Co-written and directed by John Stalberg, High School focuses on soon-to-be valedictorian Henry Burke (Matthew Bush) who smokes pot for the first time, then discovers that a mandatory drug test has been scheduled at school.  He teams up with his stoner friend Breaux (Sean Marquette) to make sure everyone fails.  Together they spike the school’s bake sale brownies with high-powered ganja stolen from law-student-turned-drug-, Psycho Ed (Adrien Brody).  Their half-baked plan goes up in smoke when Psycho Ed realizes his prized stash has been used to get everyone in the school stoned out of their minds.

At the press day for High School, we sat down for a roundtable interview with actor Colin Hanks and director John Stalberg to talk about their recent collaboration and how they set about turning the concept of a stoner comedy on its head.  Hanks described what attracted him to the role, what the directing process was like, why Psycho Ed has got nothing on Male Page, and his upcoming film, The Guilt Trip, and his plans to direct a documentary. Stalberg, an expectant father, compared delivering a film on time and on budget to impending parenthood and revealed his collaboration with Richard Kelly on Owen’s Manual and the possibility of a High School sequel called Juvie. Hit the jump to see what they had to say.

The first trailer for the pot comedy High School has gone online.  Co-written and directed by John Stalberg, the film centers on a soon-to-be valedictorian (Matthew Bush) who smokes pot for the very first time, only to find out that a mandatory drug test has been scheduled at school.  In a moment of panic, Bush and his friend (Sean Marquette) conspire to spike the school’s bake sale brownies with the help of a law-student-turned-drug-dealer (Adrien Brody) in order to make everyone fail the drug test.  The trailer has a couple laughs, and I’ve heard that the full film is quite a bit better than this clip would have you believe.  The premise could be a lot of fun, and Brody and Michael Chiklis are nearly unrecognizable as the psycho drug dealer and school principal, respectively.  Moreover, it looks like there’s a Thurman Murman cameo, and every movie is automatically improved 100% with Thurman Murman.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Colin Hanks, Adhir Kalyan, and Mykelti Williamson.  High School opens on June 1st.

Way back in September 2008, we reported that Paramount Pictures was planning to adapt Jake Wizner’s novel Spanking Shakespeare is about unpopular high school senior Shakespeare Shapiro, “who turns his high school upside-down when he unwittingly becomes an internet sensation and the face of an anti-college revolution.”  Yeah!  Boo college!  Wait—what?

Variety reports that High School director John Stalberg Jr. will direct the film as well as rewrite Dan Lagana’s script.  Now we shall wait and see if it takes another two-and-a-half years for a new development on this movie.  Hit the jump for a synopsis of Wizner’s novel.

Today we have new images from 7 Days, Frozen, HIGH School, and Splice, the latter two starring Adrien Brody.  All these films will be premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in the “Park City at Midnight” category.  The films that play in this category may not have the most prestige among the films at the festival, but they may end up being some of the most fun.

Hit the jump to check out images and synopses for the four films plus a poster for Frozen.  The 2010 Sundance Film Festival Runs from January 21-31st.