The teaser trailer for the upcoming Guy Pearce vehicle Lockout (formerly Lock-Out) gave us a glimpse at the rogue charm Pearce has mustered up in the lead role, but it didn’t let us in on much of what the movie is actually about. The new full-length trailer over at IGN gives us a bit more of that Pearce sass, but it also lays out pretty much the whole plot. Some of my favorite movies ever take multiple genres and blend them together. Sometimes blending genres creates a tonally weird mess (Cowboys & Aliens), but when you do it right you create something fresh and new out of used parts (Serenity), and it seems like Lockout has some potential to do the latter.

It turns out there’s a Nicolas Cage movie out there that is ready to be watched, but has been sitting on the shelf waiting for distribution. Why there haven’t been alarm bells sounding, protests happening in the streets, and 24/7 coverage from media outlets the entire time this atrocity was occurring is beyond me, but apparently we can all stop (not) panicking. Deadline Lomita is reporting that Cage’s next film, Seeking Justice (once known as The Hungry Rabbit Jumps), has been acquired by Anchor Bay and is set for a U.S. release on March 16th of next year. Let’s all take a moment to silently thank Anchor Bay. (Thanks, Anchor Bay.) News of a new Nic Cage movie is usually reason for celebration enough, no matter what the particulars of the project are, but this time there’s another big reason why I’ve now got Seeking Justice’s release date circled on my calendar with a big red heart. In this Roger Donaldson-directed thriller, Cage plays a mild-mannered teacher whose life changes when his wife is brutally assaulted. While that sounds awfully bleak, the good news here is that January Jones is playing the wife. That’s right, the man who’s never met a chance to overact he didn’t like and the stone-faced creep who’s never experienced a human emotion will be playing a married couple on the big screen. The results should be like a car crash being interrupted by a train wreck all while a woman breast feeds in public: I

Guy Pearce is one of those actors you keep hoping will become a big star. The man’s been in some fantastic films (Memento, LA Confidential, The Proposition) and almost always gives a stellar performance no matter the size of the role or quality of the movie. But for some reason he’s never quite taken off the way he deserves. Not that he’s been hard up for work… he appeared in HBO’s much-lauded miniseries Mildred Pierce earlier this year and per IMDB has twelve upcoming projects in various stages of development including Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated Prometheus. But before he stars in the alien movie that has absolutely nothing to do with Alien, he’s heading to a far lower profile region of space. Lock-Out is about a convicted criminal (Pearce) who’s given a singular chance at freedom if he can rescue the President’s daughter from the middle of a space station prison riot. The film is the feature directorial debut of James Mather and Stephen St. Leger who also co-wrote the script with the busiest man in France, Luc Besson, so you know if nothing else there’s going to be some fun, logic-free action. The short description makes it sound like the sequel to Escape From New York we should have gotten instead of the abysmal one we did. Check out the teaser trailer below.

Typically, release date information isn’t the most important of news, but when it comes to John Hillcoat’s latest project, a star-packed adaptation of a book ripe for a cinematic telling, all bets are off. Hillcoat lensed The Wettest County in the World, from Matt Bondurant’s fact-based tale of his very own grandfather and two of his granduncles and their moonshine-running exploits in Prohibition-era Virginia, earlier this spring, and rumors once held that we’d see it this December, but that’s just not the case. The Weinstein Company picked the film up back during this year’s Cannes Film Festival, but they won’t have the time or inclination to get it into theaters until April 20, 2012. The film is crammed with a murderer’s row of talent, from the firmly established (Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce) to the up-and-coming (Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Dane DeHaan, Mia Wasikowska) to the hot properties looking to expand their resumes (Shia LaBeouf , Tom Hardy). Hardy, Clarke, and LaBeouf star as the three bootlegging Bondurant brothers, who attempt to hold their family business together through threats that include the law, other bootleggers, and love. While the book itself is a bit dry, the tale of the Bondurants is inherently cinematic, and under Hillcoat’s watch (and with a script from his The Proposition scribe, the ever-talented Nick Cave), Wettest County should prove to be an accomplished and thrilling slice of Americana. [BoxOfficeMojo, The Playlist]

Editor’s Note: This article will be updated in real time as the winners come in during the Primetime Emmys broadcast. Winners will be highlighted in bold and you can check out the winners that were already announced at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. The very first Emmy Award was given to a ventriloquist named Shirley Dinsdale who worked with a puppet called Judy Splinters. Is that significant? Of course it is. That fact coupled with the design of the award itself – a woman holding an atom – represent the true heart of television’s most significant celebration: artistic inspiration, scientific technology, and wooden humanoids that only talk with a hand shoved up their back. Ponder that while you bask in the glory of the victorious. Here are the winners of the 2011 Primetime Emmy Awards.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr moved into an old, creepy house with the wife of an uber-famous movie star. But then she started hearing voices in the walls, so he bailed on that noise and found a new main squeeze. She turned out to be a full-blown psychotic assassin bent on revenge and blood. The plus side is that she was the spitting image of Zoe Saldana, so Kevin thought it might be worth the risk. This, of course, did not end well, but he considered himself lucky because he didn’t have to sit through Our Idiot Brother. Oh, and apparently Transformers: The Dark of the Moon is returning to IMAX screens… but does anyone care about that at all?

It’s been hyped up, hotly anticipated and pushed hard by the big name behind it, but at the end of the day Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is just not that scary. Sure, Troy Nixey’s haunted house movie — co-produced and co-scripted by Guillermo Del Toro — has the high end bonafides, revealed in the sumptuous wood-paneled mansion setting and the patient, operatic camera movements. It’s got the eerie historical aura, the tortured child and the expressionistic rendition of shadowy figures creeping through the darkness. But when this remake of a popular made-for-TV movie from 1973 finally shows all its cards, you wonder what you’ve missed. There’s a serious disconnect between the highfalutin atmospherics and the nitty- gritty sloppiness of the premise, a sort of People Under the Stairs for rich white New Englanders. Reliant on the timeless “boo” effect and the hint of something deeper and sinister, the film basically offers one long, drawn out exercise in scaring the pants off a pre-teen.

!Commentary Commentary weekly your to back Welcome See what I did there? This week, we’re hitting up one of the finest pieces of cinema in the last 15 years and hearing from the uber-intelligent man behind it. The film? Memento. The director? Christopher Nolan. In this commentary, you’ll uncover mysteries, technique, and styles the filmmaker put into one of his several masterworks. What you won’t be getting is any information on Dark Knight Rises. Sorry, but me just including that title here ensured 54 more hits. It’s a proven fact. So, without further ado, here is what I learned from listening to Christopher Nolan’s commentary track on Memento. In addition, I also learned a thing or two about my own short-term memory problems. Yeah, I have some trouble remembering things. Like that time I took a picture of Joe Pantoliano’s corpse. See what I did there? This week, we’re hitting up one of the finest pieces of…Oh, never mind!

It was pretty clear from the Prometheus Comic-Con footage that there are more ties to Alien than the film makers are letting on. Whether or not it deals with the Xenomorphs is still up in the air, but the look of the film clearly fits into that universe. Bleak, beautiful, and epic were all adjectives that came to mind while watching the brief footage. This is a pure sci-fi horror film. While it may be PG-13, and I’m betting it will be, that may not matter all that much. As writer Damon Lindelof says below, this is a film that relies heavily on atmosphere. The story also deals with the obvious: playing God. The title alone gives you a big hint as to what the film is about. The tale of Prometheus tells the story of man stealing fire from the Gods. Here, it’s about man searching for answers to questions they probably should not be looking for. Here’s what writer Damon Lindelof had to say about fusing his own sensibilities with Ridley’s, making a hopeful horror movie, and writing distinct women:

Guy Pearce is really good at playing assholes. He can do the nice guy thing or the conflicted hero as well, but I love me some Pearce in a-hole mode. Earlier this year in the fantastic Mildred Pierce, he got to play one of the most charming emasculated men in recent screen history. In The King’s Speech, he was a snotty old brother all about having a good ‘ol time. So what does the smooth talker from Mildred Pierce and the jerk brother from The King’s Speech have in common? Humility. Pearce is not one to let a human character be a monster for no understandable reason. He’s also not interested in having pure distaste for the character’s skin he’s inhabiting. In the (finally) upcoming Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, he’s filling the shoes of the neglectful father. While Pearce doesn’t view him as an asshole, that’s the word that kept popping up in my head when the personable actor was describing him. Here’s what the actor had to say about playing un-nice guys, the Memento Effect, his banter with Nicolas Winding Refn, trusting directors, and working with hard-boiled dialog:

This summer seems light on one thing: horror movies. While there is the surprisingly awesome looking Fright Night remake coming out, that looks to be far more interested in being fun and cool, rather than moody and intense. Where are the creepy horror films this season? There seems to be none this summer… except one that’s been flying under the radar for far too long: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. The Troy Nixey directed, Guillermo del Toro produced family vs. monsters film has taken its sweet time getting to the big screen, but come August, we’ll finally get a true horror film for the summer.

No, not Jay Sherman’s genius but misunderstood short film from that episode of The Critic. I’m talking about the let’s-just-start-calling-it-an-Alien-prequel that’s currently in production under director Ridley Scott. The rumor that Pearce may have a role in the project was originally broke by CHUD who received an email that looked something like this: “Evening Nick, my mate is working on Prometheus as OMITTED and met Guy Pierce on set today. She’s previously worked on OMITTED, OMITTED and OMITTED and I’ve no reason to believe she’s lying. I’ve not read anywhere about Guy being cast so thought it might interest you.“ That was a wonderful rumor, but not quite something that looked like a concrete story. But, following up on the story, The Playlist has managed to confirm with Pearce’s reps that he is indeed working on this new look-it’s-got-something-to-do-with-Alien-alright project. What this means is that Pearce will be joining a cast that is already full of buzzworthy and super talented names like Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Rafe Spall and Logan Marshall-Green. Despite the fact that this is in at least some ways one of those dreaded prequels, could we be looking at the most relevant and potentially good thing that Scott has made in a long time? I’m going to go ahead and say “yes.” Opinion to be confirmed at a later date.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a movie news column that is content with entertaining you on a nightly basis with the best links and tidbits the web has to offer. But in reality, it wishes that it could be out there fighting for the side of humanity in the great world war against the zombie invasion. It has big dreams, this nightly feature. As you know, there are three things I can’t avoid writing about in this here column: Michael Bay movies, Doctor Who and World War Z. The third is perhaps one of the greatest texts ever written about the zombie apocalypse. What I did not know is that it was almost turned into an awesome video game, as this Kotaku investigative report suggests. As you can see from tonight’s headline image, it would have been very cool.

Editor’s Note: This review originally ran in November 2010, but since The King’s Speech just won the Academy Award for Best Picture, it seemed incredibly relevant. Enjoy. According to the dictionary, to be kingly is to be “stately or splendid, as resembling, suggesting, or befitting a king; regal.” The great movie kings — Henry II, Richard III, Arthur — fit that description, being strong, alpha male types, domineering presences unafraid to exert their authority and make their reign felt. What a surprise, then, to encounter George VI (Colin Firth) in Tom Hooper’s eloquent, emotional The King’s Speech. The current Queen Elizabeth’s father ascended to the throne in 1936, at a time that called out for a forceful leader. With scandal in his wake, spurred by his brother Edward’s abdication, and the European continent on the precipice of war, the new king faced the daunting task of inspiring an empire rife with tumult.

John Hillcoat, director of The Proposition and The Road, has managed to once again assemble an awesome ensemble for his next project Wettest County in the World.  The film will be an adaptation of a Matt Bondurant novel of the same name (except for an added “The” at the front, I guess Hillcoat got tired of making “The” movies) that is about a family of Virginia-born brothers who take to distributing booze during prohibition. Originally Hillcoat had tapped Shia LaBeouf and Ryan Gosling to play two of the three brothers in a cast that was to also include Paul Dano and Amy Adams, but that all fell apart. Hearts were broken and what looked to be a pretty awesome film project was put into question. Things have looked up since then, however. LaBeouf is still on the project and instead of a Ryan Gosling it was announced that we would be getting Tom Hardy. That’s a pretty strong trade. And now The Hollywood Reporter has Hollywood reported that Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, and Mia Wasikowska will join LaBeouf and Hardy for the ride. Mind blown. Clarke will be the one filling out the trio of brothers, while Pearce plays the hardass deputy trying to take them down, Oldman plays a gangster who employs them, and Wasikowska plays LaBeouf’s love interest. The movie will be made from a script by Nick Cave and it’s set to begin shooting on February 28th. That’s a whole lot of name-dropping for one

J awakens one day to find his mother dead from a heroin overdose. He waits, calmly, while the ambulance attendants take her away, and then he calls the only other family he has. His grandmother, Janine (aka Smurf), picks him up and welcomes him into her home. J soon discovers why his mother tried to keep him away from this extended family… his three uncles along with a friend are involved deep in Melbourne’s criminal underworld including drug dealing, bank robbery, and possibly murder. J’s arrival coincides with a stepped-up police investigation into the family’s activities, and when a seemingly concerned detective singles out J as a possible witness the teen realizes survival of the fittest is no game… it’s a way of life. And death. Animal Kingdom is writer/director David Michod’s debut, and it’s this year’s answer to The Hurt Locker when it comes to pure, unrelenting tension. J is our window into not only the personal realm of one crooked family but also of the dangerous and menacing world outside. His Melbourne streets are the urban equivalent of the African Veldt where everyone is prey until they figure out the rules of nature and their place in it. Michod presents J’s indoctrination into this landscape as an uncertain path between a family determined to maintain their lifestyles at any cost and a police department hell-bent on taking them down by any means necessary. It’s as smart and assured of a film debut as anyone could have hoped, and

It seems like an obvious concept, that horror movies should be scary, but it also seems that most of the ones coming out of Hollywood these days are more interested in gore and/or special effects than in legitimate atmosphere and terror. The only exceptions I can think of recently are Paranormal Activity and Quarantine. But the former is more of an indie than a Hollywood production and the latter was a remake of the Spanish thriller Rec… Which brings us to the upcoming remake of Don’t Be Afraid Of the Dark. If that name only triggers memories of afternoons spent parked in front of the TV with Nickelodeon blaring out at you then you’ll need to prepare yourself for something a bit different. The film follows a young girl sent to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) in an old Victorian-style home. Their arrival triggers something in the basement that wants a closer look at the girl. This is the feature debut of director Troy Nixey, but he has a pretty experienced pair of hands backing him up… Guillermo Del Toro is the film’s executive producer and the man who shepherded it along through production. The original film is a made-for-TV classic from 1973, and while it doesn’t hold up all that well today it still manages to find more than a few scares. Check after the jump for the creepiest trailer you’ve seen since Carrot Top’s Chairman Of the Board…

With all the invention, intriguing plot webs, and overall solid cinematic storytelling that Christopher Nolan’s films are credited for, yet another innovative characteristic of his signature narrative approach is often looked over: his own special brand of antihero. A thread that has connected Nolan’s films (scripted often in collaboration with his brother Jonathan) is the presence of a central male character who possesses some combination of destructive egotism, desperate selfishness at the risk of others, aggressive self-righteousness, willful delusion, or even the first signs of a messiah complex (“asshole” is used in the title of this post simply as an umbrella term for all the negative traits connecting these protagonists). I credit this aspect of storytelling and character development to the brothers Nolan, for filmmakers who work so successfully in Hollywood aren’t often able to bring to the screen characters who contain so many obvious flaws, and further credit goes to them for actually immersing us in their characters’ subconscious (figuratively in the case of all their films not titled Inception), making us give a damn about these characters to the point that sometimes these otherwise obvious personality flaws are only visible upon reflection after the film has been experienced. Nolan’s characters are often complex and intelligent, but beneath any confident exterior resides a deeply troubled psychology – some more obvious than others.

I said no food.  I didn’t say there was nothing to eat. Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce) is a coward.  After inadvertently (and indirectly based upon his cowardice) claiming an opposing stronghold during the Mexican-American War, he is relocated for his actions to an outpost in Sierra Nevadas.  There, he finds himself second in command of a rag-tag group of eccentric, fellow soldiers.  Things take a turn for the eerie when a stranger (Robert Carlyle), half-famished and near death, arrives at their door.  The stranger tells them of a lost wagon train he was a part of, and the unspeakable horrors the group resorted to in order to survive.  The soldiers take it as their duty to seek out the lost wagon train but not before their Native American guide explains to them the power of the Wendigo.  It is a myth that whoever partakes in the flesh of man will gain that person’s strengths and could very well become consumed with this cannibalistic act.  Horror and yes, a little bit of comedy ensue.

I remain cautiously optimistic about Animal Kingdom, the blessed child of Cannes that’s gotten intensely high praise. It’s the story of a young man caught between a crime family and the long helpful arm of the law that’s intending to get him out before he’s pulled back in. Unfortunately for it, its premise, praise and promise of violent drama make it sound far too much like The Square which turned out to be more boring than riveting. Joel Edgerton’s involvement here doesn’t help the cause either.