The Last of Us is such a great game because it emulates the dramatic structure of film (the Holy Grail sought after by studios such as Quantic Dream, Naughty Dog's heavy-handed sibling). It proves once and for all that a video game can provide drama on the same level of film without spoofing itself. There's not one cheap scare, one piece of cheesy dialogue (that's not an examination of the struggle between Ellie the girl and Ellie the grown-up-too-soon), or melodrama in its bones. Instead, the drama is drawn out through Ellie and Joel's growing bond.

The game is a study in character, with the simplest plot to carry the players along. Naughty Dog points their spotlight at their characters and says, "Look, these are people." By the end of the game, you've stopped thinking of Ellie and Joel as video game characters altogether. They're archetypes, don't get me wrong, but you've put enough of yourself in these characters that they linger in your mind long after the game is over. This is executed most wonderfully by the nuance of the ending of the game: Ellie "agreeing" to Joel's lie about the Fireflies before fading to black. It's the moment’s hesitation, a final look of hopelessness (or is it hope -- the fact that we're even arguing about it is an accomplishment for video game storytelling in itself), that keeps the memory of these characters alive.

Which is all the more impressive when you consider The Last of Us’ simple linear narrative. There aren’t any flashbacks -- until Left Behind, which feels like a self-contained short story in itself, following its own rules of storytelling. And the game doesn’t depend on big cinematic cuts full of exposition to get the story across. Instead, the insular story is told through in-game dialogue between the main characters, or even more clever, they react to their environments. Joel will mumble a thread of sad words after gazing at a picture of a family in an abandoned home. Ellie wishes she still had the freedom to be a kid when reading comic books or pretending to play in an arcade. Thanks to the sparse storytelling, we're left to fill in the blanks of their lives -- Joel and Ellie's survivor's guilt and their inability to protect those they cared about most. We deal with their inner turmoil with only surface details to guide us -- Ellie's joke book (her struggle to continue being a kid and the loss of her best friend Riley), for example. The subtleties make these characters come to life. Naughty Dog's one and only risk: straying away from the norm -- video game as escapism.

No, I don't think The Last of Us movie is a good idea. Not because it doesn't lend itself well to the big screen, but because it's redundant. The Last of Us is the closest a video game has ever come to a serious film while still maintaining its gaming essence. Earlier, I mentioned Quantic Dream because, in their maniacal quest to innovate, they have taken the less subtle approach to emulating the film experience by selling interactive movies as games -- Beyond: Two Souls (which I loved) is the epitome of this.

What will an actual film adaptation of The Last of Us accomplish? Not much. It's fanfare on par with the Warcraft movie. These are movies produced because the big Hollywood guys know they will make money. With a franchise this big, you make it and fans will come. And don't get me wrong, I'm riding the hype wave with the best of them. I'll take more of The Last of Ushowever I can get it.

This isn't about whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. Because it's a fool-proof idea, as long as Neil Druckmann, the game's creative director and the film's screenwriter, stays true to the world he's built, and Sam Raimi and the Hollywood execs don't fuck with it. Making a movie out of a video game that emulates movies is the next logical evolutionary step -- The Last of Us reaches its true form.

But it cheapens everything The Last of Us has strived for: a game birthed from films -- stitching together the tropes and dramatic cues of the form -- doesn’t need to be turned into a film.

By design, The Last of Us doesn't have an original bone in its body. It's safe in terms of narrative, a pastiche of tropes like something out of Pynchon novel or a Boyle film. Tell me what moment in The Last of Us actually surprised you. Was it when Joel's daughter died in the middle of the zombie outbreak (the loss of a loved one as a story's emotional center)? When Joel was forced to take another child (an infected one -- damn, look at that cycle) into his care 20 years later? Or when Joel was hurt, leaving Ellie to fend for herself (coming-of-age story)? Or finally, when the Fireflies are revealed to be the REAL bad guys (every zombie/postapocalyptic film I can think of features a human as the true antagonist no matter how many monsters are outside waiting to bite your head off).

The Last of Us is an exercise in narrative (to prove that it can be done), as much an original postapocalyptic narrative as Shrek is an original fairytale. The game recreates genre set pieces we know -- getting attacked by bandits, being forced to separate, etc. -- and stitches them into something at once recognizable and iconic. The Last of Us as a narrative does not exist beyond its parts.

I can imagine the Naughty Dog guys sitting around discussing moments in different movies (The Road was among the many films that inspired the game) that might lend themselves to their brand of games. They took every piece that worked and fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle, wrapping "narrative" around its edges. Hideo Kojima did the same thing with the infamous Metal Gear Solid 2, only he took the meta approach -- recreating his first Metal Gear Solid game and spoofing it, effectively lifting the veil on the memetic nature of the game. There is no Metal Gear Solid 2 in a narrative sense.

Naughty Dog has a history of using cinematic experience to inform their games. Uncharted 2, which also won ALL of the awards, perfectly emulates classic adventure films -- the treasure, exotic lands, not-so-useless damsel, wise old man, double agents, and larger-than-life hero. Uncharted 2is the best Indiana Jones game you'll ever play down to the iconic outfit that hasn't changed 3 stories later. Oh, and the Uncharted series is also getting a film adaptation.

The developer even goes as far as giving their characters the likeness of actors who are famous for portraying the respective roles said characters play in The Last of Us. During early promotion, Joel looked a lot like Viggo Mortensen (your Cormac McCarthy alarms should be blaring right now) and Ellie looked a lot MORE like Ellen Page (basically stole her name, too). And don't forget they hired an Oscar-winning composer to write the game's score. Naughty Dog couldn't have made this game feel MORE like a movie if they had bashed us on the head with a picket sign that read "Doesn't this game look JUST like a movie?"

The Last of Us won every gaming award known to man and Cordycep, and rightfully so. Someone said on the internet (I can't recall who) that if there were an Oscar for best video game of the year, The Last of Us would undoubtedly win. I doubt he/she said it by accident.

This is not about whether The Last of Us movie will suck or not or whether it'll bring anything new to the table. There is a larger issue. It's obvious that the gaming industry (still largely viewed as a plaything instead of art) in some way feels it needs to emulate what films do. It's interesting since films have done nothing but stab its younger sibling in the back, one terrible video game film adaptation at a time, inadvertently justifying the art community's bad attitude towards the form. But just when The Last of Usgets film right without having to lose its true essence (it's a video game), Naughty Dog tosses their beloved game to the dogs to become just like the rest.

The Hollywoodization of video games is, well, a dangerous game. Why does film have to be the end-all legitimizing art form? Why can't the art form (in this case, video games) just be the art form?

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"The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea," director Terry Gilliam once said on the 1974 TV programme, Bob Godfrey's Do-It-Yourself Animation Show. "Whatever works is the thing to use."

Perhaps the voice more synonymous with Hollywood movies than any onscreen actor’s, Hal Douglas narrated thousands upon thousands of movie trailers, often with the reassuring introduction of “In a world….” Thus for any moviegoer, particularly one who was reared on American films in the 1990s, it is sad news to learn that Douglas died Friday in his Lotteville, Va. home. Revealed to the press by his daughter, Sarah Douglas, Hal Douglas died from complications over pancreatic cancer. He was 89.

Alongside Don LaFontaine and Don Morrow, Douglas was one of the most ubiquitous voices in movie trailers that audiences often associated with “the movie guy voice.” With a firm but gravely tenor, he showed a fluid range that went from deathly serious or even ominous for the summer blockbusters and thrillers, to playful and lightly ironic for any romantic comedy. His demo reel included eclectic samples like the WB’s Dawson’s Creek and the Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson version of The Four Feathers. He is also famous for his voiceover work on trailers that include Meet the Parents, Forrest Gump, Rush Hour 2, The Rock, and Braveheart.

Known in the voiceover business as simply “Hal,” Douglas became an iconic presence until his retirement from voiceover work two years ago. Preferring to work in New York recording studios over living in LA, Douglas looked proudly at his craft but with modestly. He told The New York Times in 2009, “It’s a craft you learn, like making a good pair of shoes. And I just consider myself a good shoemaker.”

For those who may only know the voice, below is Hal Douglas’ demo reel circa the early 2000s. There is also the mock trailer he made for “Jerry Seinfeld’s The Comedian” below that.

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In the latest clip from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we get a chance to see the web-head stop a speeding armored truck, stuffed with plutonium, from turning New York City into a demilitarized zone. Featuring Spidey at his most quippy and another brief look at Paul Giamatti as the man who would become Rhino, there is more than enough here for any true believer to enjoy.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 finds Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) fighting for his life against Oscorp’s newest freaks, including Electro (Jamie Foxx) and Rhino (Paul Giamatti), all while trying to balance a high school romance with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Yet, when an old friend named Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) comes back into his life, the secrets of Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper) and its villainous past reach closer to home than even Spidey can realize. Worse still, they may expand into his future.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens May 2, 2014.

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We are so happy that Hammer Studios is back in some capacity. While they don’t release a film every year, since their rebirth they’ve reliably released old school fright fests for those who like it when something goes bump in the movie. And after Let Me In and The Woman in Black, they appear ready to continue the trend with Lionsgate in their second spine-tingling trailer for The Quiet Ones.

Supposedly based on true events, this period piece horror looks equal parts Hellhouse and Exorcist in its grand setting of 1970s creepy-crawlies. The intentionally vintage look promises hopefully another grand freak show when university student (Sam Claflin of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) and some classmates are recruited to carry out a private experiment by a peculiar scientist (Jared Harris of Mad Men and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) -- to create a poltergeist. Their subject: an alluring, but dangerously disturbed young woman (Olivia Cooke of Bates Motel). Their quest: to explore the dark energy that her damaged psyche might manifest. As the experiment unravels along with their sanity, the rogue PHD students are soon confronted with a terrifying reality: they have triggered an unspeakable force with a power beyond all explanation. Inspired by true events, The Quiet Ones is directed by John Pogue from a screenplay by Craig Rosenberg and Oren Moverman and John Pogue, and based on a screenplay by Tom de Ville.

The Quiet Ones opens April 25, 2014.

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In news that should satisfy any fan of Taken or other entries in the expanding “Liam Neeson Hits People in February” genre, Famke Janssen has been cast to reprise her role as Lenore, Bryan Mills’ (Neeson) ex-wife, in the upcoming Taken 3.

As reported by Deadline, the Dutch actress has closed a deal with EuropaCorp to star for the third time in the franchise opposite Neeson and Maggie Grace, who plays the two’s daughter. Forest Whitaker is also rumored to be appearing in the film, likely as a new bad guy if we had to speculate.

Janssen has had a long history of starring in action roles, including playing Dr. Jean Grey in the original X-Men trilogy and also very memorably portraying the bad Bond girl Xenia Onatopp in 1995’s GoldenEye.

Taken 3 is aiming for a 2015 release date.

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Shortly before shooting his excellent major studio debut, Prisoners, director Denis Villeneuve made Enemy, a strange and inscrutable psychological thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal (who also worked with the director in Prisoners) in a dual role as two men who look exactly alike and are drawn into a dangerous psychological battle with each other. The film’s refusal to deliver a conventional narrative may frustrate some viewers, but should also be embraced by moviegoers who like stories that take place just a step or two removed from reality.

Based on the novel The Double by the late, brilliant Brazilian writer Jose Saramago, Enemy opens with a strange scene that sets the tone for the rest of this unsettling piece. Inside an underground sex club is where we first encounter a bearded Gyllenhaal watching a live exhibition along with several other men. A silver platter is brought out and its lid lifted to reveal a swollen, grotesque tarantula underneath – which is immediately crushed by a woman’s spiked heel.

We then switch to Gyllenhall as history professor Adam Bell, whose detachment and disinterest in his own life is matched only by his remote relationship with his girlfriend Mary (Melanie Laurent). Even sex is yet another mechanical function in Bell’s dreary, disconnected daily routine. But one day, while watching a movie on a recommendation from a colleague, Bell spies an actor in the background of one scene who disconcertingly looks like him. Doing some research, Bell eventually learns Anthony St. Clair’s phone number and calls him – only to be mistaken for Anthony himself by the actor’s pregnant girlfriend Helen (Sarah Gadon).

When the two men finally meet, it is clear that they don’t just resemble each other but are completely identical – right down to matching scars. This has a shattering effect on both their psyches and soon leads to a struggle in which both men wish to prevail – although the upper hand at first seems to go to the much more arrogant and cocksure Anthony (who, we assume, was also the man in the sex club) than the neurotic and at first timid Adam, who is plagued with increasingly horrific nightmares. As the conflict escalates, the women in their lives are inevitably drawn into it as well, with potentially tragic consequences.

That description of the plot makes it seem a lot more straightforward than it actually is, because Enemy functions primarily as a mood piece, with the story drifting forward in a series of surreal, tense set pieces rather than a fast-moving chain of events. Villeneuve, as he did in Incendies and Prisoners, excels at sustaining the mood he wishes to convey; with its bleak, gray view of a tomb-like Toronto, the dark, stifling interiors of both men’s apartments, and the score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans doing a lot of heavy lifting, a miasma of dread settles over the film from the beginning and never lets up, almost to the point of self-parody.

But the movie never quite crosses that line, thanks especially to the committed performance(s) from Gyllenhall as Adam and Anthony. The two look the same but are different in subtle ways, leaving the viewer to wonder whether Anthony does actually exist or is some unattainable different version of himself that the disheveled, despondent Adam has dreamed up. The idea that we are looking at two versions of the same man gains strength when the inevitable happens and one of them seduces the other’s woman without her realizing the switch.

Gyllenhaal is excellent in the dual role, and gets solid supporting work from Laurent and Gadon, the latter a recent favorite of David Cronenberg. And she’s not the only Cronenberg connection in the film; Villeneuve’s thematic concerns, somnolent tone and eerie imagery call to mind a lot of the great Canadian director’s early work, along with the cold depiction of Toronto. And then there’s that ending: Villeneuve’s very last shot is horrifying, pretentious and just plain nuts all at the same time, jamming Cronenberg, David Lynch and Kafka into a startling unexpected final image that also brings the film full circle.

Is Enemy easily explained? Not a chance. Villeneuve and Gyllenhaal (and screenwriter Javier Gullon) are not interested in logical arguments or conclusive statements: if you think True Detective was a tough sit, then stay far away from this. But there’s no question that they’ve fashioned an unsettling philosophical/existential horror film that grapples with core questions about identity, fidelity and what it means to be a man – then casts you adrift to find the answers for yourself.

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Wondering how the rules of magic are going to function in the Marvel movies? You're not alone...and they're working on it. With all indications pointing towards a Doctor Strange movie getting ready to take shape, we're going to need answers to those questions sooner rather than later. Luckily, Kevin Feige is out there making the rounds for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and he's got some words about how Doctor Strange will work.

Feige told Badass Digest about some of the preliminary plans for the rules of magic in the Marvel movie world. "Are you watching the Cosmos series? That’s magic, [the quantum physics]. It’s unbelievable. If somebody knew how to tap into that stuff, what’s the difference between that and magic?"

Mr. Feige also said that “Doctor Strange needs to be a Ditko/Kubrick/Miyazaki/The Matrix mind-trip.” That sounds good to us. Quite good, in fact. Really, it would be nice to see Marvel take a hard left turn into genuine weirdness in one of these movies. It seems like the plan going forward is for Marvel to make movies that feature superheroes, rather than superhero movies. Thor: The Dark World wasn't entirely successful as a purely fantasy offering, but it definitely strived for that vibe in its better moments, while Iron Man 3owed more to traditional action movies (and the vision of Shane Black) than it did to any generally established superhero tropes. A darker, more surreal tone for Doctor Strange would be welcomed. 

But there's more! Talking with the Huffington Post, Feige envisions the Doctor Strange movie coming to fruition in "Maybe three or four years." So that immediately takes it out of contention as one of the movies that would potentially compete with Batman vs. Superman on the May 6, 2016 release date. There's another as-yet-unrevealed Marvel movie scheduled for July 8th, 2016, but based on Feige's statement, that's still too soon. Marvel also has May 5th, 2017 locked up, too. So, just for the moment, let's pencil that in as the earliest possible date we're likely to see a Doctor Strange movie. It isn't much to go on, we admit.

More on Doctor Strange as we get it!

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Sebastian Stan is the titular Winter Soldier in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. From the sound of it, this won't be the last time we hear from him, in the role, though. Mr. Stan revealed to Newsaramathat he could potentially do nine more movies with Marvel after Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The implications behind this may be obvious for comic fans, so we'll get into spoiler territory after this quote from the Newsaramainterview...

Newsrama: Does your deal with Marvel call for more films in this series?

Stan: Yes.

Newsrama: How many more?

Stan: Uh…I think…I think I actually have nine.

Newsrama: Really? We call that “job security.”

Stan: Yeah, it’s great job security.

Chris Evans is halfway through his six picture deal to play Steve Rogers/Captain America with Marvel, although he recently indicated to Colliderthat he might be interested in returning for more under the right circumstances. But with Stan's Winter Soldier character potentially appearing in nine more movies after this one, it raises a few intriguing possibities. 

If you've read the comic book story that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is based on, his return was only the beginning of Ed Brubaker's larger plan for Captain America...which ultimately culminated in his death (and subsequent rebirth) at the hands of his enemies. In the interim, it was none other than the character that Sebastian Stan plays in this film (sorry, we're still trying to dance around some spoilers in case some of our readers live under a rock) that picked up the shield and mantle of Captain America. So, while Evans' presence in Captain America 3 (and Avengers 3) is all but certain, Sebastian Stan may be along for the ride. The franchise could continue, even temporarily, with a different lead in the role, and with considerable precedent set from the comics..

Marvel has also been positioning the Winter Soldier character as a franchise sustaining property, with a recently launched solo series written by Rick Remender with art by Roland Boschi. Given the "lost in time" nature of the Winter Soldier character, there's even the possibility of Winter Soldier solo films, potentially set in the past. This is, of course, idle speculation on our part, but it seems that there are larger plans for the Winter Soldier character in the Marvel movies, and one way or another, we'll see more of him in coming years.

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Character actor, and often an audience favorite, J.K. Simmons has been cast in the upcoming 2015 reboot, Terminator: Genesis. As according to The Hollywood Reporter, Simmons is in the midst of closing negotiations with Skydance Productions and Paramount Pictures to play a gritty detective for the Alan Taylor-directed sci-fi summer tent pole.

Already set to star Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke and Jason Clarke (no relation) as Sarah and John Connor, as well as Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese, Simmons will play an original character described to be a hardened detective who has been tracing a series of mysterious murders related to supposed robots and the whispered name of Sarah Connor since 1984 (not so coincidentally the year of the original James Cameron Terminator’s release).

Simmons is a regular character actor with work as eclectic as the current NBC midseason replacement he stars on, Growing up Fisher, to the multiple Coen Brother movies he has appeared in. However, he is likely most known to general audiences as the cigar chomping, libel printing, and flat-top sporting newsman, J. Jonah Jameson, in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. It’s a role that has yet to be recast in the rebooted franchise for a reason.

Terminator: Genesis is to open July 1, 2015.

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It's been rather exhausting keeping an eye on all the Marvel comings and goings in the lead-up to the Captain America: The Winter Soldier release. With yesterday's statement by Kevin Feige that Marvel still has every intention of going head to head with Man of Steel sequel, Batman vs. Superman (or whatever it's called), on May 6, 2016, we decided that now might be a good time to take a quick look at what Marvel already has locked in, and what might occupy some of those other dates.

Here's what we've got:

August 1, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy

Well, there was never any doubt about this one. How about you just kick back and enjoy that awesome trailer again?

May 1, 2015
Avengers: Age of Ultron

No surprises here, either. The culmination of Marvel Phase Two, Avengers: Age of Ultron is currently in production, and there's really no chance that this one is going to end up anywhere other than where it is. Nothing to see, here...

July 17, 2015
Ant-Man

This is where things start to get interesting, and where some of the non-controversy of the last 24 hours kicked off. Originally scheduled for a November, 2015 release, Edgar Wright's Ant-Man then moved to July 31, 2015, putting it not quite head-to-head with Warner Brothers' Batman vs. Superman movie (which was, at the time, scheduled for a July 17th release), but close enough to it to let folks know that Marvel put considerable faith in the miniscule superhero with virtually zero name recognition (not to mention a director who, while beloved, isn't a guaranteed box-office draw). But when Batman vs. Superman decided that it might be better to wait for a finished screenplay and aim for a more realistic release date of 2016, Ant-Man moved right into this prime piece of summer release real estate. 

May 6, 2016
Possible Candidates: Captain America 3

So, now we're into purely speculative territory. The Hollywood Reporter claims that Captain America 3 is going to occupy Marvel's May 6th slot and go head to head with Batman vs. Superman. While the buzz on Captain America: The Winter Soldier is overwhelmingly positive, the fact remains that Captain America has a long way to go before being perceived as the kind of box office behemoth that Batman is. Still, the folks at THR seem pretty confident in their sources about this one, but we're far less certain. Then again, Feige's statement that they would announce the movie "in the next few months" would allow them enough time to thoroughly count Captain America 2's box office receipts before deciding on just how hard they want to go after Warner Bros.

There remains the tantalizing possibility that Star Wars: Episode VII moves from it's current December 18, 2015 date into more traditional May Star Wars haunts. In which case, fellow Disney-ite Marvel could vacate the May 6th slot with no loss of face, and leaving Warner Bros. to deal with an all but certain juggernaut in Star Wars: Episode VII. In this case, expect Warner Bros. to blink. Otherwise, it's difficult to imagine a scenario where Marvel doesn't end up backing off Batman vs. Superman.

July 8, 2016
Possible Candidates: Thor 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, ???

It's difficult to really picture Marvel throwing a Thor 3 directly up against a potential monster like Batman vs. Superman, but nearly two months later seems like a safe bet. If Warner Bros. is indeed intent on throwing as many superheroes as possible into their Man of Steel sequel, then it's entirely likely that Marvel will play it safe in 2016, running with two known quantities in Cap and Thor for their summer releases. But that's not the only possibility...

Guardians of the Galaxy could have a potential Iron Man 2 like turnaround time of less than two years. Considering that the ending of Avengers teased Thanos, Thanos plays a part in Guardians of the Galaxy, and he doesn't appear to be a major factor in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the "big story" that they've been teasing us with since 2012 will need to get advanced further to springboard towards Avengers 3. If that's the case, we could see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in 2016.

The third and final possibility is something else that we haven't even considered yet. With further Iron Man films unlikely and Chris "Captain America" Evans already at the halfway point of his six picture deal, Marvel needs to start looking beyond Avengers 3 for potential future franchises. Black Panther and Doctor Strange are the two most likely candidates here based on assorted statements by Kevin Feige and Stan Lee. And let's not forget that Black Widow is in the mix for her own film, as well, and there's any truth to the rumors that Carol Danvers will be introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron, we can add Captain Marvel to this bit of hyperactive speculation. It may be a bit too soon for Doctor Strange, though, as we'll get to in a moment...

May 7, 2017
Possible Candidates: Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, ???

Doctor Strange is a long shot, but at this point in this article, aren't they all? Just this week, Kevin Feige said that we probably wouldn't see a Doctor Strange movie for "three or four years" and May 7th is the earliest available slot on Marvel's dance card that still falls within that window. However, early May seems pretty ambitious for a movie about a character who has never had any kind of success in other media, so, assuming Guardians of the Galaxy is the hit that Marvel expects it to be, this could be its landing spot.

We'll keep an eye on all of this, of course. And if you have any other wild ideas about what might be coming from Marvel in 2016-2017, we're willing to listen...

Disclaimer: David Crow kept me honest while writing this article.

The question of what you do and how far you would go for money is one that many movies have asked, Indecent Proposal and The Most Dangerous Game among them, but Cheap Thrills makes it wicked, fresh fun all over again. Director E.L. Katz’s pitch-black horror comedy hits pretty much all the right notes, and if there’s an air of inevitability about the proceedings, it never crosses over into predictability.

Pat Healy (Compliance) stars as Craig, a failed writer who loses his job as an auto mechanic just as his family is facing eviction. Stopping off at a bar, he meets an old high school friend named Vince (Ethan Embry), who now works as a debt collector. The two share a drink and commiserate with each other before being invited for more drinks with a strange yet apparently very wealthy couple named Colin (Koechner) and Violet (Sara Paxton, The Innkeepers), who are out celebrating Violet’s birthday.

Colin initiates a series of bar bets with the two men, challenging them to some fairly innocuous stunts and offering them cash in the process. But when a bet at a strip club goes wrong, ending with Craig being knocked out by a bouncer, the party moves to Colin and Violet’s lavish home. It is there that Vince spies Colin’s safe and ropes Craig into a plan to rob the couple. The plan goes south, Colin gets the upper hand and offers the two men the only way out: an escalating series of more disgusting, violent and dangerous bets that will ultimately turn them against each other.

Katz walks a fine line between humor and malevolence in his directing debut and handles it deftly, making sure that a laugh is never far away even if you’re cringing at the next method that Colin dreams up for Vince and Craig to debase themselves. And while it would be easy for a movie like this to descend into simple torture porn or gross-out comedy, it never does because we are invested in Healy’s poor schlub right from the start. His desperation and looming financial and housing crises ring all too true, and even as Craig begins to lose touch with his basic decency, you root for him because he’s trapped in an unwinnable situation.

Embry also brings some subtlety to the part of Vince, the kind of person from our past that we all bump into once in a while: overly chummy and too quick to relive “the good old days” while resentful of the people from those days who have moved on. Paxton has the least developed role (she barely says anything throughout the film) but it’s fun to see her go from nerdy hotel clerk in The Innkeepers to decadent sexpot here, at one point interacting with her Innkeepers co-star Healy in a much different manner than their ghost-hunting pals did in that film.

The real revelation, however, is Koechner. Fans of the buffoonish Champ Kind from the Anchorman films will get quite a jolt from seeing him in a much more sinister light. His initial joviality masks a much darker and cunning intelligence at work, manipulating the two men and slowly setting them up against each other even as he makes each task he sets before them sound somehow reasonable and manageable.

There is subtext in the film if you want to look for it – certainly the idea of the exceedingly wealthy using the working people for their own nefarious ends and turning them against their own interests is there but never expressed in a heavy-handed fashion. Even without that to ponder, Cheap Thrills is effective as pure pulp, with Katz keeping the story lean and clear while getting good use out of his relatively few sets and small cast. Cheap Thrills is actually the antithesis of its title – its plentiful shocks and potent moments of humor are all right on the money.

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The next Avengers movie may still be over a year away, but we’re seeing another superhero team-up in less than a month when Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, and maybe few other surprises take it to the bad guys. Who are the bad guys, exactly? Cap explains exactly that in this new Captain America: The Winter Soldier clip that features Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and newcomer SHIELD superhero Falcon (Anthony Mackie) running into battle. It turns out that the bad guys are anyone that’s shooting at them!

Also worth noting in the clip is that Steve Rogers is wearing the classic red-white-and-blue costume from World War II (or rather 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger). Could these “bad guys” have something to do with him tossing his 21^st century threads?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier stars Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Robert Redford, and Samuel L. Jackson, and its own winter comes April 4, 2014 in the U.S.

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The cast for the Scott Cooper directed Black Mass continues to impress. Ever since the announcement of the project going forward with Johnny Depp as the famed Boston criminal kingpin from Southie, interest has raised on this gangster drama from the director of Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace.

As according to Variety, Pearce has been cast as the brother of Whitey Bulger, the mobster turned FBI snitch, and finally fugitive. Pearce also joins Joel Edgerton, who has been cast as John Connolly, the childhood friend of Whitey who becomes his FBI handler (and who ultimately tips off Whitey when the feds start closing in).

The movie is set to be produced by Cross Creek Pictures and is to be adapted by screenwriter Mark Mallouk from the 2001 Dick Lehr/Gerald O’Neill bestseller Black Mass: The True Story of An Unholy Alliance Between The FBI and The Irish Mob. The project also put two in the back of the head of Ben Affleck’s planned Whitey Bulger film, which was being written by The Wolf of Wall Street and Boardwalk Empire scribe Terrence Winter with the intention of Matt Damon to star as the infamous gangster. Affleck instead opted to adapt Dennis Lehane’s period gangster drama They Live By Night first and foremost. However, Affleck was able to somewhat adapt Bulger before as a composite character played by Pete Postlethwaite in 2010’s The Town. Still, Bulger was most famously “adapted” in fiction through the maddening visage of Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which featured a more violent conclusion to “Frank Costello’s” relationship with the FBI and other law enforcement.

Black Mass is being produced by Brian Oliver and Tyler Thompson of Cross Creek, John Lesher, and his LeGrisbi banner.

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They say it gets better, but it never gets easy.  IFC unveiled it chilling trailer for Zack Parker’s European-style suspense-thriller Proxy. The film will be released theatrically at The IFC Center in New York City on April 18th before a nationwide rollout and be available on Video on Demand.

Proxy stars Alexia Rasmussen as Esther Woodhouse, a pregnant woman who is attacked by a man hidden behind a hood. She finds comfort in a support group. She makes friends with Melanie, played by Alexa Havins. As the two grow closer, their understanding grows dangerous because they have trouble deciphering what's real and what's in their imagination. Joe Swanberg, from the films Hannah Takes the Stairs and Drinking Buddies, plays Melanie's husband. Kristina Klebe plays a dangerous jilted girlfriend.

Proxy was directed by Zack Parker, who also co-wrote the script with Kevin Donner. Zack Parker also directed the thriller Scalene.

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We may have to wait a little longer for X-Men: Days of Future Past, but never fear...Days of Future Pastdirector, Bryan Singer, wants you all to know just how far along he is into planning for the next X-Men movie, X-Men: Apocalypse. Here's what he told Total Film...

After revealing that X-Men: Apocalypse will "take place in the '80s" Mr. Singer went on to say that "Apocalypsewill have more of the mass destruction that X-Men films, to date, have not relied upon. There’s definitely now a character and a story that allow room for that kind of spectacle," and that the movie would "introduce familiar characters in a younger time. That’ll be fun to show the audience. I call these movies in-between-quels."

So, set in the '80s, with more young versions of characters. We're sure this can work. But it does scuttle any ideas that X-Men: Apocalypse would be another alternate reality/time travel jaunt in the Days of Future Past mold, perhaps calling back to Marvel's Age of Apocalypsestory from the late '90s. Although, if they're looking for an easy way to spin the franchise off in another direction with a bunch of new actors, that would be one hell of a way to do it... 

X-Men: Days of Future Pastopens on May 23rd, with X-Men: Apocalypse to follow on May 26, 2016.

While these quotes come from Total Film magazine, we owe a hat-tip to Comic Book Movie for the transcription. You can read more of Bryan Singer's quotes on X-Men: Apocalypseover there!

Beware of comatose patients in creepy hospitals. That’s the takeaway from Patrick: Evil Awakens, a new horror film starring Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Sharni Vinson (You’re Next) and Rachel Griffiths. The movie is a remake of a 1978 Australian film directed by Richard Franklin (Psycho II) that has gained cult status over the years, in which a patient in a coma is able to wreak havoc in a medical facility via telekinesis. Since no one is immune to the remake virus, it was only inevitable that Patrick got his as well.

The synopsis reads:

When a young nurse begins work at an isolated psychiatric ward, she quickly becomes fascinated with Patrick, a brain dead patient who is the subject of a mad scientist’s cruel and unusual experiments. What starts as an innocent fascination quickly takes a sinister turn as Patrick begins to use his psychic powers to manipulate her every move, and send her life into a terrifying spiral out of control.

The clip below (which purports to be “found footage” but really isn’t) shows the inhuman medical procedure that attempts to awaken Patrick but instead unleashes his psychic power, while the trailer (also below) provides a wider view of the film itself, which looks eerie enough.

Directed by Mark Hartley, Patrick: Evil Awakens is out now in theaters and on VOD.

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