Spanish director Mateo Gil’s look at the last days of Western legend Butch Cassidy, Blackthorn, has been picked up for distribution. The film made its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is set to play at Cannes as well, but Magnolia Pictures has already scooped it up and is prepping it for a theatrical release later this year. The film stars Sam Shepard, who is no stranger to screen westerns, as Cassidy, and sees him supported by names such as Stephen Rea, Eduardo Noriega and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau. This is Gil’s first English language film, and the first feature length film that he has directed at all in 12 years. He is a prominent screenwriter, however, and has written things you might have heard of like the Javier Bardem film The Sea Inside, and the basis for Vanilla Sky called Abre los ojos. Why is Magnolia taking a chance on this film? The man who negotiated the deal, Tom Quinn, explains, “With an amazing cast and incredible locations, Mateo Gil has created a Western for the ages. Sam Shepard is unforgettable as Butch Cassidy, with a command performance that is a high point in an amazing career.” That sounds exciting to me, but I imagine that Magnolia picking up this film has a little something to do with the fact that True Grit just made a jillion dollars at the box office as well. Is this some early indication that the Coens’s success in the Western genre could be bringing [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]

Mark Cuban owns a lot of things, websites, cable channels, sports teams, and even some movie related companies. Magnolia Pictures is a distribution company that focuses on distributing foreign and art films in the United States. Landmark Theaters is a theater chain that plays those foreign and art films, the biggest one in the U.S. actually. They are both part of Cuban’s holdings, but now he’s put them up for sale. As a movie fan, I find this news to be pretty scary.

Attack the Block needs subtitles for an American release. That’s the divisive concept that has caused me to lose hours of time to Twitter this morning. Everyone with an emotional stake in the matter — from the purists who say that a movie should be released unaltered to those who love the movie so dearly that they’d accept (almost) any solution that would get it out there in front of American audiences — has an opinion about the matter. And the truth is that Attack the Block doesn’t need subtitles. But distributors think it might. Traditional distributors. Which is part of the reason why this film deserves a home at Drafthouse Films. That and as Brian Salisbury explained in his review, the film is excellent. So excellent that it’s rallied passion behind its cause — people who saw it premiere in Austin at SXSW this week want one thing: for the rest of you to be able to see it.

Do I need to define the term ‘donkey punch’ for you? If so, you’re out of luck. It’s our place to entertain and enlighten, not educate.

Magnolia Pictures’ documentary release Man on Wire, which tells the story of Frenchman Philippe Petit’s daring dream of walking a tight-rope between the towers of the World Trade Center in ’74, has emerged as the ‘Best Reviewed Film of All-Time.’

Take a look, and enjoy.