You might think that two-time Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman has done pretty much everything in his prolific career, but his upcoming film, Quartet, will be his directorial debut.  Centering on a nursing home for retired opera singers, Quartet shows that not everyone ages gracefully as the egos of a few threaten to disrupt plans for the home’s annual concert.  But the show must go on!

Quartet stars Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtenay and Michael Gambon opens domestically in limited release on December 28th and in the U.K. on January 4th 2013.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer and clip.

We’ve got a few new release dates for you this evening.  Check them out at a glance:

• Last Vegas, directed by Jon Turteltaub and starring Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline will open December 20th, 2013.
• Stand Up Guys, the Fisher Stevens comedy starring Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Julianna Margulies and Alan Arkin, opens January 11th, 2013.
• Quartet, Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut starring Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtenay, and Michael Gambon opens domestically December 28th of this year and in the U.K. January 4th 2013.

Hit the jump for more on each film, including synopses.

The first trailer for Quartet has gone online.  The film is Dustin Hoffman‘s directorial debut, and stars Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtenay, and Michael Gambon as opera singers at a retirement home.  Smith plays a new resident who decides not to participate in the year’s annual concert.   “This is not a retirement home,” Maggie Smith’s character proclaims.  “This is a madhouse.”  Indeed, the movie looks incredibly slight, and yet perfectly geared to the audiences that have helped The Exotic Marigold Hotel to $121 million worldwide.  In a nutshell: your parents will probably want to see it.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  Quartet opens in U.K. on January 4, 2013; there’s currently no U.S. release date.

Glenn Close has spent the last three decades trying to bring Albert Nobbs to the screen after the title role won her an Obie in 1982.  She’s finally succeeded, and we’ve got the trailer to prove it.  Close plays a shy butler with a secret: ” ‘He’ is a woman who has had to behave as a man all her life in order to escape a life of poverty and loneliness.”  Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, and Pauline Collins also star.  Rodrigo Garcia (In Treatment) directed the adaptation from a screenplay by Close and John Banville, based on the short story by George Moore.

I am way too immature for the subject matter, and the film received mixed reviews at Telluride and TIFF.  But the trailer suggests a handsomely shot period piece and a tender approach to the story.  If you’re one of those mature cinephiles, check out the trailer plus two clips after the jump to judge for yourself.

Dustin Hoffman is looking to finally try his hand at directing, as the Academy Award-winning actor is set to make his feature directorial debut with Quartet. Based on the stage play of the same name, the film centers on a quartet of celebrated opera singers whose yearly plans to put on a concert in order to raise funds for their opera singers-only retirement home go awry when four of the finest singers in English operatic history living under one roof leads to trouble.

Hoffman has assembled a cast of British veterans that includes Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Sheridan Smith, and Michael Gambon. Production got underway today in and around Buckinghamshire and will last for nine weeks. Hit the jump to read the full press release.