I never read Vanity Fair…. except around this time of the year when they release their Hollywood issue and get numerous a-listers to appear on the cover! This year, it’s all about the ladies and features stars of forthcoming or recently released movies and as usual, they all look completely fabulous!

The 2012 issue features shots by photographer Mario Testino of Hollywood ladies – Rooney Mara, Mia Wasikowska, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Elizabeth Olsen, Adepero Oduye, Shailene Woodley, Paula Patton, Felicity Jones, Lily Collins, and Brit Marling.

Click the image below to enlarge and scroll down for interviews with three of the lovely ladies and watch a behind the scenes video.

If you can’t remember what the 2011 issue look like, click here to view!

Source: Vanity Fair (with a nod to FTRC for the heads up)

The first trailer for Albert Nobbs, the upcoming film led by Glenn Close, landed last month, and though the feel of the trailer was a little different to what I was expecting, it nonetheless was an intriguing look at the film.

Having played at some of this year’s film festivals, it’s been getting some mixed reviews, but all seem to agree that Close’s performance in the titular role, playing a woman passing as a man, is excellent.

We’ve now got a new poster to share with you, courtesy of IMP Awards, focusing on Close front and centre, with two of her co-stars, Mia Wasikowska and Aaron Johnson, standing either side.

“Glenn Close co-wrote and stars in this adaptation of the play about a nineteenth-century Irishwoman who disguises herself as a man and works as a butler for twenty years. Mia Wasikowska, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Aaron Johnson co-star in this intelligent and often surprising period drama.”

I don’t know if it’s just me, but something about this new poster makes me think of those seaside / tourist mini-attractions where you stick your head through the hole of a cardboard cut-out for a funny photo. But maybe that’s just me.

Regardless, it’s a pretty nice poster, drawing attention to one reviewer’s admiration of Close’s performance in the lead. The film is yet to have a UK release date scheduled, and though it initially had some Oscar buzz surrounding it, it looks like its US release date has been lined up for the end of January, which I think (though don’t quote me on this) would put it outside the eligibility dates for the 2012 Oscars. (Which, in turn, would undoubtedly open the doors for Michelle Williams and Tilda Swinton to head up the nominations in the Best Actress category, but only time will tell.) Without further ado, here’s the new poster to enjoy.

We got the first official look at Glenn Close dressed rather convincingly as a woman disguising herself as a man back in 19th Century Ireland. And along with showing us Close in her costume, it also gave us a nice look at two of her co-stars, Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass).

The first trailer for the film has now gone online over at Yahoo Movies, and it is an interesting one. To begin with, the trailer gives the film a family feel, which isn’t quite what I was expecting. Beyond that, it does a good job of giving us a look at what should be a fine performance from Close.

“Glenn Close co-wrote and stars in this adaptation of the play about a nineteenth-century Irishwoman who disguises herself as a man and works as a butler for twenty years. Mia Wasikowska, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Aaron Johnson co-star in this intelligent and often surprising period drama.”

Anthony has already seen and reviewed the film, and though it sounds like it does have some flaws, he notes that Close’s performance is a brilliant one, and one that will almost certainly at least see her win her sixth Oscar nomination.

The film doesn’t yet have a release date scheduled here in the UK, but hopefully it will be coming out soon, because the trailer has me intrigued. Without further ado, here’s the first trailer for Albert Nobbs for your viewing pleasure. The music is a little bit wonderful.

Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty has proved a divisive film in its run across the festival circuit and it finally comes to UK cinemas this weekend.

Lisa spoke to the star of the film Emily Browning as well as the film’s director, you can find those interviews here and here, but our friends at Upbeat also had the chance to sit down with the two and discuss the controversial film.

Here’s the interview,

Albert Nobbs is an interesting character thrown into a very average film.  He is a shy and timid man that does his duties, counts his tips and goes to sleep.  This is a perfect summary of what the movie does for it’s entire run time.  It’s a film that could have been a compelling look into the drastic measures women went to get ahead in this past, but turns out to be a one trick pony.

In Albert Nobbs Glenn Close pulls off a character and leads a story that few actresses could manage, and tells the tale of a woman that poses as a man in order to sidestep the oppressions of the opposite sex.  The problem comes in the form of predictable storytelling that few will care about and even fewer will see.

The story is set in Ireland in the 19th Century.  We see Albert preparing for the business of the day and are put into the world that he lives in.  It is a world of tedious bosses, arrogant guests and promiscuous maids.  The strongest aspect of the film and the thing that will get you through the two-hour running time is the cast.  Mia Wasikowska plays Helen Dawes, a young maid who desperately wants to quit her job.  She meets a young man, Joe, played by Aaron Johnson.  Joe and Helen hit it off and the two plan a life for themselves in America and as the story progresses, we find out that Nobbs is saving money to open a tobacco shop and soon begins to court Helen in order for her to marry him.

I know what you are thinking, however, the idea comes from a chance meeting with Mr. Page, played by Janet McTeer, who just happens to be in the same boat as Nobbs, a woman pretending to be a man.  The problem is the subplots have little conflict or influence on the main plot, and much of the film drags because of it.

The hype surrounding Glenn Close’s turn as Albert Nobbs is deserved.  I don’t think there is another actress that could make the character as believable as Close did.  And it’s not just hair and make-up, its the understated qualities of the performance that make it the Oscar nominated performance everyone is saying it is.  Will Close score an Oscar nom? Almost certainly.  Will she win?  That remains to be seen.

All in all, the movie’s viewership hinges on the Nobb’s character and Close gives a performance that gets us to the end credits.  Wasikowska and Johnson are fine in their respective roles and Brendan Gleeson is thrown into the mix for some light dramatic irony, however, this is the Glenn Close show by far.  Director Rodrigo Garcia doesn’t do much with the material outside of telling the supporting cast how to make Close look better, and that’s a shame, because the film could have been so much more than it is.

In the end Albert Nobbs is a film that doesn’t do much more than show us how great of actress Glenn Close is, and leaves much to be desired.

**~~~ (2/5)

To celebrate the September 9th release of Jane Eyre in cinemas nationwide, we have an exclusive Jane Eyre writing set to giveaway to a lucky reader, and 4 copies of the book to competition runners-up.

In a bold new feature version of Jane Eyre, director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Sin Nombre) and screenwriter Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe) infuse a contemporary immediacy into Charlotte Brontë’s timeless, classic story. Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) star in the iconic lead roles of the romantic drama, the heroine of which continues to inspire new generations of devoted readers and viewers.

For over 160 years, Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre has been one of the world’s most popular books. A mainstay of school reading lists, it has been translated into virtually every language. A story with a protagonist whom Brontë saw as “a heroine as plain and small as myself,” it continues to inspire generations and to influence storytellers.

A Focus Features presentation in association with BBC Films of a Ruby Films production. Jane Eyre stars Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, and Judi Dench and is released in cinemas across the UK September 9th.

To find out more about the film visit the Jane Eyre UK Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/janeeyreuk

To be in with a chance of winning the limited edition writing set and a copy of the book answer the following question.

Who is the author of Jane Eyre?
•    Charlotte Brontë
•    Emily Brontë
•    Anne Brontë

The small print:

• Open to UK residents only
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close 22nd September at 23.59 GMT
• The winner will be picked at random from entries received
• No cash alternative is available

The usual T&Cs can be found here. Good Luck!

Jane Eyre is the story of a young orphaned girl who is brought up by her aunt, living among cousins who beat and steal from her. She is treated like an outcast, punished severely, and eventually sent away to a strict boarding school. It is there Jane meets here very first friend, but circumstances separate them. Years pass at the school and Jane is trained to become a governess, a tutor. She finds her first job as a governess to a young French girl named Adele at a residence named Thornfield. It is at Thornfield she meets Mr Rochester.

The story of Jane Eyre is one that first came to light many years after its initial publication in 1847 (published under a pseudonym) and didn’t become popular until the beginning of the 1900s. A few decades later Jane Eyre’s first big screen adaptation came about in 1943 written by Aldous Huxley and starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. Many film and TV adaptations followed and nearly 70 years later comes Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender.

Fukunaga changes the book’s chronological story to a non-linear structure, starting the film in the middle of a dramatic escape from something and a struggle for survival, immediately creating a sense that something is wrong. As Jane explains where she has come from we flash back to Jane’s childhood dipping into the roots behind Jane’s character: reserved, strong willed, determined, passionate, and intelligent. Despite being born to a wealthy family, Jane was orphaned at a young age and put under her Aunt’s charge, who has no respect or compassion for Jane. It is from this moment Jane begins to challenge the class system from within asking the question: why should people be treated different because of their appearance or wealth?

After being sent off to a strict and gruelling life at a boarding school where beating and starvation were not unusual forms of punishment, Jane leaves the school as a grown women, ready to begin her life as a lowly governess. She replies to a job advertisement at Thornfield Hall and is welcomed in by the staff and her pupil, Adele. The master of Thornfield, Mr Rochester, is only ever mentioned in brief passing, but many months later he finally arrives.

Jane’s first encounter of Rochester does not put her in great light, and so begins a companionship based on honestly,  bluntness and, on his part, rudeness. Rochester is the first person Jane feels comfortable retorting back to and a relationship between the two, first intrigue and then romantic, form between the two. But after a fire nearly burns the house down, Jane is determined to uncover the secret that Rochester keeps from here.

Fukunaga’s version is perhaps the most supernatural and gothic of the adaptations and brings Charlotte Bronte’s story back to its roots. Many adaptations grasp the importance of the supernatural theme but find it difficult to balance it against the period romance, but Fukunaga manages the balance perfectly. Some moments you’ll be caught up in the banter between Jane and Rochester, and others you’ll be following every flicker of the candle to find what lies behind the darkness or the corridors.

I originally had doubts about Fassbender being cast as Rochester, given the description of Rochester in the book, but Fassbender is brilliantly rude, charming and captivating and with Wasikowska they work perfectly, balancing off each other. The supporting cast is filled to the brim with British talent including Judi Dench, Sally Hawkins, Jamie Bell and many others. Meanwhile the location, Hadden Hall, where many previous period films have been shot, is magnificent as it is eerie and you can sense the history and past from this wonderful location.

Although not every scene from the book could make it into the film, Fukunaga kept the scenes that make you fall in love with the book and the characters, the ones that will make you proud of Jane, charmed by Rochester, spooked by the supernatural and captivated by the story.

For fans of the book this is an adaptation you’ll watch over and over, and for newcomers it is a perfect way to open yourself to a period film filled with equal about of romance, horror, supernatural and suspense. This is a period drama for all generations.

****~ (4/5)

]]> http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/09/02/jane-eyre-review/feed/ 1 http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/09/01/interview-cary-fukunaga-on-jane-eyre/ http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/09/01/interview-cary-fukunaga-on-jane-eyre/#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:00:35 +0000 Vicki Isitt http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/?p=104972

2009′s Sin Nombre was an audacious debut from Cary Fukunaga and won the director great acclaim and marked him as a man to watch.

It was a with a measure of surprise and excitement that we greeted the news that his next film was to be an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre, a feeling compounded when Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska were cast in the central roles of Rochester and Jane.

The film is (finally) released here in the UK on the 9th of September and we sat down with the director to talk about his attachment to the book, the challenges of structuring the film adaptation and finding his perfect cast.

Q:  What initially attracted you to Jane Eyre?

A: I knew it more as a film when I was a kid, it’s kind of one of those classic Hollywood films that I just grew up with and really loved and it was one of my favourites. I’d been thinking of readapting it, as one of the classic films I hadn’t seen adapted in a while – that’s sort of proof I hadn’t been aware of how many adaptations there had been recently. There are probably more avid fans in the US who knew, but I hadn’t been aware of any recent different versions of the book on film or TV, so I thought there hadn’t been one in a while. I guess the BBC one was pretty recent so that had been fresh on everyone’s minds but through during the film I’ve learnt more about the others, the Timothy Dalton version and all the others. It’s just the classic stories that, not that I identified with, but the mix of mystery and the horror and the romance and the period captured my imagination.

Q: Can you tell me about the casting process?

A: It was really simple actually, it happened so quickly. When I had my initial meeting with the producer of the film, Alison Owen, she asked who I imagined in the film. I didn’t really know who I wanted for Jane just then but I’d seen Steve McQueen’s Hunger earlier that year and wanted to see if I could get Michael Fassbender, so he was the first person I thought of. I had a meeting with him about a month later in LA as I was doing some work out there and we had a chance to meet up and just had some beers and smoked some cigarettes and talked about the Bronte’s. Michael was pretty well versed on it, and I think Heathcliff is one of his favourite characters and at one time I think he was meant to play Rochester before so he was familiar with Rochester’s story and we just really vibed and had really similar ideas, and how we could interpret it compared to previous versions where it had been treated like a period romance and the gothic was lost.

Quite often when I’ve gone back to review previous adaptations, even in the 2006 version, when the gothic scenes come up they feel out of place. I saw the first episode of the 2006 version where they have Jane in the Red Room, and it’s just like shakey handheld camera then back to normal. And for me I think there has to be continuity when you’re dealing with that. It’s different because when you’re reading you’re allowed to change tones and you can spend hours and hours reading something and digesting it and experiencing it in your own way, but when you’re watching someone else’s film, someone else’s depiction of something then you change tones and you can lose the audiences, and that’s something you don’t want to do.

Q: As you’ve mentioned, Jane Eyre is heavily influences by the gothic and the supernatural, how did you go about bringing these tones into the film?

I read the book again and again, and I wasn’t trying to make it more horror than the book actually was. There are those spine tingling moments in the book, as for me the gothic comes out more in the details in the book rather than scary moments. Bronte talks about Jane walking around the third floor gallery and all this furniture that’s been kept up in the storage room and all these cushions that have been sewn by hands that have long since been turned to dust. Those sorts of observations of death and morbidity I found for me that was the gothic. If you think about her walking those rooms they are her versions of horror and gothic, they are the spine tingling moments. I knew I wanted to have moments in the film that would make the audiences jump, not in a hammer horror type way but in a very naturalistic way – things that make us jump in real life.

As a kid we had a two story home and after I turned the lights off downstairs I’d run up the stairs, always having my back to the darkness behind me. Just those sorts of little things. So you can imagine what Jane felt and we tried to create it with the cinematography and the sound, just trying to have those moments where also the more percussive moments and the pheasant jumps up and flies at her, I wanted the audience to jump as well. You know she’s slightly spooked by herself, and in the books there is so much detail. It’s oral tradition, the idea of scaring as a form of entertainment.

Q: Obviously the book is linear and in chronological order, what prompted your decision to film it non-linear?

A: The first reason would be storytelling, but there are two benefits to it. Firstly you get to start off in a much more mysterious way. There has been a recent trend in the past ten or twenty years of starting a film in a moment, and then building up to how that moment happened, so it’s a very contemporary method of storytelling because you know that something is going to happen so it creates this sense of impending doom. But also what it does is, the chronology of the book is such that the Rivers part of the story falls in the last third and although it’s an extremely important for Jane to have those relationships, to find a family and to find a potential partner, it’s a narrative speed bump, if you think that the real attraction of the story is Jane and Rochester’s relationship. So what ends up happening in feature versions of the films is that the Rivers section gets compressed so that it’s ineffective. I think even in the 1943 version where Aldous Huxley was a screenwriter he condensed John Rivers’ character with a preacher from the school so we get the information about the inheritance but not the possibility of Jane and John Rivers’ potential partner, and that’s an important part of Jane’s character to be able to make those decisions. If you don’t give her a sense of control over her fate then you take away a part of her strength. So by starting off at that part of the story we could take the important parts of the Rivers’ story and spread them across two hours. Where as if they’d been all together they wouldn’t  make sense, but because we spread them out we create the sense that time has passed with them and you can therefore understand why she would give her money away to them or why that she would even consider John as a potential husband.

Q: Thornfield is stunning, where did you shoot?

We shot in the same place they shot the Zeffirelli film and the 2006 BBC, and at least one more. I think there’s been four Jane Eyre’s filmed there. It’d Hadden Hall in Bakewell up in Derbyshire. They’ve shot Pride and Prejudice there, The Other Boleyn Girl, Princess Bride…it’s incredible how many films have been shot there. And it’s strange now going back and watching any of those films because I see rooms and think ‘Oh, I remember that room’. It just has these empty chambers that you can convert into anything.

Q: Jane Eyre is quite heavily influenced by earlier novels including Northanger Abby by Jane Austen. What has influenced or inspired you so far in your career?

Photography was what really inspires me. Maybe it’s because for me film deals with the fourth dimension; you deal with time, and every story has its own pace or rhythm so films don’t often to help inspire in that sense. But photography does because continually communicates to my cinematographer what look I’m going for and they can work from that. There’s a lot of Helen Van Meene early to mid 19th Century photographs of women in that time that I took inspiration from. There is another French photographer who took a lot of photographs of her daughters, just lounging in their petticoats, and it was a lot more tactile. We talked a lot with Mia and with Michael O’Connor, the costume designer, about these kind of moments, about getting rid of the idea that everyone is so stuff and upper lipped at all times but what they were like when no one else was watching them, because that’s what we really want to see with Jane.

Q: Jane learns from an early age that a life of solitude is what is expected of her. What do you think it was about Rochester that drew Jane to him, and he to her?

I think Rochester challenged her. His rudeness made her feel more comfortable because she didn’t have to be polite back; she could be her true self. So, it was his lack of repression for her to be open and witty rather than reserved and timid which she was about Miss Fairfax. And that was a gateway to deeper feelings. I think she saw in him someone as tortured as he was, even if she didn’t know why or how.

Q: You’ve also got a wonderful British supporting cast, was that always important to you?

There are no supporting roles, every cast member is important. But we were lucky to get who we got: it was always complicated dealing with schedules  and availability but to have Judi Dench and Sally Hawkins, Jamie Bell and everyone else was a real pleasure. There’s enormous talent here so taking advantage of that was definitely a highlight of shooting around here.

Q: You mentioned earlier about condensing and spreading out certain scenes, was it difficult to decide what made the cut and what didn’t?

Yes, even some of the deleted scenes which we took out of the film were really fiercely debated as we were trying to figure out the best version of the film. Those kinds of things – condensing language, condensing everything else. Each of us had our favourite moment or scene and debated back and forth, we tried to include as much as possible as long as it didn’t ruin the scene. There are also these iconic moments where you debate do you put that in or do you take it out? In the end you make the decision what’s best for the film. There are things we took out which might upset fans, but it’s a movie, not the book, it’s its own animal.

Q: How do you think Jane Eyre appeals to international audiences?

I don’t know yet, we’re finding out! Apparently it did quite well in South Korea, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the tradition of soap opera there, there melodrama to women, as it’s a story that definitely appeals to women and younger girls, and I think as they grow up they look back at it and see it as a powerful story from their formative years. And it’s divisive. I know people that read it when they were younger and said they didn’t understand what Jane saw in Rochester, and it’s interesting when they go back and reread it. My friend Laura still doesn’t understand what Jane saw in him. I think it’s great, because it makes it more real. If it was too appealing then she’s a generic person. Charlotte [Bronte] is so clear in the description of Jane’s thoughts and observations that those who identify with it, really identify with it.

Q: I think the “do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little I don’t have as much heart and soul?’ is definitely one of the most powerful scenes, both in the book and the film.

I think that that’s what gets people upset sometimes, that in the film versions they feels it’s unfair that Jane is shown to be attractive because they think that women who identify with that idea are not attractive, they like the idea that there’s a heroine who isn’t attractive. But I also think it’s one of those things about Jane and that her perception of self was so much lower than who she really was. Because Diana Rivers even says that Jane’s pretty – I have proof in the book that she says it! It’s more her own perception than being less of who she is. I also think it’s the same with Rochester. I mean, Rochester must have been attractive.

Q: There is the scene in the book where Rochester asks Jane if she thinks he is attractive, and she talks about his large forehead showing his intelligence and large Roman nose.

A: Yeah, it’s like having a royal forehead. I also have female friends that think the men they are attracted to are weird looking, they like to think they like to one that no one else likes, the oddball. But then you like someone that everyone else likes, that other people find attractive as well. It’s the idea of uniqueness of attraction. So I don’t think you can necessarily take Jane’s subjective word for being the truth in the sense of whether she is beautiful of not.

Jane Eyre is out on the 9th of September and you can read our review of the film tomorrow.

Focus Features International have just sent over this new clip from their new movie Jane Eyre where the awesome Michael Fassbender has to ask the question ‘Do you find me handsome!’ Unfortunately he doesn’t get the answer that he’s looking for although.

Directed by Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), Jane Eyre is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë, and stars Mia Wasikowska , Michael Fassbender , Judi Dench , Sally Hawkins , Jamie Bell, Imogen Poots, Sophie Ward and Craig Roberts.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre (Wasikowska) goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester (Fassbender). Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester’s terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Jane Eyre is scheduled to hit UK cinemas on September 9.

More awesome images from the TIFF peeps! Here we have another great official look at Glenn Closes’ new movie, Albert Nobbs where as you’ll see, she looks like nothing you’ve seen before!

Albert Nobbs stars Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, Janet Mcteer, Brendan Gleeson, Aaron Johnson and is directed by Rodrigo Garcia.

Glenn Close co-wrote and stars in this adaptation of the play about a nineteenth-century Irishwoman who disguises herself as a man and works as a butler for twenty years. Mia Wasikowska, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Aaron Johnson co-star in this intelligent and often surprising period drama.

Source: TIFF

From Gus Van Sant the director that brought us Good Will Hunting and Milk come this new trailer for Restless. It stars Mia Wasikowska, Ryo Kase, Jane Adams, Henry Hopper, Chin Han and Schuyler Fisk.

Synopsis: From Imagine Entertainment comes a powerful and emotional coming of age story, a remarkable film told with honesty and originality that will leave audiences moved.  In the film, two outsiders, both shaped by the circumstances that have brought them together, forge a deep and lasting love.  Directed by Gus Van Sant, one of the most astute observers of people living life on the edge, comes a take on friendship and young love as engaging and true as it is provocative and stirring. The screenplay is by Jason Lew.

Restless hits UK cinemas 21st October.

Focus Features International have released the official UK trailer and poster for Jane Eyre.

Directed by Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), Jane Eyre is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë, and stars Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench, Sally Hawkins, Jamie Bell, Imogen Poots, Sophie Ward and Craig Roberts.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre (Wasikowska) goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester (Fassbender). Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester’s terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Jane Eyre, which has been critically praised following its US release, is scheduled to hit UK cinemas on September 9.

Tilda Swinton (I Am Love), Michael Fassbender (Fish Tank), Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right) and John Hurt (V for Vendetta) have signed on to star in director Jim Jarmusch’s next film.

The as-yet-untitled project is a “crypto-vampire love story” and has been in development for a number of years.

It will be Jarmusch’s follow-up to the crime-drama The Limits of Control, and is set to shoot at the beginning of 2012.

Source: The Playlist

The Playlist has eleven great images from Gus Van Sant’s upcoming film, Restless, which has just had its debut opening the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, and will hopefully see a UK release later this year.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been looking forward to this film ever since it was announced, and even more so after the first trailers came out at the end of last year. Van Sant’s body of work is exceptional, winning him the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ most prestigious prize, for Elephant in 2003, as well as Academy Award nominations for Best Director with Good Will Hunting and Milk.

Restless is Van Sant’s first feature since Milk, and tells the story of a terminally ill teenage girl (Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland) who falls in love with a boy (Henry Hopper) that likes to attend funerals and is friends with the ghost of a Japanese WWII pilot (Ryo Kase, Letters from Iwo Jima). It is dedicated to the late Dennis Hopper, Henry’s father, who himself died from Cancer in May last year.

The film is written by Jason Lew, adapted from his own play, Of Winter and Water Birds, and is his first time writing for the big screen. Lew’s fellow NYU graduate, Bryce Dallas Howard (Terminator Salvation), is making her producing debut with this film. Howard is the daughter of well known actor, director, and producer Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), who co-founded Imagine Entertainment with producer Brian Grazer (24), both of whom have also worked as producers on Restless, alongside Van Sant.

With Wasikowska and Hopper’s relationship naturally at the centre of the film, they occupy the large majority of the eleven new images, with Kase’s pilot character also cropping up in two, as well as showing Van Sant at work behind the scenes. Without further ado, here are the pictures.

If you missed the amazing trailer for Cannes 2011 competition entry, Sleeping Beauty, you really must have a watch here. The movie is directed by Julia Leigh and stars Emily Browning who we recently saw in Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch alongside Rachael Blake, Michael Dorman, Mirrah Foulkes, Nathan Page, Hugh Keays-Byrne and Henry Nixon.

Death-haunted, quietly reckless, Lucy is a young university student who takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty. In the Sleeping Beauty Chamber old men seek an erotic experience that requires Lucy’s absolute submission. This unsettling task starts to bleed into Lucy’s daily life and she develops an increasing need to know what happens to her when she is asleep.

SlashFilm have placed the first poster for the movie which we’re all very much looking forward to seeing.

West End Films have released a promo poster for Albert Nobbs, a feature film adaptation George Moore’s short story.

Directed by Rodrigo García (Mother and Child), Albert Nobbs stars Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Aaron Johnson, Brendan Gleeson, Janet McTeer and Pauline Collins.

Albert Nobbs centers on a woman (Close) who poses as a man in order to find work and survive in 19th century Ireland.

Close adapted the screenplay alongside prize-winning author John Banville.

Check out the promo poster below:

Source: Rope of Silicon

Emily Browning’s career transition from her charming and acerbic turn in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events through Zack Snyder’s Baby Doll in Sucker Punch will find its next touchstone with Julia Leigh’s dark sex drama Sleeping Beauty, a trailer for which has just appeared.

It was back in February 2010 when we reported Browning’s involvement in the film which is the depressing tale of a student falling in prostitution and becoming the Sleeping Beauty of the title which has the victim lying, drugged in a bed awaiting the series of men to visit her, knowing in her drugged state that she won’t remember a thing about it in the morning.

It’s a terrible premise and the fact that the trailer looks bleak and beautiful gives me the surety that Leigh has the confidence to bring this story, adapted from her own novel, to the screen.

The film will be competing in Cannes this year and we await its distribution details to be revealed.

Here’s the trailer, full screen this one.

Thanks Mr. The Playlist!

John Hillcoat’s latest movie, The Wettest County in the World has somewhat of a dream cast attached which includes the likes of Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce, Jason Clarke, and Jessica Chastain.

SlashFilm give us more information on the movie which was apparently scheduled to start shooting last year then died, but as this image of Shia La Beouf and possible co-stars proves, the movie is alive and well and is current filming as I type.

Plot: In 1928, a pair of thieves accost Bondurant’s real life great-uncle Forrest at his Franklin County, Va., restaurant. They’re after a large cache of bootlegging money and end up cutting Forrest’s throat. The story of his survival and his trek to a hospital 12 miles away has taken on mythical proportions by the time Sherwood Anderson arrives in Franklin County in 1934 to research a magazine piece on the area’s prolific moonshiners. Soon after Anderson’s arrival, two anonymous men appear at the same hospital, one with legs meticulously shattered from ankle to hip, the other one castrated, with the by-products of the deed deposited in a jar of moonshine. The arc of the story lies between the attack on Forrest and that on the two men.

This first image comes from Shiantology, a site dedicated to all thing La Beouf!

Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) and Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole) have been cast in the family mystery-drama Stoker.

Firth and Kidman will star opposite Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right) in Korean director Park Chan-wook’s English-language feature debut.

Stoker, written by Wentworth Miller (Prison Break), will “center on a young woman (Wasikowska) whose eccentric uncle (Firth) comes back into her life after the death of her father”.

Production is expected to begin in late Spring.

Source: 24 Frames

Apple have released a new clip from the new Focus Features movie retelling the classic story of Jane Eyre. Cary Fukunaga directs a fabulous ensemble cast which includes Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Judy Dench, Sally Hawkins and Jamie Bell.

Synopsips: Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) and Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds”) star in the romantic drama based on Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel, from acclaimed director Cary Fukunaga (“Sin Nombre”). In the story, Jane Eyre flees Thornfield House, where she works as a governess for wealthy Edward Rochester. As she reflects upon the people and emotions that have defined her, it is clear that the isolated and imposing residence – and Mr. Rochester’s coldness – have sorely tested the young woman’s resilience, forged years earlier when she was orphaned. She must now act decisively to secure her own future and come to terms with the past that haunts her – and the terrible secret that Mr. Rochester is hiding and that she has uncovered…

In this new clip, we get to see Wasikowska and Fassbender discussing why Jane has to leave to avoid the certain heartberak which she is sure to ensue before a bombshell is dropped!

The clip shows us just how great the acting in the movie will be. I’ve got high hopes for this one!

It’s set for release in the UK 9th September which is rather disappointing considering it’s released in the US on March 11th.