If there’s any one reason for you to give Magic Magic a chance, it’s that it’s the new thriller from Chilean director Sebastián Silva, who turned a lot of heads with 2009’s The Maid, but hasn’t really had the chance to break through to the mainstream yet. Fortunately for all of us though, there isn’t just one reason to give Magic Magic a chance. There are many. Not the least of which is that its cast includes ethereal beauties like Juno Temple and Emily Browning, as well as perennial weirdo Michael Cera, who seems to be using his usual penchant for social awkwardness to go in a totally fresh, dangerous direction in the trailer for this new film. Looking for that rare movie that’s beautifully shot and wonderfully acted, but is still just a good, old-fashioned horror tale that’s going to creep you the heck out? Then Magic Magic might be just the thing for you. Cera’s blank creep face is enough to give you the willies alone. Click through to give the trailer a gander.

John (Michael Angarano) and Alice (Juno Temple) are a young couple high on love and low on net worth. He goes to a job he hates every day while she struggles to find even that much, but their lives are upended when she’s compelled to steal an old, brass teapot from a rundown antique shop. The teapot, like something designed by O. Henry’s more sadistic brother, dispenses cash when in the presence of pain. As John states and promptly ignores early on, this is going to end badly. Almost immediately the duo are taking turns hurting themselves and each other for the blood money that fills the pot. They smash, hit, and burn themselves. They get tattoos, Brazilian waxes and root canals. And they agree that they’ll stop as soon as they reach $1 million. But greed has a funny way of helping people rationalize even the most idiotic decisions, and soon they’re in well over their heads with the pain, the cruelty and with a pair of Hassidic Jews prone to using their own brand of violence to get what they want.

What is Casting Couch? It’s the casting column that lives on because Kate Erbland was goodly enough to step in and keep it going for a couple days. Let’s all thank Kate. Thanks, Kate. Usually when movies are already filmed it means that their casting process has been completed. Not so for a Robert Rodriguez film, though. This guy does pretty much every job on his sets and relies on studio assistance for very little, which allows him to play by his own rules and march to the beat of his own drummer. Sometimes that opportunity for flexibility can result in movies that feel like they’ve been slapped together by a madman, but sometimes it leads to a movie being able to make amazing last minute additions, like how his in-production Sin City sequel just added Ray Liotta, Juno Temple, and Jeremy Piven to its already-stacked cast. Indiewire isn’t sure which characters they’re going to be playing, but probably that doesn’t matter much. Liotta and Piven always just play themselves, and Temple, well…she can do anything she wants.

It was a rare thing once upon a time to see films debuting on VOD before hitting DVD or even theaters, but that’s no longer the case. While there have been several successes in recent years the most buzzed about involves the film Bachelorette which made barely $400k in theaters but took in $5.5 million from its pre-theatrical VOD run. That’s no chump change for a low budget independent film. One of the many smaller films hoping to duplicate that success is Ramaa Mosley‘s The Brass Teapot. Michael Angarano and Juno Temple star as a young couple beaten down by life who soon discover that if they have to suffer why not do it for cash? A magical antique purchase seems to offer them a shortcut to happiness, but the cost may be more than their bodies and hearts can afford. Check out the Twilight Zone-inspired shenanigans below.

Alexandre Aja‘s upcoming adaptation of Joe Hill‘s best selling novel Horns already has a solid and exciting lead actor in Daniel Radcliffe, but it looks like the cast may be about get even more interesting. Per The Wrap, three more actors are set to join the former boy wizard (and the previously-announced Max Minghella who plays the best friend and probable killer) in this dark tale of revenge and morality. Joe Anderson, Kelli Garner, and Juno Temple are all in negotiations for supporting roles. Radcliffe will play the lead, a young man who awakens one morning with devilish horns growing out of his head. Even odder, the horns make it impossible for people to lie to his face. When his girlfriend is found raped and murdered he sets out to find her killer using the power of the horns. But his search for the truth will uncover things he might not want to find.

For such an unrelentingly graphic and blood-spattered NC-17 thriller, William Friedkin‘s Killer Joe is more romantic than one would expect. The filmmaker behind The Exorcist and Sorcerer (a movie he’s currently fighting to get back out to the public) has crafted, as he puts it, a romantic comedy for the new age. That title isn’t a whole lot different than his previous collaboration with playwright/screenwriter Tracy Letts, the even more claustrophobic and humanistic Bug. They’re stories of characters wanting more, but mainly love, which Dottie (Juno Temple) finds in the titular psychopathic (Matthew McConaughey). Here’s what director William Friedkin had to say about making Cinderella for the 21st century, the importance of reading between the lines, and how one of cinema’s finest chase scenes was completely unscripted:

Exploitation cinema is good for the id. Because the great majority of us are not thieves, murderers, sociopaths, or people with problematic sexual instincts, exploitation cinema provides a safe space and an opportunity to view characters who may be any of the combinations noted above without having to experience the debilitating guilt, life-ending consequences, or moral panic that would incur if we ever engaged in such activities ourselves. In other words, exploitation cinema is a brief respite from a reality mostly determined by standards of law and order, rational behavior, stability, and long-term thinking. Exploitation cinema provides the exhilaration of chaos that is enthralling to witness onscreen, but that one wouldn’t want to encounter in anything resembling reality. While William Friedkin’s Killer Joe is a film that fully earns its NC-17 rating with its portrayals of abject cruelty, predatory sex, and strange and unusual acts of punishment, it’s never a film that asks audiences to take the events onscreen all to seriously as Killer Joe doesn’t even seem to even take itself at face value. The movie’s mood and ending will certainly polarize audiences, but if one is willing to accept and go along with the esoteric tone Friedkin strikes (and there are perfectly legitimate reasons not to do so), then Killer Joe is likely one of the more engaging films of the year if for no other reason than its sheer audacity.

At first glance, Jack and Diane looks like a coming-of-age movie about two young girls exploring their sexuality and trying to find their identities – which would have been just fine on its own (there hasn’t been a good movie about a young girl’s erotic journey since Rochelle, Rochelle). But, towards the end of its new trailer, Jack and Diane provides a twist. You see, this isn’t just a story about two blossoming young girls who are experiencing changes in their bodies and minds because of out of whack hormone levels. Oh no. The changes these girls are going through are much too violent for that. After a brief period of new discovery, problems with parents, close calls on skateboards, and threats of moving to new schools (you know, kid stuff), the focus of this ad turns to blood-churning, skin-ripping, and hair-sprouting. Good heavens, this isn’t just a metaphor for becoming an adult, this little indie romance is actually a horror movie! And if that isn’t enough to get you on the hook, the film also promises music by super-mellow and super-great Icelandic music-makers Múm. Young love, body horror, chill tunes…what more could a film fan ask for?

Production on Maleficent started on June 13th, and the movie won’t be in theaters until March 14th of (wait for it) 2014, but Disney has already released a teaser image of star Angelina Jolie as the iconic, evil witch queen who really hates Sleeping Beauty. To be fair, without Maleficent, the fair-haired heroine would just be called “Beauty,” and that name was already taken, so she probably wouldn’t have a cool nickname at all. Credit has to be given to Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked” for birthing a modern fascination with the villain’s side of the story (but mad respect to the old school “Grendel”), and the Robert Stromberg-directed fairy tale promises just that for Jolie. Although this will be the directorial debut for the veteran effects designer, the writing team features both Paul Dini and Linda Woolverton, so there’s a lot to be hopeful for. Plus, the cast also includes Elle Fanning, Juno Temple, Sharlto Copley and a ton of other solid names. Clicking on the image makes it largified. [Disney]

William Friedkin’s (The Exorcist, Bug) latest thriller, Killer Joe, looks gritty, greasy, and gross, the sort of crime movie that makes you feel like you have to take a shower after you watch it. It’s full of bad people making evil decisions; which, according to noir morality, is going to spell certain (and likely bloody) doom for everyone involved. Sometimes watching a movie like that can be a masochistic experience, but when the film in question stars names like Thomas Haden Church, Emile Hirsch, Gina Gershon, an adorable-while-spinning Juno Temple, and a seemingly motivated Matthew McConaughey, more likely than not the experience is going to be fascinating. Killer Joe’s new trailer has violence, matricide, deep shadows, rain storms, Southern accents, dilapidated pool halls, people putting their sister up as collateral, and I think someone gets killed with a can of pumpkin pie filling. It looks moody, and dangerous, and it warns us that the film has an NC-17 rating.

The skin-crawling world of Small Apartments is presented without irony or judgment – so it’s not surprising that, in such an off-kilter environment, Matt Lucas’ Franklin Franklin (yes, that’s really his name) sounds relatively sane. Even when he’s off-handedly confessing to the murder of his landlord, Lucas’ delivery is so deadpan that no one takes him seriously – after all, why would Franklin kill anyone? Oh, possibly because (like everybody else in his crumbling apartment building) he’s totally deranged?

After walking out of Killer Joe, one of my favorite films of SXSW, the NC-17 rating was one of the first things that hit me. It’s easy to see why the MPAA slapped it with that box-office death rating. When William Friedkin‘s film gets nasty, it gets nasty. The film is about the rough and real kind of violence, not the goofy fun type. However, Killer Joe‘s violence and sex is still plenty steps down from a handful of R-rated releases. We’ve seen violence of this magnitude done on-screen before, so it’s most likely a tonal issue the MPAA has with Friedkin’s stage adaptation. LD Entertaiment recently attempted to appeal the NC-17 rating, but it has now been denied. Rumors are that they’ll appeal again soon. David Dinerstein, the president of LD Entertainment, and the film’s screenwriter Tracy Letts both gave statements to the appeals board, and I happened to have interviewed Letts the other day at SXSW.

Killer Joe is trash. Not bad trash. Not pretentious trash. Just plain old ugly, funny, and sophisticated trash. William Friedkin‘s stage adaptation of Tracy Letts stage play is not as accomplished as their previous collaboration, Bug, but it’s definitely more unhinged and surpasses many of its fellow genre brethren. If you thought Bug was “crazy,” just wait until you get to Killer Joe‘s final minutes of magical brutality. Before we get there, however, what we’re served is a fairly conventional story that only makes that final act all the more satisfying. As with Bug, Killer Joe does not follow the cleanliest of people. Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch), a young and annoying hick, wants to do what all good sons aspire for: kill his mother who sold his drugs. Said mother, a woman Chris and his sister despise, holds a life insurance check that would payoff 50,000 dollars, so the young lead and his family decide to claim it.

When I first heard about Sebastián Silva’s next movie, Magic, Magic, I had yet to see any of the director’s work, but I was excited at the cast he had assembled, because it was made up mostly of hot young actresses. Since then, some of that has changed. If you’re not yet familiar with Silva, go check out his 2009 film The Maid. It’s a movie that managed to be tense and dramatic just by telling the story of an aging maid worried about losing her position in a prominent Chilean household because of the presence of a new, young au pair. In my opinion, it proved the man to have a sure hand behind the camera, and it put him firmly on the list of directors to watch. Go ahead, I’ll wait… Okay, now that we’re all on the same page, let’s start getting excited for his new (and apparently newly untitled) thriller that stars some more familiar Hollywood names like Michael Cera, Juno Temple, Emily Browning, and Maria Full of Grace’s Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Dirty Girl is a candy-coated collection of ’80s hairstyles, pop tunes and other sparkly flourishes. Despite the best efforts of Juno Temple, who perfects her standard character — the sullen oversexed young woman — it’s a forced, facile effort. The film takes a premise with promise, in which the titular “dirty girl” (Temple) searches for her long-lost father, and flushes it away in a haze of standard road-trip silliness. It’d be hard to conceive of a movie more painstakingly comprised of dramatic filler than this one, in which nothing of consequence happens until the climax. Danielle and her shy study buddy Clarke (Jeremy Dozier) take off from Oklahoma for California, in the hope of finding the absentee paterfamilias who knows not of her existence. Both misfits are escaping unfortunate home situations: Danielle’s mom Sue-Anne (Milla Jovovich), a former “dirty girl” herself, wants to settle down with the domineering Mormon Ray (William H. Macy). Clarke has it worse. His father Joseph (Dwight Yoakam) abuses him, sends him to therapy and threatens military school if his son can’t repress his homosexuality.

It’s been quite a while since it was announced that saucy young actress Juno Temple would be appearing in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming and omnipresent The Dark Knight Rises. But other than the fact that she would be playing a “street smart Gotham girl”, nobody has been able to dig up the specifics of exactly who her character is, and if she would be somebody who has already appeared in the Batman mythos. Of course, when absolutely anything about a highly anticipated comic book movie is left unclear, speculation often runs rampant. Would she be the “The Dark Knight Returns” version of Robin, Carrie Kelly? Would she be playing the youthful psychologist turned clown-faced wacko, Harley Quinn? It turns out, no. Total Film seems to think they have a scoop on the role Temple is filling, and it’s that of sometime Catwoman sidekick Holly Robinson.

Ambitious. Bold. Serious. Groundbreaking. None of these words can be sanely used to describe the vibe emanating from the trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson’s “adaptation” of The Three Musketeers. This a W.S. Anderson picture through and through. This trailer does a fantastic job at selling a future camp classic in the making, and I don’t even mean that in an ironic way, either.

When I hear that there’s a movie in the works called Magic, Magic I instantly think that it’s probably a movie about young witches, something going after all of that mystical-teenagers in love money. Well, despite the fact that it has just cast three hot, young actresses in key roles, Magic, Magic doesn’t appear to be that at all. According to Variety, “The pic revolves around a girl vacationing with her friends in a remote area of Chile who slowly starts losing her mental faculties.” Joining the already announced Michael Cera is Suckerpunch’s Emily Browning, Jack and Diane’s Juno Temple, and Maria Full of Grace’s Catalina Sandino Moreno. That’s one lucky Michael Cera. Magic, Magic is being directed by Sebastien Silva, a Chilean director who has seen success with small films La vida me mata, The Maid, and Old Cats. I haven’t seen any of Silva’s work myself, so I can’t vouch for its quality, but casting three gorgeous actresses for his new one is a pretty good strategy at getting my attention from here on. Production is scheduled to start late in the summer, so presumably we’ll be hearing more about this one soon. Until then I’m going to make it a point to stop thinking that I’m going to be seeing a movie about teenage witches every time I read the title.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s holding out for a hero ’til the morning light. He’s gotta be sure, it’s gotta be soon, and he’s gotta be larger than life. We lead tonight with images from this evening’s episode of Community, which took a jaunt into Pulp Fiction territory and played around with some Tarantino aesthetic. I haven’t watched it yet, as I’m contractually obligated to watch it with my lady and I won’t see her until tomorrow night, but I’m told that it was a new high mark for the show.

It’s not surprising that Little Birds, the feature film debut of writer-director Elgin James, was one of the most buzzed-about films at the Sundance Film Festival. The story of teenage girls drifting through life set against the awesome, shriveled up landscape of Salton Sea, California, the picture packs in the Amer-indie cliches. There are aimless youths, helpless parents, dreamy evocations of the unattainable world outside a car window and an engulfing sense of the worn down detritus of small town American life, past its peak. Yet the whole enterprise is an exercise in wheel-spinning, a plodding picture rife with familiar characters and situations, rendered with a nasty edge. It’s a brutish experience that puts star Juno Temple through an emotional and physical ringer, without the sort of larger, unifying purpose that justifies such turmoil.