The indie dramedy The English Teacher tells the story of Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore), a 40-year-old, unmarried high school English teacher in small town Pennsylvania. With no children and no relationships to speak of, her life is uncomplicated, which is just how she likes it.  Her greatest passion and her biggest fulfillment comes from helping her impressionable young students discover their own creative voices, until a former star student (Michael Angarano) returns and threatens to undo it all.

During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, co-stars Julianne Moore and Michael Angarano talked about how they came to the project, what they enjoyed most about playing their characters, and how much they enjoyed the experience of working with each other.  Julianne also spoke about the next film she’ll be shooting, Maps to the Stars, directed by David Cronenberg, while Michael spoke about how he’s shooting the remake of Heat with Jason Statham, and they both talked about why Hollywood loves remakes, and what might entice them to working in a really great role on cable television.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

In The Brass Teapot, John (Michael Angarano) and Alice (Juno Temple) are a small town couple in their ‘20s, who are very much in love, but also very broke.  Struggling to make ends meet while their friends enjoy the good life, a mysterious brass teapot in a roadside antique shop is seemingly the answer to all of their problems, when it starts spitting money out of its spout.  But, as its demands for appeasement become darker and darker, its existence is a reminder that you should always be careful what you wish for.

At the film’s press day, actor Michael Angarano spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about why this odd little film appealed to him, keeping the relationship very real amidst this fantastical story, how they got to play around a bit with the script, and how much he enjoyed shooting the emotionally abusive moments.  He also talked about what attracted him to the remake of the 1986 film Heat (that starred Burt Reynolds and Peter MacNicol), about a recovering gambling addict who finds work providing protection to his friends, which he’ll be starring in with Jason Statham.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

The first trailer for director Craig Zisk’s comedy The English Teacher has been released online.  The film stars Julianne Moore as a high school English teacher whose life takes a turn when one of her favorite students (Michael Angarano) returns to his hometown as a failed playwright.  The teacher convinces her former pupil to stage the unproduced play at her school, but all does not go according to plan.  The comedy appears to be of the screwball variety, with plenty of pratfalls and physical comedy on full display in this here trailer (plus a solid David Mamet joke thrown in for good measure).  There does seem to be a strong emphasis on character, though, and it should be interesting to see how the numerous relationships teased in this clip play out in the full film.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Greg Kinnear, Lily Collins, and Nathan Lane.  The English Teacher opens on May 17th.

We’ve got a couple of casting stories to share this afternoon.  Briefly:

• Kiefer Sutherland is in talks to play the villain opposite Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) in Paul W.S. Anderson’s disaster epic Pompeii.
• Mark Duplass is joining Melissa McCarthy and Shirley MacLaine in the roadtrip comedy Tammy, which McCarthy will co-direct.
• Michael Angarano (Red State) is set to costar in the remake of Heat with Jason Statham.

Hit the jump for more details.

The first images from director Craig Zisk’s (The Big C) comedy The English Teacher have been released.  The film stars Julianne Moore as a high school English teacher whose life takes a turn when one of her favorite students (Michael Angarano) returns to his hometown as a failed playwright.  The teacher convinces her former pupil to stage the unproduced play at her school, and all does not go according to plan.  The film sounds like a nice character-centric piece, and I’m interested to see what kind of tone Zisk has settled on when a trailer comes our way.

Hit the jump to take a look at the images.  The film also stars Lily Collins, Greg Kinnear, and Nathan Lane.  The English Teacher opens on May 17th.

The first trailer and poster for the dark comedy The Brass Teapot have been released online.  The film stars Juno Temple and Michael Angarano as a young married couple who come into possession of a mysterious teapot that dispenses money whenever the owners hurt themselves.  It’s an interesting premise that plays out in a strange fashion, and I’m not exactly sure of the film’s tone based off of this trailer.  It certainly looks like it has potential, but there’s a grating emo rock song that plays throughout the second half of the trailer that’s more than a little annoying/distracting.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and poster.  Directed by Ramaa Mosley, the film also stars Alexis Bledel, Billy Magnussen, Alia Shawkat, Bobby Moynihan, Stephen Park, and Debra Monk.  The Brass Teapot opens on April 5th.

Men are taught (or at least they should be taught) to never hit a woman.  The lesson is based on the assumption that women are physically weaker and don’t have the strength to defend themselves (also, hitting people isn’t very nice in general).  But what if the woman can not only hit back, but her job is to hit back and she knows how to hit back harder than anyone?  In Steven Soderbergh‘s Haywire, mercenary Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is that woman, and Soderbergh is unapologetic about having her hit in return.  The film forces us to confront our convictions about the fragility of women, and where that belief comes from.  Is the movie a blow for equality in showing that women can take and dish out a beating like a man?  Is a woman’s physicality always sexual?  Haywire doesn’t have easy answers to these questions, but it has no problem asking them under the cover of a badass European flavored action-thriller.

If you grew up in the 90s, odds are you spent countless hours enjoying the glorious original programming of Nickelodeon. While shows like The Adventures of Pete and Pete and Salute Your Shorts were definitely staples of my sophisticated Nickelodeon line-up, Rugrats was my rock. The animated series provided a goofy—and at times incredibly odd—look at life through the eyes of a group of toddlers. The loveable characters made for can’t-miss TV, and now Funny or Die has put together a rather disturbing trailer for a live-action version of the show.

The trailer takes the Requiem for a Dream approach with Rugrats and turns them all into psychopaths. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Parenthood star Mae Whitman plays Angelica (obviously), and she’s joined by Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), Michael Angarano (Almost Famous, Red State), and Whitman’s Parenthood co-star Sarah Ramos. Hit the jump to watch the incredibly dark trailer.

With director Steven Soderbergh’s spy-action pic Haywire opening January 20th, we’ve been provided with three clips and almost forty images from the film.  Staring MMA fighter Gina Carano as a burned spy who takes revenge against her handlers, Haywire also stars Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Angarano, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, and Bill Paxton.

I’ve seen Haywire twice now and it’s fantastic.  On top of Carano’s star in the making performance, the action scenes are some of the best I’ve seen in years.   It’s absolutely something you should see in a theater.  Hit the jump for the clips and images and look for my exclusive video interviews with the cast next week.

A new trailer for director Steven Soderbergh’s spy-action pic Haywire has gone online. The movie centers on a burned spy (MMA fighter Gina Carano) who takes revenge against her handlers. Soderbergh has surrounded Carano with a stellar ensemble of familiar faces (including Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, and Michael Douglas), and the action scenes here look absolutely brutal. This new trailer delves a bit more into the plot, and it’s actually a tad spoiler-heavy by way of revealing a couple of the deaths that take place onscreen. Soderbergh’s an incredibly interesting director, and I’m intrigued to see how he handles a film this action-heavy  so it’s safe to say I’m anticipating Haywire quite a bit.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. The film also stars Channing Tatum, Michael Angarano, Antonio Banderas, and Bill Paxton. Haywire opens January 20th.

New posters have gone online for The Avengers and Haywire.  Marvel seems to be taking a page from Warner Bros’ Harry Potter playbook by churning out as many character posters as possible between now and the arrival of the movie.  We’ve already seen the character banners, but now Marvel is disassembling these banners into individual posters.

There’s also a new poster for Haywire and it shares the same eye-catching design as the previous one-sheets.  It even makes the actors’ face-boxes look cool.  Hit the jump to check out the new posters.  Haywire opens January 20, 2012.  The Avengers opens in 3D on May 4, 2012.

A new trailer for Steven Sodebergh‘s spy-action flick Haywire has gone online.  The film stars MMA fighter Gina Carano as a burned spy who takes revenge against her handlers.  The new trailer again sells the basic concept: here’s a woman who’s really hot, and she’ll hit you so hard that all of your progeny will feel pain.  The plot looks like standard spy-movie fare, but it appears that Soderbergh is setting his movie apart by embracing the brutality of the fight scenes between Carano and her male co-stars, and questioning how far the audience is willing to go when it comes to seeing a woman getting hit even though she’s holding her own in the fight.

Hit the jump to check out the new trailer.  The film also stars Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Angarano, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, and Bill Paxton.  Haywire opens January 20, 2012.

We’ve got the first images and synopsis for the drama The Brass Teapot from the American Film Market. The pic centers on a young broke couple who steal a teapot that produces cash whenever someone feels pain. Juno Temple (The Dark Knight Rises) and Michael Angarano (Red State) star as the young couple, with Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) and Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) rounding out the cast. Written by Tim Macy, the film was directed by Ramaa Mosley. Hit the jump to check out the images and synopsis. [Update: We've removed the images at the request of the studio.]

We’ve got a few casting stories for you this afternoon. First up, Aubrey Plaza (who regularly kills it on NBC’s Parks and Recreation) has joined the cast of Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III. The indie stars Charlie Sheen (essentially playing himself) as a successful graphic designer whose fame and fortune have made him irresistible to women. His life goes south quickly when his girlfriend breaks up with him, and he starts having delirious fantasies about his long list of exes. Variety reports that Plaza will play a producer who works with Sheen at his design company. The cast also includes Jason Schwartzman, who shared some screen time with Plaza in Judd Apatow’s Funny People.

Hit the jump for the casting news of the Hurricane Katrina thriller Hours and the Julianne Moore indie comedy The English Teacher.

Fox Searchlight has released the trailer for the coming-of-age drama The Art of Getting By (formerly titled Homework).  I caught the film at Sundance and kind of loathed the hell out of it, but maybe you like cloying movies with underdeveloped characters whining about how hard life is for white upper-class teenagers living in New York City.  If you enjoy movies like that, you will love The Art of Getting By.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer plus two new images from the film.  The Art of Getting By also stars Michael Angarano, Rita Wilson, and Blair Underwood.  The film opens in limited release on June 17th.