New French Trailer for 'Upside Down' Looks Crazy Good

Kirsten Dunst won over critics everywhere, including GTBP's Mario Melidona for her performance in Melancholia (Read our review here).  She now looks to follow it up in an exceptional looking new sci-fi love story called Upside Down.  In this drama worlds are literally turned upside down, as Dunst and Jim Sturgess star as two lovers named Adam and Eve, who cannot be together because the two respective worlds they're from have gone to war.

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Movie Review - 'The Way Back'

The Way Back Starring Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris and Colin Farrell Directed by Peter Weir Rated PG-13

The Way Back has a great premise - a group of prisoners escape a Siberian gulag and then must walk 4,000 to India in order to reach freedom. Unfortunately, the movie itself never quite lives up to the potential of this premise. While it has a handful of great dramatic moments and plenty of great visuals, The Way Back is ultimately a film where the whole ends up being less than the sum of its parts.

Part of the problem is that while the main characters are well-rounded and interesting, most of the ensemble cast isn't fully fleshed out. The film focuses primarily on four characters. The star of the film is Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a Polish prisoner charged with espionage after his own wife is tortured and forced to testify against him. Janusz is the defacto leader who plans the escape and serves as the team's guide. Then there is Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), an American who came to Russia looking for work, and Valka (Colin Farrell), a vile criminal willing to stab a fellow inmate in the stomach to steal his sweater. (The only reason Valka is allowed to come along is because he has a knife, a much-needed item if you plan on escaping and surviving in the wilderness.) There is also Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young girl they encounter along the way who begs to tag along, even though she will likely slow them down and will cost them precious food rations.

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Trailer for 'The Way Back'

I honestly can't believe we haven't heard more about this movie earlier. Starring Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, and Jim Sturgess, The Way Back looks phenomenal. It's directed by Peter Weir, based on the novel "The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom" by Slavomir Rawicz.

Here's a synopsis of the film:

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Movie Review - 'Crossing Over'

Crossing Over Starring Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, and Ashley Judd Directed by Wayne Kramer Rated R

Immigration is a thorny issue with no quick, easy, or perfect solution. How do you juggle talk of a wall along our border with the promise of America? How do you keep everyone out when the Statue of Liberty asks for your tired, poor, and huddled masses? How do you stop immigration in a nation of immigrants? Conversely, an approach that takes all comers has at least as many problems as the one that wants restrictions. Jobs, crime, medical care and costs, insurance, and overpopulation are some of the concerns that America faces after living with a fairly lax immigration policy. Crossing Over tries to tackle the problem in two hours, which would be difficult to pull off if writer-director Wayne Kramer had kept his new film limited to one or two stories of illegal immigrants trying to find a way to stay in the country. Unfortunately, there are seven distinct but intertwined storylines, which could work if this were The Love Boat and the plot points were easy to establish and required little involvement with the details. But because Kramer does have seven stories, what sets them apart are their details, and there's just not enough time to do them justice. Admirably, Kramer does not limit Crossing Over to immigrants heading north from Central America. There's an Australian actress (Alice Eve), an Iranian family and a Korean family near the end of their journeys to naturalization, a British musician (Jim Sturgess) trying to con his way into permanent residency, a Mexican laborer (Alice Braga) and her displaced son, an orphaned African refugee caught in the system, and an outspoken Muslim teenager, whose actions in school threaten to have her entire family deported.

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'Spider-Man, Turn off the Dark' on Broadway Next February

I just received an e-mail about the Spider-Man musical headed to Broadway. We now have a title, a theatre, and information about when the run begins, although we're still waiting for final confirmation on casting. Across the Universe director Julie Taymor is bringing Spider-Man, Turn off the Dark to Broadway's Hilton Theatre beginning Thursday, February 18, 2010. Preview performances commence on Saturday, January 16th. Taymor has worked with Bono and The Edge from U2, who will supply new music and lyrics for the play, which Taymor co-wrote with Glen Berger. Evan Rachel Wood has said she will play Mary Jane Watson in the musical, and she's hinted that her Across the Universe co-star Jim Sturgess is Taymor's top choice for the role of Peter Parker. Taymor has had success on stage before, directing The Lion King and Mozart's The Magic Flute, but even those might not be on the scale of Spider-Man, which is said to cost between $30 and $40 million. Sign up for updates at Spider Man on Broadway. (And thanks to Aaron for the e-mail.)