LD Entertainment has released the trailer and poster for the drama Disconnect.  The film follows three loosely connected stories: one relates to online bullying, another deals with identity theft, and the third is about a reporter trying to save a young man who does sex-cam shows.  I caught the film at TIFF, and thought it was a cheap PSA that wasted the opportunity to show the complexities of online connection in the 21st century.  If you’re still interested in the film, the trailer shows way too much, and takes you deep into the third act.

And if all of that doesn’t bother you, hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film stars Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Frank Grillo, Michael Nyqvist, Paula Patton, Andrea Riseborough, Alexander Skarsgard, and Max Thieriot.  Disconnect opens in limited release on April 12th.

Check out the latest casting news below:

• Rosario Dawson (Sin City) will join Queen of the Night, the Atom Egoyan thriller that stars Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman and Mireille Enos.
• Frank Grillo (The Grey) and Maria Bello (A History of Violence) will star in a James Wan-presented thriller, possibly titled House of Horror, to be directed by Will Canon (Brotherhood).
• Peter Facinelli (The Twilight Saga) and Yuliya Snigir (A Good Day to Die Hard) join the cast of Freezer, an action/thriller directed by Mikael Salomon and starring Dylan McDermott.
• Richard Cetrone and Revard Dufresne, who each had stunt/small roles in Sucker Punch, will fill out the villainous contingent of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel presumably as General Zod’s henchmen.

Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement.

Just over a week ago, we learned that Frank Grillo (The Grey, Warrior) had tested for a villain role in Marvel’s sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  I was pretty onboard with the idea of Grillo tackling the brawny marksman role of Crossbones, but we had also heard a few more recognizable names mentioned for the part so it was unclear if Grillo would walk away the victor.  However, it appears that he made quite the impression with the Marvel folks, as confirmation has now come down that Grillo is set to portray the baddie Crossbones in the Captain America sequel.  Hit the jump for more.

Though production is currently underway on Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, Marvel is also busy filling out the cast of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which starts filming next March.  Chris Evans is already set to return as the titular Cap, Anthony Mackie has been confirmed as Falcon, and Sebastian Stan is likely coming back to portray the titular Soldier, but further casting has yet to be announced.

We know that a number of actresses are vying for the female lead, and just recently we learned that producers are also looking to fill two “very physical” male villain roles.  It appears we have confirmation on one of the characters, as The Grey and Warrior star Frank Grillo has revealed that he’s in the midst of testing for a baddie role in the superhero sequel.  Hit the jump for more details.

Director Joe Carnahan is a pretty cool guy.  The man behind Narc, The A-Team, and this year’s fantastic The Grey has become a fan of social media as of late, and he’s been using Twitter to share some seriously great material with his fans.  Not only does he give frequent (and candid) updates on the status of the various scripts and projects he’s working on, but earlier this year when it became clear that Fox wasn’t able to move ahead with his take on Daredevil due to time constraints, he posted his great “sizzle reel” pitch for all to see.  Though we’ll likely never see his full feature-film take on the superhero, it was a treat to see the tone and vibe he was going for with his take.

Carnahan is now sharing more “coulda been” goodies, as he’s posting the screen tests he did with actor Frank Grillo for his Groundhog Day-esque actioner Continue.  Hit the jump for more.

Writer/director David Ayer (Street Kings) is bringing his crime drama End of Watch into theaters on September 21st.  While we saw the violent side of Los Angeles law enforcement in the red-band trailer, this second trailer focuses on the partnership and importance of family for Officer Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Officer Zavala (Michael Peña). The duo finds themselves marked for death after a routine traffic stop turns into an epic drug bust that interferes with a notorious cartel.  End of Watch also stars Anna Kendrick, America Ferrera, Cody Horn and Frank Grillo.  Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.

A new international trailer for Zombieland-director Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad has gone online.  While it’s a shorter, tighter cut of the previously released trailer, the new version does feature a few seconds of new footage.  Sean Penn stars as Mickey Cohen, a New York gangster who takes his criminal enterprise to Los Angeles.  Standing in his way are Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who are tasked with disrupting Cohen’s stranglehold under the orders of Bill Parker (Nick Nolte).  Gangster Squad also stars Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Mireille Enos, Frank Grillo and Michael Pena. The film opens September 7th.  Hit the jump to check out the new trailer.

Though it’s still a little hard to believe, director Joe Carnahan’s The Grey remains one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year.  The “Liam Neeson fights wolves” movie blindsided me as a surprisingly introspective and meditative look at survival, life, and death, anchored by an emotionally gut-punching performance from Neeson.  The film did well at the box office for an R-rated survival pic, taking in over $75 million.  Hot off the film’s commercial and critical success, Carnahan committed to directing a remake of the 1974 action pic Death Wish, and it now looks like another one of his passion projects is moving forward: an action spin on the Groundhog Day premise called Continue.  Hit the jump for more.

A few casting updates, hot off the press:

• The Hunger Games competitor Isabelle Fuhrman will star in David Gordon Green‘s Suspiria remake
  
• Oliver Cooper will follow up Project X, his feature debut, with a role opposite Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake in Runner Runner
• Frank Grillo will re-team with his Warrior co-star Joel Edgerton on the SEAL team that hunted down in Osama bin Laden in Kathryn Bigelow‘s untitled drama

Hit the jump for details on each project.

Open Road Films will release David Ayer‘s cop drama End of Watch open September 28th.  Per the press release, “the film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as young Los Angeles police officers Taylor and Zavala as they patrol the city’s meanest streets of south central Los Angeles.”  The film also stars Anna Kendrick, Frank Grillo, and America Ferrera.  When Steve visited the set last year, he said in his report, “End of Watch is going to look and feel completely different than any cop movie you’ve ever seen and I left excited by what I saw.”

At the box office, the September 28th release date puts End of Watch up against Rian Johnson‘s sci-fi action film Looper, the dramas Trouble with the Curve starring Clint Eastwood, and Won’t Back Down (formerly titled Still I Rise) starring Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal.  Hit the jump for the press release, which contains the official synopsis.

We’ve got a couple of casting stories to share with you today. First up, Harry Potter star Tom Felton set to join the cast of Therese Raquin. Based on the 19th century novel and play by Emile Zola, the dark thriller revolves around young Therese (Elizabeth Olsen) in 1867 Paris, whose aunt, Madame Raquin (Glenn Close), is forcing her into an arranged marriage with her rich, but sickly, first cousin. As Therese soon becomes obsessed with Laurent, a friend of her husband, a devastating affair ensues with a very heavy price. Deadline reports that Felton is in talks to play Therese’s sickly cousin whom she marries. Theater director Charlie Stratton is set to helm, and the dramatic role is a nice get for Felton. It’s a wise decision, as the “sickly cousin” plays against the nefarious type that Felton is surely wary of being typecast as.

Additionally, Thor star Jaimie Alexander has landed the female lead in the thriller Intersection. Variety reports that Alexander will play a woman who plots to murder her husband with the help of her lover. “Things go awry when the lover and husband are involved in a car accident on a remote desert road.”  Frank Grillo (The Grey) stars as the husband, and production begins next month. Alexander recently wrapped The Last Stand with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hit the jump to read synopsis for Therese Raquin.

Just the other day, we reported that The Grey director Joe Carnahan was set to helm a remake of the 1974 actioner Death Wish. The revenge pic kicked off a wave of actions films and catapulted Charles Bronson to stardom. Very little was known about Carnahan’s version at the time we heard about his involvement, but the director recently took to Twitter to talk about his vision for the pic. He says it’s set in present day Los Angeles, and his goal is to capture an unseen version of L.A. a la Michael Mann’s gritty 2004 thriller Collateral. Hit the jump to hear more from Carnahan.

So, after two weeks of talking about it, I finally caught Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire. My thoughts? I was satisfied. Not blown away. Not shaking my head in disappointment. Satisfied. Soderbergh’s fight scenes were as beautifully executed as can be reasonably expected. In my opinion, though, there just weren’t enough of them. David Holmes’ score was fantastic when set behind said fight/chase/action sequences so, by default, there just wasn’t enough of it. The same could be said for much of the ensemble cast. In large part, their screen time was time well served. There just wasn’t enough of it to go around. So, do I recommend Haywire? Sure. As long as you go in with the expectation of seeing a slick action/thriller that is somewhat light on action and thrills. Now, onto business…

…After the jump, you’ll find that this week’s “Top 5″ is comprised of the 2012 Oscar nominations, interviews from our Chuck series finale set visit, a number of interviews for both The Grey and Man on a Ledge, and an ode to all of our 2012 Sundance coverage. A quick recap and link to each follows.

The world really couldn’t care less. That’s the opinion of Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, a bleak and gritty look at survival in the middle of Alaska’s harsh wilderness. This is man versus nature to an extreme extent, and there exists few gimmicks. Carnahan seems to have taken a back to basics approach and delivers the goods. Considering his past few films and their loud, cartoonish ways, there is an odd confidence that the course he is on is something worth sticking with. Liam Neeson is a standout among his fellow survivors, but everything works towards a common goal that doesn’t feel hampered by conventions. While it may be bleak, the journey is entertaining because of all the surprises and the sheer quality of the product. Hit the jump for my full review.

With director Joe Carnahan’s (Narc, Smokin’ Aces, and The A-Team) awesome survival-action flick The Grey opening this weekend, I recently got the chance to talk with the cast.  Starring Liam Neeson, Dallas Roberts, James Badge Dale, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Nonso Anozie, and Joe Anderson, The Grey is about a group of oilmen who have crash landed in the hunting zone of a rogue pack of wolves in the Alaskan tundra.  If you’re a fan of the cast, Carnahan, or just well made movies, The Grey will not disappoint.

During my interview with Dale and Grillo we talked about how they got cast in The Grey, how much changed from when they got the script to getting on set, karaoke, and future projects like World War Z.  Hit the jump to watch.