Harmony Korine and friends already gave us a taste of sand, sun and heavy weaponry, but it doesn’t quite feel like summer yet. Maybe that’s because global warming is making everything so cool or because President Obama keeps delaying all of our vacation planes, but the hugeness of the season still hasn’t fully descended. That’ll change this weekend when Iron Man 3 drops an arc reactor into theaters. Then, the parade of unbelievably massive summer movies commences with buddy cops, mischievous teens, people probably named Khan, bald Matt Damons, super men, and the end of the world itself in tow. It’s a tight race this year. Optimism runs high, and the next few months are packed full with studios and indie outfits hoping to entertain and score big, so the task of naming the 13 most-anticipated summer movies was a tough one. So instead of hurting our brains over it, we let math do the work by putting the question to the whole staff and tallying up the results. It’s a slightly eclectic mix, displaying the powerful potential of cinematic storytelling to bring us into the cool, dark room with a single light source. As luck would have it, we found a fittingly seasonal place to start:

Up until this point Lionsgate’s handling of Adam Wingard‘s You’re Next has been a lesson in how not to market a movie. Its 2011 festival premieres (at TIFF and Fantastic Fest) led to near unanimous raves to which Lionsgate responded with… two years of inexplicable silence. While the studio was being quiet though the relative handful of festival fans were busy pumping up the film at every opportunity. No film could live up to this degree of hype, and having seen the movie a couple weeks ago I can confirm that this is no exception. But You’re Next is still a damn good movie that deserves to find an audience. Happily, Lionsgate isn’t resting on that early buzz in the build up to the film’s August 23rd release. They’ve just released their first trailer, and it is pretty goddamn sweet. It doesn’t try to convey how truly funny the movie is (and seriously, the movie is hilarious), but it’s slickly cut and perfectly suited to get asses in seats on opening weekend. Check out the spectacular trailer for You’re Next below.

SXSW 2013 ended ten days ago, but the memories live on thanks to the great friends we met, delicious food we ate and fantastic movies we had the pleasure of seeing. (Our intrepid interviewer, Jack, also has a strange rash to remind him of the dangers of 6th Street after dark.) You can catch up on our coverage of the films and the talents, but as a final goodbye to this year’s fest we want to highlight some of the movies we enjoyed the most. Rather than simply list the best of the fest though we’ve chosen to look at our favorites as lessons learned, things we discovered and/or talking points that other filmmakers could probably learn from as well. It’s worth noting that my personal favorite of the fest was Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color, but since it was already my #1 film at this year’s Sundance I decided to highlight two other excellent movies instead. Keep reading to see what Jack Giroux, Kevin Kelly, Neil Miller, Luke Mullen and I learned about the movies of SXSW 2013.

In tonight’s round-up of the best news and notes that didn’t grow up to be bigger stories, we’ve got all genres. Star Wars and Jurassic Park representing the genre known as geek bait, Iron Man 3 in the corner of superhero flicks, Spring Breakers in for whatever the hell genre its in, and You’re Next in for some horror. As you can see above, it’s some serious horror.

You’re Next caused up quite a stir at last year’s Fantastic Fest. The movie was swiftly picked up for distribution by Lionsgate after receiving stellar reviews, one of which came from our own Scott Beggs, who described the movie as, “pure horror bliss, delivering an engaging group of characters, a badass chick, some iconic masks to add to the collection, and a new twist on slashers.” Rob wasn’t quite as taken with the film, but one thing is for sure, You’re Next is packed with horror images and a song that’ll stick with audiences. While at SXSW, we spoke with the director of You’re Next, Adam Wingard, about those memorable masks, finding its theme song and getting to direct fellow horror directors:

Tonight on your favorite nightly round-up article, there’s a cat dressed up like Breaking Bad‘s Walter White and plenty of interesting Hows and Whys from the world of entertainment journalism. Like, “How to Write a Why Article: Part SEO-Bomb.” Hashtag inside baseball joke.

The main lineup at this year’s SXSW Film Festival was announced last week, and while it features a ton of great-looking content it wasn’t complete. The list was missing the dozens of shorts that will be playing next month, but more importantly it was absent any hint of the Midnighters that some of us look forward to all year long. That changes today. SXSW have revealed the films from both categories, and the nine Midnighters look to be a fun and exciting mix of established names and interesting newcomers. One of the stand-outs is the highly praised and long-delayed You’re Next from Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, which I’m hoping lives up to the hype and the wait. We’re also getting two Sundance holdovers with The Rambler and S-VHS (curiously called V/H/S 2 here). Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem will be making an appearance too, but more exciting are the presence of new films from Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice) and Dennis Iliadis (The Last House on the Left remake). SXSW 2013 runs March 8th-16th, and the complete list of shorts and Midnighters can be found below.

Halfway through the 2012 Borscht Film Festival, a documentary screened titled Rising Tide: A Story of Miami Artists. In the film, which offers a basic guide to the growing art scene in the city, local paper sculptor Jen Stark acknowledges the way the digital world allows contemporary artists to flourish outside of major art centers. “Ever since the Internet came out,” she says, “ I never thought I had to be in New York or wherever.” It was a resonating quote to hear in the middle of an event so devoted to both regional communities and how they can come together as a broader, networked collective of filmmaking scenes. The central occasion for Borscht, which was held last weekend, is a screening of shorts either made by local filmmakers or commissioned by the Borscht Corporation and at least shot in Florida. Many of the films involve an overlapping of talent, and by the end you’ve seen 20 works that have given you a good sense of what’s happening with the underground “Miami New Wave.”

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly news column that doesn’t always have something to say. But when it does, the geeks of the world listen. We begin this evening with some great DREDD concept art found by the folks at Comic Book Movie, picked up via Germain Lussier’s ever-excellent Superhero Bits column. The excitement I have for this, one of Fantastic Fest’s big name films, has gone through the roof as more reactions come in, including that of our own Nathan Adams at TIFF.

What do you do when your first several efforts in the horror genre are quiet successes and your most critically acclaimed feature is delayed more than a year? If you’re director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett you sign with a major studio to adapt a bestselling spy thriller to the big screen. The duo behind A Horrible Way to Die, segments in V/H/S and The ABCs of Death, and next year’s You’re Next have done just that. Per Deadline by way of /film, their next project will be an adaptation of Jon Stock‘s Dead Spy Running for WB. The book is the first in a trilogy about a disgraced MI6 agent named Danny Marchant thought to be a traitor by his own people and the CIA who is forced on the run to prove both his own innocence and his dead father’s. The rights were snapped up on publication back in 2009, and since then various names have been attached to direct including McG, Stephen Gaghan and Jonathan Levine. Wingard and Barrett have come on board with an existing script from Gaghan (and Jamie Moss) that tweaked the novel’s lead character just a little bit. Marchant will no longer be a spy on the run… He’ll be a DJ.

As you may have noticed, this final week of 2011 has been almost completely taken over by our third annual Year in Review. It was born in 2009 out of our love for lists and your thirst for reading, discussing and ultimately hating them. And each year the entire project gets a little bigger, a little bolder and slightly more absurd. With that in mind, I’m once again proud to present you with The Best Films of 2011: The Staff Picks. Each of our 14 regular staff writers, contributors and columnists, almost all of whom have been with us the entire year, were asked to present their top 5 films, in no particular order (although many of them placed their top film at the top, as logical people tend to do), each with an explanation. Some even included curse words as a bonus to you, the reader. Read: The Best Films of 2010: The Staff Picks | The Best Films of 2009: The Staff Picks Once again, the Staff Picks are a testament to the diversity we have here at Film School Rejects, with picks ranging from the likely suspects (Take Shelter, Hugo, Shame) to the slightly more nerdy (Attack the Block, Super 8, The Muppets) to several movies that may not yet be on your radar (see Landon Palmer’s list for those). And once again, it’s with a deep sense of pride that I publish such a list, the best of 2011 as seen through the eyes of the movie

This week, we find a bunch of random movie fanatics (including Kevin Sorbo) wandering around the Alamo Drafthouse parking lot during Fantastic Fest and invite them in for a drink and a long conversation. Familiar voices like Neil Miller, Scott Weinberg, Brian Kelley, Rob Hunter, Brian Salisbury, Luke Mullen, Adam Charles join voices new to the show like Mike Saulters, Jason Murphy and Zack The Waiter. Oh, and Hercules himself, Kevin Sorbo drops in to talk about his new movie, Julia X. He also brings along the film’s director, P.J. Pettiette. Download This Episode

A young woman slinks downstairs in her underwear to fix another drink, recover from some bad sex and turn on some music. The secluded house far away from any city limit sign offers a perfect opportunity to crank of the volume without any close neighbors calling the cops. When her sugar daddy finds her dead body, he’ll also find a message for him scrawled on the sliding glass doors in blood. Thus begins You’re Next. This blood-splattered couple is just the appetizer though. The real focus of the film is a neighboring family that puts the “fun” back in “constantly bitching.” Paul Davison (Rob Moran) and Aubrey (the legendary Barbara Crampton) are father and mother to the brood. Drake (Joe Swanberg) is the ass-kissing mess stuffed into a turtle neck, Aimee (Amy Seimetz) is the perpetual Daddy’s Girl even in her adulthood, Felix (Nicholas Tucci) is the disaffected middle child of history, and Crispian (A.J. Bowen) is the ridiculously-named good son who acts as our entryway into a night that’s meant to celebrate 35 of marriage but will be invaded by figures in animal masks who only mean harm.

You want big things to happen to your little movie? The secret seems to be to get it in as an entry to TIFF’s Midnight Madness program. The good news just keeps rolling in for films that played at midnight at this year’s festival. First up for a Hollywood remake was director Gareth Evans’s Indonesian SWAT team movie The Raid, which was very nearly just one non-stop action sequence. Then there was news that Adam Wingard’s home invasion horror flick You’re Next was being purchased by Lionsgate and set up for a wide release. And now Midnight Madness hits the hat trick, as THR reports that director Frédéric Jardin’s French thriller Sleepless Night is next in line for an English language remake. Sleepless Night is the story of a dad, a drug deal, dirty cops, a stabbing, a kidnapped son, a big bag of cocaine, and a nightclub all coming together to create chaos. Like The Raid, it’s getting a lot of comparisons to Die Hard because it’s full of action and takes place mostly in one setting.

Perhaps the biggest buzz coming out of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival came from its even-better-than-usual crop of late night genre films that form their Midnight Madness program. The Midnight Madness film that kicked off this year’s slate of genre weirdness and won the Cadillac People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award was Gareth Evans‘s action extravaganza, The Raid, which has already been picked up for a Hollywood remake. That’s not all that’s been going on, though, the good news keeps on coming for the Midnight Madness films, as one of Deadline Mackville’s annoying “Toldja!” reports is saying that director Adam Wingard’s horror film You’re Next is coming out of the other end of a studio bidding war as the property of Lionsgate. You’re Next is one of those “couple gets trapped in a cabin and has to fight off invading murderers” horror movies, and Lionsgate bigwig Jason Constantine says of the acquisition, “this project represents everything that we look for in a horror film. It is a celebration of its genre, featuring top-notch performances from a sophisticated script, brilliantly directed, that will leave audiences on the edge of their seats when they’re not jumping out of them.” What does this deal mean for the movie? Well, first off, the deal took a while to be finalized, and part of that is because The Weinstein Company, Paramount, and probably a few others were also interested in picking up the film, but another part of it is because the filmmakers wanted to make sure

If you somehow aren’t aware by now, we take Fantastic Fest pretty seriously ’round these parts. America’s largest genre festival will kick the doors off the hinges for its 7th incarnation this September, and your faithful crew here at Starship Reject could not be more excited. As always, we’ll be assembling our Fantastic Fest Death Squad to attempt the insane goal of reviewing each and every film that plays this year. Take a gander at some of the titles that have jumped out at us from this latest batch. First up is Lars Von Trier‘s Melancholia. Antichrist was huge at Fantastic Fest back in 2009, and the buzz out of Cannes and from a brief run in LA has me chomping at the bit to see Von Trier’s latest as soon as possible. While certainly polarizing, Von Trier is also an extremely versatile and uncompromising filmmaker, and I can’t wait to see him put his own unique spin on a story with sci-fi elements. You can bet the Rejects will be first in line for this one come September. You also know we’re looking forward to You’re Next, the new film from the team behind last year’s A Horrible Way to Die. While their previous effort wasn’t a perfect film, the last 20 minutes in particular were chilling and showed quite a bit of promise with their fresh take on serial killer celebrity. Adam Wingard returns to direct You’re Next, and genre favorite AJ Bowen joins a cast that includes