The only thing better than a heist movie is a heist movie told in a thick British accent.  By that admittedly shallow yardstick, the TIFF 2012 selection Wasteland delivers.  The story is framed by an interrogation between Harvey Miller (Luke Treadaway) and Detective Inspector West (Timothy Spall).  Harvey fully confesses to his part in a foiled robbery and attempted murder of local busnessman Steven Roper, but there is more to his tale than pure criminality: “As the story unfolds, we discover that a malevolent and unjust act perpetrated by Roper put Harvey in prison and now he has a score to settle.”

I cannot claim to understand too much of the dialogue, but the first trailer signals that writer/director Rowan Athale has assembled a slick thriller.  Iwan Rheon, Gerard Kearns, Matthew Lewis, Vanessa Kirby, and Neil Maskell co-star.  Watch the trailer after the jump.

Is Attack the Block destined to be a cult favorite?  Probably.  A sleeper hit?  If it’s marketed correctly.  A great film?  Absolutely.  Writer-director Joe Cornish has created an action-thriller that is fast, frenetic, and fun, with a big heart and a sharp wit.  While it may be billed as the next Shaun of the Dead, Cornish has crafted his own glow-fanged beast that isn’t an homage to the alien invasion genre but rather resets it into a framework you’ve never seen before.  The film is grounded by the fresh, lively performances of its young lead actors, including a breakthrough turn from John Boyega, and while you may not understand every word they say, their attitude and the attitude of Attack the Block comes in loud and clear.

Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block has been getting tremendous amounts of positive buzz since its premiere at SXSW last month.  Shortly after SXSW, Screen Gems picked up the film for U.S. distribution, but hasn’t yet announced a release date.  In the meantime, the movie is set to open in the UK on May 11th and is ramping up its marketing with a new trailer as well as vignettes on all of the main characters.

Hit the jump to check out the short trailer and the vignettes.  Attack the Block stars Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, and Nick Frost.  Hopefully we’ll have a U.S. release date for the film soon, but there is a fan appreciation screening in L.A. on Tuesday, April 26th.

Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block received rave reviews coming out of this year’s SXSW Film Festival and went on the hunt for a U.S. distributor.  Screen Gems has now sent out a press release announcing they will distribute the film.  For those unfamiliar with the flick, it’s about a group of street tough kids who fight off alien invaders.

Hit the jump to check out the press release.  Click here for Scott’s positive review from SXSW and click here for all of our Attack the Block coverage.  A U.S. release date hasn’t been announced yet, but the film opens in the UK on May 11th.

Joe Cornish has been working with Edgar Wright (the needs-no-introduction director of Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim VS. The World) for awhile now, but in years past he’s kept to the writing side of things:  the two wrote the still-unproduced Ant-Man screenplay that Wright’s been talking about making for the past few years, and awhile back they completed a series of rewrites on the Adventures of Tin-Tin script that Spielberg and Peter Jackson had written for their forthcoming, animated, 3D epic.  But now Cornish has stepped into the director’s chair on his first feature film, and Attack The Block is supposed to be a hell of a lot of fun.

Attack The Block features a quintet of south London street toughs– all no older than their teens– whose lives of petty crime and tough-guy posturing are interrupted when a full blown alien invasion comes to their neighborhood.  While these kids might not be the most upstanding members society’s ever seen, they find out they have a talent for taking out aliens.  Collider.com contributing writer Scott Wampler sat down with Cornish, Wright, and Nick Frost– who appears in a major role in Attack The Block– at SXSW this weekend, and here’s what he was able to find out about Cornish’s first film (along with some of those other projects he and Wright have worked on).

The international trailer for Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block has gone online.  If Cornish’s name looks familiar, it’s probably because his credits include co-writing The Adventures of Tintin and Ant-Man with Edgar Wright.  Wright serves as one of the executive producers on Block, which is about a teen street gang who take on hostile alien invaders.  While the trailer plays up the Shaun of the Dead connection (Nick Frost co-stars, Nira Park and James Wilson are producers), that’s not a bad film to call back.  It’s also a similar-sounding set-up: a director who understands the conventions of a genre (in this case, alien invasion flicks), mixes it with a low-key setting, and is able to derive both laughs and thrills from the result.

2011 has no shortage of alien flicks, but Attack the Block looks like it could be a standout.  Attack the Block will play at this year’s SXSW Film Festival.  It opens in the UK on May 13th.