The opening, a long tracking shot that follows motor stuntman “Handsome” Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), as he makes his way through the carnival, lighting cigarettes, pushing through the crowd, enterting the appointed tent, fastening his helmet, and buzzing in the cage with two others, is one of the best — and will likely remain among the best of the year. It’s an inspired choice that testifies to director Derek Cianfrance’s deliberation.

Luke is one of the major characters in this play, a distinction that he’ll share with Avery (Bradley Cooper), the lawyer-turned cop and Jason (Dane DeHaan), Luke’s son. Each of them will have their own act, with the scenes intertwining as the drama unfolds throughout 15 years. Luke will quit his job to stay with his son. He will meet a local mechanic (Ben Mendelsohn) who will teach him to rob banks.

He will be pursued by Avery. Avery will rat out some crooked cops and eventually run for office. Luke’s son will befriend Avery’s without realizing their connection. And the results of that friendship and discovery of that connection will begin the cycle anew.

Cianfrance’s previous film Blue Valentine, also with Gosling, carried a similarly morose tone and followed another meticulously logical line of unfortunate events. For all the spontaneity of many scenes — the robberies and chases especially — and improvisational (sounding, at least) dialogue, he shows an immense amount of discipline. He knows the story he wishes to tell and does in a straight-forward and hard way.

Even though it’s the holidays, some things end up getting released anyway. Often, those things are trailers, which is the case in this, ah, case.

In this upcoming thriller, A Place Beyond the Pines, Ryan Gosling plays a pro motorcycle rider-turned-bankrobber and Bradley Cooper plays the cop who’s determined to catch him. Want to know more?

Good, because we’ve got that trailer we mentioned. The film is directed by Derek Cianfrance who co-wrote with Ben Coccio and Darius Marder. It also stars some hot babes in the persona of Eva Mendes and Rose Byrne. It’s set to open March 29.

Check out the trailer after the break.

The Fast and the Furious franchise has recently risen from the grave and reinvented itself as a pretty great action franchise. The success of Fast Five has given the filmmakers the conifdence to ramp up the scope and size of the next film. So much so that it looks like it might end up being two films.
The Hollywood Reporter recently talked to series star Vin Diesel who had this to say:

“A coda at the end of [Fast Five] teases the return of a character played by Eva Mendes last seen in 2 Fast 2 Furious as well as the return of Michelle Rodriguez.vWe have to pay off this story, we have to service all of these character relationships, and when we started mapping all that out it just went beyond 110 pages,” Diesel explained. “The studio said, ‘You can’t fit all that story in one damn movie!’”

Diesel did not reveal details on whether the two movies would be two-parters or two standalone movies.” The Fast movies are always a lot of fun and you can tell with the last installment that the film makers were enjoying playing with the universe they created.

The next film or films in the franchise are going to be highly anticipated and the franchise is healthier now then it has ever been.

Drunk History is back on the web, but this time they’re showing the holiday spirit with guest stars Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, and Jim Carrey.

The mother of all video game fan films has arrived as the Left 4 Dead flick hits the web. Be sure to stick around till the end for some awesome gaming cameos.

Speaking of fan films, we stumbled across the best real life gaming adaptation in the history of the web. Say hello to Battlefield 3 In Real Life.

It’s Christmas time everywhere in the world (well, almost everywhere), even in Arkham City. But instead of visits from a man in red, they get a famous caped crusader.

You might have expected this considering her husband, Len Wiseman, is the director. However, news has come out that Kate Beckinsale has been offered one of the lead female roles opposite Colin Farrell in the Sony Pictures remake/reboot of Total Recall.

According to the report, Beckensale would play Lori, the role made famous by Sharon Stone in the original. In that film, Lori is the happy wife of Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger ) who, after Quaid begins to discover things are not what they seem, changes into someone who tries to kill him.

The other main female role of Melina (played in the original by Rachel Ticotin) is also reportedly still up for grabs with Eva Mendes and Rosario Dawson as the apparent front runners. Of those two I think I would prefer Dawson, although Mendes wouldn’t be a bad choice either.

In case you’re not familiar with the story of the original Total Recall film, it’s based on Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” and centers on Quaid, a seemingly unsophisticated construction worker, who is haunted by a recurring dream of going to Mars.

He buys a literal dream vacation from a company called Rekall Inc., which sells implanted memories. It turns out he is a freedom fighter from Mars who has been relocated to Earth, and he must restore order, and reverse the corrupt influence that commercial powers had over the red planet.

We don’t know if the new film will follow that storyline as well but you can imagine it will be similar. Look for the new, improved Total Recall to hit theaters in August of 2012.