We’ve got a couple of casting stories to share this afternoon.  First up, Marion Cotillard is set to lead the next film from brothers Luc and Pierre Dardenne, the drama Deux Jours, Une Nuit (translated to Two Days, One Night).  The Dardenne brothers recently helmed the drama The Kid with the Bike, and penned the script for Two Days, One Night which, per The Film Stage, centers on a woman “who has a weekend to see colleagues and convince them to give up their bonus so she can keep her job.”  Belgian actor Fabrizio Rongione is set to star as Cotillard’s husband in the pic, which will start production early this summer in Belgium.

Hit the jump for casting news concerning the Dennis Lehane adaptation Animal Rescue.

Continuing on with our “Road to Oscar” feature, today we’re going to take a look at how the race for Best Actress played out over the past 12 months.  With the 85th Academy Awards taking place this coming Sunday, we figured this week would be a nice opportunity to reflect on how a number of Oscar categories got to where they are today.  Join us after the jump as we break down the race for Best Actress.

At last, Oscar is upon us.  Back in November I shared a look at the early awards season race by way of our 2013 Oscar Preview articles, and now nearly two months later there’s still quite a bit up in the air.  This truly is one of the more exciting awards races in recent years, as 2012 is so stacked with quality that there are a surprising number of uncertainties this close to the Academy Awards ceremony.  Nevertheless, I am once again foolishly going to attempt to predict how the Oscar nominations will shake out when they’re announced tomorrow morning, January 10th.  Hit the jump to check out my predictions.

The 2013 awards race is in full swing, and what better way to spend the Thanksgiving holiday then to take a closer look at how the categories are shaping up thus far?  Over the next few days we’re providing a bit of an overview of what the state of the race looks like at this point in time.  Yesterday we ran down the contenders for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, and today we’ll be taking a look at the fiercely competitive categories for Best Actor and Best Actress.  Hit the jump to read on.

Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone alternates between so many different tones — from tragedy to romance to action to drama — without even the slightest trace of difficulty. It’s a film that’s impossible to quite get ahold of or predict just where it’s going next. And it’s a testament  to the cast (in particular Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts) that they are so deftly able to weave in between the jumps and changes in story. Marion Cotillard stars as Stephanie, a killer whale trainer, who after a freak accident, loses both her legs. But what could become an ‘Oh-pity-me’ melodrama instead becomes a story of a woman’s self-discovery and liberation.

In the following interview with Marion Cotillard, she discusses the difficulties (or lack thereof) in playing a double amputee, discovering her character while shooting, and her role in James Gray’s upcoming Nightingale.  Hit the jump to watch.

As we move closer towards awards season, studios are busy finalizing which of their films to push in which categories in order to give them the best shot at winning.  Given that the Best Picture snub for The Dark Knight in 2008 is widely considered a large reason why the Academy subsequently expanded the category to a larger number of nominees, we knew Warner Bros. would be launching a campaign for The Dark Knight Rises.  Alas, the “For Your Consideration” campaign for Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy closer is off and running, and we’ve got a look at which categories WB is pulling for.  Hit the jump for more.

We have word that director Jacques Audiard’s film, Rust and Bone, has landed the top award at the 56th British Film Institute’s London Film Festival.  The picture stars Marion Cotillard (Inception) as a killer whale trainer who suffers a tragic accident and Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead) as single father who helps her in her recovery. Audiard’s last effort, A Prophet, was also graced with the festival’s top prize in 2009.  Hit the jump to see the trailer, poster and synopsis for Rust and Bone, which opens stateside in limited release starting November 23rd.

Let’s round up some posters, shall we?

• Sinister, a horror film from writer/director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and starring Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Vincent D’Onofrio and Clare Foley, opens October 5th.
• Hotel Transylvania, featuring the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, David Spade and Steve Buscemi, opens September 28th.
• Rust and Bone, the mystery/drama from director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) that stars Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises) and Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead), opens November 23rd.
• Gambit, which Michael Hoffman (One Fine Day) directs from a Coen Brothers script, stars Alan Rickman, Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz.  Gambit opens next year.

Hit the jump to see all the posters and synopses.

Studio Canal has released the UK trailer for Jacques Audiard‘s Rust and Bone.  The film stars Marion Cotillard as a killer whale trainer who suffers a horrible accident, but develops a bond with a man (Bullhead‘s Matthias Schoenaerts) who has recently been put in charge of his young son.  I’m a big fan of Audiard’s A Prophet and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, and I’m bummed that scheduling conflicts mean I’ll probably miss Rust and Bone at TIFF.  Hopefully, I’ll get another chance to see it soon because this trailer makes the film look terrific.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  Rust and Bone opens in the UK on November 2nd.

The line-up for the 2012 Telluride Film Festival has been announced.  The program will include Michael Haneke’s Palm d’Or-winning Amour, the Bill Murray-fronted Hyde Park on Hudson, Michael Winterbottom’s Everyday, the Michael Shannon crime thriller The Iceman, Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, and many more.  The festival will also include some special surprise screenings, with Ben Affleck’s highly anticipated drama Argo rumored to appear.  Additionally, the 2012 Silver Medallion Awards will be given to Roger Corman, Marion Cotillard, and Mads Mikkelsen.

Hit the jump to read the full press release which includes the entire line-up.  The 2012 Telluride Film Festival runs from August 31 – September 3rd.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like my Batman movies to have Batman in them.  Writer-director Christopher Nolan has always had a peculiar relationship with the Dark Knight.  His approach was to set the character in a “realistic” world, or at least a world as real as one can get with a man in a rubber suit fighting crime.  Despite a seriously flawed third act, Batman Begins brought an interesting new take on the character by introducing an exploration of fear with regards to how it molded Bruce Wayne’s personality and became a weapon he used against his enemies.  However, The Dark Knight started to shift away from Batman, and instead placed the emphasis on the supporting cast, namely The Joker, Harvey Dent, and James Gordon.  The template felt bigger, the stakes were higher, and the canvas was grander, and yet Batman felt like he was competing to be a lead character in his own movie.  With The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan has closed out his Batman trilogy with an intense, epic, grand conclusion filled with terrific performances, exhilarating action, thoughtful ideas, and almost no room for the caped crusader.

It’s safe to assume that close to 99% of this site’s readership will be sitting in a theater late tomorrow night, preparing to finally see the closing chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.  Though we’re just one, long, excruciating day away from the release of The Dark Knight Rises, Warner Bros. has released yet another batch of images from the film just in case you weren’t already doubly excited to see the film.  There’s nothing really revelatory here, but we do get some glimpses of what I can only assume is the highlight of the film: Mr. Matthew Modine.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  As you well know, The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20th.

Be wary, Batfans!  The first reviews for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises have landed online, and I’m currently playing an intense game of virtual frogger in an attempt to dodge any and all further information about the film before I catch the midnight showing this Thursday.  That said, a few new images from the latest issue of EW have landed online, and they’re A-OK for those worried about seeing too much.  Bruce Wayne fiddles with technology, Joseph Gordon-Levitt ducks, and Nolan can be seen playing with some toy cars while mapping out what one assumes is an action sequence.  Or maybe he just likes toy cars.

Hit the jump to check out the images, and Godspeed in your spoiler-free quest.  The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20th, and you can check out a listing of all IMAX theaters projecting the film in 70mm right here.

The work of the marketing department for The Dark Knight Rises was clearly finished a couple days ago when Jimmy Fallon Pee-Wee Herman’d together his own teaser for the film. But instead of sending Fallon a “Thanks for guaranteeing us $200 mil” card and donating the rest of their promo budget to starving children, Warner Brothers has decided to keep dishing out little peeks of Bruce Wayne and co. all the way up to its July 20 opening. Now, keeping in mind that it contains no Paul Reubens-related content of any kind, does anybody want to see a pic of Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) firing a gun while taking cover beneath an unconscious man? Because we’ve got it…along with a bunch of other images from the Christopher Nolan epic (a couple of which we’ve seen before in lower-res form). No real Heinz Field-shaking info to be found in most of them. Highlights include Joseph Gordon-Levitt holding a gun, Michael Caine standing in a room clearly decorated from his eyes out, and Bane (Tom Hardy) bringing his reckoning to Gotham’s financial district. Hit the jump to check them out.

We’re only ten days away from The Dark Knight Rises, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be any more new trailers.  Warner Bros. has released what will presumably be the final trailer for the film.  Entitled “Journey”, the latest trailer pulls clips from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight before showing how Bane’s arrival in Gotham will force Batman to join an all-out street war.  There are some new pieces of footage in this trailer, but it doesn’t look like there are any major spoilers.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer, click here to listen to the full soundtrack, and click on the corresponding links for Steve’s interviews with Nestor Carbonell, costume designer Lindy Hemming, co-producer Jordan Goldberg, and special effects supervisor Chris Corbould.   The film stars Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  The Dark Knight Rises opens July 20th.