The first international trailer for director Anne Fontaine’s (Coco Before Chanel) drama Two Mothers has, fittingly, found its way online on Valentine’s Day.  The film stars Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as two lifelong friends who unexpectedly fall in love with each other’s sons (yes, it’s basically a feature film adaptation of “Motherlover”).  I caught the film at Sundance at it’s a peculiar movie.  The story chronicles these two relationships over a number of years and shows the ups and downs that feel universal to any relationship, but it’s hard to forget that you’re watching two middle-aged women cuddle up to boys that they have known since they were babies.  It’s not a bad movie, but it did elicit quite a bit of unintentional laughter at its Sundance premiere.  You can read my full review right here.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville, and Ben Mendelsohn and will hit theaters later this year.

Relationships are complicated.  Every person knows this; it is a universal truth.  Love can be both the best experience and the worst experience, but it’s incredibly difficult to live your life on this earth unscathed by the scars of loving another person.  Of course, a relationship is made a bit more complicated when you fall in love with your best friend’s son, and director Anne Fontaine takes this complication one step further by chronicling the extended love affair of two best friends who fall in love with each other’s sons.  Hit the jump for my full review of Two Mothers.

Check out the latest casting news below:

• Christian Slater (Broken Arrow) and Justin Long (Live Free or Die Hard) join the indie drama Undiscovered Gyrl, an adaptation of Allison Burnett’s novel which Burnett himself will direct.
• Connie Nielsen (Gladiator) has joined the latest McG project, previously reported as Three Days to Kill.  The pic is a darkly comic action thriller that involves a Secret Service agent who comes out of retirement for one last mission in exchange for a drug that could save his life.
• Ben Mendelsohn (Killing Them Softly) is in talks to join Mississippi Grind, a road trip pic of sorts with a plot focused on gambling addiction.  The indie also stars Jake Gyllenhaal who will produce.

Hit the jump for more on each picture.

If you’ve managed to break away from your Black Friday shopping, we’ve got some brief casting stories for you this morning.  First up, rising star Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead) has joined Michelle Williams and Kristin Scott Thomas in the period drama Suite Francaise.  Directed by Saul Dibb (The Duchess), the adaptation of the Irene Nemirovsky‘s novel “set in German-occupied France, about a German officer billeted at the home of a young woman (Williams) and her mother-in-law (Scott Thomas).”  According to the Daily Mail, Schoenaerts will play the German officer.  If you’ve seen Bullhead, you know it’s great to see Schoenaerts’ career take off.  He can currently be seen starring opposite Marion Cotillard in Jacques Audiard‘s acclaimed latest feature, Rust and Bone.

Hit the jump for Marisa Tomei and Ben Mendelsohn casting news.

A new trailer for director Andrew Dominik’s crime drama Killing Them Soflty has been released.  The film stars Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer called in to investigate the robbery of a high-stakes card game.  The film’s first trailer was pretty great, but this clip ups my anticipation level even more.  We see a bit more of the plot and character interactions, and there’s a scene set in the rain that shows off some fantastic visuals.  Dominik displayed tremendous talent with The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, and I’m highly encouraged by what we’ve seen of his second go-around with Pitt thus far.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  The film also stars Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy, and Ben Mendelsohn.  Killing Them Softly opens November 30th.

A new international trailer for Killing Them Softly has been released.  The film stars Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer called in to investigate the robbery of a high-stakes card game.  The domestic trailer showed us some of the other characters and plot points, but this international trailer is short, to the point, and it works.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy, and Ben Mendelsohn.  Killing Them Softly opens November 30th.

The Toronto Film Festival is widely considered to be the place where a majority of the buzz for so-called “awards films” begins, and this year one of the biggest surprises was Derek Cianfrance’s (Blue Valentine) crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines.  The pic stars Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper and centers on the intense feud between a professional motorcycle rider turned bank robber (Gosling) and a rookie police officer (Cooper).  The film premiered to an enthusiastically positive response at TIFF, with heavy praise given to the film’s scope and impact; our own Matt Goldberg called it an “epic family saga” in his positive review.

Focus Features acquired the film for 2013 distribution, and many figured the drama would be poised for an awards season release sometime in the fall.  Now Box Office Mojo reports that we’ll see the pic much sooner than expected, as The Place Beyond the Pines has been dated for a limited release on March 29th, 2013.  This is great news for those of us eager to see what everyone was buzzing about back at TIFF, but it’s a little surprising that Focus is dropping this one so early in the year.

One of the many films to premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival was The Place Beyond the Pines.  Written and directed by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), the pic centers on a professional motorcycle rider turned bank robber (Ryan Gosling) and a rookie police officer (Bradley Cooper).   Pines premiered to a rapturous response (read Matt’s glowing review here and here’s two clips), and Focus quickly snapped it up for a planned 2013 release.   The pic also stars Eva Mendes, Bruce Greenwood, Dane DeHaan, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn and Rose Byrne.

The day after the premiere, I landed an extended video interview with Cianfrance.  We talked about his first feature–Brother Tied–and if it’ll ever be released, the genesis of The Place Beyond the Pines, premiering at TIFF, editing (he shot 400 hours of footage), deleted scenes, and more.  In addition, Cianfrance talked about his HBO project Muscle, which is based on Samuel Fussell’s memoir Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder.  Hit the jump to watch.

Hot on the heels of the news that Focus Features has acquired the extremely well received crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines, the first two clips from the film have landed online.  Written and directed by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), the pic centers on the intense feud between a professional motorcycle rider turned bank robber (Ryan Gosling) and a rookie police officer (Bradley Cooper).  Pines premiered at the Toronto Film Festival late last week to a rapturous response (read Matt’s glowing review here), and Focus quickly snapped it up for a planned 2013 release.  These two clips feature a peroxided and tattooed Gosling planning a bank robbery and Cooper’s cop character being questioned in a hospital bed by Bruce Greenwood.

Hit the jump to check out the clips.  The film also stars Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne and Ray Liotta.

The first trailer for Killing Them Softly has been released.  Directed by Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James), the film stars Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer hired to restore order following the robbery of a mob-protected card game.  We knew going in that Dominik was unlikely to make a straightforward crime pic, and this trailer promises something special.  There’s some great humor, strange characters, and a wonderful backing track provided by the one and only Johnny Cash.  We even get a shade of those political undertones that were singled out when the film premiered to a wildly positive response at the Cannes Film Festival.  As a big fan of Jesse James this one was already high on my list of anticipated films, but seeing Pitt, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta and co. in action I can already tell it’s gonna be an excruciating next few months waiting for this to hit theaters.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars James Gandolfini, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, and Vincent Curatola.  Killing Them Softly opens on October 19th.

New images have been released for the action flick Dredd and Andrew Dominik‘s crime drama Killing Them Softly.  For those unfamiliar with the films, Dredd is an attempt to faithfully adapt the 2000AD comics character Judge Dredd, and stars Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, and Lena Headey.  As for Killing Them Softly, the movie stars Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer who’s tasked with investigating the robbery of a high-stakes card game.  The film also stars stars James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn, Scoot McNairy, Bella Heathcote, and Sam Shepard.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  Both films open September 21st.

A few casting details for you here. Nia Vardalos, co-writer of the upcoming romantic comedy Larry Crowne starring Tom Hanks, will appear in a new American Girl film. I know what you’re thinking. I had no idea there were old American Girl films either, but you might have heard of the lone theatrical release, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. Apparently Vardalos is influenced by her daughter’s opinion just like a lot of actors that do kids films these days.

On the flip side, we have Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom), who is in talks to join Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper in Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines. While Mendelsohn has a large number of films under his belt, he broke out last year playing the creepy uncle in Animal Kingdom that would never go away. With two films coming before the end of the year, it doesn’t look like Mendelsohn will be going anywhere either. Hit the jump for more details on both films and actors.

In my profession, there are two very important things you must do: watch movies and keep notes.  I did an alright job with the first one, but admittedly fell short on the latter.  While last year I was able to confidently provide what I thought were the best kills and quotes, this year I didn’t do a good job with record keeping and so I’ve omitted those categories.  Next year I’ll be more meticulous and make it a point to see movie where people get destroyed while saying witty things.

However, I did see enough movies to confidently make a list of the folks I thought were the best actors, directors, and other miscellaneous greats.  Hit the jump to check out my picks.

With Trespass set to wrap its nine-week shoot in Shreveport, Louisiana this weekend, we have a slew of new images from the film as well as quotes from Nicolas Cage, Nicole Kidman, and director Joel Schumacher to share with you today.  For those in the dark about the thriller, Trespass takes place over the course of one day and tells the story of a wealthy husband and wife (Cage & Kidman) who fall victim to a home invasion.  In addition to Cage and Kidman, the film also stars Cam Gigandet, Ben Mendelsohn, Jordana Spiro, and Liana Liberato.  It is currently looking at a 2011 release.

While it’s no secret that Schumacher has put out some clunkers in the past (I’m mostly looking at you, “Nipple Batman,” although I’ve heard less than stellar things about Twelve as well), it is equally true that the director has been responsible for solid offerings such as The Lost Boys and Falling Down.  This in mind, with every new Schumacher release, I find myself willing to give it a chance with the hope that he’ll make something with the type of lasting value his best films possess.  Though I wouldn’t say I’m waiting on pins and needles for Trespass, my approach here will be no different.

To check out quotes, images, and a synopsis for the film, hit the jump.

Animal Kingdom features an outstanding ensemble cast portraying characters that run the gamut of the moral compass from Australian acting icon, Jacki Weaver, who plays Smurf, the deceptively sunny matriarch of the family, to international screen star, Guy Pearce, who plays an honest detective seeking justice for a cold blooded murder, to 17-year-old James Frecheville making his big screen debut as “J,” the naïve young nephew who moves in with his estranged family and finds himself in a world that is far larger and more menacing than he could ever imagine.

We sat down with Jacki recently at a roundtable interview to talk about her villainous performance in Animal Kingdom. A highly respected stage and screen actor with a slew of industry awards, she has been at the forefront of the Australian entertainment industry for over four decades, both on screen and on stage, and has starred in many seminal Australian films including Picnic at Hanging Rock. Jacki talked to us about why the moral ambiguity of her character makes it such an interesting story, what it was like working with David Michod, and how she kept it real, shifting effortlessly between normal, sweet and lovable one moment to monstrously cold and callous the next.