HBO has released a new trailer for the upcoming season of Game of Thrones.  The new trailer provides the first glimpse of the second season, mainly with characters looking pensive and/or worried.  But what sells it is the voice over from Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane).  You may recall that King Robert (Mark Addy) bequeathed the Iron Throne to his brother Stannis until the Wretched Little Shit Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) came of age.  However, Joffrey and his mother Cersei basically usurped the throne, and Stannis is clearly none too happy about it.  Last season, the tagline was “Winter Is Coming”.  Now it looks like “Cold Winds Are Rising”.  BRING A JACKET (or pelt, or whatever).

Hit the jump to check out the new trailer.  Season 2 of Game of Thrones premieres April 2012.

A new trailer for the drama Perfect Sense has been released. Starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, the film centers on a chef and a scientist who fall in love just as a global epidemic is beginning to unravel. This new trailer isn’t as entrancing as the first one we saw, but it’s still fairly effective. I like McGregor and Green a lot, and the film seems to be chock-full of emotional moments. The epidemic that permeates the background of the film is played very straight, so it’s a little like Contagion with love.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. Directed by David MacKenzie (Young Adam), the film was picked up for distribution by IFC Films but is currently without a US release date.

New casting has been announced for the second season of HBO’s Game of Thrones.  EW reports that Carice Van Houten (Black Book) and Stephen Dillane (John Adams) will play the sorceress Melisandre and Stannis Barantheon, respectively.  Per EW, Melissandre is a “powerful woman” who councils Stannis in his quest to take the Iron Throne.  Badass Digest helpfully adds, “Melisandre comes from Asshai, a mysterious Eastern kingdom where magic still rules, and she is the prophet of a new, monotheistic religion that she seeks to bring to Westeros.”  As for Stannis, EW describes the former king’s older brother as “humorless and authoritative, with a strict moral code” but “gradually succumbing to the power of his newfound religion.”  I don’t know how well-suited each actor is for their role since I haven’t read the books, but I do know that I liked Van Houten and Dillane in Black Book and John Adams, respectively.

The second season of Game of Thrones will premiere in spring 2012.

About a month ago we posted the first images from Perfect Sense, a Sundance 2011 entry led by Ewan McGregor and Eva Green with the cryptic logline, “A poetic and magnetic love story about two people who start to fall in love just as the world begins to fall apart.”  I think, for now, it’s best we leave it there.

Thankfully, this newly released trailer agrees with me.  It captures the pure melodrama indicated by the logline without revealing too much about the story.  So you can watch this footage and simply admire how beautifully the David Mackenzie-directed film is lit without spoiling things.  However, if you would like to know more about the plot, we’ve included new story details alongside the trailer after the jump.

Continuing our coverage of the films that will be featured at the Sundance Film Festival in January, today we bring you images from two dramatic films that will premiere out-of-competition at the festival: I Melt With You and Perfect Sense. I Melt With You stars Rob Lowe, Thomas Jane, Jeremy Piven, Carla Gugino and Christian McKay. Directed by Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies), the film focuses on four lifelong friends who, during their annual get-together, realize that their lives haven’t exactly turned out the way they expected.

Perfect Sense stars Ewan McGregor, Eva Green, Ewan Bremner, Stephen Dillane, and Connie Nielsen. From director David Mackenzie (Young Adam), the film is described as a “poetic and magnetic love story.” Hit the jump to check out the images, as well as a brief synopsis for both films.  The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.

You have to give it up for HBO. The mini-series as a format is on its death-nell. Network television has no interest in the format any more, or hasn’t for a while. They’d rather have a regular series, or a reality show. But the expense of putting on these sorts of things are of an older school, a school that is now all but vanished. But when HBO wants to do something (with the encouragement of Tom Hanks for sure), it gets done, and so the story of John Adams has been made as a seven part mini-series. Harrumph.

My review is after the jump: