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Chicago – Not to be confused with Todd Haynes’s 1995 masterpiece featuring Julianne Moore in the performance of her career, “Safe” is a forgettable would-be blockbuster that puts star Jason Statham through the emotional wringer in order to justify a marathon of repetitive carnage. This is as predictable a star vehicle as one could imagine, yet the direction by Boaz Yakin is so strong that it nearly saves the material.

A sense of palpable tension pervades all 92 minutes of this fast-paced thriller and doesn’t end after the final fade-out. It seems like everyone in New York is conspiring to take down the film’s two protagonists: a former detective (Statham) and a pint-sized Chinese prodigy (Catherine Chan) kidnapped by thugs intent on exploiting her extraordinary math skills. The first half-hour of the picture is so oppressively doom-laden that it leads the audience to cheer on the bloodletting once it finally arrives.

"I will die without Crazy Eyes!" Strand Releasing has debuted the official trailer for indie dramedy Crazy Eyes, starring Lukas Haas and Madeline Zima and Jake Busey. This quirky little dramatic comedy is set mostly in Los Angeles, following a "rich boy" who meets a girl unlike anyone he calls "Crazy Eyes" that he can't have, but of course there's all kinds of tension and drama and things going on. I'm a fan of Lukas Haas, you may recognize him from Brick or Alpha Dog or Death in Love or Inception or Contraband, and I like seeing him in good lead roles where he really fits the role. This looks intriguing, I'm curious to check it out. Watch the official trailer for Adam Sherman's Crazy Eyes, in high def from Apple: With too much money and time on his hands, Zach (Haas) looks like he's living the dream. There's...

Known for his adrenaline-fuelled (and in some cases electrically charged) performances in such films as Transporter, Crank, Death Race, The Mechanic and The Expendables, action-man Jason Stathan leaps into his next role in the upcoming crime thriller Safe.

A new trailer for the film has been sent to us and is embedded below, as well as being in the video channel on the right of the page.

Statham stars as ex-Government agent Luke Wright who, over the course of one harrowing night, tears a swathe through New York City's corrupt underworld in order to save a young girl's life and redeem his own.

Lionsgate promises it's "packed with spectacular action sequences and bone-crunching fights", and seeing as it stars Statham, we're inclined to believe that description.

Producers include Lawrence Bender, who was previously involved with Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds.

It's written and directed by Boaz Yakin,...

Time to catch up with the release dates the studios have announced over the last couple weeks.  Via Box Office Mojo: Lionsgate pushed the Jason Statham actioner Safe from October 28 to March 2, 2012.  The move explains why we haven't seen a trailer yet. Focus Features scheduled Sundance darling Pariah for December 25 The Weinstein Company pushed Ralph Fiennes' Shakespeare adaptation Coriolanus from December 2 to January 13, 2012.  I imagine they may sneak a limited release in before the end of the year to qualify for the Oscars, but the move suggests TWC will focus on My Week With Marilyn, The Artist, W.E., and The Iron Lady for the Oscar push. Warner Bros. will release the Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Lucky One, led by Zac Efron, on August 24, 2012 Fox Searchlight booked The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for Tom Wilkinson, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Bill Nighy on March 9, 2012 More on each movie after the jump.

We've got three action-heavy posters tonight. First up is Safe, in which Jason Statham plays “a former elite agent who fights to rescue a 12-year-old girl (Catherine Chan)." Next up is Vehicle 19, starring and executive produced by Paul Walker. The new promo poster is accompanied by the first synopsis for the film, which identifies Walker as a recently parolee who gets into trouble with crooked cops when he picks up the wrong rental car. Last up is Machine Gun Preacher, based on the true story of Sam Childers (played by Gerard Butler), "a former drug-dealing criminal who undergoes an astonishing transformation and finds an unexpected calling as the savior of hundreds of kidnapped and orphaned children." Hit the jump for all three posters and more info on each project. Safe opens on October 28. Chris Sarandon, Robert John Burke, Reggie Lee, and Danny Hoch also star. Boaz Yakin (Death in Love...

Alien queen Morena Baccarin comes down to Earth in V.

Warner Home Video will release the science-fiction TV series V: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray and DVD on Oct. 18, for the list prices of $49.99 and $39.98, respectively.

Though V was never a ratings blockbuster for ABC, it was not without its fans, who are undoubtedly mourning the fact that it was cancelled several weeks after the season two finale was aired.

A re-imagining of the 1980s TV series that’s now considered a cult favorite, the sci-fi thriller V tells the story of an alien race — “the visitors” or “V’s,” for short — that drops in on Earth to hang out with the Terrans. Though the cosmic travelers claim to come in peace (and they provide lots of advanced technology to prove it!), there are lots of humans who simply don’t trust the visitors. So, they form a rebellion...

Earlier this month it was reported that Josh Lucas was in talks to take on the lead role of Mitch McDeere in NBC's new series adaptation of John Grisham's The Firm. Today it was announced that he has been officially cast in the drama series that picks up 10 years after the 1993 feature film left off.

Lucas is a great actor, and I think he'll be great in the role. He's been in films such as Session 9, Stealth, Sweet Home Alabama and several amount of other films. He recently co-stars opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar.

I'm looking forward to this new series. I always like this story, and it will be great to see the characters return and story to continue. What are your thoughts on Lucas staring in the series?

Here's the official press release:

Universal City, Calif. – June 8, 2011 -- Josh Lucas (“The Lincoln Lawyer...

Josh Lucas (The Lincoln Lawyer, Sweet Home Alabama) is set to star in NBC's new legal drama series The Firm, based on John Grisham's best-selling novel and executive-produced by Grisham and Lukas Reiter.

Lucas, whose feature-film credits include Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind, Jerry Bruckheimer's Glory Road, and Ang Lee's Hulk, will star as attorney Mitchell McDeere (the role originated by Tom Cruise in the film) in the series, which picks up McDeere's story about a decade after the events of the novel and film.

Lucas also stars as famed aviator Charles A. Lindbergh in Imagine Entertainment's upcoming 2011 film, J. Edgar, directed by Oscar winner Clint Eastwood and starring Academy Award winner Leonardo DiCaprio as controversial FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Based on the blockbuster feature film and the best-selling novel of 1991, with seven million copies sold by world-renowned author Grisham (The Pelican Brief, The Client...

Lionsgate has scheduled Safe starring Jason Statham for release on October 28 where it faces Now and The Rum Diary in wide release.  Statham plays "a former elite agent who fights to rescue a 12-year-old girl." Catherine Chan plays the girl; Chris Sarandon, Robert John Burke, Reggie Lee, and Danny Hoch also star.  Boaz Yakin (Death in Love) directed from his own screenplay.  According to Variety, this is the first of a three-picture distribution between Lionsgate and Im Global -- the other two are Dredd and Protection, both dateless. Statham will next be seen in Blitz, which debuts overseas later this week -- no North American release date is currently scheduled.  Statham is also tapped to play a former Navy Seal The Killer Elite, and an ex-sas agent in both Echelon and The Expendables 2.

By Greg Hernandez

HollywoodNews.com: So yesterday I reported on Rosie O’Donnell and Ashley Fink clearing the air over Rosie’s remark about Ashley’s storyline on ‘Glee.’

Today, it’s time to clear up reports that Rosie and her new boss, Oprah Winfrey, are already on the outs.

Rosie is set to headline a daily talk show on Oprah’s Own network this fall and Oprah took to Twitter to torpedo the rumors: “I get so sick of people trying to create fights and feuds when women are in business. Don’t buy into it. There’s no feud between Rosie and me. We haven’t even had a discussion about the new show.”

Bissett On Best Picture: The lovely Jacqueline Bisset and I chatted at the BAFTA/La Awards Season Tea Party about Sunday’s Academy Awards.

Since she is an Academy member, I wondered what she thought of the Academy rules,...

This sounds awesome! Director Louis Leterrier gets a bad rap for both The Incredible Hulk and last year's Clash of the Titans, but I still think he is a great director and I'm always looking forward to whatever he has coming up. The Playlist reports, with confirmation from Leterrier, that he'll next be directing a heist movie called Now You See Me for Summit, with an original script written by Boaz Yakin (The Rookie, Death in Love, Prince of Persia) & Edward Ricourt. Here's the great concept: a crack FBI squad is caught in a game of cat-and-mouse with a super-team of the world's greatest illusionists, who pull off a series of bank heists during their performances and shower the profits on their audiences. Oh and Kurtzman/Orci are producing! This couldn't sound any more amazing. I'm a sucker for anything with magicians (think The Prestige) and I love heist movies,...

As we come ever closer to the UK’s October 18th DVD and Blu-ray release of Adam Green’s Frozen, we’ve found ourselves with just the thing to keep you all warm inside: Prizes! Courtesy of our friends at Momentum Pictures, we have a copy of the film on DVD, another on Blu-ray, and two Frozen t-shirts to give away!

Synopsis:

Frozen stars Shawn Ashmore (the X-Men trilogy), Kevin Zegers (Dawn of the Dead) and Emma Bell (Death in Love; New York City Serenade) as a trio of twenty-somethings – best friends Joe Lynch (Ashmore) and Dan Walker (Zegers) plus Dan’s girlfriend Parker O’Neil (Bell) – hoping to spend some quality time skiing and snowboarding in the picturesque resort of Mount Holliston. But a typical day on the slopes turns into a chilling nightmare when they find themselves unexpectedly stranded on a chairlift shortly after the ski resort closes for the week.

X-men actor Shawn Ashmore, who played Iceman in the superhero franchise, returns to a similarly chilly role in the horror flick Frozen, released in UK cinemas this week. A trailer is included below.

Hitting UK screens from September 24, the film features Ashmore alongside Kevin Zegers (Dawn Of The Dead) and Emma Bell (Death In Love; New York City Serenade) as a trio of twenty-somethings.

Best friends Joe Lynch (Ashmore) and Dan Walker (Zegers), plus Dan's girlfriend Parker O'Neil (Bell), hope to spend some quality time skiing and snowboarding in the picturesque resort of Mount Holliston. 

But a typical day on the slopes turns into a nightmare when they find themselves unexpectedly stranded on a chairlift shortly after the ski resort closes for the week. 

Dangling high above the ground and with no apparent safe way down as night begins to set in, they soon realise frostbite and hypothermia are the least of their worries.

This sounds like it could be fantastic. The Wrap reports that Summit has picked up a spec script co-written by Boaz Yakin (The Rookie, Death in Love, Prince of Persia) and newcomer Edward Ricourt (a member of Marvel Studios' Writing Program) titled Now You See Me. (No you don't!) The story pits an FBI squad in a game of cat-and-mouse against a team of the world's greatest illusionists who pull off a series of daring bank heists during performances, showering the profits on their audiences while staying one step ahead of the authorities. Doesn't that kind of sound like The Illusionist converted into a contemporary heist movie? Now You See Me is being produced by writers/producers Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci. Other than that, we don't know much about this, like how soon it'll move into production and who they're looking at for the lead. I love heist movies,...

Death in Love is not a film for the faint of heart. From (graphic) sex to (graphic) violence to murder to attempted rape, it may offend you and will definitely launch an assault on your senses. The opening minutes alone, rife with blood and no-holds-barred sex, will undoubtedly make you cringe.

Mother, played by Jacqueline Bisset, is kind of a, for lack of a better phrase, crazy bitch. However, like most crazy bitches, she knows how to get what she wants, which is how she manages to not only escape the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, but also make the camp bearable — nay, enjoyable. How does she do it? She seduces the camp’s doctor, telling him he’s “the most beautiful man she’s ever seen.”

The experience, interwoven via flashback throughout the rest of the story, seems to have a hideous effect on the sort of person...

After director Boaz Yakin pleased fans of the "inspirational sports movie" genre with Disney's Remember the Titans, he unfortunately followed it up with Uptown Girls. That was six years ago. Since then Yakin has only directed Death in Love, which hasn't garnered a lot of good press despite showing at Sundance last year. However, things might be looking up for the director as Latino Review has learned that the director is in early pre-production on Sympathy for the Devil, a violent, pulp fiction kind of story with Samuel L. Jackson & Josh Duhamel playing humans who have to navigate a battle between heaven and hell. Sold! Though it's still pretty early on, we can't help but get quite excited from the official synopsis for the film: Caught in the no-man's land between Saturday night sin and Sunday morning redemption, Louisiana lawman Harlan Stark (Duhamel) finds that his intervention into a spectacular...

For the most part, it's a week where mediocre to terrible theatrical releases are getting dumped to DVD, but you may still find a few things of interest on store shelves today. In addition to poorly-reviewed crap like Gamer, Pandorum and Whiteout, there is also the Ricky Gervais comedy The Invention of Lying, and a pair of decent documentaries in Outrage and No Impact Man. Also out this week is the Criterion release of Steven Soderbergh's 4-hour epic Che, plus Season 5 of Weeds and Magnolia on Blu-ray. Will you be picking up anything on DVD or Blu-ray this week? Pandorum [1] (+ Blu-ray [2]) The Invention of Lying [3] (+ Blu-ray [4]) Gamer [5] (+ Blu-ray [6]) Whiteout [7] (+ Blu-ray [8]) Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball [9] (+ Blu-ray [10]) According to Greta [11] (+ Blu-ray [12]) Across The Hall [13] (+ Blu-ray [14]) Blood Creek [15] Death in Love [16] (+ Blu-ray [17]) Che: Criterion Collection [18] (+ Blu-ray [19]) Outrage [20] No Impact Man [21] Artie Lange: Jack and Coke [22] (+ Blu-ray [23]) Weeds: Season Five [24] (+ Blu-ray [25]) Damages:...

During World War II, a Jewish woman (Jacqueline Bisset) saves her life thanks to a love affair with a doctor in charge of human experiments in a Nazi concentration camp. The woman then marries and moves to New York, where she raises two emotionally stunted sons. The eldest son (Josh Lucas) battles his sense of disconnection from life while working at a scam modeling agency, where he befriends a charming young co-worker (Adam Brody) who begins to restore in him a sense of excitement and purpose. The neurotic younger son (Lukas Haas) is locked in a compulsive, co-dependent relationship with his mother. This is Death in Love, Boaz Yakin's latest film, a stirring family drama that will both shock and surprise you. We recently met up with actor Adam Brody to talk about the meaning behind the film's rough imagery. To watch our exclusive video interview, click on the...

Holocaust porn in the tradition of "The Reader," Boaz Yakin's ultra-pretentious and loathsome "Death in Love" opens by cutting between sex and stomach-churning footage of concentration camp experiments.

A young Jewish teenager who grows to be Jacqueline Bisset saves her own life by giving herself to a doctor conducting these atrocities. Her two grown sons pay for this decades later.

The older one, played by Josh Lucas, runs a dubious modeling agency in Manhattan and has a sadomasochistic relationship with his business partner (Vanessa Kai). His...

Just a couple of blockbusters this week, one of which we've seen most of already. For everybody else, there is a strong selection of international art house pics to go with a couple of homegrown indies.

Download this in audio form (MP3: 9:33 minutes, 13 Mb) Subscribe to the In Theaters podcast: [Xml] [iTunes]

"(500) Days of Summer"

Longtime music video director Marc Webb turned down a lot of horror remakes and teen comedies to make his feature debut with this unconventional recitation of a relationship that doesn't work out. Joseph Gordon-Levitt co-stars as Tom, a poker-faced field mouse rejected by the love of his (comically young) life, the idiosyncratic Summer (Zooey Deschanel), and neurotically dissects the minutia of their courtship as he struggles to figure out what went wrong.

Opens in limited release.

"Death In Love"

Having spent much time developing functional follow-ups ("Dusk Till Dawn 2," "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights") since helming...

Poseidon star Josh Lucas is convinced his latest movie experience has made him the perfect partner because, after playing a creepy, violent con man, he now wants to be settled and stable.

In Death In Love, the actor portrays a sick misogynist who treats women terribly, but he insists the dark role gave him fresh perspective when it comes to his romance with actress Rachel McAdams.

He tells WENN, "It made me want a different kind of love in my life, that's for sure. It made me absolutely not want to ever feel this level of pain that I was willing to do to myself and other people for the character. It made me want to stay away from the kind of relationship where you're in a cycle of destruction with each other.

"After this film I really hungered to find a much lighter tone in my love life. I was very proud that I went there for the film but I didn't feel for one second the desire to live that in real life. Now I completely want something that is saner and stabler and solid and loving.

"I think, before, I probably had that bad boy, dangerous thing, wanting that bad girl. I really have shifted away from that, particularly when, in my experience, you've done that for years and years. You end up angry and miserable and heartbroken afterwards.

"Looking back, I think, 'How did I spend seven years doing that?' and I'm sure the woman I was with is saying the exact same thing."

Lucas, whose exes include actresses Salma Hayek and Alexa Davalos, knows The Notebook star McAdams is the girl for him - because he shares so many passions with her: "Rachel is actually probably one of the most truly committed environmental people I've ever come in contact with in my life. She lives it. We have that immediately in common."...

Sweet Home Alabama star Josh Lucas has been left scarred by sex scenes in his new movie after spending a day with nine naked women he'd never met.

The actor had to simulate sex for montage footage at the beginning of Death In Love and admits the seedy scenes left him feeling dirty and "strange".

Lucas, who plays a con man who craves crazy sex in the film, tells WENN, "One of the weirdest days of my life was the day my character put an ad on (website) CraigsList for 20 women from the ages of 19-65 for the sex montage scene.

"I filmed nine very hardcore sex simulation scenes with women I never met with all of us completely naked. At the end of the day I felt crazy! It's something that I think only porn stars actually do in their life when they come in contact with that many people on that level.

"You're sharing body fluids whether you like it or not, sweat and sensation. I could never be a porn star. I was shook up. I did not walk away from that thinking, 'Oh, that was fun.' It was very strange."

Lucas is now desperate to shoot a family-friendly film after playing his latest character: "I was a mess for 30 days. He's so full of pain and self-hatred. I was living that every day and rage and guilt and traumatic things and my body felt pretty whacked.

"At the end of the day I'd crawl away and my dreams were pretty weird."...

[Editor's Note: Multiple Personality Disorder Reports are short news blasts meant to let you know about the stuff that didn't make it to the news page but still had us talking behind the scenes]

#1: Word War Z Delayed!

Director Marc Forster is not happy with the current screenplay for World War Z and is putting of the project until he is. I've read the screenplay (review here) and can attest to its greatness, so I'm not sure what Forster wants done. He probably wants to steer it away from its dramatic tone and turn it into more of an action pic or something. [via: scifiwire]

#2: "Machete" starts filming!

The webs exploded with news that Robert Rodriguez's fake-grindhouse- trailer-turned-real-movie, Machete, will begin filming imminently. I know a lot of people who are excited about this project. Me? I think it's going be a boring, post-modern bust that will confound audiences like Grindhouse did. But we'll see.

#3: "Death in Love" poster

the poster for writer/director Boaz Yakin's Death in Love, starring Josh Lucas, Jacqueline Bisset, Lukas Haas and Adam Brody dropped at comingsoon.

Death In Love is being sold as a "provocative psychosexual tale," and it stars confirmed hot people Josh Lucas, Adam Brody and Lukas Haas. Interested yet? We've been sent the final theatrical poster for the movie, which opens on July 17. Read below for the movie's plot description and the poster itself. From writer-director Boaz Yakin (Fresh, Remember The Titans) comes a provocative psychosexual tale set at the crossroads where family, history and sexuality collide. This shockingly visceral and explicit portrait of a family on the verge of destruction exposes the ties that can so dangerously bind us . erotically, psychologically and emotionally. The story follows the tale of two brothers (Josh Lucas and Lukas Haas) who are trying to climb out of the shadows of their Holocaust survivor mother.s (Jacqueline Bissset) dark past . and the love affair she conducted with a Nazi doctor while in the camps. Decades ...

Here is the final poster for Screen Media Films upcoming film, Death In Love . The film is written and directed by Boaz Yakin. The cast includes Josh Lucas, Jacqueline Bisset, Lukas Haas, and Adam Brody. The movie opens in theaters July 17, 2009 From writer-director Boaz Yakin (Fresh, Remember The Titans) comes a provocative psychosexual tale set at the crossroads where family, history and sexuality collide. This shockingly visceral and explicit portrait of a family on the verge of destruction exposes the ties that can so dangerously bind us – erotically, psychologically and emotionally. The story follows the tale of [...]...

ComingSoon.net has your exclusive first look at the poster for writer/director Boaz Yakin's Death in Love , starring Josh Lucas, Jacqueline Bisset, Lukas Haas and Adam Brody. It opens in theaters on July 17. The provocative psychosexual tale follows two brothers (Lucas and Haas) who are trying to climb out of the shadows of their Holocaust survivor mother's (Bisset) dark past . and the love affair she conducted with a Nazi doctor while in the camps. Decades after their mother's experience, which left her blurring the lines between pleasure and pain, the sons' lives still reverberate with the damage. One (Lucas) is a sharp, charming, intensely sexual but loveless con artist working in an exploitive modeling agency, while carrying on a carnally extreme relationship with his boss...

I have not heard so much as a peep about the film Death In Love, a psycho-sexual thriller starring Josh Lucas and Lukas Hass (can you say star power?) but the poster was just released and, well, you just have to see this one. Talk about phoning it in. The film deals with the way in which a mother's experiences in The Holocaust affects the lives of her sons, and is directed by Boaz Yakin who directed the football drama Remember The Titans and wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Prince Of...