Here’s a new batch of posters to complement the ones we posted earlier today:

• A look at a Chilean martial artist, Marko Zaror, trading in his fists for a shotgun in Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills.  The sequel, starring Danny Trejo in the title role, drops sometime next year.
• Two new Spanish posters from Rich Moore’s animated feature, Wreck-It Ralph.  Featuring the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer and Jane Lynch, Wreck-It Ralph comes out on November 2nd of this year.
• An official poster for The Sessions from writer/director Ben Lewin.  The Sundance 2012 Audience Award Winner stars John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy.  Look for it in theaters starting October 26th.

Hit the jump for the new posters and synopses.

Steven Spielberg‘s Abraham Lincoln movie, Lincoln, has landed a release date.  We previously reported that the film would open after the 2012 Presidential election so to as avoid any accusation that the movie was making a political statement (we’ll let the trailers and other advertising allow pundits to bloviate and fill airtime draw their own conclusions).  Disney has announced that the movie will open in limited engagement on November 9th before expanding nationwide on November 16th.  It’s worth noting that Lincoln will still be fighting vampires, except this time it will be at the box office.  The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 also opens on November 16th.

Lincoln stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President, and the all-star cast also features Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, David Oyelowo, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace, and Jared Harris. Hit the jump for a synopsis of the source material.

The first trailer for the drama The Sessions (previously The Surrogate) has been released.  The movie stars John Hawkes as writer and poet Mark O’Brien, whose body was ravaged by polio when he was a child and stuck him in an iron lung for the rest of his life.  However, he still wanted to have sex and intimacy, and so he found a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) to help him learn the intricacies of sexual intercourse.  The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year to a rapturous response, with many singling out a superb performance from Hawkes.  Matt called the film “inspirational, funny, and genuinely heartwarming” in his review, and he’s actually double-blurbed in this first trailer.  Hawkes, Hunt, and William H. Macy are just about as good as it gets (pardon the pun), and this trailer promises a moving, funny, and hopefully insightful film not about robots, explosions, or aliens, but about people interacting with people.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer, and you can also check out Steve’s interviews from Sundance with Hawkes and Macy if you missed them.  The Sessions opens on October 26th.

One of the best-received films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was The Surrogate.  The movie stars John Hawkes as writer and poet Mark O’Brien, whose body was ravaged by polio when he was a child and stuck him in an iron lung for the rest of his life.  However, he still wanted to have sex and intimacy, and so he found a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) to help him learn how maintain an erection, have prolonged sexual intercourse, etc.  Click here to read my positive review.

Fox Searchlight has announced that they will release the film on October 26th, but it will now be called Six Sessions, which refers to the number of sessions the surrogate has with O’Brien.  I can understand the change since the word “surrogate” is usually associated with pregnancy.  The movie will serve as a nice bit of limited-release counter-programming against the wide release films Alex Cross, Fun Size, Of Men and Mavericks, and Silent Hill: Revelations 3D [Box Office Mojo].

Some casting news for you today, including a project in which Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men) is taking on four roles! Here they are at a glance:

• Jones is set to write, direct, produce and star in the pioneer period piece, The Homesman.
• Oscar-nominee John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone) boards the indie thriller, Too Late.
• John C. McGinley (Scrubs) is the latest addition to the Jackie Robinson biopic, 42.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

Martha Marcy May Marelene is the ultimate Sundance movie (not an insult). It offers a breakout performance by a new performer (here Elizabeth Olsen) familiar character actor faces from the supporting cast (Sarah Paulson, John Hawkes), and a strong directorial tone and style from first timer Sean Durkin. It’s also a small movie – but not in a bad way – that tells of how a woman survived the cult she was in, and how she tries to adjust to the outside world. Our review of Martha Marcy May Marlene on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

While the new season of HBO’s Eastbound & Down started this past Sunday, NASCAR’s Nationwide Series is set to kick-off at Daytona this Saturday. If you’re asking me what Kenny Powers (Danny McBride) and NASCAR have to do with each other, well then you haven’t been paying attention. HBO and Eastbound & Down are sponsoring the #50 car, driven by T.J. Bell for MAKE Motorsports.

The #50 Eastbound & Down/Make Motorsports Chevrolet features elements of Kenny Powers’ prized jet ski, The Panty Dropper, with a purple and leopard-print scheme, as well as the likeness of the “legend” himself, who also hails from Shelby, N.C.

Hit the jump to check out the images.

After being gone for far too long Kenny Powers (Danny McBride) is back, complete with a Confederate flag and marijuana leaf covered boogie board. thankfully the series is much better at keeping the laughs coming than Powers is at catching some waves in the season premiere of Eastbound & Down. We now find everyone’s favorite ballplayer in the minors in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina playing for the Mermen. Seemingly back at the top of his game (or at least as high as it can get in the minor leagues). Powers is always best when he’s cocky and arrogant, and since that’s basically all the time, having him getting a taste of success just makes it that much better.  Hit the jump for more.

Led by a truly remarkable performance by John Hawkes, writer-director Ben Lewin‘s The Surrogate blew me away at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  The film’s based on the true story of Mark O’Brien, a 36-year-old poet and journalist with an iron lung, who decides that he no longer wants to be a virgin.  With the help of his priest (William H. Macy) and a professional sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), we follow his amazing journey.  Trust me, The Surrogates is great on so many levels (which explains why there was a bidding war; Fox Searchlight won), and it’s definitely going to be a contender at the 2013 Academy Awards.  For more on the film, here’s Matt’s review.

Shortly after seeing the film, I sat down with John Hawkes for an extended interview.  We talked about being at Sundance, how he prepared for The Surrogate, the responsibility of playing a real person, his preference between a few takes or a lot, and so much more.  In addition, since Hawkes just worked with Steven Spielberg on Lincoln, he talked about how Tony Kushner‘s screenplay drew him to the project and what it was like to work with Daniel Day-Lewis.  Hit the jump to watch.

The well-received performance by John Hawkes in Sundance’s audience award-winner, The Surrogate, has helped to land the star a role in Switch, the Jackie Brown prequel. Starring opposite Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), the duo will portray younger versions of Louis Gara and Ordell Robbie. The same characters were respectively played by Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson in Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film, Jackie Brown. From writer/director Dan Schechter (Goodbye Baby), Switch is an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel, “The Switch,” which is scheduled to start production in May. Hit the jump for more.

“Look at y’all jumping around like a bunch of child molesters at Chuck E. Cheese.” Damn it’s good to have Kenny Powers back, or at least know that his return to HBO for the third (and maybe final) season of Eastbound & Down is coming on February 19th, less than a month away. Now a new trailer straight from HBO promises a great duo between Danny McBride and Jason Sudeikis as Powers’ new best friend and fellow ball player and we catch a quick glimpse of the return of Will Ferrell, Steve Little, and John Hawkes too. The trailer really does speak for itself so you can check it out after the jump.

In the movies, pretty adults are supposed to have sex.  The male lead and the female lead need to be our idealized selves in an ideal relationship and they need to have attractive people sex.  But in the real world, people find a way to fall in love and get it on even if they don’t have chiseled abs or amazing breasts.  And then there are those people where, due to their physique, we wonder if sex is even an option and we’re sure that thought has crossed their minds as well.  And no matter our physique, we’ve all probably wondered if we’ll ever find love.  Those thoughts—of finding love and sex—crossed the mind of writer and poet Mark O’Brien.  At the age of six, O’Brien’s body was ravaged by polio and he was placed in an iron lung, which he could only leave for a few hours at a time.  As John entered his 40s, he still hadn’t had sex or found love, and in Ben Lewin‘s The Surrogate—a movie based on O’Brien’s real experiences—he searches for both.  The Surrogate comes right up to the line of being painfully sentimental and mawkish, but strong direction and amazing lead performances make the film inspirational, funny, and genuinely heartwarming.

Today, the 2012 Sundance Film Festival announced their In-Competition line-up, and that means we’re about to get a boatload of new images from upcoming films.  After the jump you’ll find synopses and the first images from The End of Love (starring Mark Webber, Michael Cera, and Amanda Seyfried), Filly Brown (starring Gina Rodriguez, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Edward James Olmos), The First Time (starring Dylan O’Brien, Brittany Robertson, and Craig Roberts), and The Surrogate (starring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, and William H. Macy).

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 19 – 29th.

The nominations for the 27th Annual Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning with The Artist and Take Shelter each nabbing five nominations. In addition to The Artist and Take Shelter, Drive, 50/50, The Descendants, and Beginners will duke it out for the top prize. Absent from the Best Feature list is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, though the film was recognized in Best Supporting Male (Corey Stoll) and Best Cinematography. Also of note, Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes landed nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Male for Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Ryan Gosling and Woody Harrelson were both singled out in Best Actor for Drive and Rampart respectively.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations. Recognizing the best in independent film, the awards will be handed out on February 25th, the day before the Oscars.

Ah, November. Leaves are falling, colder weather is here (depending on where you live), and the 2011 movie season is coming to a close. While angry shoppers and red Starbucks cups generally mean it’s time to start preparing for the many awkward/tense family encounters that are sure to come, it’s also time to start thinking Oscar. We’ve seen a few contenders throughout the year, but a plethora of heavyhitters will be opening over the next 5 weeks.

To aid in your Oscar polls (or to quench your curiosity) we’ve compiled a state of the race preview as of this lovely Thanksgiving week. Granted, a lot can change from now until February, but a good portion of the major players have already been screened and we’re starting to get a sense of how it could all play out. We’ll be examining all the major categories over the next four days, kicking things off with the infamously unpredictable Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Hit the jump to see where things stand.