Sometime in the last year or so, Samuel L. Jackson has found the time to make a little movie for IFC films called The Samaritan. Written and directed by David Weaver, the film also stars Luke Kirby (soon to be seen as 1/3 of the love triangle involving Michelle Williams and Seth Rogan in Take This Waltz), Irish actress Ruth Negga,, Tom Wilkinson, Aaron Poole and Martha Burns.

After twenty years in prison, Foley (Jackson) is finished with the grifter's life. When he meets an elusive young woman named Iris (Negga), the possibility of a new start looks real. But his past is proving to be a stubborn companion.

Ethan (Kirby), the son of his former partner, has an ingenious plan and he wants Foley in. The harder Foley tries to escape his past, the tighter he is ensnared in Ethan’s web of secrets, until it becomes all too clear to Foley that some wrongs can never be made right.

The trailer would seem to give a lot away. I can only hope that I’m wrong and they’ve held back to the meat of the matter. What I find most appealing about this trailer is that Jackson seems to have “reined” himself in and appears interested in giving a performance as opposed to gruff blustering, posturing and general Sam Jackson-ness.

The Samaritan opens in the UK on 20^th April and gets a limited US release on May 16.  IFC has also released some new images from the film. Enjoy!

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Well, it's not really a poster, but let's start with this banner for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel. We're not getting a lot from Snyder and Warner Brothers. Compared to other in-production films like The Dark Knight Rises, make that zilch, other than one official pic of Henry Cavill in his Superman costume. Now we can add to that this banner.

Know any more than you did ten minutes ago? Me either.  Man of Steel starring Cavill, Michael Shannon as Zod, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent,  Laurence Fishburne as Perry White and Christopher Meloni as Col. Hardy, will be out on June 14, 2013 on most of planet Earth.

Here’s a new poster for What to Expect When You’re Expecting, another star packed omnibus of a film supposedly based on the best selling self-help book.  *I’m just doing my job bringing you this poster. In no way should that be construed as an endorsement or an encouragement to see this movie*

Starring Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Brooklyn Decker and Anna Kendrick, this hilarious and heartwarming comedy follows five couples whose intertwined lives are turned upside down by the challenges of impending parenthood.

Also starring Chace Crawford, Matthew Morrison, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock, Rodrigo Santoro, Ben Falcone and Joe Manganiello, What to Expect When You’re Expecting  is due May 18 in the US and Canada and 23^rd May in the UK.

Now this poster I like. It reminds me of MC Escher's "Relativity" (which I have no doubt it was meant to). It’s a Lionsgate/Mondo collaboration that was given exclusively to EW, but now Lionsgate wants me to show it to you.

MONDO, the internationally recognized collectible boutique arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, featuring designs from world class artists based on licenses for popular TV and Movie properties including Star Wars, Star Trek & Universal Monsters, has once again collaborated with the geniuses at Phantom City Creative to bring you a stunning poster for the terrifying new horror film, Cabin in the Woods. Championed for their limited edition screen printed posters, Mondo focuses on bringing art back to movie posters by working with artists such as Olly Moss, Tyler Stout, Martin Ansin, Ken Taylor, Aaron Horkey, Chris Ware, Shepard Fairey, Drew Struzan and others.

Commenting on the poster, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS director Drew Goddard said "all I ever wanted in life was to make a movie that had its own Mondo poster. I can now exit this mortal coil a happy man."

The film’s synopsis:

Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen.  If you think you know this story, think again. From fan favorites Joss Whedon & Drew Goddard comes THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, a mind blowing horror film that turns the genre inside out.

Produced by Whedon and directed by Goddard from a script by both, the film stars Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins & Bradley Whitford. By all accounts I’ve read, it lives up to the hype. Don’t try to figure it out, just go and then go with it. Cabin in the Woods opens this coming Friday April 13 in the US, Canada and the UK.

Last, but by no means least on this fine Easter afternoon, we have a new poster featuring our man Jason Statham and his manly-muscled head and of course, his big gun on yet another poster for Boaz Yakin's Safe. It's a German version that looks a lot like some of the English language posters we've already seen. Do you care? Me either. Safe opens Friday April 27. That means there is still plenty of time for new trailers and clips before then. I will of course keep you posted. I'm a giver.

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I'm kidding! (or am I? I always wanted to start an internet rumor. If this works, I have plans for Gerard Butler…)

I’ve been on board with Lockout since it was called Lock-out then MS1: Maximum Security and back to Lockout. I’m happy that it’s finally opening next week. If it lives up to its potential at all, it’ll be a good precursor to the big summer testosterone-fueled flicks we can look forward to in the coming months. Today we’ve got a couple of new international posters to share, but I also wanted to share this clip of Guy Pearce on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Pearce doesn’t turn up on chat shows often so just the fact that he did is a treat, but he had great chemistry with Fallon. (I had completely forgotten they’d worked together in 2006’s Factory Girl. Fallon the actor turns up in the oddest places.)

The latest trailer for Lockout is another I saw on the big screen  the other day.  There’s no getting around the fact that some of the lines in the trailer are terribly clichéd, like “He’s the best there is, but he’s a loose cannon.”  Of course “he” is.  But the familiar ring of the line is almost part of the appeal here. When that line is spoken we don’t yet know that “he” is Guy Pearce. If they’d used that line then shown us Dwayne Johnson or some other muscle-bound action stalwart, the trailer wouldn’t have risen above the level of tired and trite.  Guy Pearce, however, is not usually thought of as an action hero. This is an actor who made a name for himself playing Edmund Exley in L.A. Confidential, a character specifically intended to look bookish and not physical.  Pearce also isn’t known for comedy and his Snow is funny in a snarky and sarcastic way.  Bottom line, regardless of how the movie turns out, the casting of Guy Pearce as an action hero is inspired.

Lockout, also starring Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Vincent Regan and  Lennie James opens Friday April 13 in the US, 20^th April in the UK.

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We have a new movie to talk about. It’s called Lola Versus (as in versus the world) and it stars Greta Gerwig, who is suddenly everywhere after breaking out in 2010’s Greenberg with Ben Stiller. She’ll next be seen in Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress and Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love.

Lola Versus is directed by Daryl Wein and written by Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones (Whitney), who plays Alice and it’s the follow-up to their well-received indie from 2009, Breaking Upwards. What caught my eye here is the presence of Joel Kinnaman of The Killing and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and soon to be the new RoboCop.  Judging from the trailer, I don’t think he’s in it for long, unfortunately.  

Gerwig plays the title character who is dumped by her rock star boyfriend (Kinnaman)  just three weeks before their wedding. Lola then enlists her close friends for a series of adventures she hopes will help her come to terms with approaching 30 as a single woman.

Lola Versus also starring Bill Pullman, Debra Winger, Cheyenne Jackson, Hamish Linklater, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jay Pharaoh, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in a couple of weeks, on April 24, ahead of its June 8 release. 

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Happy Saturday! Had your coffee yet? These might get you going, especially if you’re one of those that swoons at all things Pattinson. We have a new (German) poster, which is pretty much a variation on the other posters we’ve seen, but it certainly does highlight RPattz. We also have a trove of new pics from Bel Ami as well as a clip in which Uma Thurman is working her feminine wiles on your boy.  (May I say, Uma Thurman looks fantastic in what I’ve seen of this film.)

Bel Ami is based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant and tells the story of Georges Duroy (Pattinson), a penniless veteran of the Boer Wars. A period drama set in 1890s Paris, the film follows his fin de sicle rise to power through his manipulation of the most influential and wealthy women in Paris, played by Thurman, Christina Ricci, and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod with the screenplay written by Rachel Bennette,  Bel Ami has already premiered in Europe to mixed reviews. It does have a great supporting cast, including Colm Meaney, Holliday Grainger and Philip Glenister, not to mention sumptuous costumes and sets. I’ll probably give this one a go. The “look” of it might lose something in the translation if I wait for the small screen. It opens in the US on June 8.

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clip courtesy of AceShowBiz

The stars of Peter Berg’s Battleship have been travelling the globe doing photocalls this past week in promotion of their movie. To celebrate, we've got some international posters to share, plus the first clip has dropped and as is probably indicative of the rest of the film, it’s full of mayhem, noise and explosions.

Peter Berg (Hancock) produces and directs Battleship, an epic-scaled action-adventure that unfolds across the seas, in the skies and over land as our planet fights for survival against a superior force. Inspired byHasbro’s classic naval combat game, Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch as Lt. Alex Hopper, a Naval officer assigned to the USS John Paul Jones; Brooklyn Decker as Sam Shane, a physical therapist and Hopper’s fiancee; Alexander Skarsgard as Hopper’s older brother, Stone, Commanding Officer of the USS Sampson; Rihanna as Petty OfficerRaikes, Hopper’s crewmate and a weapons specialist on the USS John Paul Jones; and international superstar Liam Neeson as Hopper and Stone’s superior (and Sam’s father), Admiral Shane.

Seriously dude? Flaming fireball, mechanical, razor-sharp wheels of death are hurtling at your base and all you can manage is a calm, “oh shit” without even an exclamation point?

I’d be screaming “WTF IS THAT?!?!”, but maybe that’s just me.

Now, I can’t say that I’m necessarily all in for this one, but in the absence (thank you sweet baby jeebus) of more mindless dreck like a new Transformers movie this summer, there is a place for a big, loud, showy action flick. Sure it’s mostly CGI, but the parts that aren’t are filled with the likes of Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard and Liam Neeson. The film deserves a bit of a benefit of the doubt mostly though, due to its director. Peter Berg is capable of eliciting some fine performances from his actors and he’s capable of subtlety and nuance. I don’t really expect either of those things in Battleship, but perhaps the sledge-hammer will have a little lighter touch. In any case, it could be a fun movie to escape the heat with and sit in the dark on a hot summer day and munch popcorn.

Battleship, which also stars Brooklyn Decker, Peter MacNichol, Jesse Plemmons and Rihanna, opens in the UK on 11thApril (just five more days for them- how is that fair?) and in the US and Canada on May 18.

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source: YahooMovies via ComingSoon

Looper, written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) is about a hired killer who works for the ‘mob of the future’ who recognizes one of his targets as his future self. Today we have the first poster, as well as some first images from the film.

Time travel will be invented, but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper”—a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)—is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good. . . until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. Looper is written and directed by Rian Johnson and also stars Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels.

Looper has been creating buzz since its announcement last year.  According to /Film, who debuted the poster, Sony’s marketing campaign begins next week when they start dropping teaser clips with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and director Rian Johnson next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which leads to the official teaser trailer debut on Thursday, April 12th. Rian Johnson screened the teaser trailer at WonderCon where “the audience ate it up (which is saying something when you’re competing in an auditorium next to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus)”. The premise is good. I’m looking forward to seeing more!

Looper opens in the US and the UK on September 28.

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High School is the kind of movie that if put into the wrong hands could have been unbearably, unwatchably, mind-numbingly stupid.  In the right hands, this material could actually be laugh-out-loud, hold your sides funny.  This first trailer, I think, falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, with just enough laughs to make me want to see more.

The premise: Henry (Matt Bush – Nice Guy Johnny), a straight-arrow with dreams of going to MIT, is talked into smoking his very first joint with his best friend Travis (Sean Marquette), a complete waste-oid. Now, we won’t go into why these two would be best buds without Henry ever having gotten high before the needed setup for this movie. Perhaps it’s explained.  Letting that go, it seems that the stick-up-his-ass principal of the school, played by Michael Chiklis in a hilarious wig and waaaaay against type, is so anti-dope that he’s having the entire school take a drug test. This of course, right after our hero Henry has inhaled for the first time.  Good-bye MIT.

The solution? Get the whole school high. This is the real jumping off point for the comedy hi-jinks that ensue.

What will undoubtedly be the best reason to see this movie: Psycho Ed, the local drug dealer played with bug-eyed, dread-locked, tattooed, glee by Adrien Brody.  (I could watch the bit with the frog over and over. “What?”) Ironic that High School is finally being released just after Brody's turn as a teacher hanging on by a thread in a very different movie, Detachment.

This film, directed by John Stahlberg, Jr. (who didn’t do much before High School, but does have three projects due out in 2013), premiered at Sundance in January 2010, to great acclaim, then went on to play festivals all over the world the rest of that year, but it’s been looking for distribution ever since.  Starz/Anchor Bay has stepped up and will unleash it to theaters on June 1 in the US. With a supporting cast that includes Colin Hanks (in what looks like a variation of the Edie McClurg role in Ferris Bueller), Mykelti Williamson, Michael Vartan, Yeardley Smith, Andrew Wilson and Curtis Armstrong (of course), I maintain that this has potential. If it doesn’t find an audience in the theater, it definitely will on dvd. 

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