It’s Smith’s first foray into horror (besides working with J. Lo) and immediately comes off as stirring as the work of Rob Zombie. Judging from the trailer, the film boasts more than a few tense, white knuckle moments. I wonder how Jay and Silent Bob are going to save the day this time.

Ward was the fiesty mother of nine children, including boxers Dicky Eklund and “Irish” Mickey Ward, portrayed in the movie by Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg. Both Bale and Leo gave Ward shout-outs in various awards speeches. Bale described her as “one tough cookie,” which is the nicest way possible to describe a fiery older woman. Science has proven this in several studies. (TheWrap)

Palermo Pictures is looking to put Dead Circus into production soon. It’s a let’s-muck-around-with-actual-historical events drama based on the real life death of 60s singer Bobby Fuller. Do you vaguely remember hearing this song about fighting the law and the law winning? He did that. The cast is pretty solid so far: Michael C. Hall “Dexter“), James Marsden (X-Men), Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) and Melissa Leo (aka The Oscar F-Bomber).

The story is about a screenwriter — trust me, it does get better — who’s investigating the supposed suicide of newly minted pop star Fuller in 1966. The problem? Most people don’t commit suicide by badly bruising themselves and pouring gasoline down their own throats. Then we veer off into the Make Believe Zone, when the writer discovers that Fuller’s “suicide” ties in with the Manson family and snuff film buried in Death Valley. Guys, something tells me this was not actually a suicide at all.

Dead Circus will be directed by its co-writer Adam Davenport, with novel writer John Kaye sharing writing credit. (Deadline)

Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) and Melissa Leo (The Fighter, The F-Bomb at “The Oscars”) star as a wannabe Juliard student and his drug addicted mom. Morgan plays Leo’s drug dealer, whose name is Sprinkles. In a word, nice. Oscar nominated writer/director Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) is helming and scribing, sharing screenplay credit with Philip Dorling.

Surrounded by Oscar folk, let’s hope that brings out the best in Morgan. “Yeah, here’s hoping, Liz Lemon.” (Collider)

Director: Kevin Smith

Cast: Michael Parks, John Goodman, Kevin Pollak, Melissa Leo, Stephen Root

Synopsis: Set in Middle America, a group of teens receive an online invitation for sex, though they soon encounter fundamentalists with a much more sinister agenda.

Release Date: October 19, 2011

The Social Network

Awards like these can be indicators of how the Oscars are gonna go. I thought The Social Network was terrific, but I’m pulling for Toy Story 3 to win Best Picture, just like director / noted foot fetishist Quentin Tarantino. Are industry types willing to give the prestigious title of “Best Picture” to the third film in a series about action figures who fight mean children and evil teddy bears? Hopefully! But as long as they can ghettoize Pixar films to the Best Animated movie category, Buzz and Woody’s Best Picture chances may end up in the incinerator. Also, remember how terrified you were during that scene? Yeah, that shit was crazy.

A little more interesting is Inception sleep-stealing the most awards of the evening with 6, but they’re mostly art direction awards, which means they’re entirely worthless. The Fighter pounded its way to two awards for Best Supporting Actor and Actress Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. Also, Natalie Portman won Best Actress for Black Swan. Wasn’t Mila Kunis going down on her enough of a reward?

Here’s the full list of winners from Cinema Blend:

Best Picture: The Social Network
Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Best Young Actor/Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Best Acting Ensemble: The Fighter
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler, The King’s Speech
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Cinematography: Inception
Best Art Direction: Inception
Best Editing: Inception
Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland
Best Makeup: Alice in Wonderland
Best Visual Effects: Inception
Best Sound: Inception
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Best Action Movie: Inception
Best Comedy: Easy A
Best Picture Made for Television: The Pacific
Best Foreign Language Film: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Best Documentary Feature: Waiting for Superman
Best Score: The Social Network

Hey Peter -

Spike here. I’m writing on behalf of my friend David Russell, regarding his new movie The Fighter. Did you get a chance to see it yet? How insanely great is Christian Bale?

Can you do me a favor and post this 2 minute trailer called “Pressure” on your site?

The trailer that they put out originally makes the film feel a little generic and I just want to help David get the word out. I got to see it a few weeks ago, and I loved it, and if all you saw is the trailer that’s out, you might not know that it’s as interesting and strong as it is.

Thanks for your help!
Spike

I was already looking forward to seeing The Fighter before watching the above trailer, and don’t see how it differs that much from the original one. But hey, I’ll do whatever I can to keep O. Russell from calling Spike a c*nt.

The Fighter is the story of how boxer Irish Mickey Ward overcame his family problems to be a champion. The drama could have started all over again for the filmmakers when they go the Ward family involved with the story. Director David O. Russell was dredging up Ward’s mom Alice’s emotional manipulation and his older brother Dickie Eklund’s crack addiction for the sake of drama.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I first saw the family,” Russell said. “I thought they might be some very harsh people that I wouldn’t want to spend ten minutes with.  Because I remember hearing about Mickey Ward. Then when I saw him and I heard him talk, I was like, ‘Oh, my god.  He sounds much rougher than I expected.’ I expected some sweet talking Oscar De La Hoya type. The fact is, the people are so unbelievably lovable.  I still hang out with them. That’s what goes into the movie.  That’s the only thing that goes in the movie.”

The film doesn’t dwell on Dickie’s addiction any more than necessary to show that he ultimately got clean, but Eklund still had some opinions for Christian Bale, who portrayed him.

“There were a couple of times I had to physically restrain Dickie from going and landing one right on David,” Bale said. “We had some initial interesting times when we were rehearsing in Mark [Wahlberg]’s house, where Mark very nicely put up Mickey and Dickie, and actually they lived at his house for some time.  There were some script changes going on, and Dickie wasn’t initially totally understanding that sometimes in putting a whole life into two hours, a little bit of license has to be taken and mixing things up.  He wanted everything initially to be absolutely how it was portrayed.  And if it wasn’t, there was a couple of times he would say, ‘I’m gonna go and I’m gonna get him.’ So there’s a couple of times I’d be going, ‘No, no, no.’ Then we’d talk and David would talk with him and I’m not sure if you ever had to stop him from coming and laying one on me.”

As Mickey Ward, Wahlberg was on the line more than just for acting. He produced the movie too. During four years of development hell, the Wards and Eklund’s came down on Wahlberg.

“It was just out of sheer desperation for getting the movie made,” Wahlberg said. “I had already promised Mickey, Dickie, Alice, Charlene, everybody else involved, that we were going to get this movie made. It seemed at first glance like it was a no brainer.  I mean, amazing parts, what a wonderful story, a really new and interesting world that you’re not that familiar with.  It just wasn’t meant to be, so we just had to grab a hold of it and force it to happen with sheer will and determination. Very much like Mickey’s journey to winning the title, you know, he just had to go and make it happen.”

Melissa Leo plays Alice Ward, and she faced the real deal in her preparations. “Upon meeting her, saw immediately my mother’s mother, my maternal grandmother in Alice,” Leo said. “[I] knew then that I have her in here somewhere. Then with Mark Bridges’ help, and Johnny [Villanueva] who did the hair, with David saying, ‘Shorter, shorter, shorter’ with every haircut, and Trish Heine, who did my makeup, finally found Alice and walked in her shoes.  It was a thrill to walk out of the trailer and have half a world go, ‘Oh, Alice!  Oh, you look my mother!”  So that was great.”

The Fighter opens Dec. 10.

The secret screening at AFI Film Festival was the long awaited boxing drama The Fighter. Mark Wahlberg waited four years to make this movie and it was a lot for me to take. I mean, I can handle death and despair. That’s a good time at the movies. You give me an abusive family and that’s just hopeless.

Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) is an up and coming local boxer. His brother Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale) trains him and his mom, Alice (Melissa Leo) is his manager. Dickie is a crackhead and Alice is turning down paying offers for Mickey out of family loyalty, so they’ve totally got his best interests at heart.

This is really a drug movie disguised as a boxing movie. Dickie is really strung out and he’s destroying his whole family. It’s a slice of life, but a heavy drinking, hard living slice. They could pass, maybe, if you don’t go in their house, but the Wards are really sick and dangerous people. Bale is all Machinist up in here. Dickie is acting up when he’s happy. Imagine how he gets when things aren’t going well.

The threat Alice feels when Mickey gets opportunities on his own is really disturbing. It’s like “I want what’s best for you until you disagree.” It’s the sad story you see so often where someone thinks control is the same as love and respect. You want to kill your sons, keep doing what you’ve been doing the past nine years. How many failures before you accept you’re not good for him?

It’s really depressing for me to see people stuck with the bad decisions of others. There’s no catharsis or triumph over adversity to me. Maybe you get to a point where they clean up and aren’t constantly damaging to you, is existing the best we can offer? No actual relationship, just hope for non-destruction?

It takes another woman, Charlene (Amy Adams) to support Mickey. It’s still scary how dangerous Mickey’s family is. I guess the story is ultimately how they all made peace, but that doesn’t comfort me. Even Mickey’s support gets controlling of him. I guess it all breeds itself over and over. That really messes with me because I needed Mickey to have some trust in his life.

There’s also some boxing. David O. Russell really builds those rousing moments. It’s subtle within that whole family drama, but you are cheering for Mickey. Fights are filmed with TV cameras, only you see them in widescreen. Russell has a few other interesting visual techniques for creating a scene.

The Fighter is good. It tells its story and everyone involved really sells it. It’s a story that’s so hard for me to take, I’ll never watch it again. If I’d known how emotionally abusive his family was, I might have braced myself. It just makes me appreciate that I get to live on my own and be my own person with my family. This behavior is tragic.

_{James want.}

The trailer for Welcome to the Rileys, starring James Gandolfini, Melissa Leo, and Kristen Stewart, has been released. The film is directed by Jake Scott, son of well-known indie director Ridley Scott. It’s about a couple driven apart by the death of their daughter who are brought back together when they meet a troubled young woman. Why is she troubled? She’s an underage stripper. Schwing! But seriously, you guys, this is serious material.

The film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to so-so reviews, which doesn’t psych me up to see it. If those art house cinefiles waiting outside in below freezing temperatures didn’t fan their wool beanies with glee as the credits rolled, I probably won’t enjoy it. Also, the thought of Kristen Stewart frowning in another movie makes my cerebellum ache. Also, I’m jealous I didn’t get to go to Sundance.

Welcome to the Rileys hits theaters November 5, 2010.

Check out the trailer after the jump.

Welcome to the Rileys Trailer – Watch more Movie Trailers

Fox Searchlight has released the trailer for Conviction, another one of those inspirational true stories that scream "Academy Award nominations all-around!" Hilary Swank plays a "high school dropout who spent nearly two decades working as a single mother while putting herself through law school, tirelessly trying to beat the system and overturn her brother’s unjust murde conviction."

I assume the brother didn’t do the crime, but Sam Rockwell‘s playing him so you never know. Maybe we’ll get one of those Primal Fear endings. Swank spends years of her life striving to free her brother, then the instant Rockwell steps out of the prison gates he screams, "I stabbed that b*tch in the eyes!" and kicks Hilary in the stomach before stealing her broken down Taurus. Yeah… That would be awesome.

Conviction gets tossed into theaters October 15, 2010.

Check out the Oscar bait trailer after the jump…

Conviction – Trailer – Watch more Movie Trailers