A red band trailer for director Martin McDonagh‘s (In Bruges) dark comedy Seven Psychopaths has been released.  The film follows a trio of dognappers (Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, and Christopher Walken) who steal the wrong shih tzu and end up running afoul of a psychotic gangster (Woody Harrelson).  I actually think I slightly prefer the green band trailer, but the cast is still aces in this clip.  Walken again steals the show with his genius looks/delivery, but there really doesn’t seem to be a weak link anywhere.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Tom Waits, Gabourey Sidibe, Abbie Cornish, and Olga Kurylenko.  Seven Psychopaths opens on October 12th.

Yesterday, we showed you the entertaining trailer for Martin McDonagh‘s Seven Psychopaths.  The movie follows a trio of dognappers (Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, and Christopher Walken) who steal the wrong shih tzu end up running afoul of a psychotic gangster (Woody Harrelson).  But the gangster is only 1/7th of the film’s group of psychopaths, and CBS films has released seven character posters highlighting the eponymous lunatics.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  The film also stars Olga Kurylenko, Abbie Cornish, and Tom Waits.  Seven Psychopaths will debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, and opens domestically October 12th.

The first trailer for Seven Psychopaths has been released, and it left a big smile on my face.  It looks like director Martin McDonagh has delivered the same darkly comic verve he brought to In Bruges, and the entire cast looks terrific.  I’m particularly impressed that the trailer quickly breaks down all the psychopaths and still squeezes in the brief synopsis: three hapless dog kidnappers steal a pup from a gangster.  When you pair a brilliant cast with McDonagh’s comic sensibilities, you probably have a great movie in store.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film stars Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Gabourey Sidibe, Abbie Cornish, and Olga Kurylenko.  Seven Psychopaths opens on October 12th.

A couple of heavy hitters in casting news today.  Here are the headlines at a glance:

• John Cusack may join Elijah Wood in the indie thriller, Grand Piano.
• Jude Law will star in the title role of Richard Shepard’s Dom Hemingway.
• Liam James joins Steve Carell and Toni Collette in indie drama, The Way, Way Back.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

There’s a reunion of sorts happening for Steve Carell and Toni Collette, who last starred together in 2006 Oscar-winner, Little Miss Sunshine.  Carell and Collette will join Jim Rash (Community) and Nat Faxon’s (Bad Teacher) directorial debut, The Way, Way Back.  Their script landed on 2010′s Black List, and after earning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay of their effort for The Descendents, I’m sure we can look forward to much more from the duo.  The Way, Way Back is an indie drama about a dysfunctional family, but that’s where the similarities to Little Miss Sunshine seem to stop.  The plot centers on a teenage boy on summer vacation who is coming to grips with his emotionally-distant mother and his cheating step-father.  The parental roles will be played by Collette and Carell, while the film also stars Sam Rockwell, Allison Janney and Annasophia Robb. Hit the jump for more.

The first images from Seven Psychopaths, Martin McDonagh‘s highly-anticipated follow up to In Bruges, have gone online. The film stars Woody Harrelson as a gangster who goes on a rampage after his beloved shih tzu is kidnapped by an unemployed actor (Sam Rockwell) whose only source of income is helping a professional dognapper (Christopher Walken) who steals dogs and returns them for the reward money (That’s right: McDonagh has basically borrowed the M.O. of Jon Lovitz character from City Slickers 2).  Colin Farrell co-stars as Martin, a struggling screenwriter who tries to help Rockwell’s character, but only gets caught up in the mess, although it gives him great material for his next script, which is called “Seven Psychopaths”.

Hit the jump to check out the images and more info on the flick, which also stars Tom Waits, Gabourey Sidibe, Abbie Cornish, and Olga Kurylenko.  Seven Psychopaths is due out in theaters this fall.

Douglas Booth and Billy Crudup have signed on to star in the sports drama Life at These Speeds.  The story centers on “a rural teenager (Booth) who loses his best friends in a tragic accident and channels his survivor’s guilt into an addiction to running, becoming a world-class distance runner in the process.”   More than a decade after portraying famed long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits, Crudup will return to the track world to play Booth’s coach and confidante.  Leif Tilden will direct Life at These Speeds from a script by Marc Novak, adapted from the novel of the same  name by Jeremy Jackson.  Sam Rockwell is executive producing alongside Scott William Alvarez and Peter Holden.  Hit the jump for a synopsis of the book.

The premise of Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens is readily apparent from the title, and with a cast that includes leads Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, and genre figures like Clancy Brown, Walton Goggins and Keith Carradine it’s got the right stars for a modern western. And yet the film struggled at the box office and barely crossed the hundred million dollar mark. In the age of the super-expensive blockbuster, this was a misfire. Of course marketing can always be blamed, but after watching the film it easy to see why it struggled to make an impression. As a genre mash-up, it’s not enough of one or the other to be satisfying. Our review of Cowboys & Aliens on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

20th Century Fox has sent over 5 clips from The Sitter, the new R-rated comedy led by Jonah Hill.  Here’s the logline:

“When the world’s most irresponsible babysitter takes three of the world’s worst kids on an unforgettable overnight adventure through the streets of New York City, it’s anyone’s guess who’s going to make it home in one piece.”

Sam Rockwell, Ari Graynor, and J.B. Smoove also star in the comedy directed by David Gordon Green (Your Highness).  The Sitter opens on December 9.  Watch the clips after the jump.

Steve just returned from AFM with a boatload of goodies to share with our readers, and among the finds is the first synopsis for In Bruges director Martin McDonagh’s action-comedy Seven Psychopaths. The film features a top-notch ensemble made up of Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, and Mickey Rourke. 2008’s In Bruges was an ingenious and brutally funny black comedy, so I’m psyched (pun-intended) to see McDonagh assemble such a fantastic/volatile cast for his follow-up feature. The wacky premise of Seven Psychopaths involves a dog-napping gone wrong, and oh so much more. Hit the jump for the full synopsis.

Back in August, the red-band trailer for director David Gordon Green’s The Sitter went online and I found myself wondering if foul-mouthed babysitters such as the one portrayed by Jonah Hill really exist. Fast-forward to the present and 20th Century Fox has not only assured me that they do exist, but has also given me a number where I can reach them.

In a new promotional banner for the film, you have Hill’s mug on a flyer (seen above) with a contact number listed below. While the imagery is cool enough given the film’s subject matter, rumor has it that Hill will occasionally be answering the line found by dialing (917) 409-7838. I gave the number a ring myself and got the voicemail for Hill’s character Noah, so I can’t confirm that anyone will ever actually answer your call. Nevertheless, I think it’s kind of a cool promotion that definitely caught my attention. Check out the banner after the jump. Also starring Sam Rockwell and Ari Graynor, The Sitter hits theaters later this year on December 9th.

The red-band trailer for David Gordon Green’s The Sitter has gone online.  As star Jonah Hill says in the intro to the trailer, “It’s the filthiest R-rated babysitter movie ever made,” and then he tells some rude children to “Try a little ‘Shut-the-Fuck-Up’ next time.”  As for the trailer itself, it’s got a bunch of great jokes, and I really hope I like it more than Green’s last film, Your Highness.  The guy has a talent with foul-mouthed comedy (he’s directed the majority of Eastbound and Down episodes) but with Your Highness and to a lesser extent Pineapple Express, the execution couldn’t live up to the concept.  But children who act like adult ass-holes are always good for laugh and so is Hill.

Hit the jump to check out the red-band trailer.  The Sitter opens December 9th.

Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens is the equivalent of putting chocolate and peanut butter together and getting a rice cake.  Westerns can be great, sci-fi can be wonderful, and yet the attempt to bring them together has resulted in a bland, flavorless movie.  The script is a mess, all of the storylines are uninteresting, the action is flat, there’s not much room for lead actors Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford to do much beyond growl and grimace, and the usually inspired cinematography of Matthew Libatique is a grand disappointment.  Despite all of these problems, the movie does nothing outright offensive other than waste two hours of your time.

Sam Rockwell is in negotiations with Occupant Films to star in the black comedy/thriller Better Living Through Chemistry. Jeremy Renner, who was previously slated for the role, has jumped ship to maintain a slightly more manageable schedule (he is currently on board Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Avengers, and The Bourne Legacy, just to name a few). Starring opposite Jennifer Garner and Michelle Monaghan, Variety reports that Rockwell will play a small town pharmacist whose unhappy marriage (to Monaghan) leaves him vulnerable to the alluring wiles of a sexy trophy wife (Garner) and the highs of prescription drugs. Chaos breaks loose when their affair escalates and the unfaithful couple hatches a plot to murder her husband. The film will be a debut feature from writer-directors Geoff Moore and David Posamentier. Judi Dench is on board to narrate the pic. Hit the jump for more on Rockwell and Better Living Through Chemistry.

With director Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens on the verge of hitting theaters, Universal has released the EPK (electronic press kit) which includes 4 movie clips, 2 featurettes (A Look Inside and Western Meets SciFi) and over seven minutes of behind the scenes footage from when they were making the movie (B-Roll).  If you’re trying to stay spoiler free, I’d advise you to avoid watching these videos.  However, if you want to see a lot of cool looking footage from a movie I can’t wait to see, hit the jump.