Luckily for all the already-lucky folks hanging out on the Croisette, Lawless is screening at the at the Cannes Film Festival and has been received positively.  Those of us not at Cannes have to wait until late August to see John Hillcoat's adaptation of The Wettest Country in the World.  To tide us over, though, there are two new clips from the film online now, both featuring a rather intimidating Tom Hardy.

Lawless, the Prohibition-Era Southern drama from director John Hillcoat, is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which is currently monopolizing the Croisette.  With the film finally getting ready for its debutante ball, The Weinstein Company has unveiled seven character posters from movie formerly titled The Wettest Country in the World and the more concise Wettest Country.

These character posters answer a few questions.  First is the question, "How do we let audiences know that our movie stars Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Jason Clarke, and Mia Wasikowska?"  Answer: character posters.  The second question is, "How do we let audiences know it's a period movie with action?"  Answer: Give most of the cast revolvers and make sure there's a tommy gun in there too.  The third question is, "How awkwardly can we insert Gary Oldman's face onto a poster?"  Answer: Photoshop.

The very first theatrical trailer for Lawless finally, mercifully, hit the interwebs.  And it was worth the wait.  The film, formerly titled The Wettest Country in the World and Wettest Country, has everything going for it, from an incredible cast to a proven director, a screenwriter with cult bona-fides, and fascinating source material.  And now it has a stellar trailer, too.

Despite death being a truly universal human experience, there aren't a lot of movies that point their thematic focus directly at dying, except for horror films like the Final Destination series, which turn death into a spectacle.  Director Gus Van Sant's latest, Restless, looks to be all about exiting the realm of the quick, but it leavens the proceedings with a ghostly kamikaze sidekick named Hiroshi (Ryo Kase) and the inarguable adorableness of Mia Wasikowska.  In an excellent new trailer for the film, you'll see  Henry Hopper as a grieving young man who falls for Wasikowska only to find she's not long for this world. 

A week from now, Michael Fassbender will basically be a full-on movie star.  He's starring as the youthful Erik Lensherr, aka Magneto, in Matthew Vaughn's X-prequel X-Men: First Class.  While he headlines along with the excellent James McAvoy, playing a pre-paralysis Charles Xavier, Fassbender's riveting performance is the engine powering the entire movie.  His Magneto is at once an uncompromising, wrathful loner concerned with little but revenge and simultaneously a charismatic leader of mutants to be reckoned with.  It's enough to make you forget venerable Shakespearean Ian McKellen, and it's guaranteed to garner Fassbender a lot of deserved attention.

Ahhh, the Cannes Film Festival.  Beautiful weather, films from all over the globe, gorgeous movie stars, models, musicians, bajillion dollar yachts, perfect azure water lapping at the beach, and a Danish director causing a ruckus by declaring himself a Nazi and saying that he sympathizes with Adolf Hitler.  You know, the usual.  The biggest story on the eighth day of the festival involves a movie only tangentially, as Lars von Trier's Third Reich comments pissed off a whole lot of people.  Other than that, though, his film Melancholia, starring Kirsten Dunst and Alexander Skarsgard, had its world premiere and Gus Van Sant discussed his Twilight: Breaking Dawn job interview.

Like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, The Wettest Country in the World has simple ingredients that are likely to taste great together.  There's director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave, the musician who previously wrote The Proposition for Hillcoat.  There's an impressive cast, with Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Mia Wasikowska, and Gary Oldman.  Then there's the fact that it's about bootleggers out for blood in the Prohibition-Era South.  That last bit would be the bread on this cinematic sandwich.  Check out a new image from the film, showing Tom Hardy sporting a sharp hat and a revolver.

Over the weekend, all the talk at the Cannes Film Festival apparently shifted from Meryl Streep, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and The Wettest Country in the World to the impending premiere of The Tree of Life, the latest existential opus from reclusive auteur Terrence Malick.  The film was initially set to debut at last year's festival, but Malick, ever the fine-tuner, did not have a cut ready to screen.  So it was with great anticipation that Tree of Life had its first screening with the big-name cast in attendance.  The reaction was almost exactly what you'd expect.  Meanwhile, in the acquisitions department, a lucky distributor now has Wettest Country and Summit Entertainment nabbed the rights to Snitch, starring erstwhile The Rock Dwayne Johnson.

It's now weekend at the Cannes Film Festival, and while we may well have been working for the weekend here in the States, there's no rest for the crowd on the Croisette, as the cinematic happenings continue to come fast and furious through the conclusion of the fest on May 22nd.  It's been four days, so I can officially stop hit whoring by mentioning Lady Gaga's opening night performance (or can I?) in order to focus on screenings, acquisitions, and that sort of business.  On Saturday, The Wettest Country in the World once again put the focus on Megan Ellison, Meryl Streep finds herself the object of acquisition for the second time at the fest, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides screens, and Neil Jordan's return to vampire films lands two gorgeous leading ladies.

Ahh, Cannes.  The world's biggest film festival in one of its most beautiful locations.  Opening night in the Cote d'Azur kicked off the festivities in grand fashion, with Lady Gaga dropping 'Judas' on the Croisette and Woody Allen winning accolades for Midnight in Paris.  Day two involved a doc that kicks Donald Trump where it counts, two devastating dramas, and Angelina Jolie fondling a guy in a panda suit.  The third day of the festival saw everyone settle into a comfortable routine of wheeling, dealing, and screening.  The Terminator franchise found a new home, Gus Van Sant's latest screened, the Weinstein Co. acquired a new prestige picture with Meryl Streep, and Lee Daniels locked down an impressive cast for his next film.