Fox Searchlight has released a batch of new high-resolution images from director Zal Batmanglij’s (Sound of My Voice) eco-terrorist thriller The East. Brit Marling co-wrote the script with Batmanglij and stars as an undercover operative for an elite private intelligence firm who infiltrates a domestic terrorist organization in order to protect her corporate clientele.  Once she starts living as part of the anarchist collective, though, she finds that her loyalties aren’t as solid as she believed them to be.  I caught the film at Sundance and it’s a very solid thriller that poses some fascinating questions that don’t exactly have easy answers.  It has a lot to say about the world we live in, but the film still manages to work very effectively as commercial entertainment, as evidenced by the most recent trailer.

Hit the jump to check out the images, click here to read Matt’s review, and click here to read my interview with Batmanglij and Marling.  The film also stars Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page, Patricia Clarkson, Julia Ormond, Shiloh Fernandez, and Jason Ritter.  The East opens on May 31st.

Blockbusters dominate the summer movie season, and some will definitely be worth your time.  You’ll pre-order your ticket, get together with friends for the earliest possible screening, and probably have a grand time.  But there are some smaller films this summer that shouldn’t escape your attention.  I’ve compiled a list of ten worthwhile indie films I saw at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and SXSW 2013.  The list includes coming of age comedies, moving romances, brutal dramas, and more.  There are other smaller films this summer that might be worth a look such as The Bling Ring and Blue Jasmine, but I haven’t seen them yet.  I can vouch for these ten.  Hit the jump for the list.

6 posters, 5 character posters, 4 movies.  Let’s go:

• Star Trek Into Darkness – Two character posters for Sulu (John Cho) and Bones (Karl Urban)
• Red 2 – The posters highlight two additions to the cast for the spy sequel, Anthony Hopkins and Byung-hun Lee.  Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren star.
• The East – Brit Marling stars as an operative for a private intelligence firm who goes undercover to infiltrate an anarchist collective that attacks corporations.  Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page, and Patricia Clarkson co-star.
• CBGB – Chronicles the quest of Hilly Kristal (Alan Rickman) to turn a small club into the legendary punk venue.  Ashley Greene, Malin Akerman, Johnny Galecki, Rupert Grint, and Stana Katic co-star.

See the posters after the break.

Fox Searchlight has released a new trailer for Sound of My Voice director Zal Batmanglij’s upcoming thriller The East.  The film stars Brit Marling as an undercover operative for an elite private intelligence firm who infiltrates a domestic terrorist organization in order to protect her corporate clientele.  Once she starts living as part of the anarchist collective, though, she finds that her loyalties aren’t as solid as she believed them to be.  I caught the film at Sundance and it’s a very solid thriller.  Batmanglij and star/co-writer Marling prove that they can skillfully craft a commercially pleasing film that still manages to be smart and thought provoking, and Marling turns in a riveting performance as the film’s protagonist.  This trailer delves quite a bit deeper into the pic’s plot than the first teaser trailer, and it gives you a good idea of the pic’s intensity level and story beats.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer, click here to read Matt’s review, and click here to read my interview with Batmanglij and Marling.  The film also stars Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page, Patricia Clarkson, Julia Ormond, Shiloh Fernandez, and Jason Ritter.  The East opens on May 31st.

While I already posted the first posters for Spike Lee‘s Oldboy, James Wan‘s Insidious: Chapter 2, Robert Schwentke’s R.I.P.D., and a great display for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, I’ve still got a ton of pictures left to post.  However, rather than offering them up one article at a time, I’m grouping them all into one huge article.

While a lot of the posters you’ve previously seen, there are a few new things like the first logo for Paul Greengrass‘ Somali pirate pic Captain Phillips starring Tom Hanks, the first poster for Where the Devil Hides, and the first display for Jimmy Hayward’s Free Birds starring Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler.  In addition, you can also check out posters/displays for Star Trek Into Darkness, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, Despicable Me 2, Fast and Furious 6,  Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger, The Heat, Elysium, The East, The Wolverine, The Mortal Instruments, and a lot more.

Some new posters have made their way online.  Briefly:

• Now You See Me – The debut poster for Louis Letterier’s magic-centered crime thriller puts the impressive ensemble cast front and center.  The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Woody Harrelson and opens on May 31st.
• The East – Director Zal Batmanglij’s eco-terrorist thriller went over well with Sundance audiences, and this poster does a nice job of teasing the pic’s sinister undertones.  The film stars Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgard, and Ellen Page and opens on May 31st.  Read Matt’s review here, and check out my interview with Batmanglij and Marling for the film here.
• Spring Breakers – Though the film is already out in limited release, a few UK character posters have landed online for Harmony Korine’s latest film.  The pic stars James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, and Selena Gomez and expands into wide release on March 22nd.  Read Matt’s review here.

Hit the jump to check out the posters and synopses.

Check out the latest release date shuffle for the following films:

• Director Zal Batmanglij’s The East, starring Brit Marling, Ellen Page, Alexander Skarsgard, Toby Kebbell, Shiloh Fernandez and Patricia Clarkson, will open in limited release starting May 31, 2013.
• The Mark Waters-directed adaptation, Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, starring Zoey Deutch (Beautiful Creatures) and Lucy Fry (Lightning Point) will open February 14, 2014.
• Universal’s Untitled Illumination Entertainment 2015 Project will open in 3D on July 3, 2015.  

Hit the jump for more on each picture.

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival saw the debut of a number of filmmakers, but one of the most anticipated titles was the follow-up film from Sound of My Voice director/co-writer Zal Batmanglij and star/co-writer Brit Marling.  The two made waves with Sound of My Voice at Sundance 2011, and this year they premiered their ambitious new film, the thriller The East.  Marling stars as an undercover corporate operative who infiltrates a domestic terrorist organization but becomes conflicted when she starts falling for the charismatic leader (Alexander Skarsgard).  The impressive ensemble cast also includes Ellen Page, Patricia Clarkson, and Julia Ormond, and you can click here to watch the trailer and here is Matt’s review.

While in Park City, I got the chance to speak with Batmanglij and Marling for an extended interview.  They talked about wanting to craft an effective thriller that also posed some important questions, how the film’s events and ideas could have parallels to the Newtown massacre, the interesting reactions to the film’s subject matter, how their experience on Sound of My Voice influenced their approach to this larger-budgeted film, and more.  In addition, they also briefly touched upon fulfilling the Sound of My Voice trilogy and future projects.  Read on after the jump.

The undercover thriller is a familiar genre, but it rarely reaches its full potential.  For a setting where betrayal and shifting sympathies are central to the plot, most of these stories only provide the semblance of a grey area.  Yes, the terrorist is planning to destroy the western seaboard, but his kid died ten years ago, so he’s not all bad.  This is an easy road to nominal dramatic conflict while still keeping the audience firmly supporting the hero.  With their new film The East, director Zal Batmanglij and co-writer Brit Marling have played the undercover thriller to near-perfection by forcing the audience to sit uncomfortably as we wonder who should deserve our sympathies.  Playing to the conventions of the genre stops The East from holding any major surprises, but Batmanglij and his strong cast always keep us riveted as we become as conflicted as the film’s protagonist.

The first trailer for Zal Batmanglij’s The East is now online.  A follow-up film to Batmanglij’s Sound of My Voice (both co-written by Batmanglij and Brit Marling), The East centers on an undercover operative (Marling) who infiltrates a domestic terrorist organization but becomes conflicted when she starts falling for the charismatic leader.  Fans of Sound of My Voice will recognize some very similar themes here, though the trailer for The East is decidedly more aggressive and promises to deliver on the tension.  The East also stars Ellen Page and Alexander Skarsgard. Hit the jump to watch the first trailer for The East.

Today, Sundance announced their stellar Premieres line-up and we have the first images from a few of the movies playing in the category:

• Big Sur – Written and directed by Michael Polish, starring Jean-Marc Barr, Kate Bosworth, Josh Lucas, Radha Mitchell, Anthony Edwards, and Henry Thomas.

• Breathe In – Written and directed by Drake Doremus, co-written by Ben York Jones, starring Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones, Amy Ryan, and Mackenzie Davis.

• The East – Written and directed by Zal Batmanglij, co-written by Brit Marling, starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, Ellen Page, and Patricia Clarkson.

• jOBS – Directed by Joshua Michael Stern, written by Matt Whiteley, starring Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad, Lukas Haas, J.K. Simmons, and Matthew Modine.

Hit the jump for the images and synopses.  The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs January 17 – 27.

Last week we saw the 2013 Sundance Film Festival announce lineups for its competition and Spotlight/Park City at Midnight programming, and today they have unveiled the list of films that will screen as part of the Premieres lineup.  It’s one hell of a program, as films that will screen include the Ashton Kutcher-fronted Steve Jobs biopic jOBS, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut Don Jon’s Addiction, director Richard Linklater’s trilogy-completing Before Midnight with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, the ensemble comedy A.C.O.D., director Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut Stoker, and much, much more.

Hit the jump to check out the full lineup for the narrative and documentary premieres.  The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs January 17 – 27th.

On the TNT series Leverage, about a crew of high-tech crooks who steal from wealthy criminals and corrupt businessmen, in order to level the playing field for people whose lives have been destroyed by the rich and powerful, actor Aldis Hodge plays Hardison, the team’s miracle worker when it comes to hacking.  With the relationship between Parker (Beth Riesgraf) and Hardison heating up, and a secret shared between Hardison and Nate (Timothy Hutton) that the rest of the team isn’t privy to, it will continue to be a season of new adventures and uncharted territory.

During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, Aldis Hodge talked about the changes in Season 5, finally getting the pay-off for the Hardison-Parker relationship, how the secret shared between Hardison and Nate won’t be revealed until the end of the season, his favorite episode, getting to play so many different characters within his character, how he would still like to explore more about Hardison’s background and family, and who’s the goofiest and who’s the most serious on set.  He also talked about his role in the upcoming film The East, from writer/director Zal Batmanglij and writer/actress Brit Marling, and his desire to establish a career behind the scenes as well.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

One of my favorite films from last year’s Sundance was Sound of My Voice (which opens this weekend in limited release). Directed and co-written by Zal Batmanglij, the film follows a documentary filmmaking team made up of Christopher Denham and his girlfriend (Nicole Vicius) as they investigate a cult lead by a supposed time-traveler (Brit Marling who also co-wrote the film).  While they start the investigation intent on exposing her and freeing the followers, as they get further inside, they start to question their objectives.  For more on the film, you can watch the first twelve minutes here.

During the recent Los Angeles press day for the film, I sat down withBrit Marling for an extended interview.  We talked about what it’s been like waiting for the film to get released, her writing process, Sci-fi, favorite movies, and a lot more.   In addition, Marling talked about The East (which also stars Alexander Skarsgard and Ellen Page) and Robert Redford‘s The Company You Keep.  Hit the jump for what she had to say and make sure to check out Sound of My Voice this weekend!

One of my favorite films from last year’s Sundance was Sound of My Voice (which opens this weekend in limited release). Directed and co-written by Zal Batmanglij, the film follows a documentary filmmaking team made up of Christopher Denham and his girlfriend (Nicole Vicius) as they investigate a cult lead by a supposed time-traveler (Brit Marling who also co-wrote the film).  While they start the investigation intent on exposing her and freeing the followers, as they get further inside, they start to question their objectives.  For more on the film, you can watch the first twelve minutes here.

During the recent Los Angeles press day for the film, I sat down with Zal Batmanglij for an extended interview.  We talked about what it’s been like waiting for the film to get released, financing the project, digital filmmaking, his writing process, if he’ll make a sequel, and more.  In addition, Batmanglij recently finished shooting his next film The East which stars Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page and Brit Marling. He talked about what that film is about, when it might premiere, and more.  Hit the jump to watch and make sure to check out Sound of My Voice this weekend!