Diederik in the process. But there’s more to this story than we know and as we gradually discover the significance of Jacky’s old friend, his present-day world starts to crumble.

The story unfolds in non-linear fashion, with simple yet brilliant storytelling. We jump between present day and an important event that happened decades ago, but only a few times. It’s not overdone and it’s not confusing, it’s just enough to slowly reveal important information that changes the way the Jacky character is perceived and understood by the audience. It’s subtle but draws parallels and connections, making the beef and hormone plot lines more meaningful. It is a great example of a filmmaker choosing a storytelling technique that enhances and compliments the narrative.

Matthias Schoenaerts is a revelation in the role of Jacky. He plays the role with just the right amount of faux confidence, insecurity and underlying hurt, no easy feat. Jacky is a complicated character who communicates much of his emotional state silently and Schoenaerts is more than up to the task, effortlessly drawing us into the character and subsequently the story. We get brief glimpses of Jacky in his bedroom, an empty, sterile room where he shadowboxes naked. It’s obvious that this is him at his most vulnerable though it’s never explicitly stated. Roskam trusts the audience to pick up on what’s his putting on screen without having to beat them over the head with it. These are some of the most well-shot scenes of the entire film, which is saying something in a film as good looking overall as this one is. Roskam and DP Nicolas Karakatsanis light and frame the film with sure hands, creating a gritty, realistic look with at least the appearance of a lot of natural sunlight. The scenes of Jacky shadowboxing in silhouette are particularly great examples of that.

Bullhead is an amazing film without any context whatsoever. But it is an even more astounding achievement given that it is writer/director Michael Roskam’s first feature film. It feels like it was made by a more experienced, seasoned director. In particular, Roskam manages to get great performances from his child actors. Directing children is almost always difficult and had to have been even more difficult given that so much of the film’s emotional impact comes in the kids’ scenes. The crux of the film’s emotional weight hung squarely on the shoulders of three young kids and Robin Valvekens (young Jacky), Baudoin Wolwertz (young Diederik), and David Murgia (young Bruno) all delivered intense and realistic performances that helped turn a good film into a great film.

The Upside: The film is flat out incredible and the accomplishment is all the more impressive given that it’s Roskam’s feature film debut. Possibly the biggest upside of the whole experience is that we (hopefully) have many more films from Roskam to anxiously await.

The Downside: The film does start to fizzle just a bit at the very end, but what’s come before is so powerful that it almost doesn’t matter. Bonus points for the last scenes also including some impressive experimental and stylized framing and camera work, despite allowing the narrative to unravel slightly.

On the Side: Despite the release of a new film by acclaimed Belgian filmmakers the Dardennes brothers, Bullhead is Belgium’s official entry to this year’s Oscars.

Today has been a pretty fantastic day for me in regard to movie-related news. First, I received an incredibly hard to find DVD of one of my favorite films of 2010, Sound of Noise, complete with English subs. Next I got to schedule an evening with friends with the express purpose of exposing them to the joy that is Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (and maybe a little drinking, too). Then I found out I’ll be seeing my most anticipated SXSW film two weeks before SXSW.

These are all things you couldn’t care less about.

But some news just broke that is sure to please thousands of movie lovers… Austin’s famed Alamo Drafthouse Theaters are branching out to the West coast and opening a theater in San Francisco. There’s no time table yet, and it probably won’t even open it’s doors until late 2013 at the earliest, but sweet Jeebus, this is glorious news!

Rumors have been swirling for a while that Tim and Karrie League were looking for an opportunity in San Francisco, but today Tim made an official announcement on the Alamo blog that confirms it. They’ve purchased the New Mission Theater, an old but beautifully designed movie house in need of much love and affection. The plan is to work with the city, and more specifically the neighborhood, to restore the theater back to its original glory…with some Alamo-inspired modifications of course.

We are planning on a full and complete historic renovation.  Even though our plan is to subdivide the balconies into small boutique theaters, we will be doing it in such a way as to preserve nearly all of the amazing architectural details of the space.  We would still preserve the massive downstairs screen and transform that space into a potential premiere venue with state of the art sound and picture.  We have been working hand-in-hand with the both historic and neighborhood groups to make sure that our restoration plans meet with their approval.  The great news is that the theater interior is largely in good shape.  A large percentage of the interior details have been preserved and even most of the light fixtures are intact.”

This is great news all around, as anyone who’s been to an Alamo Theater can attest. The theaters take the audience experience seriously and work to make it a memorable and enjoyable one for all. From top notch film presentations, to a strict no-talking/cell phone policy, to a delicious menu that caters to all tastes (including vegetarians like myself)…to the hilarious and often inappropriate reels that play between movies. San Francisco already has a handful of great theaters, but you can never have enough of them willing to show films outside the megaplex norm.

We will be featuring a mix of classic film programming, our unique alternative content and live events, foreign films, independent films as well as some studio films.  Just like in Austin, we will be eager to partner with any and all film festivals and film appreciation groups who are interested and will be making the space available to neighborhood schools and community groups.  We will be hiring a local San Francisco programming staff when we get closer to opening , so like-minded movie nerds please stay tuned, we will be hiring!”

Check out the full blog post here, and join us in celebrating this ridiculously awesome news. Just don’t mention it to Kate Erbland…she’s still sulking about it down in Los Angeles.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the ketchup on your ice cream.

Good evening and welcome back! We’ll begin with a piece from film critic and feline advocate Scott Weinberg who’s compiled a list of the best foreign action films to hit our shores in the last few years. Prompted by a recent screening of festival darling The Raid, which should be assaulting American eyeballs in the next month or two, Weinberg runs down plenty of ass-kicking titles to feed your Netflix queue. Head on over to Movies.com for the full piece.

Sticking with list-making, the fine folks over at io9 have come up with a list of 10 things from the “Hunger Games” books that the movies probably can’t pull off. A fine idea for a piece, especially for those of us still trying to understand how “Hunger Games” is different from that Japanese movie we saw several years back. I kid, I’ve been assured there are plenty of differences, aside from, you know, the main plot and all. But in all honesty, the last trailer I saw looked great and Jennifer Lawrence is certainly flying high these days, so you can bet my butt will be firmly planted in a theater seat for a midnight showing of this one. Head over to io9 for the low down on what we may or may not see on screen on March 23rd!

We jump back over to Movies.com for Peter Hall’s interview with Drafthouse head honcho Tim League. The dynamic duo discuss Drafthouse Films and Bullhead, their first Oscar-nominated acquisition and how they go about picking films. It’s a great read as always so you should click through and read it now.

Speaking of League, the man himself recently did an hour long interview for a Google video series. The video is embedded below (hat tip to Mr. Erik Davis at Movies.com for writing this up) and is well worth it if you have the time.

Tim’s a busy man, and we’ll stay with him for one more story. The Alamo has already announced an expansion to the Denver, CO area and rumors of New York and LA Drafthouses have been flying for what seems like years. But apparently San Francisco is also in the cards, with the Alamo in the process of acquiring and restoring the historic New Mission theater. You can read the story straight from the horse’s mouth at the Alamo blog.

Apropos of nothing, Junkfood Cinema auteur Brian Salisbury and I just got back from a midnight showing of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. It was less than good. In happier news, be on the lookout for a new Junkfood Cinema to post later today, once again celebrating Blaxploitation History Month!

Twitter is a funny thing and with so many filmmakers and actors typing out their thoughts in 140 character bursts, it can sometimes be a source for news, strange as that seems. Remember that Indonesian action film, The Raid? Well it’s SXSW screening may still be a few weeks away but director Gareth Evans is working on the script for The Raid 2: Retaliation. While he admits the title isn’t set yet, he’s hoping to start shooting early next year. For all things Raid you can check out the film’s blog.

Next up, we head over to Geek Tyrant to discover a fan-made poster for upcoming British horror film The Addicted. I love horror films as much as the next guy and this one wasn’t even on my radar. It certainly is now. While I’m not totally in love with the poster, I do love the idea that in our internet connected culture fan art has lots of opportunities, not just to be seen, but to actually be used in film marketing. The filmmakers liked this poster so much that they decided to use it. Congrats to the artist!

And last but certainly not least, IMDb has a new UK trailer for Fantastic Fest hit Headhunters. The film is great, a fast-paced dark comedy slash thriller that’s just a ton of fun. It can’t hit American shores soon enough. You can check out the IMDB exclusive here, but or check out more exposition in the earlier trailer down below: