Over the last several years, I have found it odd how, increasingly, we see ads for ads for movies in the form of quick previews for trailers, but I can't keep from getting giddy at this new thirty-second tease designed for prime the pump for the first official Prometheus trailer.  The whole shebang will arrive on Thursday, December 22nd, but for now, this quick bit of business, which combines footage from the film with glimpses behind the scenes and Ridley Scott waxing verbose, will have to suffice. Well, that and some words from an interview with Scott about whether or not we'll see that slimy xenomorph from Alien spilling acidic blood.

If the Academy Awards are the most respected, high profile, and sought-after awards in film, the bright center of the awards universe around which so many actors, directors, and assorted film professionals revolve during this time of the year, then the Golden Globes are...also awards.  Despite the Hollywoord Foreign Press Association's reputation for not exactly being on the up and up with these awards, the Golden Globes are probably the second biggest awards show around.  Today the HFPA announced the nominees for the 69th Annual Golden Globes, which will one again be hosted by Ricky Gervais.

One of the biggest question marks for next summer is Prometheus, the first science fiction film from director Ridley Scott since 1982's Blade Runner.  While pretty much every major summer 2012 movie has released a teaser trailer, we've seen no actual footage from Prometheus aside from the Comic-Con footage that made it clear, visually at least, that the film does indeed take place within the universe of Alien.  A teaser trailer should be arriving shortly, but today we may have a look at the film's teaser poster.  There's no confirmation that the image you'll find below is, in fact, the official teaser poster, but is very much in line with the images we've seen from the film, with a tiny little spacesuited explorer before a giant, creepy face.

All the attention regarding cinematic Marvel superheroes is currently aimed at The Avengers, the big ensemble crossover brewing for next summer.  But what's the status of the Marvel heroes whose movie rights reside over at 20th Century Fox?  We know The Wolverine should go into production in 2012, but beyond that, plans aren't exactly clear.  Fans would love to see a continuation of the prequel universe established in X-Men: First Class, but it remains to be seen if that will come together.  Fox Filmed Entertainment co-chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Rothman recently offered a little clarification on the potential sequel's development, and also chimed in on the studio's reboots for both Daredevil and Fantastic Four.

Traditionally, the weekend following Thanksgiving's extended vacation is one of unremarkable box office performances, as the nation is content to unbutton its collective top button and sit back to the let the turkey settle in its system, while also lamenting the loss of delicious leftovers.  This year is no different, with no major wide releases in multiplexes to truly shake up the dynamics of last weekend.  With no new competition and generally tame showings from existing competitors, then, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 continued its dominance of the domestic box office, accomplishing a couple of franchise feats in the process.  The Muppets, meanwhile, slowed down considerably, and Hugo hopped up to the third place after rolling out in more theaters.

The workings of the human mind are endlessly complex, and our emotions are often befuddling not just to others, but to ourselves.  Many people gain a greater understanding of themselves, their pasts, and their place in the world with the help of therapists, those laudable doctors who endeavor to diminish the suffering we so often inflict upon ourselves.  Therapy is an easy means of conveying a character's problems onscreen, so often, cinematic psychiatrists often exist as spouters of convenient, character-establishing dialogue.

Not so in A Dangerous Method, the new film from auteur David Cronenberg, the director behind A History of Violence, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Eastern Promises, and Videodrome.  In the film, Viggo Mortensen plays none other than Sigmund Freud, with Michael Fassbender as his protege-turned-rival Carl Jung.  The story explores how the rift between these two peers, caused principally by Jung's passionate affair with Sabina Spielrein, a patient played by Keira Knightley, contributed directly to the creation of psychoanalysis as we know it today.

With A Dangerous Method in limited release and currently providing a dense, layered meditation on these two great intellectuals, we here at IAR decided to create a Rogue 10 list in the film's honor, one that identifies those cinematic shrinks who, like Mortensen's Freud and Fassbender's Jung, stand out from the crowd as titans of intellectual medicine in the movies.  So here, for your list-loving enjoyment, are ten cinematic therapists for the ages.

Last week, magazine scans provided our very best official look at Prometheus, the terribly mysterious Alien quasi-prequel from Ridley Scott.  20th century Fox has now kindly provided bigger, better versions of those same images, without all the text and whatnot from Entertainment Weekly.  Being larger and clearer, these versions provide a better look at the cast in their stylized space togs, as well the familiar and thoroughly spooky production design, which, though not overseen by H.R. Giger (Scott's regular collaborator Arthur Max served as production designer), overtly recall the derelict spacecraft from 1979's Alien.  Peer into the mysteries of Prometheus and cross your fingers for a trailer sometime soon.

With the gritty, harsh reality of New York City as the backdrop, Fox Searchlight Pictures' film Shame follows Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a handsome and successful New Yorker, as he navigates recklessly through a life of which he attempts to keep private as he succumbs to his many sexual addictions and obsessions. His inevitably self-destructive path in life is disrupted when his wayward sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), unexpectedly comes into town for an indefinite stay. An emotionally schizophrenic film about a subject rarely discussed, Shame doesn’t leave you even after you’ve left the theatre. His Manhattan apartment, once a haven for him to quench his lusts and desires, is suddenly much too crowded for him to successfully hide his lifestyle. Sex addiction, in its ugliest form, is realistically depicted as the film serves as a voyeuristic metaphor capturing what it is to be a human being in today’s world. The message is quite clear – it isn’t easy, not for any of us.

What is clear is that we all have our demons, some of which seem to have a much crueler grip than others. Though never actually discussed in the film, the unspoken words speak volumes in this case as Brandon and Sissy never talk about their parents. With sparser dialogue than many films, the message is clearly delivered with two of the bravest, raw performances in recent film history by Mulligan and Fassbender. Both excavate the most deeply buried of human truths and the audience is privy to their urges and impulses as well as their failed attempts at normalcy.

Alluded to through the duration of the film, the audience is aware of the fact that these two were not brought up in a home in which anyone would wish. With only one another left in this world to call family, they share a closeness which is at times extremely uncomfortable to watch. Brandon struggles to find human connection, but must fight off his crippling needs for excess. His quest for the numbness only found in random sexual acts is an attempt, which fails, to aid him in an escape from his past as well as his present life.

An original screenplay written by the acclaimed Steve McQueen (Hunger) and Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, The Hour) and directed by McQueen, this provocative and daring drama follows Fassbender as he is forced to navigate through his character’s private world as well as the one he now shares with his sister. McQueen’s vision was to make a film about a subject that few films have explored before. Shame serves as an exploration into the purgatories of both addiction and secrecy. We watch as Brandon suffers feeling trapped by his sister’s neediness and is forced to show his darker side to the one person who knows him best, the only person who knows him well.

In one particular scene, Sissy leaves Brandon a voicemail message in which she says to him that they are not bad people, they just come from a bad place. One can only infer what this bad place entailed for each, but you know instinctively that whatever it was, and one can make a few assumptions, it was very bad.

IAR recently attended a press conference at The Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, CA, for the film where Fassbender and McQueen spoke to the many dark aspects of sexual addictions and childhood abuse.

Synopsis: A successful New York City resident who carefully compartmentalizes his entire life based around his compulsive sex addition begins to lose control when his younger sister with nowhere else to stay moves into his apartment.

Director David Cronenberg and Sony Pictures Classics are bringing to the screen A Dangerous Method, a film that centers on the lives of Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Unbeknownst to many, there was quite the catalyst in two of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century coming together in the form of a troubled and beautiful patient named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley).

The vibrant cities of Zurich and Vienna serve as the settings for this dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery on the eve of WWI. Drawn from the true-life events of these people, this film delves deep into the turbulent relationships between them. It is 1904 and the driven Jung is just twenty-nine years old, at the very beginning of his career, and about to take on the challenge of what is thought to be an impossible case.

At the time, Jung was living with his pregnant wife, Emma (Sarah Gadon), at Burgholzli Hospital. Inspired by his mentor, Freud, he tries his experimental treatment known as psychoanalysis, or ‘The Talking Cure,’ on the unbalanced eighteen year-old Sabina. A well-educated Russian, she speaks fluent German and has been diagnosed with hysteria and has a history of being both disruptive as well as violent. Suffering a childhood filled with humiliation and beatings from her father, a disturbing sexual element is uncovered through her treatment with Jung. This element upholds Freud’s theories that connect sexuality and emotional disorders. In an effort to help his patient, Jung writes to the renowned Freud asking for advice. A deep friendship is immediately forged that would forever change the landscape of psychoanalysis as well as the face of modern thought as we know it today.

With their intimate dynamics thoroughly explored through a look into their love, sensuality, passion, ambition, deceit, emotional breakdowns and explosive disagreements, this film provides an intricate look into the lives of these three important figures in history. How they came together and then split apart is dissected by Academy Award winning writer, Christopher Hampton, who wrote the screenplay, which was based on the stage play he also penned called “The Talking Cure.” The play was performed at The National Theatre in London and starred Ralph Fiennes as Jung. Hampton based both his play and the film’s screenplay on the book “A Most Dangerous Method”.

Shot over the course of eight weeks, filming occurred on location in Cologne, Bodensee, on Lake Constance (located on the Rhine situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the foot of the Alps) and Vienna. While in Vienna, they were able to film at the house Freud lived in from 1891 to 1938.

Recently, IAR was able to attend press conferences with both Michael Fassbender as well as David Cronenberg at The Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Here is what Fassbender had to say about portraying Carl Jung.