What if I told you there was a new short film in which Jennifer Garner uses flamboyant lies and occasionally bawdy innuendo to attract the attentions of Alfred Molina as an increasingly exasperated priest?  You'd want to check that out, right?  After all, it's the erstwhile Elektra Natchios and Doc Ock sharing a confessional.

Garner and Molina star in Serena, a short clocking in at just under twelve minutes, during which Garner plays the title character, a woman who is running out her priest's patience, but for fascinating reasons.  Serena is written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, the man behind last year's Oscar-nominated Albert Nobbs and episodes of the HBO series In Treatment and Six Feet Under.

Screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas are best known for their work on such successful films as Invincible, 2 Fast 2 Furious, 3:10 to Yuma, and Wanted. But the scribes are now adding director and producer, respectively, to their resumes with their new spy thriller The Double, which opened in theaters in October 28^th.

The movie features an incredible cast of actors including Richard Gere (Primal Fear, The Jackal), Topher Grace (Predators, Spider-Man 3), Stephen Moyer (TV’s True Blood), Odette Yustman Annable (TV’s House), Stana Katic (TV’s Castle), and screen legend Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, The Departed). The Double tells the story of retired CIA operative Paul Shepherdson (Gere) who is paired with a young FBI agent named Ben Geary (Grace) to unravel the mystery of a senator’s murder, which appears to have been committed by a Soviet assassin that Shepherdson thought he killed during the Cold War. The film features many twists and turns and will keep audiences guessing until the very end.

I recently had a chance to speak with Michael Brandt and Derek Haas about their new film The Double, while they were in Paris preparing for their next film Overdrive, which stars Karl Urban (Star Trek) and Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian). The co-writers spoke to me about the new film, its complicated storyline, the spy thriller genre, No Way Out, casting Gere and Grace, Brandt’s directorial debut, controversy over the movie’s trailer, Overdrive, and casting Urban and Barnes as brothers.

Actress Odette Yustman Annable first appeared on the big screen opposite former-Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger in the hit 1990 comedy Kindergarten Cop at the tender age of five. Since then the actress as built a steady career of both TV and film roles appearing on popular series like October Road, and Breaking In, as well as movies such as Transformers, Cloverfield, The Unborn, and You Again. But the actress is probably best known for her role on ABC’s long running series Brothers & Sisters, which is also where she met her husband actor David Annable. Now, the actress can currently be seen on both TV and in the movie theaters, first with her role as Dr. Jessica Adams on the critically acclaimed Fox series House, and secondly opposite Richard Gere (Primal Fear, The Jackal) and Topher Grace (Predators, Spider-Man 3) in the new spy thriller The Double, which opened in theaters on October 28^th.

The new film was written and produced by Wanted scribes Derek Haas and Michael Brandt, and also marks Brandt’s directorial debut. The Double tells the story of retired CIA operative Paul Shepherdson (Gere) who is paired with a young FBI agent named Ben Geary (Grace) to unravel the mystery of a senator’s murder, which appears to have been committed by a Soviet assassin that Shepherdson thought he killed during the Cold War. Yustman Annable plays Ben’s loving wife, and rounding out the cast are Stephen Moyer (TV’s True Blood), Stana Katic (TV’s Castle), and screen legend Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, The Departed). The film features many twists and turns and will keep audiences guessing until the very end.

I recently had a chance to speak with actress Odette Yustman-Annable about working on The Double while she was taking a break from shooting her scenes on the set of House. The actress was absolutely lovely to speak with and talked about her new film, its complicated plot, the spy thriller genre, working with Gere and Grace, Michael Brandt’s directorial debut, joining the cast of House, and if the show will continue after it’s current eighth season.

Opening in theaters on October 28th is a new spy thriller from writers Derek Haas and Michael Brandt (3:10 To Yuma, Wanted) called The Double. The film marks Brandt's directing debut and features an incredible cast of actors including Richard Gere (Primal Fear, The Jackal), Topher Grace (Predators, Spider-Man 3), Stephen Moyer (TV's True Blood), Odette Yustman-Annable (TV's House), Stana Katic (TV's Castle), and screen legend Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, The Departed). 

IAR's managing editor Jami Philbrick recently had a chance to sit down with actors Topher Grace and Stephen Moyer to discuss their new film The Double. The two actors spoke candidly about the new movie, it's complicated twists and turns, their characters, their love for spy thrillers, and the Cold War. 

The very first trailer for the action thriller The Double takes two minutes and twenty-five seconds to provide what feels like a beat-for-beat breakdown of the film's plot, so you might want to avoid it if you're at all sensitive to spoilers.  The film stars Richard Gere and Topher Grace as federal agents attempting to track down a presumed dead Soviet assassin who is apparently at work and killing again.

We've reached a weird point of crazy-sensitivity regarding spoilers as a whole, where a revelation from a fifteen-year old movie or long-defunct television series can arose unbridled rage and ceaseless indignation.  While there's now some solid scientific proof that spoilers don't kill a viewer's enjoyment of a story, there's one thing that still justifiably gets a lot of gooses, and that's when a film's trailer seems to not simply reveal some big twists, but also just runs through the entire plot.

Based on the latest trailer for Priest, Scott Stewart's ostensible adaptation of a Korean comic by Hyung Min-woo, it seems like Stewart put a heaping of genre elements into a blender and turned it on without capping the thing, spewing forth a nasty spray of mulched post apocalyptic deserts, vampires, wire-fu, a Blade Runner-style overcrowded metropolis, 3D, speed change action, slow-mo, and warrior monks.  The film has an impressive cast, though, with Paul Bettany, Christopher Plummer, Maggie Q, and Karl Urban.  There's another trailer online now, ready to remind you of other, probably better movies.  Give it a looksie:

Synopsis: ICE sees the destructive effects of climate change cause unimaginable devastation and panic worldwide as the human race finds itself contemplating the dawn of a new ice age.

It is 2020. Findings by environmental scientist Professor Thom Archer suggest that Halo, the corporate energy company drilling on the Greenland Glacier are causing it to melt. Archer’s warnings are ignored, so he heads to the Arctic to find indisputable evidence. Upon arrival, he realizes humankind is under immediate threat, and races home to save his family.

The glacier collapses, with devastating consequences. Astonishing weather patterns emerge and plunge the world’s temperatures into steep decline. ICE confronts a wholly terrifying and plausible natural disaster of epic proportions. This uncompromising production sees a planet on the brink of annihilation, unleashing an apocalypse with an intensity and magnitude audiences will never forget.

Sony has finally released the trailer for Scott Stewart and Paul Bettany's Priest, their follow-up to Legion. Check it out! Please leave your thoughts and comments below...

Synopsis: Priest is set in a world ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. Paul Bettany is Priest, a legendary warrior priest during the last Vampire War, who now lives in obscurity among the other human inhabitants in walled-in dystopian cities controlled by the Church. But when his 18-year-old niece is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires in the desolate wastelands outside, Priest breaks his sacred vows and ventures out to find her and seek vengeance upon those responsible, especially their brutal leader (Karl Urban). Priest is joined on his crusade by his niece’s boyfriend, Hicks (Cam Gigandet), a local outpost sheriff, and Priestess (Maggie Q), a member of his former legion of vampire-killers who has otherworldly fighting skills.

Apparently, an intimate oral sex scene was cut from the hot HBO vampire dramedy, True Blood. However, it is reported that it was cut NOT due to its graphic nature NOR due to the actors being totally game for doing the sex scene but DUE TO an awkward camera angle/lens problem, i.e., “technical difficulties.”

True Blood Vampire, Stephen Moyer (aka Bill Compton), whose head would have been in between real-life lover, Anna Paquin’s legs (aka Sookie Stackhouse), says, "It was scrapped because ….the number of camera set ups they had planned."