Phil Morrison, the director of June Bug, has another project in the works, and it’s worth noting because it’s going to be starring my two favorite Pauls currently working in Hollywood. Lucky Dog is a comedy about a couple of French-Canadian con men who go in together on a Christmas tree selling scam, despite the fact that their friendship has recently been on the outs. The previously mentioned Pauls are Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd, both accomplished comedic actors who also bring some dramatic chops to the table. So, the directions this one could go in are myriad. Adding to the intrigue is the news that Sally Hawkins, an actress who has recently been impressing me in movies like Never Let Me Go and Submarine, has also signed on to join the cast. There isn’t any word on what kind of character she will be playing, but is it safe to assume that there might be some sort of love triangle going on among the former friends? Good luck with that one, Giamatti. Rudd is, like, cut. From marble. He’s gorgeous. He’s like this beautiful face and this incredible body, and I genuinely don’t care that he’s kinda lame. And I don’t even care that he cheats on me.

Submarine is the coming-of-age tale of a cold, calculated, and pretentious teen by the name of Oliver Tate. Oliver, like Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, could easily come off as a downright off-putting and self-absorbed kid. He starts off as an arrogant and creepy kid dealing with what seems to be the weight of the world on his shoulders. Oliver’s romance that comes out of seeking pure lovemaking turns into something genuine. His parents’ love is dying, and he can’t fix it. Through nearly all of this, Oliver stays near-emotionless and blank. His transformation and revelations are shown through writer-director Richard Ayoade‘s unique visual eye, which also never sugarcoats Oliver’s oddness. Ayoade has crafted a young protagonist that while many will love many others will question his sanity… a rare type of lead these days. Here’s what Richard Ayoade had to say about not writing too much style, the moral ambiguity of the film’s characters and, of course, Oliver Tate.

Richard Ayoade’s Submarine is a much-needed corrective to the twee adolescent indie dramedy. The film maintains many of the recognizable bells and whistles of that exceedingly tired subgenre, but like the potential available in any catalog of clichés, Submarine finds a way to make them work. Instead of simply presenting us a socially outcast teen protagonist who speaks and thinks like somebody possessing cleverness and insight far beyond his years, Submarine provides specific reasons why its protagonist is so articulate while still giving us plenty of evidence that he is indeed an inexperienced teenager who has a lot to learn. Instead of assembling random visual quirks into a Jared Hess-style landscape in which decades of fashion are collapsed into one oppressively ironic and ahistorical moment, the setting and style of Submarine is (mostly) consistent in presenting a historical moment informed by nostalgia, even if we don’t quite know when that moment is (but we don’t really need to). In short, Submarine is refreshingly sincere. It’s an all-too-familiar coming of age tale, but the film gives us plenty of reasons to give a damn – its story in particular.

Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go continues to prove that it’s a contender for Awards Season. The trailer showed exactly how calm and desperate the entire thing might be, and Romanek’s history points to the movie being soul-crushingly depressing. Fortunately, that depression comes with a British accent, so it’s not quite so hard to take. Scratch that. Any sentiment of sweetness is blown out of the water by this clip featuring Kiera Knightley, a not-at-all-veiled threat against Carey Mulligan’s character, and what looks like the creepiest time possible to kiss another girl on the lips. Check it out after the jump.

Few actors working today have the effortlessly funny quality of Rhys Darby, most notable for his role as Murray Hewitt on Flight of the Conchords. The man is simply funny no matter what he’s doing, no matter the environment around him. He’s a champion of awkward…

Last year, we fell in love with Sally Hawkins, and this year she wants our sex. Maybe not “our sex” necessarily, but she wants sex of some kind. Or at least she’s starring in a film called We Want Sex. You do the math.

The equivalent of the wallflower you knew in high school that blossomed into a college beauty, here are eleven films that flew under the radar in 2008.

The 2008 film season brought us beauty in both traditional and unconventional ways. While there has been an argument that leading ladies are few and far between, I think there’s a strong case to be made against that. This list of ten female figures will hopefully offer proof of that.

In order to help get the word out on Mike Leigh’s new film, which hits theaters in limited release on October 10th, we’ve received a few posters to give away.

Here comes a very enjoyable trailer for the film Happy-Go-Lucky, which stars Sally Hawkins (The Painted Veil, Vera Drake) as a woman who is, as the title states, very happy-go-lucky.