Apparently, today is Random Movies You Didn’t Know Existed That Star Michelle Monaghan Day in Trailerville so, on the heels of the diamond-encrusted trailer for Penthouse North, here comes a sweat-soaked look at Tomorrow You’re Gone. Did you think that Penthouse North looked forumalic? Oh, get ready for Tomorrow You’re Gone. Also starring Willem Dafoe and Stephen Dorff because, hey, they need jobs, too, the film is a “one last job” thriller (the trailer actually uses the “one last job” term in splashy text, so two points for honesty) that pits recent parolee Dorff against string-puller Dafoe. Dorff’s attempts to go straight and keep his new lady (Monaghan) safe go awry when Dafoe calls in return on a debt. You know the rest. Check out today’s other random Michelle Monaghan trailer after the break.

What is Casting Couch? It’s the casting news roundup that’s been out of work since casting agents seem to be treating the week between Christmas and New Years as one prolonged food coma. If there’s one thing that Jurassic Park taught us, it’s that nature finds a way. Well, casting finds a way too. In a week where there isn’t any news getting leaked to the trades, leave it to Albuquerque Business First to break a new scoop. The eagle eyes over at The Film Stage noticed that, in an article about how that Michael Fassbender-starring rock and roll comedy called Frank is coming to town to shoot, the local source managed to break the news that Maggie Gyllenhaal is coming to town with it. Her involvement in the film sees her joining a cast that includes not just Fassbender, but two of the young MVPs of 2012, Domhnall Gleeson and Scoot McNairy, as well. Which, you know, makes her one of the luckiest ladies in the world.

Back in February it was reported that there was a new adaptation of a John le Carré novel being developed, and that it was looking to put Philip Seymour Hoffman in a leading role. It all sounded very exciting, but Hoffman’s involvement wasn’t official. Well, some time has passed since then, details on the project are starting to solidify, and the crew has even started to put together a cast of familiar faces to join Hoffman in supporting roles. But first, let’s recap exactly what this project is. A Most Wanted Man is a story about a half-Russian, half-Czech immigrant who comes to Germany—scarred and starved—looking for his father’s lost fortune. His past is mysterious, his motives are suspect, and eventually his pursuits get the attentions of a British banker and a young female lawyer, who both try to help them in their own way, and who end up forming a strange love triangle in the process. There’s no time for romance, however, as the man’s arrival also gets the attention of a group of spies from three different nations, and soon all of the players converge in ways that are likely steeped in intrigue and double crossings.

Notoriously meticulous director Wes Anderson seems to be speeding up his usual development process – which generally produces a new film every three years – and putting together the pieces for his next project. Hot on the heels of his successful, pubescent kids dancing in their underwear movie, Moonrise Kingdom, comes The Grand Budapest Hotel, an Anderson-penned script that is said to feature an ensemble cast, but is a mystery as far as character breakdowns or synopsis are concerned. News of the new Anderson project broke a little over a week ago, when Twitch reported they’d heard the director had begun casting on a new film, and that he was in various stages of negotiations with Johnny Depp, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, and Angela Lansbury. A list of names that talented and notable may sound like wishful thinking, but a report from Deadline Clute now confirms that at least some of it is true. Not only did they get their hands on the title of the film, but they’re also reporting that Depp has been wrapped up and is officially set to star.

Today, Columbia Pictures is releasing the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man. In case you don’t want to spend $15 to $20 to see this movie in IMAX 3D, you could always rent the original Sam Raimi Spider-Man and watch it. Heck, the first hour of these films is virtually identical anyway. Ten years ago, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man broke box office records on its opening weekend, on the way to be one of the few movies to gross more than $400m in the United States. We’ll see if Andrew Garfield and Mark Webb can do that with their new movie. But in the meantime, have a few drinks with the older movie and see how it holds up.

Willem Dafoe delivers a quiet performance in The Hunter, Daniel Nettheim‘s observant character-driven feature debut. It’s a character which relies purely on movement, expression, and action – all internal. The protagonist, Martin, a.k.a. The Hunter, is a man skilled in violence, and that’s about as much as you can say for him for most of the film’s running time. As you would’ve predicted, the character grows in a way of showing warmth and humanity, but, as Dafoe explains, not in a sentimental way. Martin is the type of character who feels at home in the woods wielding a rifle, rather than watching after a pair of children. Do not expect this to be the story of a cold man who in actuality has a big heart of a gold they’re ready to unleash, because it’s far from it. Here’s what actor Willem Dafoe had to say about Martin, directors with intense passion, and Bobby Peru, the ultimate force of nature:

Editor’s Note: This review first ran as part of our SXSW coverage on March 11, but The Hunter is hitting limited theaters this week. The Hunter is a film of surprising scope and intimacy. On the outside, it’s a basic “dangerous hunting” tale, but on the inside, it’s a story of a man, said hunter (Willem Dafoe), connecting with people on an emotional level for what might be the first time in his life. That reeks of hokiness, but with with an assured directorial hand, most of the drama is calm and collected. A lot of that stems from Dafoe, giving the sort of high caliber performance we’ve grown to expect from him. Martin David is a hunter of the illegal sort, and he’s given quite the challenge: get a sample from a Tasmanian tiger. Not an easy task. When we’re introduced to Martin, he’s shown in isolation, completely out of place in a snazzy hotel room. After his hunting services are acquired by a biotech company, Martin heads down to an unfriendly Australian town to seek out the tiger. He stays at a broken family’s home, where he ends up having to look after and connect with two children whose father may or may not be dead. You see the cold Martin get humanized by the children, as expected – and it’s affective, due to Dafoe.

Last month was eclectic. We got Disney‘s like-it-or-hate-it box-office bomb, a sweet and violent comedy following the goons of hockey, one ass-kicking and nonstop action picture, an 80s TV show adaptation that was better than it originally had any right to be, and a Tarsem kids’ film that defied most expectations based on that horror story of a trailer. A pretty strong March, and that’s not even counting The Hunger Games. Before we head into the unpredictable summer movie season, we got 30 days filled with a plenty of excellent and probably not-so-excellent releases coming out. Here are 8 1/2 movies worth seeing this month.

This weekend presents you with the opportunity to do many things. If you’re in the Central Texas area, you’re probably hitting up SXSW 2012 alongside the intrepid staff at Film School Rejects and many other fine publications. But if you’re note falling down drunk on the streets of Austin, trying to punch-kick everyone following a screening of The Raid, you may want to escape to another wild wonderland: Mars. Beginning today, Disney is releasing John Carter into theaters. Based on the century-old book “A Princess of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Carter follows a Civil War veteran who is transported magically to Earth’s red neighbor, where unknowable danger, a classic hero journey and the love of a gorgeous, tough princess await him. Also, he encounters 9-foot tall, four-armed green aliens who sound like Willem Dafoe, vengeful war mongers played by the likes of Dominic West and a CGI-enhanced landscape created by a team led by Pixar alum Andrew Stanton. All-in-all, it’s quite a ride. And to give you an idea of why you should just ignore the poor early buzz and simply enjoy the ride, we’ve compile a list of 7 Very Good Reasons to See John Carter This Weekend. Join us on this magical journey…

John Carter hits theaters today. And whether you’re buying into the hype that it’s a big-budget film that is destined to fail or you’re listening to the great number of film critics — including our own Robert Levin — who are saying that despite its faults, it’s the first legitimate event film of the year, it’s still going to be hitting theaters. For those seeking more information before a decision is made, we’ve got you covered. Over the next several days we’ll be rolling out conversations with John Carter‘s creative team, including the likes of director Andrew Stanton, producers Lindsey Collins and John Morris, as well as some of the film’s stars. We begin today with an intimate chat held with veteran actor Willem Dafoe, who plays Tars Tarkas, the leader of a Martian species of 9-foot tall, four-armed green aliens who live in the harsh deserts of Earth’s red neighbor. Over the course of our chat, we talk about being a veteran actor who can still perform in physically demanding roles, Andrew Stanton’s directing style and what Dafoe has to say about performance capture and its place in awards season.

John Carter arrives in theaters today consumed by terrible buzz and reduced expectations, with prognosticators of all stripes predicting a monumental flop for Disney. It’s a 3D, $250m affair that’s tracking worse than the second weekend of The Lorax, they say, and it’s a ridiculously expensive gamble for a first-time live-action director (Andrew Stanton, of Finding Nemo and WALL-E fame). In the press, the narrative has been written: You don’t want to see this movie. And that’s a shame, because it’s actually quite good. It’s sad that we’ve reached a cultural place where a bold, imaginative science-fiction effort like this, a film with beautiful imagery and a well-founded allegiance to gloriously pulpy source material, is so easily dismissed. Not to get all Armond White here, but the contemptible gleeful scorn being heaped on the film by Nikki Finke and others just reemphasizes how little so many people who write about movies actually care about movies. If they gave a damn about, you know, art, they’d have to acknowledge that at the very least this adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s century-old novel “A Princess of Mars” harkens back to the grand mid-century Disney tradition of films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which took great pleasure in immersive production design. You could take or leave the plot, though I’d mostly take it, but there’s no disputing the fact that Stanton has rendered Mars as a complete universe unto itself, full of zooming spaceships and cluttered, towering cities, a weird and altogether

Director Andrew Stanton, being somewhat of the miracle worker that he is, has managed to capture the strengths of the original Star Wars trilogy while avoiding much of what was wrong with the prequels with his John Carter. This Disney epic provides for all of a boy’s basic needs, wants, and desires that Lucas’s prequels didn’t deliver upon. Stanton knows their sweet spot – and yes, I know how creepy that reads – by hitting all the major checkpoints required for them: beefy hero, beautiful love interest, sweet weaponry, non-pandering comic relief, big aliens, and exciting flying things that could not look more like the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi. How do these amazing devices work, you ask? They just do. Stanton treats the more fantastical aspects of John Carter like George Lucas did, “It’s just there, and who cares how it works or how it got made?” Overall, John Carter bears both many connections and thankful distances to the Star Wars series. Just how Luke Skywalker saw the vast universe Lucas created, there’s not one scene of Carter condescending to the mechanics or bizarro nature of the world – Mars, which they call “Barsoom” – he’s thrown into and never saying something along the lines of, “Isn’t this costume goofy, guys? (*wink* *wink*).” When things get silly, Stanton and his cast always play it straight-faced and with nothing but respect, like the original Star Wars films did. Carter doesn’t question the idea of huge white apes, he

Do you have some interest in seeing more from Disney’s upcoming sci-fi adventure John Carter? Chances are that you do, as many of you are probably the types who are (a) familiar with the century-old source material or (b) just into that kind of thing in general. Based on this epic image gallery — 116 stills in all — we can see that Pixar alum Andrew Stanton’s first foray into the world of live-action (sort of) is heavy on spectacle. It’s a big story told over the massive landscape of Earth’s closest neighbor. Sexy martian princesses? Check. All-out war between alien races? Check. Giant white wolf ape motherf&*kers? Boom, you’ve got that, too. Forget whatever preconceived notions you have based on the trailers and check out the slick gallery of images that we’ve left for you after the jump.

We all love The Boondock Saints? Right? Right? Guys? Where you going? Look, I’m fully aware of the animosity for this film, especially its writer/director, Troy Duffy. Hell, even the DVD is annoying me right this second with this “You wouldn’t steal a car, so why steal movies” PSA. But there’s a point in everyone’s life where you have to realize bad filmmakers like talking about their film just as much as the geniuses. So we’re gonna let Mr. Duffy speak, and we’re gonna be taking detailed notes as to what he has to say. Yes, this one comes with the decade long-backlash. And I’m sure Troy Duffy’s commentary here is going to be filled with all kinds of insightful anecdotes about crafting the film, honing the story so its concise yet layered. I’m sure there isn’t going to be anything on this commentary track that puts Troy Duffy in an angelic light. And, in case you didn’t catch it, I put the sarcastic tone on the word “angelic.” So here is everything we learned from Mr. Troy “Overnight” Duffy’s commentary track for The Boondock Saints. That damn PSA is still going by the way. Don’t steal, folks.

I’m not the biggest Guillermo del Toro fan on the planet. I love Pan’s Labyrinth, but a lot of his more popcorny genre work doesn’t really resonate with me. If he said that he was swearing off horror movies and action franchises for the rest of his career in favor of focusing on dark dramas, I would be ecstatic. But that isn’t the sort of filmmaker he is, and we’re probably all lucky for that, because even I’m getting excited about how awesome his upcoming monster movie Pacific Rim sounds. Lately del Toro has been making all the right moves to turn me around and get me amped up for this project. First he hired Idris Elba to replace Tom Cruise in the starring role. Talk about a major upgrade. Then he went around town making comments about how big and unmodest this film was going to be, how he was approaching it like a big kid having fun, and how it was going to feature mankind creating mech suits to battle giant monsters that come out of the ocean. I don’t know what the best way to get a geek’s attention is, but promising monsters fighting mech suits just might be it. And now he’s in talks to cast Willem Dafoe in a high profile role.

The first teaser for John Carter isn’t the astonishing first peek it should be. Instead, it’s oddly underwhelming. Where’s the sense of a grand-scale adventure film? First of all, John Carter seems to be hanging out in any Earth bound desert, not Mars. There’s nothing in this trailer that’ll tell a filmgoer who is unfamiliar with the books that they’re on frickin’ Mars. Besides the quick glimpse of a green martian, very little is here that gives off the vibe that they’re on an alien inhabited planet.

What is Movie News After Dark? If you have to ask, then you can’t afford to miss it. I’ll admit it, I’m excited about Mortal Kombat Legacy, the web series from Kevin Tancharoen, who put together that excellent Mortal Kombat: Rebirth short film not too long ago. It looks like a solid take on a franchise that is always towing the line between badass and sillidiculous. And the first look at Sub-Zero, as played by Kevan Ohtsji, leans toward the former. The web series premieres April 12 on Machinima’s YouTube Channel.

“Wait a minute, Jack. Excuse me, but can we talk in about eight-minutes? Would you call back through the office? I was just on the phone with Javier Bardem, and I forgot I was talking to him. Can I just call him back?” These are the first words the acclaimed artist Julian Schnabel said to me. Of course, being the polite gent that I am, I said “no problem at all,” because it wasn’t a problem. During the duration of time I waited to get a call back, a problem arose. I started to ponder the idea of what it must be like for Julian Schnabel to go from talking to someone as interesting as Javier Bardem to… well, me. I started to feel a sense of nervousness, which is a sensation I rarely get before an interview. But really, who on earth would want to go from speaking with Javier Bardem to the young guy from Film School Rejects? I certainly wouldn’t. But Schnabel did call back, and it was as interesting a conversation as I could have expected. My questions weren’t exactly focused on his latest, divisive film, Miral, but instead I was adamant about getting his thoughts on commercialism, what type of pre-viz he does, and his artistic collaborative process on films. Sadly, I wasn’t able to take him up on his offer mentioned below, but based on our 15-minute conversation, I would have loved nothing more than to converse with the man in person. Most film geeks would. While

Last week I tackled Portal; and the response was interesting. While I’d love to see Portal as a movie — that was really an intro-session into the Valve universe, and a step toward discussing my next Pixel to Projector nominee — Half-life. Almost anyone that is a fan of first person shooters has a soft Spot for Valve Software’s launch title — and with good reason. The ever silent Dr. Gordon Freeman is iconic in the gaming community, as are many of the characters that fill his world. From Vortigaunts, The Combine, Alyx Vance, the ever present Headcrabs, and of course — the mysterious G-Man — Half-life is rich with characters and situations ripe for transition to the big screen.

Troy Duffy, writer/director of The Boondock Saints and The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day sits down with FSR during his bus tour to talk about his films, being controversial and what’s up next before Boondock Saints III.