Jason Reitman’s Labor Day is a complete departure from the down to earth comedies we normally see him direct. It’s a darker turn for the acclaimed director. The film is based on the Joyce Manyard novel of the same name and follows 13-year-old boy (Gattlin Griffith) and his reclusive mother (Kate Winslet) who help pick up a man (Josh Brolin) in need of help. Little do they know that the person they helped out is actually a dangerous fugitive who ends up holding the family that helped him hostage during Labor Day Weekend.

The film has already received some high praise at both the Toronto International Film Festival and Telluride Film Festival. It also stars J.K. Simmons, Clark Gregg, James Van Der Beek, and Tobey Maguire. Paramount will give the movie a limited release on December 25, and it will expand nationwide on January 31. Hit the jump to see a pair of trailers.

It’s not uncommon for large groups of people confined to depressing institutions where their every move is monitored and their freedoms are limited to divide up into splinter factions where each group’s solitary unifying factor is either their race, gender, nationality, heritage, lifestyle choice, or their desire to survive to see another sunset, and I’m not just talking about high school.

One of the basic rules of survival when you end up spending an extended amount of time behind bars is to join a gang, something that the brilliant television series Oz taught me.

Check out this infographic here below called A Look At The Gangs In Oz which breaks down every gang on Oz, listing the leaders, along with the criminal statistics of the gang members.

Well now, this is one thing that no one saw coming.

Let’s recap: last week, we discovered that Sony was halting production on Spider-Man 4 due to creative differences between studio executives and director Sam Raimi. This was taken as a very bad sign, but star Tobey Maguire assured all that this was only “part of the process” and the movie was still going to happen.

Now, out of nowhere, Deadline Hollywood is reporting exclusively that Sony has actually decided to completely CANCEL Spider-Man 4, and reboot the entire franchise. This means that Raimi, Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, J.K. Simmons, Bruce Campbell, and everyone else involved in the previous movies are no longer involved in any way. This also means that Sony will use a script from James Vanderbilt, who was hired to begin working on drafts for fifth and sixth Spider-Man, to start over with a brand new cast, crew, and look.

Click over to the other side to read the full press release from Sony!

Extract
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Mike Judge
Starring Jason Batemen, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Clifton Collins Jr., J.K. Simmons, David Koechner
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 22, 2009

Mike Judge hasn’t had the best of luck when it comes to his films. Whether it’s his now cult classic Office Space, Idiocracy, or his latest film, Extract, it always seems like he has problems getting the backing that he needs or the proper attention from movie goers that he deserves. Another trend that’s typical in Judge’s movies, is that they’re all fantastic, so I was excited to finally get to see Extract for myself.

Extract tells the story of Joel (Jason Bateman), the owner and manager of Reynold’s Extract, a company that makes those little bottles of flavor extracts such as vanilla, peppermint, and perhaps even cookies and cream. Joel is desperately seeking a large company to come along and buy him out so he can retire and hopefully revive the deceased intimacy between him and his wife (if he’s not home by 8PM on the button, she will have her sweatpants on, and he never gets to have sex) Suzie (Kristen Wiig). When Joel discovers that General Mills is suddenly very interested in buying the company, excitement runs high, but a streak of bad luck brings everything to a dead halt, much like his production line often is. Reynold’s hires a lot of simpletons and job placement recruits, and when these newcomers become distracted, the bitter long-time employees refuse to do anything about it, which in turn causes the line to back up. One day this occurs and sets off a chain of bad events that culminates in the unfortunate testicular dismemberment of an employee named Step (Clifton Collins Jr.). Not only does this incident cause severe complications in the sale of the company, it’s also not long before a drop-dead gorgeous new temp employee named Cindy (Mila Kunis) shows up with devious plans to seduce Joel and Step at the same time with hopes of walking away with a massive piece of the expected multi-million dollar settlement payout. This leaves Joel stressed and confused and unsure what to do with only his unmotivated default best friend Dean (Ben Affleck) offering illegal substance options and his always-nagging neighbor Nathan (David Koechner) there to make things that much worse for him.

Continue reading for more and to watch an Extract trailer if you have not already seen it!

Actor J.K. Simmons spoke to MTV at Sundance about where Spider-Man 4 currently stands and whether we’d see J. Jonah Jameson involved in the story again.

The actor confirmed that he had spoken to director Sam Raimi at a Christmas party and that they were going to begin filming the movie in 2010 sometime. While this sounds fantastic, Sam Raimi — as well as Tobey Mcguire and Kirsten Dunst — have yet to officially sign on to the project; though all are expected to be up for a return now that a decent enough amount of time has passed by.

When asked about the character J. Jonah Jameson and if he would like to see more of him the next movie, J.K. Simmons responded: