The Beguiled
Director: Sofia Coppola
Screenwriter: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Colin Farrell
Distributor: Focus Features
Rated R | 94 Minutes
Release Date: June 23, 2017

Sofia Coppola‘s first short film, 1998’s Lick the Star, follows a clique of teenage girls led by Chloe, who is obsessed with V.C. Andrews’ novel, Flowers in the Attic. Chloe orchestrates a plan with her girl gang to “weaken” the boys they don’t like at their school by poisoning their lunches with arsenic. The 14-minute black and white 16mm short film shows early signs of Coppola’s fascination with the themes of isolation and identity, sexual awakening, and the trauma of adolescence.

Since then, Coppola has explored these ideas in the 18th, 20th, and 21st centuries with Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Somewhere, and The Bling Ring. Now, the writer-director journeys to the 19th century with The Beguiled, a remake of the 1971 film of the same name, based on the 1966 Southern Gothic novel, A Painted Devil, by Thomas P. Cullinan.

Midnight Special
** out of ****
Directed by Jeff Nichols
Starring: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Adam Driver, Jaeden Lieberher, Kirsten Dunst, and Sam Shepherd
Release Date- March 18, 2016

Midway through Midnight Special there’s a line that’s uttered from a father to his son that sticks with us, despite how generic it initially seems, and encapsulates its director’s entire film oeuvre. “I like worrying about you,” Roy (Michael Shannon) says to his son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), after a near death experience. Such a simple line depicts the compulsion men invariably encounter in each of the four films made by Arkansas director Jeff Nichols. His men are troubled, burdened, and eventually consumed by an unhealthy urge to either protect their family, friends, or legacy.

Unlike the best films of Nichols (this ranks last on his list), Midnight Special does not fully go with the reverberations that such a faithful adherence to a compulsion would lead to. Rather, we are dragged along an erratic journey that fuses a variety of genres (inevitable comparisons to E.T. Will ensue), eventually losing sight of Mr. Nichols’ sweet spot: examining man’s unerring religious devotion to protection and human emotion.

A new trailer has been released for Midnight Special, the sci-fi thriller from Mud and Take Shelter writer and director Jeff Nichols. The new trailer is titled “Jeff Nichols – A Benevolent Feeling,” and it’s short but unique, as instead of just showing footage and critical praise as many trailers do, it also includes quotes from Nichols sharing personal thoughts from his own life that inspired the film’s story.

The movie tells the story of a father going on the run with his son to protect the boy, who has special powers. It stars Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, Jaeden Lieberher, Sam Shepard, Bill Camp, Scott Haze, and Paul Sparks.

Check out the trailer below.

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for Jeff Nichols‘ Midnight Special starring Michael Shannon, as a father who protects his son from religious extremists and the U.S. government by constantly staying on the run. In fact, the film reunites Shannon with Nichols, after the two had already worked together on Take Shelter four years ago.

Check out Nichols’ take on the sci-fi genre in the Midnight Special trailer here below.

Season 2 of Fargo will take an interesting turn. Instead of moving forward, the series will turn back time and be set in a post-Vietnam War era. Lou Solverson, who was played by Keith Carradine in season 1, will be played by Patrick Wilson in season 2. Having just returned from Vietnam, Solverson has been assigned to investigate a crime between a small-town gang and a major Mob syndicate.

As you can see in the trailer below, it looks like season 2 will be just as dark and twisted as season 1. Not to mention just as funny.

Actor, director, author and international geek icon Bruce Campbell has more than the upcoming Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead on his slate of future acting projects. He just signed on to play none other than actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan on the critically acclaimed hit FX series Fargo.

Fargo, which is based on Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Oscar-winning 1996 comic thriller of the same name, premiered early last year to rave reviews, great ratings, and went on to win three Emmy awards and two Golden Globes (one of the latter went to star Billy Bob Thornton). The second season will be a prequel to the first and take place in the late 1970s, when Reagan was mounting his first campaign to be President of the United States.

The first season of FX’s Fargo, based on the Joel and Ethan Coen film of the same name, was the kind of slow-burn dark comedy crime drama that I crave. It actually would have been fine if the series was just that one story arc. But earning the kinds of acclaim and acolytes it did after its debut, it only made sense for the network to ask Noah Hawley to write the series’ second season.

Though Fargo didn’t take place in the same city, it did have some nods to the film and used the same tones. Now season two will be pretty much the same. Rather than take place after the events of the first season, season two will take place long before Lorne Malvo and Lester Nygaard ever crossed paths. Rumor has it Jeffery Donavan and Nick Offerman have been offered roles, but have yet to be confirmed. What has been confirmed is that Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man) and Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad) are joining the series. Hit the jump for more.

When Interview With The Vampire hit theaters back in 1994, my young self couldn’t get enough of long-haired Brad Pitt as the vampire Louis. There was one scene where the young Kirsten Dunst gets to kiss Brad Pitt and I remember thinking of the 11-year-old actress, that lucky bitch.

It’s 20 years later, and Dunst recently told Conan O’Brien on Conan that that kiss was her very first one, but that at that age, she thought it was “icky” (!!!!!).

Watch the video interview here below.

Looking for even more sci-fi to fill up your life? Well, with a cavalcade of films set to bow this year, 2012 is the year of the sci-fi film.

And one of the most intriguing pieces, Upside Down, has just gotten a brand new trailer. Watch it here below.

Upside Down, starring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess, the film follows the story of a futuristic, Romeo and Juliet-like pair of star-crossed lovers who live in literally two different worlds. Think of it as Another Earth, just more romantic and likely much more impressive.

Melancholia
Directed by Lars von Trier
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgard, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgard and Charlotte Rampling
Release Date: November 11, 2011

To watch Terrance Malick’s distinct, creative rendering of the beginning of the universe in The Tree of Life and then experiencing Lars von Trier‘s incendiary vision of the universe plummeting to eventual debris is to witness two artists displaying unseen audacity as they tackle subjects (beginning and end of times) that once seemed un-filmable. The caustic, operatic, haunting and celestial opening shots to von Trier’s Melancholia, which are set to the Tristan and Isolde Prelude in slow motion, depict a world, from an intimate perspective, gradually proceeding to its imminent demise. These horror-laden images, which are intimations of what will transpire later in the film, are surpassingly beautiful and an overwhelming indicator of the astonishing horror and gloom that will pervade the entire film. It is as if we are plunging into a much disagreeable state, one that anticipates the most tremulous and hectic occurrences to transpire. Melancholia is a headfirst dive into an abyss that assuredly glorifies the confusion and paranoia that is impetuously at work within the human mind. And by the film’s end, we realize that Melancholia is a remarkable and grim testimony of human frailty.