A new trailer has been released for Ron Howard’s racing drama, Rush.  The film takes place in the world of Formula One racing, and chronicles the 1970s rivalry between Austrian driver Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) and British driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth).  The previous trailer basically showed the entire movie, but thankfully this one focuses on the speed of F1 racing and aggressiveness of the drivers.  Clearly, the movie won’t shy away from the personal drama of the lead characters, but I’m curious to see how Howard has handled the intensity of the racing scenes.  Judging by this trailer, he’s done a bang-up job.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Olivia Wilde.  Rush opens September 20th.

Olivia Wilde and Mark Duplass are set to team up for a new thriller set within the world of medicine.  Variety reports that Wilde and Duplass will lead Lionsgate’s Reawakening, which “follows a team of research students that discovers the secret to bringing subjects back from the dead—however, their actions result in a series of sinister consequences.”  So it’s kind of like a horror film version of Flatliners with more dead people.  Jiro Dreams of Sushi director David Gelb will be taking the helm, with Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater handling scripting duties.

Horror guru Jason Blum—who is behind the Paranormal Activity series, Sinister, and a number of other spooktacular films from the past few years—will produce the pic through his Blumhouse banner.  The incredibly busy Duplass recently committed to starring in an HBO comedy pilot that he and his brother Jay Duplass created, and Wilde will be seen later this year in Ron Howard’s F1 racing drama Rush.

Universal Pictures has released a new trailer for director Ron Howard’s racing drama Rush.  The film takes place in the world of Formula 1 racing and chronicles the 1970s rivalry between Austrian driver Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) and British driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth).  This trailer plays much better than the previous U.K. trailer, as we get a better sense of the individual character struggles in addition to Howard’s impressive visuals.  The racing sequences certainly look to be intense, but the highlight of this trailer for me is hearing some of Hans Zimmer‘s fantastic-sounding score.  As Matt noted previously, the key to the film’s success will be whether we care about the characters, so here’s hoping Rush is more Apollo 13 than The Da Vinci Code.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  The film also stars Olivia Wilde and opens on September 20th.

A batch of new images from Universal Pictures’ upcoming racing drama Rush has been released online.  Directed by Ron Howard, the film takes place in the world of Formula 1 racing and chronicles the 1970s rivalry between Austrian driver Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) and British driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth).  We got our first glimpse at footage by way of a U.K. trailer last week, but Universal is poised to drop the domestic trailer tomorrow and they’ve unveiled these images as an appetizer.  Hemsworth looks sufficiently handsome as notorious playboy Hunt, while Brühl appears to bring a fair amount of intensity to the Lauda role.

Hit the jump to take a look at the images and check back here tomorrow afternoon to watch the new trailer.  The film also stars Olivia Wilde and opens on September 20th.

The first trailer for Ron Howard’s Rush is now online.  The film takes place in the world of Formula 1 racing and chronicles the 1970s rivalry between Austrian driver Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) and British driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth).  It’s tough for me to get excited about Howard’s films since he hasn’t made a great one since Apollo 13.  He does have the talent to tell a good story, but after watching the trailer for Rush, the question remains: will we care about the rivalry between Lauda and Hunt, or will we just talk about the excellence of the racing scenes?

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Olivia Wilde.  Rush opens September 20th. [Update: We've added a track from Hans Zimmer's score for the film.  You can list to it after the jump.]

[This is a re-post of my review from SXSW 2013.  The Incredible Burt Wonderstone opens today in wide release.]

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone may celebrate the childlike wonder and unadulterated joy of magic. It may profess the power of awe and possibility. But its true motives are simple and pure: make the audience laugh by almost any means necessary. Those means are usually along the lines of the silly, slightly demented, biting, and occasionally dark humor that may not share the story’s values, but they get consistent comedy out of a charming albeit slightly conventional premise. Working from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley‘s sharp script with great performances from its cast, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a trick we know, but it’s one performed well.

Opening this Friday is director Don Scardino’s magician comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.  The film stars Steve Carell as a Vegas magician whose relationship with his partner (Steve Buscemi) becomes strained as the two start getting upstaged by a hipper illusionist (Jim Carrey).  The screenplay by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Horrible Bosses) takes the story to some deliciously dark places while maintaining a sincere center, and Carrey is fantastically over the top with his David Blaine-esque magician character, harkening back to the actor’s classically nutty performances from early in his career.  You can read Matt’s positive review here.

I recently got the chance to attend the press junket for Burt Wonderstone in Las Vegas, and while there I participated in a press conference with Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, Olivia Wilde, Steve Buscemi, John Francis Daley, and Jonathan Goldstein.  The cast and screenwriters talked about the experience of filming on the streets of Las Vegas, the parallels between magicians and comedians, attempting to master some slight-of-hand tricks for the film, crafting their outrageous characters, and much, much more.  Hit the jump to read or listen to the full press conference, which also includes a great Rodney Dangerfield story from Carrey.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone may celebrate the childlike wonder and unadulterated joy of magic.  It may profess the power of awe and possibility.  But its true motives are simple and pure: make the audience laugh by almost any means necessary.  Those means are usually along the lines of the silly, slightly demented, biting, and occasionally dark humor that may not share the story’s values, but they get consistent comedy out of a charming albeit slightly conventional premise.  Working from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley‘s sharp script with great performances from its cast, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a trick we know, but it’s one performed well.

With director Don Scardino’s (30 Rock) magician comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone opening March 15, Warner Bros. has provided us with 10 clips.  The film stars Steve Carell as a Vegas magician whose relationship with his partner (Steve Buscemi) becomes strained as the two start getting upstaged by a hipper illusionist (Jim Carrey).  The comedy is set to open SXSW 2013, and that’s a huge vote of confidence for the film’s quality.

Hit the jump to check out the clips.  Finally, if you missed any of my set visit coverage, here are my on set interviews with Steve Carell, Olivia Wilde, Steve Buscemi, director Don Scardino, and producer Chris Bender.

Every once in a while I use this space to tout a recently released Blu-ray/DVD that I missed in theaters but, via the magic of home video, was finally able to check out from the comfort of my couch (click here to see me gush about The Perks of Being a Wallflower). Today I’ll do the same by encouraging you to check out co-writer/director Scott Derrickson‘s horror pic Sinister. There’s nothing spectacular going on here, it’s just an effective movie with several scenes that I found genuinely frightening/disturbing. Moreover, it’s probably the last widely-released horror entry since Insidious that left me turning some of the lights on in the house shortly after it ended.

With my “Super Cool Blu-ray Pick of the Week” out of the way, this week’s Top 5 includes interviews from the set of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, some drama-inducing first set images from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a set visit recap and interviews for Park Chan-wook‘s Stoker, Jack the Giant Slayer interviews, and the first trailer and poster for director James Wan‘s The Conjuring. As you may expect, a brief recap and link to each of these can be found completely free of charge after the jump.

Warner Bros. has released 38 images from The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.  The film stars Steve Carell as a Vegas magician whose relationship with his partner (Steve Buscemi) becomes strained as the two start getting upstaged by a hipper illusionist (Jim Carrey).  The comedy is set to open SXSW 2013, and that’s a huge vote of confidence for the film’s quality.

Hit the jump to check out the images, and if you missed any of Steve’s set visit coverage be sure to check out his interviews with Steve Carell, Olivia Wilde, Steve Buscemi, director Don Scardino, and producer Chris Bender.  The Incredible Burt Wonderstone opens on March 15th.

While Olivia Wilde has done many movies in all sorts of genres, she really wanted to be a part of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.  She explains:

I read the script a while ago and really loved it. Not only because of the cast, which is obviously extraordinary, and contains many of my idols, and not only because Don Scardino was involved – I’m a huge 30 Rock fan. I thought it was a great role for me. It was something I hadn’t done before. There was a certain challenge to it for me as well. I went after it, I auditioned, I was up against some real heavy hitters and I was totally shocked when I got the role, because it’s a comedic role and I was going up against some real comedians.”

In the film, Wilde plays a magician’s assistant who takes what work she can get.  Like the rest of the cast, she wears some outrageous costumes.  During a group interview on set last year, Wilde talked about making the film, the incredible cast, the costumes, set photos, her love of Jim Carrey, and a lot more.  Hit the jump for what she had to say.

A couple of character posters and an international trailer have been released for the comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.  Steve Carell stars as a Vegas magician whose relationship with his partner (Steve Buscemi) becomes strained as the two start getting upstaged by a hipper illusionist (Jim Carrey).  The international trailer has a couple new jokes, and I’m jazzed for the film not only because of the cast, which also includes Olivia Wilde, James Gandolfini, and Alan Arkin, but because it was written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Horrible Bosses).

Hit the jump to check out the posters and new trailer.  The Incredible Burt Wonderstone will open the 2013 SXSW Film Festival, and opens on March 15th.

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for the upcoming comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.  Steve Carell stars as a Vegas magician whose relationship with his partner (Steve Buscemi) becomes strained as the two start getting upstaged by a hipper illusionist (Jim Carrey).  I can’t even imagine a universe where Carell and Buscemi are anything less than great as a comedy team, well-suited to play corny, old-school magicians.  Likewise, Carrey is good get to play the intense adversary, and writers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have some funny stunts lined up for his Criss Angel doppleganger: “For twelve days he’s held. His. Urine.”  Yet judging by the trailer-closing joke, Alan Arkin may just steal the show as the elder magician who inspired Burt.

Olivia Wilde, James Gandolfini, and Jay Mohr also star.  Directed by Don Scardino, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone opens March 15, 2013.  Watch the trailer after the jump.

Earlier this year I got to visit the set The Incredible Burt Wonderstone with a few other online reporters while the production was filming at the Wadsworth Theater here in Los Angeles.  Directed by Don Scardino (whose directed almost forty episodes of 30 Rock) and written by Horrible Bosses screenwriters John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the film stars Steve Carell as a magician whose relationship with his partner (Steve Buscemi) becomes strained after the arrival of a hipper illusionist (Jim Carrey).  Burt Wonderstone also stars Olivia Wilde, Alan Arkin, James Gandolfini, Jay Mohr, Michael Bully Herbig and a lot of real life magicians, many of whom were the inspirations for the film.

While on set we got to watch a great scene featuring Carell and Buscemi wearing some outrageous costumes, conduct interviews with a lot of the cast, and we learned a lot about the film.  As a fan of the cast and the filmmakers, it was a really fun day on set that I can’t wait to share with you closer to release, which is March 15.  Until then, check out the first images from the film and the full synopsis after the jump.  Look for the trailer in the coming days.