I’ve no better, more eloquent way to put this — Gus Van Sant‘s Restless is awful, pandering, painfully acted, lazily written, up its own ass schlock. It’s bad. This is not the Van Sant that pulled beautiful, nuanced performances from his actors in Good Will Hunting, gave us solid, dark, indie-fare like Elephant, or even the almost total airball remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. This, perhaps, is a sign that Van Sant has taken his title as arthouse darling and run it completely off the rails.

Usually when a filmmaker goes on a string of making a bunch of movies it’s nothing to bat an eyelash at. Hey, he’s a filmmaker, what did you expect? But when that filmmaker happens to be Terrence Malick, then it’s a whole other story. Malick is an infamous perfectionist who usually takes at least five years or so between everything he makes. Dude even waited twenty between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line. It’s weird that despite the fact his newest film Tree of Life was just in theaters, he already has his next picture in the can. But it’s even weirder that before that picture has been put together and given a release date and what not, Twitch has already unearthed some information about the next movie he’s making a move on. Once he gets his Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams romance Voyage of Time out of the way, he’s said to be starting up a new film, which will star Christian Bale. That Bale is in the film shouldn’t come as a surprise, he’s worked with Malick before in The New World and he almost took the role Affleck eventually filled in Voyage of Time; but the fact that we look to be getting three Malick movies in two years is a gigantic shock. Who put what in this guy’s Wheaties? Does Malick know something that we don’t, or did he just blow all his money on a gambling debt or something?

It was only a matter of time after Jacki Weaver’s Oscar nominated turn as the grandmother from hell in the Australian thriller Animal Kingdom that she would start popping up in American films. First up will be a role in Nicholas Stoller’s Five Year Engagement due out next April, but a second US-based film has just been added to her schedule and it’s exciting news to say the least. Deadline Sydney is reporting that Weaver has joined the already strong cast of Park Chan-wook’s English language debut, Stoker. The film, written by Prison Break‘s Wentworth Miller, tells the story of a teenager (Mia Wasikowska) dealing with her father’s recent death and the arrival of her odd and eccentric uncle (Matthew Goode) whose return home coincides with a rash of disappearances around town. Nicole Kidman is set to play Mia’s mother, and it’s presumed that Weaver will take on the grandmother role again. Hopefully this doesn’t mean she’ll try to have poor little Mia killed.

Jim Jarmusch is a polarizing figure among the film-going public. His films are all a little off the beaten path, a little bit inaccessible to general audiences, and usually some people end up loving them and some people end up hating them. I think what everybody can agree upon though, is that there are always several interesting things going on with every project that he takes. That’s why new reports that he is planning to helm a vampire movie have left me scratching my head a little. He’s making a vampire movie? Right in the middle of a time where every hack director who can find funding is making a vampire movie? That just doesn’t seem like Jarmusch’s bag. But still, despite all of that, I certainly can’t argue with the cast he’s compiling. This new vampire project is still untitled, but it’s set to star Tilda Swinton, Michael Fassbender, and Mia Wasikowska as the children of the night. Those are some good vampires. Also, the extremely British John Hurt has been cast in an undisclosed feature role. I don’t know about you, but if I was going to be casting a distinguished gentleman like John Hurt in my new vampire film you better believe it would probably be as some grizzled old vampire hunter. In addition to the casting news, Jarmusch let a little bit slip about the setting by calling the film a, “crypto-vampire love story, set against the romantic desolation of Detroit and Tangiers.” Say what you

Last year I came away from Cannes needing to tell as many people as possible to see Blue Valentine, which enthralled and emotionally jarred me thanks to a blend of compelling story-telling and two mesmerizing lead performances ranging from touching to explosive in the space of a few short minutes. Already, only two days in, I feel the same way about Gus Van Sant‘s Restless, the film that today opened the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. Restless is a similar tale of two entwined souls romantically entangled, but unlike Blue Valentine, which was all about the central pair’s relationship to the extent that it quite wonderfully presented them as living in an impenetrable and ultimately devastating bubble, Van Sant throws in a couple of narrative conceits and a hugely gripping hook that adds a different element to the film. Both films share a resolute focus on a final point: while Blue Valentine alludes to it (the relationship’s end) thanks to an alinear narrative structure, Restless reveals very early on that Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) has a terminal disease that will kill her inside three months, which gives the story both structure and that killer hook. This is no Bucket List – there are no grand, sweeping gestures, no life affirming to-do-lists to complete in order to feel complete before death. Instead we are offered a portrait of a young couple, both aged by their personal tragedies (one by her illness, the other by the death of his parents), yet unwilling and unable to cast

Why Watch? There is absolutely nothing wrong with shooting a flaming arrow at a zombie to blow it up. There’s also nothing wrong with Spencer Susser’s short film I Love Sarah Jane. Especially since there’s nothing wrong with Mia Wasikowska dropping F-bombs a lot. I mean, a lot. There are a lot of instances and colorful uses of the word Fuck here. The gore is particularly gruesome with some droolingly uneasy wounds and creeping zombie make-up as the bloody cherry on top. Thanks, Australia! What Will It Cost? Just 12 minutes of your time. Does it get better any better than that? Check out I Love Sarah Jane for yourself: I LOVE SARAH JANE (2008) Directed By: Spencer Susser Written By: Spencer Susser & David Michod Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Brad Ashby, Beau South, Vladimir Matovic, and Peter Yacoub Trust us. You have time for more short films.

When Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) was quite young, her parents died and she was left in the care of her aunt. The aunt took none too kindly to Jane’s outspokenness and her free spirit and promptly sent her to a finishing school where education was synonymous with corporal punishment. Years later, having survived her sentence at that school, she is employed as the governess for the daughter of the wealthy Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender). A love blossoms between them, but a terrible secret threatens to tear them apart. Melodrama ensues. I may very well invoke your judgment and scorn with the following admission: I don’t like period romance films. That being said, I happily volunteered to review Jane Eyre. No, this was not rooted in a sadistic desire to rip the film to shreds but rather the result of a very deceitful piece of marketing. If you haven’t seen the trailer, and you are as ignorant of the story of Jane Eyre as I was, it sells you on an atmospheric horror film set in the Victorian Age. They go so far as to appropriate the Goblin score from Suspiria and lay it over the three seemingly supernatural moments of the film. Turns out, now that I’ve seen the movie and had a few gaps filled in for me, there is a pseudo ghost story interwoven into the fabric of Jane Eyre, but this adaptation does nothing to cultivate it so the trailer is an out and out lie. But

We reported back in November about Chan-wook Park setting up his first English-language gig with Fox Searchlight, but at the time, the synopsis for Stoker merely alluded to foul play by the hands of a young girl’s uncle who comes to town when her father dies. According to the usually questionable Daily Mail (via Screen Rant), the uncle is definitely a vampire. What’s more, the rag claims that Oscar winner Colin Firth is set to star as the bloodsucker alongside Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska. All of those names are various replacements for Carey Mulligan, Jodie Foster and Johnny Depp (that guy is everywhere) who were all name-dropped last Fall. Park handled vampires with his trademarked insanity in Thirst, so seeing him return to that is bittersweet. The most fascinating prospect is seeing him handle someone else’s material (sense the script for Stoker was written by Wentworth Miller). Park has written for others, but he’s never directed a screenplay that wasn’t his own. That could be a challenge, especially in the face of the curse of brilliant directors making the jump to American cinema. At the very least, it will be interesting to see the auteur try on someone else’s writing for size. Firth in the mean time will be seen in the forthcoming Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and at some point we’ll get to see Park’s iPhone movie in all its glory.

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

Upcoming thriller Stoker looked to have a moment of trouble when its original lead actress Carey Mulligan dropped out of the project. Ever since her breakthrough performance in An Education, Mulligan has been seen as the go to girl when you need a talented young actress. Her attachment to the script is probably a large reason why it sold in the first place. But a crisis has been averted, as the project has managed to snag the girl poised to be the next big thing after Mulligan to take her place. Mia Wasikowska, who turned heads in last year’s indie success story The Kids Are All Right and who gained mainstream success starring in the Tim Burton-helmed Alice in Wonderland is reportedly close to signing on to the film. Wasikowska should gain further credentials before this one goes behind the camera by starring in a big screen adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel “Jane Eyre”, which is set to be released in March and looks just like the type of stuffy period piece that would get recognized during awards season. In Stoker Wasikowska would be playing a teenage girl who is forced to reconnect with an estranged uncle after the death of her father. The project is to be directed by Chan-wook Park, whose 2003 revenge film Oldboy gained a lot of critical attention in the US for its quirky yet brutal approach to its material. Park’s projects are always ones to watch, and the Wasikowska grab seems to be

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

Amongst the universal critical applause currently being bestowed upon Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, one bit of praise seems to connect them all: that the film isn’t didactic or preachy regarding the same-sex couple at its center. In other words, it’s a film about a gay couple but doesn’t overtly shout that it’s about a gay couple; the premise isn’t addressed as if it were unique, exceptional, or odd – nor is it, arguably, a major source of the film’s comedy – rather the film proceeds without seeming intent on making a statement on gay couples or gay child-raising in contemporary society.

The summer movie season is known for a lot of things… explosions, CGI overload, superheroes, and sequels to name a few. What it doesn’t really see a lot of are films dealing in human emotions, raw truths, and real life. The Kids Are All Right is one of the rare exceptions to that rule (that I just made up), and aside from implying that anyone would be sexually attracted to Julianne Moore it just may be the most honest film of the summer. Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) are California teens living with their two moms. Nic (Annette Bening) birthed Joni and Jules (Julianne Moore) birthed Laser, both through artificial insemination from the same sperm donor, and life has been fairly conventional up until now. Joni has recently turned eighteen and at the constant nagging of her brother has contacted the sperm bank in the hopes of meeting their biological father. Paul (Mark Ruffalo) is a laid back restaurant owner in a casual relationship with an employee (the stunningly beautiful YaYa DaCosta), and he’s both surprised and intrigued at the idea of meeting the end result of his past donations. Nic and Jules reluctantly welcome Paul into their lives and soon the calm and orderly existence they thought they had is turned upside down.

Apparently the role in the forthcoming David Fincher film is a highly sought-after prize. Which actresses actually fit the bill?

What is surprising to me with a film like Lisa Cholodenko’s delightful, layered comedy The Kids Are All Right, is that it will be heralded as a smart, funny look at the “modern family.” Something that we’re only now seeing more of.

Kevin Carr sits his chubbiness down weighs in on Alice in Wonderland and Brooklyn’s Finest.

Arm yourself with an education in Alice in Wonderland and go in forewarned. You’ll be able to chuckle knowingly at the obscure characters, and tip your hat to the small nods to Lewis Carroll. You know, if you were the kind of person who wore a hat and tipped it.

In fairness, none of what is written in the title above is untrue. A new clip from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was released this evening on MySpace, and it does include both the eating of cake by Alice, played by Mia Wasikowska, and her subsequent outgrowth of her clothes.

Walt Disney Pictures has released a brand new featurette for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland today, this time focusing on Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter. I feel ashamed that we haven’t been talking about this film more over the past few months. I do so enjoy a little bit of Tim Burton insanity in my day. As well, there’s nothing like seeing Johnny Depp go crazy.

Emily Browning has replaced Mia Wasikowska as Sleeping Beauty. Generally, we’d find a statement such as this one to be (a) logical and (b) completely uneventful. Both actresses are young, fresh and would fit right in to the classic role of the sleepy princess. The twist is that this isn’t Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, it is the erotic version.