Four months ago, we reported that Ethan Hawke would reunite for his Hamlet director Michael Almereyda for another modern spin on the Bard’s work.  This time, they’ve teamed up for one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known works, Cymbeline.  In the play, the story is about [per Yahoo! Movies] “the impossible love between Imogen (Dakota Johnson) and Posthumus (Penn Badgley), and on the conniving influence of the Queen (Milla Jovovich) on her husband, King Cymbeline (Ed Harris).”  The new adaptation was reportedly “in the vein of Sons of Anarchy and Baz Luhrmann‘s Romeo + Juliet, and is an epic battle between dirty cops and a drug-dealing biker gang set in a corrupt 21st century America.”  The trailer has now come online, and it looks like Amereyda has delivered on that promise in an effective and exciting manner.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Anton Yelchin, John Leguizamo, and Delroy Lindo.  Cymbeline currently has no U.S. release date.

Quite possibly the most unlikely trilogy of all time, director Richard Linklater’s Before series is also one of the best.  Audiences fell for Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy’s young lovers in 1995’s Before Sunrise and were delighted to catch up with the duo again in 2004’s Before Sunset.  Given the rather cliffhanger-like ending to the second film, anticipation was high for a possible third feature but Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy played coy about the prospect of another film for nearly nine years.  That is, until they wrote and shot this year’s Before Midnight almost in secret, only confirming its existence after production had wrapped in Greece.  The result is an emotional and sometimes tough look at life in love, and it’s also one of the best films of the year.  Read my review of Before Midnight on Blu-ray after the jump.

The 2014 Independent Spirit Awards nominations have been announced, and director Steve McQueen’s excellent drama 12 Years a Slave tops the nominees with seven nods, including Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Actor.  Nebraska is not far behind with six nominations, and the Robert Redford drama All Is Lost also did well with four nods.  The much-beloved Short Term 12 failed to land a Best Feature nomination, but Primer director Shane Carruth’s twisty second feature Upstream Color landed nods for Best Director and Best Editing.  The Best Actor category is a strong mirror of the very tight Oscar race in the same category, and the wonderful Shailene Woodley and Brie Larson nabbed Best Actress nominations for The Spectacular Now and Short Term 12, respectively.

Hit the jump for the full list of nominations and additional commentary.  The Independent Spirit Awards will be hosted on March 1, 2014.

The American Film Market (AFM) is about to begin, which means movies are being “packaged” for buyers in order to sell international rights and therefore provide the funding to make the films.  This means bringing on bankable actors, which is what the following movies have done:

• Michael Fassbender is in negotiations to star in the gangster film, Trespass Against Us.

• Ethan Hawke will star in Alejandro Amenábar’s drama Regression.

• Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, and Alfred Molina will lead Boychoir.

Hit the jump for more on all of these films.

We’ve got some news on two actor-director reteams as follows:

• Tom Cruise is set to reunite with Joseph Kosinski for the post-Oblivion racing movie, Go Like Hell.
• Gattaca’s Ethan Hawke and director Andrew Niccol are set to re-team on an untitled thriller centering on a drone pilot.

Hit the jump for more.

Playing in theaters now is director Courtney Solomon’s Getaway, an action thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez.  The picture centers on former racer Brent Magna (Hawke) who is forced to drive a chaotic road course behind the wheel of a suped-up Ford Shelby Super Snake when a mysterious figure kidnaps his wife.  Along for the ride is “The Kid” (Gomez) who attempts to help Magna in the hopes that they’ll both survive the ride.

During a recent press day, Gomez, Hawke and Solomon participated in a group interview for the film in which they talked about surviving the stunt work, filming during the long cold nights in Bulgaria, bonding throughout the rehearsal process and acting opposite the veteran performer who provides the role of the mysterious Voice.  Hit the jump to see what they had to say.

Racing games don’t really need stories.  One of my favorite games, Burnout 3, has absolutely no story whatsoever.  You race, you smash things up, and it’s fun.  You feel in control of the action.  Courtney Solomon‘s Getaway takes the controller out of your hands to watch a crushingly dull excuse for a movie where you watch hollow characters spout wooden dialogue so you can see the same chase scenes over and over again with the quickly tiresome novelty of strapping a bunch of low-resolution cameras inside and outside the car.  The stupidity of the characters and the plot occasionally becomes so bad its good, but the repetitive, joyless set pieces simply make us want to open the door, tuck and roll, and get the hell out.

Ethan Hawke continues to prove that no genre is without its merits and no story too daunting as he takes on roles as wildly different as the thrillers of Sinister and The Purge to the dramatic romance of Before Midnight.  Starting this Friday, Hawke will take his place behind the wheel of a Ford Shelby Super Snake in an attempt to rescue his character’s wife in Courtney Solomon’s high-speed thriller, Getaway.

During a recent press day for the film, we were able to talk to Hawke in a one-on-one interview that ranged from his training and experience driving the suped-up hot rod in Getaway, his reaction on the reception of Before Midnight, and his reflection on his career so far.  Hawke also talked a bit about his upcoming roles, including completing his work with director Richard Linklater on their untitled 12-year project, starring in Michael Almereyda’s Cymbeline, Michael and Peter Spierig’s Predestination and even a possible reunion with writer-director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca).  Hit the jump for the full interview.

Warner Bros. has released a new trailer for director Courtney Solomon‘s (Dungeons & Dragons) upcoming thriller Getaway.  The film stars Ethan Hawke as a former race car driver who commandeers a Shelby Cobra Mustang and is saddled with a young hacker (Selena Gomez) in a race against time to save his wife from a mysterious kidnapper, played by Jon Voight.  This trailer delves a bit deeper into the film’s plot than the first trailer, though there’s still plenty of “car chase porn” to go around.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer, and click here for nearly 30 high-resolution images from the film.  Getaway also stars Rebecca Budig and Bruce Payne and opens in theaters on August 30th.

Warner Bros. has released a gallery of new high-resolution images from director Courtney Solomon‘s (Dungeons & Dragons) upcoming thriller Getaway.  The film stars Ethan Hawke as a former race car driver who commandeers a Shelby Cobra Mustang and is saddled with a young hacker (Selena Gomez) in a race against time to save his wife from a mysterious kidnapper.  These new images highlight plenty of car chase action and give us a good look at Jon Voight’s villainous character.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The film also stars Rebecca Budig and Bruce Payne.  Getaway opens on August 30th.

Ethan Hawke and writer-director Michael Almereyda came together in 2000 for a modern-day adaptation of Hamlet, which memorably featured the “To Be or not To Be” soliloquy delivered inside a Blockbuster Video.  On the whole, it’s not a particularly great movie, but it is an intriguing and worthwhile take on one of Shakespeare’s best and most famous plays.  The duo will now be moving to one of the Bard’s lesser-known works by bringing a modern-day take spin to Cymbeline.  According to THR, their version is reportedly in the vein of Sons of Anarchy and Baz Luhrmann‘s Romeo + Juliet, and is an “epic battle between dirty cops and a drug-dealing biker gang set in a corrupt 21st century America.”  On the one hand, I like it when directors utilize the flexibility of Shakespeare’s material and move it into a new context.  My concern about this Cymbeline is that Almereyda seems to be moving it into a context we’ve already seen with the Shakespeare-as-gang-war re-imagining.

Hawke recently scored a couple hits this past summer with The Purge and Before Midnight.  In November, he’ll be doing Hamlet again, but this time it will be on stage at the Lincoln Center Theatre.  Hit the jump to see him do the famous soliloquy in Amereyda’s 2000 movie.

It’s never too early to start talking Oscar, right?  We’re officially at the midway point of 2013, and while the bulk of awards season is normally concentrated towards the latter third of the year, there have been some strong contenders in the past that were released closer to the beginning of the year—Silence of the Lambs is probably the most famous example, having won Best Picture after being released in February of 1991.  The first half of 2013 has seen at least a couple of potential Best Picture contenders, and in addition to more than a handful of standout performances in smaller indie fare, we may very well have already seen the release of the film that will go on to take home the Oscar in technical categories like Best Visual Effects or even Best Production Design.

Hit the jump to read on as we examine the possible Oscar contenders from the first half of 2013.

For all of the uneasiness I felt watching The Internship play as a not so subtle promo for Google’s portfolio of services (what in the hell is Google Wallet?), the movie painted a dichotomy that I found interesting. While far from perfect, I thought the film did a nice job of contrasting the eternal optimism of a couple Gen X’ers with the often harsh practicality and cynicism I see embedded in myself and many of my fellow Millennials. Although this is hardly the platform from which to dive into a generational debate, The Internship at least introduced the idea that belonging to a generation that has had the wealth of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips for a good portion of their lives (not to mention video games and the lack of a military draft) faces a whole new set of unique challenges and insecurities. At the same time, it also sent an oft-overlooked truth that we (Millennials) don’t know it all, haven’t seen it all, and the “Culture of Meh” that we often embrace is cynical bullshit that I can only hope life experience will help pull us out of.

In addition to my “meh” soapbox, this week’s Top 5 offers The Internship interviews with Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, and Rose Byrne, the first trailer and a set visit recap for director James Wan‘s Insidious: Chapter 2, a truckload of set images from X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Purge interviews with Ethan Hawke and more, and a look at the WGA’s list of the “101 Best Written TV Series of All Time”. Check out a brief recap and link to each after the jump.

It would be a mistake to call The Purge thinly-veiled social commentary because that would necessitate the presence of a veil.  When there’s no distance between the comment and the art, it’s simply a statement.  “Socioeconomic inequality leads to entitlement and estrangement.”  That’s The Purge.  Writer-director James DeMonaco has no room for subtlety, and what he’s constructed isn’t a veiled commentary, but a cage constructed out of a thriller/action film.  This doesn’t mean his comment doesn’t have merit.  It’s perfectly timed and speaks to our current cultural climate.  It’s just that no one may hear the message over the bloodlust created by the desire for an upper-middle-class family to fight off their upper-class attackers.

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for director Courtney Solomon‘s (Dungeons & Dragons) thriller Getaway.  The film stars Ethan Hawke as a former race car driver who commandeers a Shelby Cobra Mustang and is saddled with a young hacker (Selena Gomez) in a race against time to save his wife from a mysterious kidnapper.  Jon Voight puts on a pretty terrible accent as the film’s villain, and the seemingly chemistry-less team up of Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez is, well, unfortunate.  The saving grace of the film looks to be its car chase sequences, which actually appear to be well staged and interesting, but the question remains whether we’ll actually care about the characters enough to be invested in said sequences.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Rebecca Budig and Bruce Payne.  Getaway opens on August 30th.