Extra, Extra! Apparently, I've been sitting on some inside information and didn't even know it. Major outlets reported today the movie's opening was being moved up. Take note of the timestamp above, as while I had this information for a few days, I still scooped some big outlets, even if just by minutes... And here's what else they aren't telling you...

J J Abrams follow-up to his insanely popular and critically acclaimed franchise reboot, Star Trek, opens a few days sooner than expected. For those who simply cannot wait, special showings for Into Darkness are scheduled for Wednesday, May 15th. Ensure your tickets by clicking the link above for advance purchases via Fandango. Regal theaters are also offering a 9pm Wed. ONLY Double Feature.

Hint: to find the Double Feature, or the Wed. Imax "Fan Sneak Peaks": use our link to Fandango.  If needed, search by zip code, and select the date 'May 15th.' The Wed Imax Fan Sneaks are now rolled into the regular Imax listings, and now qualify for a free download of Star Trek 2009 via iTunes. (code will be emailed). *The Double Feature is the LAST movie in the list (scroll to bottom), for your preferred Regal cinema. If you search by Movie Title first, you wont find these showings as they aren't listed in the Movie Titles or Coming Soon pages.

Finally, the limited edition Imax mini-posters, which they're known to give away, will be available for the Wed. 8pm Imax showing only.  

Check out this trailer, and don't miss the awesome Audi commercial below!

Seem familiar? British actor / writer / producer Noel Clarke's slow but steady progress has gotten him notice in Hollywood. Perhaps most recognizable to US audiences as Rose Tyler's boyfriend, Mickey, in the Doctor Who series, Clarke is one of 25 actors who've appeared in both that and the Star Trek franchises.

 If you can't contain your geek, and need another Trek fix right now, checkout this truly awesome Audi commercial featuring both Spocks. 

Sell Out First Report:
The Star Trek - The Next Generation Fathom Event is just one day away, but has already sold out. O=

Maybe...

I've spoken with a manager about the problem (or success, depending on your point of view). She advises it might not take a slingshot around the sun to solve this one. She's sent a request to corporate for permission to rearrange a few Thursday night screenings, and allow TNG to move to a larger theater. Twice as large. (Yes, the screen is bigger too.) We'll know today if the powers that be have ruled in our favor. Fingers bifurcated, faithful Trekkers!

The manager also advises this is the first STTNG Fathom Event to sell out. The force is strong with this one. ;-p

PS: I have it on good authority (From Patton Oswald) that Thanos appears in the remasterd version!

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Homegrown feature The Place Beyond the Pines expanded wide today, now showing on 1,542 screens. While major studio films generally open wide above 2,000, Pines has been slowly working its way into the mainstream.

Something of a Greek tragedy with decisions and consequences paralleling over generations, Pines is a delicate pas-de-deux between a crime drama and a straight laced family drama - a compulsively engaging double-helix between anti-hero character study, meta-ethical contemplation, and coming of age allegory. It's as long as a Russian novel, and twice as sunny. The Place Beyond the Pines is it's own sort of New York Gothic - a pulpy, expansive, emotionally weighty beast of a film.

Pines distributor Focus Features was no doubt unsure what to do with it (they call the film "daring"). Perhaps most wisely, they've put Pines on a slow roll-out, like Bridesmaids or Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Because of the subject matter, distributors can't tell if these sorts of films will be crowd pleasers, sleeper hits - or duds. Rather than block out 4000 screens and commit millions to marketing on a fascinating but confounding prospect, they test. If all goes well, they expand. Pines has gone from 4, to 30, to 514 screens, and has built strong word of mouth along the way, which further builds momentum to the next expansion. This past weekend, Pines ranked 10th in North American box office receipts, with just those 514 screens. On Monday, still at 514, it moved up to 8th and has stayed there all week. This is exceptional for a smaller budget film, and bodes well for today's wide release.

UPDATE: Indications are Pines interest is still going strong. On Saturday, April 20th, the film sold out it's 7:25pm showing at the Clifton Park Regal RPX.

Pines has so much going for it, it's hard to know where to begin. Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper star, and the film's Facebook page has become a mosh pit of twitterpated fandom. As Gina Walsh writes,

"OMG RYAN GOSLING AND BRADLEY COOPER IN THE SAME MOVIE... THAT IS AN OBSCENE AMOUNT OF MANLY SEXINESS ♥ April 10 at 6:27am,"

while Johan Paulson, all the way over in Stockholm, adds,

"One of the best movies ever!...brilliant! April 11 at 4:11pm."

The film benefits greatly from writer Ben Coccio, a local who knows intimately the locations and topical lore which pepper the film. Derek Cianfrance directs, after helming universally acclaimed Goslin drama Blue Valentine.

Even the soundtrack emulates the film's ambition, having been scored by the gifted Mike Patton. Does that name ring a bell? It should...
Yep. Mr. Bungle's vocalist composed an ethereal, often synthesized, largely melancholic aural experience which perfectly matches the tone of the film. The most recognizable selection would be The Snow Angel, a somber, slightly disoriented piece featuring hanging piano notes punctuating silence, with occasional, unexpected crashes of minor chords. The version used during the movie is even more isolated and somber than the sample on Amazon.com, and it's as close to grief as a song could possibly be. Each note seems as a tear or tremorous weeping, with the chords like moments of choking, overwhelming grief.

Like a Southern Gothic, Pines explores heavy social issues. Family obligations and yearning, economic disparity, police corruption, the cost of political ambition, urban blight, and disaffected youth suffering under out of touch or absent parents, all of these issues are covered. Visually provoking, the City of Schenectady is prominently featured throughout the film. Pines features Schenectady as it's own multidimensional character, and no doubt Ben Coccio's local origin helped to focus and refine the social issues portrayed, with their close to the bone real life poignancy.

These portrayals begin with Ryan Gosling's character, Luke, who opens the film as his nomadic carny motorcycle stunt-rider's life detours into a somewhat permanent Schenectady residence upon learning he fathered a child during his previous sojourn through town. Wordy, right? Need to stop for a moment and catch your breath? And this is just the opening five minutes...

Schenectady Premiere, click here.

Luke's life is upended, but he feels a sense of purpose. He wants to provide, but leaving the carnival leaves him without much in the way of life skills. He meets up with a mechanic, Robin, played by Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn's performance is the least naturalistic, making Robin nearly a caricature. With juicy, over the top dialogue and in tempting our hero with daring, unscrupulous solutions to his dilemma, Robin is our Gothic's jester. Luke gives in to the allure of a quick fix, and just as fast as it seems he's won the girl, this same choice detours his world again, this time onto a collision course with tragedy, by way of police office Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper).

The middle story begins as Luke and Avery meet, and we detour again, this time into Avery's life. Luke and Avery are very much alike. Both are morally ambiguous, somewhat adrift, yet both want to be good, and to do right for the people they care about. Both are strong in one dimension and equally weak in another. Avery, confronted with police corruption, must sacrifice a bit of himself to deal with the situation. As the Hamlet in this film, he finds himself paralyzed with ambivalence, and calls upon his father for guidance, who prods him to action he "isn't going to like." The ethical issues during Avery's story aren't as intensely gripping as Luke's family issues, but the pulpy cop drama is gritty and unsettling.

Ray Liotta plays the bad cop, Deluca, and couldn't be more aptly cast. Liotta has so much experience in these types of roles a cool, sociopathic ennui hangs over him as effortlessly as morning mist over a still pond.

Yes, there are love interests in the story, but this is New York. With 300 years of puritanical New England sensibilities, hard work and industry are a good man's only true happiness. So as providers, Luke and Avery see their sons as pure beyond reproach, and worth sacrificing everything for.

Their sons, AJ and Jason, are our Gothic's vestal virgins, and the third act, if we can call it that, tells the story of these disaffected youth. Their values and outlook are partly defined by their environment, their families, and that family history that's unknown to them. Schenectady is an economically depressed post-industrial urban wasteland for Jason (Luke's son), but he grows up with a loving mother and step-father. For AJ (Avery's son), the city is an abundance of suburban affluence and unsupervised indulgence, but his home life is broken and sterile. Jason is getting along alright, but plot necessitates they find each other, and so AJ transfers into school and finds Jason scowling as loners do. Both, lacking direction, turn to the usual teenage past times and efforts to define themselves. It's a bit difficult to take the characters seriously. AJ has adopted an unearned patois, and Jason is much too antisocial without cause. This becomes more palatable, as we remember that in trying to define and embrace our individuality, teenagers tend to act in exaggerated, sometimes comical ways.

This third act might be the most poetic and mythical of the three stories, at least in that all the events prior now converge in the lives of the teens. We, the viewers, know all the weight and import hanging over their lives, and are all too aware, each delicate, unavoidable step of the way, where their choices are fated to lead them. Unfortunately this part of the story proves the most difficult situation wherein all our themes could sympathetically coalesce. This isn't the director's or writer's fault, but the nature of the movie going public and our culture. Bluntly, in today's American culture, teenagers are annoying, amoral, and irresponsible twits. The movie going public has some difficulty caring about their concerns, or even taking them seriously. Alternatively, this could make the third act more compelling for younger audiences. For adults, we accept Romeo and Juliet as the height of Shakespearian tragedy. Now think of a few 15 year olds you know. Big difference. As for this film, all the events prior come to a head, the children's lives echo past events and everyone's future is put at risk. The resolution, without giving it away, takes a bumpy path that doesn't ring entirely natural as it plays out, but settles down into something we can accept in a mythical, poetic way.

Cianfrance's directing technique deserves copious attention. He tells the story using an ethereal third person point of view. While events are thankfully told chronologically, scenes and events don't have traditionally polished start and end points. The camera drops us into a scene or moment in a person's life almost accidentally, and might stay for weeks, or leave after minutes. Considering how long the film becomes, it's a strange yet refreshing economy, and with an almost obvious logic. The camera takes us in and out of the lives of each character only where turning points occur. The camera works like a memory. It's not about framing a scene, but traveling the sequence of related moments.

Cianfrance deserves credit for other decisions as well, and knowing the locations where the film is set give local viewers a behind the scenes perspective. Everything seems more important, more powerful, in the film than these locations offer in real life. This perspective makes understanding the creation of myths a more tangible process. That, along with the over important stakes of seeking ADA appointment in Schenectady, which isn't nearly as real world impressive as the film portrays. The film makes it easy for a Schenectadian to understand the devices directors and cinematographers use to do their magic.

Bradley Cooper is solid in his role as Avery. Cianfrance deserves credit for this as well, simply because he relentlessly pursued Cooper to take the role. Cianfrance already mined gold from Gosling in Blue Valentine, and breaks the bank doubling down with him here. His willingness to drop everything and travel hundreds of miles for impromptu meetings to entreat Cooper can only be judged a gifted auteur's unique perspicacity.

The decision to include countless locals as extras, to retain place and street names, and incorporate real public figures is engaging. And like many European, and in particular, Scandinavian features, such as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Drive, Wallender, AMC's remake and Danish original The Killing, and even the current David Tennant fronted UK drama Broadchurch, Cianfrance lets much of the film progress at a slow, smoldering burn. This allows scenes and emotions to feel natural and uncramped. Too many films today rush through emotionally substantive scenes with an "oh, you know what we mean" brusqueness, in order to jump into the action. Cianfrance seems to believe in creating as much depth in the characters as possible, and importance into their actions, so that when the action does come, and it does, every blistering second pushes viewers deeper into their seats.

One last observation should be devoted to our remaining required Gothic element: horror. Cianfrance uses a technique that might go unnoticed, if not for the fact he's used it so efficiently, so effectively, and so frequently in this film. Every major character in the film must literally, and symbolically, walk though a door into some uncertain situation. Luke does this from his first scene, and repeatedly thereafter. Each time he does, the stakes are raised, and as viewers knowing where it could lead, we cringe at the prospects. Avery must exit a door from safety and through another into terror in his first appearance on screen. Ray Liotta's character is introduced at a door, and with him, potential doom is invited in. Few films can claim credit to engendering such a powerful sense of dread, and using such a simple device to do it. If Cianfrance can do this just by filming a closed door, he really might have a future in paranoid thrillers, and I'd bet money he could reinvent horror.

The Place Beyond the Pines is the masterful story-telling of a long, brooding, serious family drama, peppered with bursts of action and moments of gripping suspense, crafted with unique flourishes, and steeped in emotion. A willingness to be immersed in cerebral film-making, and a solid attention span are required. With a budget of only $15 million, director Derek Cianfrance and writers Ben Coccio and Darius Marder demonstrate eloquently that excellent film making depends more on talent than deep pockets - though it can help.

To quote Romell Montague's Facebook post,

"Now THAT'S how you make a film!!" - April 14 at 10:51am.

If you'd like to read about the Schenectady Premiere, click here.

Check back soon for stories of locals who appeared in the film, and interviews with Ben Coccio and Derek Cianfrance.

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Did you see The Place Beyond the Pines? Tell us about it in the comments section! Your submission won't appear immediately, but don't worry, it's in there!

If you've seen even a few movies, there's a good chance you've seen a Danny Boyle film. Not one to be pinned down to any genre or market, Boyle is the auteur behind numerous mainstream hits and cult classics, including his biggest commercial success Slumdog Millionaire, classic drug addiction parable Trainspotting, zombie flicks 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, DiCaprio collaboration The Beach, survival docudrama 127 Hours, and the excellent modern Irish fairytale Millions. Boyle is blunt in his assessment that he makes films that appeal to him, cerebrally and emotionally. So when you go to see Trance, you can rest assured this is a project he felt genuine about making. 

Trance is the story of Simon, an art expert working in an auction house, who devises a plan to steal a painting, "Witches in the Air," by Francisco Goya, during its auction. The heist goes wrong, the thief sustains a head injury, and spends most of the film trying to unlock his memories of what happened and where the painting went.  Rosario Dawson plays Elizabeth Lamb, the hypnotherapist who helps Simon unlock those memories, while Frank, a criminal played by Vincent Cassel, hounds him for the missing painting.

The setup allows for numerous scenes of hypnotism, hallucinations, paranoia, as well as plot twists and trippy Boyle story telling. Because so much of the intrigue depends on not having a solid footing in reality, it's difficult to criticize or even relate any events from the bulk of the story. The actors all do good work, and the majority of the film is infectiously compelling. Trance also belies it's remarkably modest $20m budget with lavish visuals and style to spare. There's an attention to detail in many ways, beyond the camera work. Sets and locations are beautiful to look at. Technology is effortlessly integrated into the characters' lives, which requires either better storytelling, or good IT on the crew to make it look right. Even the painting seems carefully chosen. Witches float in the air with one helpless figure in their grip, while mortals cower below, shielding their view from the supernatural events hanging over them. We could interpret it as the different parts of Simon's mind, conscious, subconscious, and damaged, wrestling with lost memories, hypnotism, and fear, for example.

But as we near the film's big reveal, too many elements are left unaddressed. During the trippy scenes we learn of connections and back-story, but at the end, it isn't made entirely clear which connections are real and which were imagined. Also, during the middle of the film, we don't always know if what we are seeing is real or imagined - we're seeing things from the point of view of the character. It's okay to confuse us, but that misdirection must be explained by the end of the film.

It's been suggested to me that a second viewing could help in understanding plot points I might have missed. The problem is not that I'm confused from a lack of explanation, I'm confused because of two very clear but contradicting explanations. That, and I just don't care enough to sort it out. Trance resembles Boyle's very early thriller Shallow Grave, as we start out with a certain level of human imperfection and then travel down a rabbit hole that just gets  darker and uglier.

Die hard Boyle fans will enjoy Trance's mind bending ride, as might others looking for a modest diversion. While it certainly isn't boring, don't expect a tidy explanation presented with a bow on it. And, if you'd rather enjoy a top tier example of the distinctive Boyle style in an uplifting, family friendly way, rent Millions.