Focus Features has just announced a helmer for their Anna Karenina adaptation penned by Tom Stoppard, and while it’s a bit of a no-duh assignment, it’s still a very fine one. Joe Wright will direct the film, adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s classic (read: every high school kid is assigned to read it, and none of them ever do) novel. Despite my more bookwormish tendencies, my familiarity with Anna Karenina is quite lacking, so we’ll turn to Focus’ plotline for the film, which tells us that “the story unfolds in its original late-19th-century Russia high-society setting and powerfully explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart, from the passion between adulterers to the bond between a mother and her children. As Anna questions her happiness, change comes to her family, friends, and community.” Also, it’s Russian and it’s Tolstoy, so it’s also not a feel-good work by any stretch. But the film has a solid cast already attached to it, including some names that Wright has worked with before, including Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina (in her third role in a Wright production), with Jude Law as her husband Alexei Karenin, and Aaron Johnson as Count Vronksy, with other roles filled by Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfayden (Mr. Darcy in Wright’s Pride & Prejudice), Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams (from Hanna), and Ruth Wilson.

Last week, as I watched Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber, I noticed that the trailers on the rental Blu-Ray were all of titles sharing space at the top of my queue: titles like Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, Kim Ji-woon’s I Saw the Devil, and Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun. All, I quickly realized, had been released by the same studio, Magnet Releasing, whose label I recalled first noticing in front of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson. After some quick Internet searching, I quickly realized what I should have known initially, that Magnet was a subsidiary of indie distributor Magnolia Pictures. The practices of “indie” subsidiaries of studios has become commonplace. That majors like Universal and 20th Century Fox carry specialty labels Focus Features and Fox Searchlight which market to discerning audiences irrespective of whether or not the individual titles released are independently financed or studio-produced has become a defining practice for limited release titles and has, perhaps more than any other factor, obscured the meaning of the term “independent film” (Sony Pictures Classics, which only distributes existing films, is perhaps the only subsidiary arm of a major studio whose releases are actually independent of the system itself). This fact is simply one that has been accepted for quite some time in the narrative of small-scale American (or imported) filmmaking. Especially in the case of Fox Searchlight, whose opening banner distinguishes itself from the major in variation on name only, subsidiaries of the majors can hardly even be argued as “tricking” audiences into [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a movie news round-up column that comes to you from deep space. It comes as a protector of all that is good and interesting in the movie news world. It also totally swoons over Michael Fassbender. Seriously, have you seen this guy act? He’s the man… man. As my good friend Rusty Gordon pointed out to me this evening, “this summer is already better than last summer,” and it’s just now June. With two-thirds of its movie releasing to go, Summer 2011 is already coming along great. With that, there’s plenty to still be excited about. Like Green Lantern, which continues to look cool as WB dumps a giant batch of photos on the web. So much detail, so much cool.

This time a week ago I never would have imagined I’d stay up all night Thursday, having my own little tea and scones party, to watch a wedding of two people I didn’t know. Even if the festivities were thrown by the English Royal Family in honor of the most recognizable union of royal and commoner. It wasn’t until Wednesday that I caught the bug and started feeling a connection to these two genetically gifted kids who had the balls to get up in front of 15 billion people and pledge themselves to each other and their country. I had Royal Wedding fever, and I was going to do everything I could to make that moment last. The decision to keep many details of the wedding a secret and the media inflated love story spanning almost a decade was too much for even my cold heart to keep from melting. It was the real life movie version of all those BBC costume dramas and Jane Austen adaptations I spent years watching. The chaste, passionate love of two people who shouldn’t be together defying the odds, marrying, and starting a life so many of us will never experience. But at the same time it was relatable and sweet—just like Jane Austen always promised.

What is The Week That Was? Nothing much, just a recap of all that was great and wonderful here on Film School Rejects over the course of the last week. And in a week such as this, when we reviewed controversial and conversation-worthy films from the minds of Ayn Rand, Wes Craven and Robert Redford, it’s important to take a look back at the best of what was written. That, and we interviewed Takashi Miike, so we’ve got that going for us. Also, I have access to the traffic stats. I know that all of you did not read every one of our best articles. What’s the deal with that, beloved readers? Lets right those wrongs on a pantsless Sunday afternoon. Start with the articles listed in this compilation and work your way back. Do it now.

On the surface, Hanna is just the latest action flick centered on a petite, butt-kicking young woman and the sinister world she inhabits. Yet, were that all it was, the new film from director Joe Wright (Atonement, The Soloist) would be a tired, forced enterprise, arriving in theaters a mere two weeks after Sucker Punch and just about one year following Kick-Ass. Fortunately, Wright is too sharp a director for that. His keen visual eye and knack for character-driven nuance turns the story of highly-trained teenage killing machine Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) into an engagingly twisted fairytale/coming of age drama. With a soundtrack fueled by electronica wizards The Chemical Brothers, tightly coiled supporting work from Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana and a schema that offers a world of out-sized colors, foreboding shapes and demented villains, the Focus Features release is an offbeat, engaging blend of David Lynchian and kinetic action tropes. We spoke with the acclaimed filmmaker about his latest directorial effort.

This editorial features some spoilers for Hanna and Kick-Ass. Consider yourself warned. In preparation for this post I ran a quick Internet search on child assassins and found this video from New York Magazine. While I wasn’t promised a video exclusively on child assassins here, and instead got something that explores the notion of child killers at large, this video conflates two categories of child killers that I think deserve remarkably different types of consideration. The great majority of killings performed by children in this video are from horror movies. From Rosemary’s Baby to The Omen to The Brood to Firestarter to the other Omen and beyond, the child/killer is an exhaustively repeated horror trope to the point of cliche (and is often confused with the simple overlapping category of “scary children,” like in The Shining and The Sixth Sense). But every so often a child-killer horror film comes along that works in line with the formula (The Children, anyone? Bueller? Okay, how about Let Me In?), reminding us why child killers still have the capacity to be engrossing and entertaining even if they’ve lost the ability to be outright horrifying: because they play on our society’s veneration of childhood innocence, replacing the ignorant bliss of childhood with benevolent, malicious intent to do harm to the much taller individuals that surround them. But child assassins are quite different from the overall category of child killers. And while two recent films in two subsequent spring movie seasons that feature child assassins, [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr spends a long day in the multiplex, checking out a variety of films from alcoholic romantic comedies to nature documentaries with elephants and orangutans. He drinks himself silly and hits on Greta Gerwig in Arthur, narrowly escapes being killed by ass-kicking teen assassin Hanna, narrowly escapes getting his arm bitten off by a tiger shark in Soul Surfer and peeps in on Natalie Portman undressing for a swim in Your Highness. Too bad she’s pregnant now, ‘cause Kevin just ain’t into that scene.

Hanna opens on the blinding white tundra of Finland like a blank page before the beginning of a fairy tale, and that’s fitting for what the film ultimately delivers. It’s a coming of age story about a young heroine forced to grow up amidst the harsh outside world, and while it’s missing a bag of breadcrumbs it does feature several other elements of the genre including a literal entrance into the maw of a big, bad wolf and even an evil step-mother of sorts. It’s the Brothers Grimm set to the beats of The Chemical Brothers and is as sublime an entertainment as you’d hope to find in a pre-summer action movie. Young Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) has lived in rural seclusion with a father Erik (Eric Bana) who’s been her sole source of knowledge. He’s trained her to be self sufficient, aware, and deadly with everything from guns to her bony white hands, and now that she’s turned sixteen the time has come for her to enter the real world. She’s not venturing out aimlessly though as her father has prepared her for a very specific mission. That quest will put her life in danger as well as those she meets along the way, but completing it is her only way to freedom. If only good old dad had thought to show his daughter a picture of her target…

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the hero you need right now; a way to get all the most interesting movie news without having to read through a bunch of padded articles. It’s quick, to the point and personable. An efficient killer of your will to waste time reading a thousand movie blogs before you go to bed. It’s also way into girl power, whatever that means. Hanna director Joe Wright, whose latest film is filled with the legitimate girl-power of a teen assassin played by Saoirse Ronan, has called out director Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, saying that the girl-power angle of the film was all “marketing bullshit.”

Late yesterday evening I received a text from my loving girlfriend. Just walking out of an advance screening of Joe Wright’s Hanna, she was ecstatic. Great action, emotional depth, and a killer score from The Chemical Brothers were the order of the night. I was instantly resentful of the experience she’d had, as I too wanted to see Hanna badly. But I adore my girlfriend, so the feelings faded quickly. Later on, I vowed not to miss my opportunity to see this movie. And I shall do so next Thursday night in Austin. Would you like to come along, as well? Here’s your chance.

Because of his luck, Rob Hunter has already seen Hanna, and he had some positive things to say which he’ll expand on in review form as soon as the embargo on reviews gets lifted. It’s no surprise though. The film is about a teenage girl who is trained from childhood to be a killer, and to kill one specific person. The talent here is tremendous from Saoirse Ronan to Cate Blanchett to Eric Bana to director Joe Wright. Now, this featurette digs deeper into what Blanchett called “the most terrifying script [she'd] ever read in her life” by looking briefly at the action, the actors, and the motivations behind a young killer.

Joe Wright first gained recognition in Hollywood by doing period dramas starring Keira Knightley. After stepping out of that genre for 2009’s The Soloist and this year’s Hanna, he is set to return to what brought him to the party. This time he has Knightlyy cast as the lead in an adaptation of the Russian classic “Anna Karenina”. Written by Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” tells the story of a woman in a loveless marriage who bucks societal expectations by starting an affair with a military man.

Damn. It’s been a tough world for movie marketers lately. Stars aren’t selling as strongly, companies are forced to crib from other designs if a movie is ultra popular, and there just aren’t that many pre-pubescent assassins out there to brag about. Hanna, the story of a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) trained to kill by her CIA father (Eric Bana), looks incredible. Now it’s got an incredible poster. Check it out for yourself:

It’s best to go into this trailer with no expectations which explains the absence of an introduction. Also, I didn’t write one. But back to the trailer…

Hanna could best be described as what a David Lynch action film would be like, and that’s how director Joe Wright describes it himself. Immediately after seeing the surreal (and rather impressive) footage from Hanna that comparison immediately came to mind. Wright is best known for his epic period dramas, and from the looks of it, he’s bringing that epic scope into the action world in a new light. There was a fluent and dreamlike quality to what Wright showcased and from what he says below, especially when he mentions lots of long steady-cam takes, it sounds like Wright will deliver heavily on the action front. But Hanna actually isn’t an action film, or at least not completely. Instead, it’s better to be described as a twisted fairy tale. Hanna, the main protagonist, is a fourteen year old assassin and one of the only books she’s ever read is Grimm’s Fairy Tales, so we’re basically going to be seeing the world clearly through her eyes in a heightened way. There are the fairy tale archetypal characters involved and the world Wright seems to have created feels like a modern day fairy tale. And finally, if you want to read my full impression of the footage make sure to head over to my NY Comic-Con reaction piece. Here’s what director Joe Wright had to say about crafting action, the fairy tale nature of the story, and even a little bit about the Chemical Brothers scoring the film.

Concepts that will always stop me in my tracks: when a visually compelling director (in this case, Atonement’s Joe Wright) takes on a project that is being described as having shades of La Femme Nikita and the Bourne movies.

Kevin Carr reviews this week’s new movies: The Soloist, Earth and Obsessed.

Even though they and their studio brethren are doing everything possible to not make any news today, Paramount Pictures did send over a brand new featurette for Atonement director Joe Wright’s new film The Soloist.

The folks over at Yahoo Movies debuted the first trailer for director Joe Wright’s (Atonement) upcoming film The Soloist, which stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx.