Marvel has sent out a press release announcing that filming has begun on Joe and Anthony Russo‘s Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Few details about the film are known, but the press release provides a brief yet informative logline: “Captain America: The Winter Soldier will pick-up where Marvel’s The Avengers left off, as Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and teams up with Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), aka Black Widow, to battle a powerful yet shadowy enemy in present-day Washington, D.C.”  That’s a lot of new information, including the large role for Black Widow, and the setting, although we know there will be flashbacks to World War II.  Also, for those who don’t know, the “shadowy enemy” is the eponymous Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan).  The press release also confirms our earlier report that Hayley Atwell will return to play Peggy Carter.

Hit the jump to check out the full press release along with the first image, and click here for recently released concept art.  The film also stars Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Georges St-Pierre, Frank Grillo, Toby Jones, Emily VanCamp, Maximiliano Hernández, Robert Redford, and Samuel L. Jackson.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens on April 4, 2014.

While Marvel’s Iron Man 3 is set to hit theaters in a couple of months, another one of the studio’s sequels is gearing up to begin production.  Anthony and Joe Russo are onboard to direct Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and now we have confirmation of another actor from the first film who, in addition to Chris Evans (obviously), will be returning: Toby Jones.  The actor confirmed that he’ll be reprising his role as Nazi Dar. Arnim Zola, but no details are known regarding his appearance.  Given that The Winter Soldier takes place in the present day, one assumes Jones will be appearing in flashbacks.

Joining Evans and Jones in the follow-up will be Anthony Mackie as Falcon, Sebastian Stan as the titular Winter Soldier, and Frank Grillo as baddie Crossbones.  The female lead has yet to be cast, but Hayley Atwell revealed that she won’t be appearing in the film.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens in 3D on April 4, 2014.  Hit the jump to watch the video interview with Jones.

Starring Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren, HBO’s The Girl tells the unnerving story of the director’s obsessive relationship with his leading lady, during the making of The Birds and Marnie, with stunning and spot-on performances from its two leads.  As Hitchcock became obsessed with the impossible dream of winning the real woman’s love, her rejection of his misguided attempts only added to his obsession, putting both their careers and personal lives in jeopardy.

During this recent exclusive interview with Collider, actor Toby Jones talked about how he approached playing the iconic filmmaker, what most helped him in bringing the mysterious and eclectic man to life, the process of finding the right look, working with his co-star Sienna Miller, what a relief it was to get Tippi Hedren’s support of the film, if he’s curious to see Anthony Hopkins’ performance of Hitchcock, his first exposure to the filmmaker’s work, and why he thinks there’s such a fascination with what goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood.  He also talked about his involvement in the Harry Potter and The Hunger Games franchises, and how lucky he feels to have the career that he has.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Snow White and the Huntsman is part – and in some ways a culmination – of the worst instincts of big budgets Hollywood fantasies. It tries to combine the appeal of the Lord of the Rings films with a known property, Campbellian archetypes and a more dark and serious take on fantasy material. It’s garbage, easily one of the worst films of 2012. Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron lead the cast in this botched adaptation of the children’s classic. Our review of the film on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

Peter Strickland‘s Berberian Sound Studio feels desperate to convince the audience that something is happening.  Events appear secondary to one man’s descendant into madness despite not having a compelling reason to descend into madness.  It’s a movie where the greatest conflict involves travel reimbursement.  Fans of giallo cinema might find a fun correlation between the plot and the setting, but for outsiders, it’s a film where the striking direction attempts to give voice a feeble character and story by screaming.

A new full trailer for the HBO film The Girl has landed online.  The pic examines legendary director Alfred Hitchcock’s (Toby Jones) obsession with his The Birds actress Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller).  We previously were treated to an amusing teaser for the film, but this full trailer is downright creepy in the way Hitchcock’s brooding fixation with Hedren is portrayed.  It looks like we’re going to see plenty of scenes that take place on the Birds set, as well as a strong performance from Miller.  I can’t yet tell if Jones’ performance as Hitchcock is the appropriate amount of creepy or just plain weird, but I’m eager to catch the full film when it premieres on HBO.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The Girl airs on HBO on October 20th.

Stylistically recalling the likes of David Lynch and dependent on at least passing knowledge of 70s Italian horror films like Suspiria or The Beyond, it’s safe to say that Berberian Sound Studio isn’t a movie for everyone. Thankfully, that’s also exactly what makes it special. This is certainly one of the strangest damn movies that will screen at TIFF this year and also one of the most fascinating. A surreal horror thriller just as insane as its main character and an act of sensory deprivation that will ensure you’ll never be able to look at watermelons the same way again. This headtrip is not an easy film to shake off or forget, which is a good thing since it will probably take a few viewings to sort the whole thing out.  Hit the jump for the rest of my review.

We’ve got two Alfred Hitchcock feature films headed our way in the near future, but the first one out of the gate will be HBO’s The Girl.  A teaser trailer for the pic has been released, and we get our first look at Toby Jones and Sienna Miller in action as Hitchcock and his The Birds actress Tippi Hedren.  Directed by Julian Jarrold, the film examines the legendary director’s obsession with Hedren, and we’ll be seeing a rather unflattering side to Hitch’s personality.  Though this teaser is short, we get some of that “creepy Hitchcock” flavor, and Jones looks to be giving quite the performance.  I’m eager to see what route the full story takes and how much of the on-set antics from The Birds we’ll get to see play out.

Hit the jump to watch the teaser.  The Girl premieres on HBO on October 20th.

A couple days ago, a few new images from HBO’s upcoming Alfred Hitchcock-centered pic The Girl landed online.  They gave us some new promo-posed looks at Toby Jones and Sienna Miller as Hithcock and Tippi Hedren, but now HBO has provided us with a batch of images from the actual film, giving us some great looks at Miller in a few iconic poses from The Birds.  The Girl examines Hitchcock’s obsessive relationship with Hedren, and the film apparently doesn’t shy away from showing a less-than-appealing side of Hitch.  Though Jones may end up being overshadowed by Anthony Hopkins’ iteration of the filmmaker in the feature film Hitchcock, I’m eager to catch The Girl when it airs in just a few months.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  Directed by Julian Jarrold, The Girl premieres on HBO on October 20th.

We’ve got two Alfred Hitchcock-centric pics headed our way in the near future: one with Anthony Hopkins in the Hitchcock role, and another with Toby Jones taking on the persona of the legendary filmmaker.  The latter stars in an HBO film called The Girl, which examines Hitchcock’s obsessive relationship with his The Birds star Tippi Hedren.  We got our first impressive look at Jones and Sienna Miller in the lead roles a while ago, and now that production has wrapped a couple of new images have surfaced.  The two continue to look pretty damn similar to their counterparts, but it’s going to be seriously hard to top Hopkins’ incredible transformation for Hitchcock.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The Girl will premiere on HBO on October 20th.

Following the release of these character posters earlier this week, a new trailer for director Rodrigo Cortes’ supernatural thriller, Red Lights, has gone online.  The picture stars Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver as two paranormal investigators with a long track record of debunked psychics, faith healers and outright frauds.  One such mystic who has escaped their deductive logic is the blind psychic, Simon Silver (Robert De Niro).  When Silver comes out of retirement, the junior investigator sees a chance for a big win for science and recruits his star pupil (Elizabeth Olsen) to help, even while being warned to back off by his partner.  The new trailer features a bit more footage than the previous one and highlights the stand-off between Murphy and De Niro.  As a bonus, it’s introduced by the lovely Ms. Weaver.  Hit the jump to check it out.

Modern spy fiction owes debts to two British authors. Ian Fleming created James Bond, who became the spy movie franchise over the past few decades. Fleming’s formula has also worked in dozens of other films—beautiful girls, clever gadgets, exotic locations. The other fiction spymaster is John LeCarre. LeCarre’s spies are so authentic some of the terms he created for his spies to use came to be used in the real world. LeCarre’s most famous work, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, was recently made into a film for those looking to get lost in the wilderness of mirrors. We review the DVD after the jump.

Universal has released an excellent interactive trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman.  Rather than the awful trailer-for-trailer trend, I wish more studios would take the interactive approach where the trailer can lead to behind-the-scenes featurettes, concept art, and other fun stuff.  The trailer-for-trailer thing only makes me feel annoyed towards an upcoming film, but this interactive trailer makes me want to see SWATH even more.

Hit the jump to check out the interactive trailer.  The film also stars Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Frost, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, and Ian McShane.  Snow White and the Huntsman opens June 1st.

Director Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and the Huntsman opens in a little more than a month and Universal wants to make sure you know all the key players, so they’ve rattled off this roll call TV spot.  Most of the marketing so far has been geared toward the power struggle between Snow White (Kristen Stewart) and Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) with little attention paid to the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) and even less to Prince William (Sam Claflin) and the Dwarves (Toby Jones, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan).  Personally, I feel like the marketing machine has been humming along nicely up until this point; this 30-second teaser spot does little else but splash images of the actors across the screen along with their character names.  The new international trailer, however, is a nicely edited piece that reminds me why Snow White and the Huntsman, which opens June 1st, was one of our Most Anticipated movies of this quarter.  Hit the jump to check out both videos.

The first trailer and poster for Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s (Milk) directorial debut, Virginia, have gone online.  The film was originally titled What’s Wrong with Virginia? and screened at TIFF 2010 to scathing reviews.  Black went back into the editing room and retooled (and retitled) the film, and now the new cut is set to open next month.  The film stars Jennifer Connelly as a single mother who runs into a bit of trouble following a string of events: her longtime affair with the married Mormon Sheriff (Ed Harris) comes to an end as he decides to run for office, then her son (Harrison Gilbertson) starts having an affair with the Sheriff’s daughter (Emma Roberts).  Tonally and plot-wise, this trailer is kind of all over the place.  There are some good ideas throughout, but I’m unsure as to how Black coalesces everything into a cohesive story.  It’s no wonder that this was a tough one to put together, but hopefully Black’s new edit is superior to the previous cut.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and poster.  The film opens on May 18th and also stars Amy Madigan, Yeardley Smith, and Toby Jones.