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Katie Aselton’s fourth film as director is begging for a spoiler. That would explain a lot but also give away too much. Luckily, the big reveal comes 20 minutes into this sensitively played yet too-obvious drama about a couple who go to the desert to regroup and look ahead to an altered future. Aselton plays Erin, whose mood at first veers with annoying abruptness between mournful and happy. Daveed Diggs is Charlie, full of smiling, even-tempered charm. If Charlie seems too good to be true, he is.

Aselton’s films include The Freebie (2010), arguably her best and a very different marriage story, and most recently Mack & Rita (2022) with Diane Keaton, a critical flop she didn’t write. She plays to her strengths and her indie roots in Magic Hour, directing herself and the other actors to natural, likable performances.

Erin’s mood swings become sympathetic when we learn why she is facing a crisis,...

Oh, to be a fly on the wall during the writing process that sparked Katie Aselton’s fourth directorial effort, “Magic Hour.” Written alongside her real-life husband (and fellow filmmaker) Mark Duplass, Aselton has made it clear in press materials that the film, about a loving if troubled married couple (played by Aselton and Daveed Diggs) isn’t explicitly about her actual marriage. But it’s also not not about her and Duplass’ long-running relationship. Still, once you see where Aselton and Duplass’ script takes their characters, the differentiation becomes easier to swallow, if not all the more intriguing.

No spoilers here, but suffice it to say, it’s thrilling to wonder at what point in their chatting Aselton and Duplass landed on the spine of the story, one that also serves as a very big twist and an ambitious swing. And, yes, this twist does come early in the film,...

Exclusive: Ora Duplass and Chosen Jacobs (It) will lead Their Town, a YA romantic two-hander from director Katie Aselton (Mack & Rita) and Duplass Brothers Productions.

The project is a family affair, as Aselton is Duplass’ mother and is working from a script by husband Mark Duplass. Shot in Bangor, Maine, the film centers on teenagers Abby (Duplass) and Matt (Jacobs). When Abby’s boyfriend unexpectedly drops out of the high school play, she is forced to help outlier Matt step into the role opposite her. Over the course of a long night wandering their small town, the two examine their futures and unearth surprises from their past.

Supporting cast includes Daveed Diggs (Hamilton), Jeffrey Self (Search Party), Kim Shaw (You!), Leonardo Nam (Westworld), and William Atticus Parker (Atrabilious). Producers included Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Mel Eslyn, and Shuli Harel for Duplass Brothers Productions, as well as Aselton and Mary Budd.

Created by Jeff & Jackie Schaffer, one of FX's most popular comedy series was "The League," which ran for seven seasons from 2009 to 2015. The raucous sitcom follows a group of friends in Chicago who run a highly competitive fantasy football league every year, creating their own challenges, rewards, and penalties. Along the way, the ensemble endures their own hilarious highs and lows involving romance and family life in between planning their fantasy teams. Throughout the show's run, the group is joined by several memorable guest stars and recurring characters, including the occasional real-life football player getting in on the fun.

Led by a solid ensemble cast of talented comedians, "The League" introduced beloved, crass characters framed against the backdrop of fantasy sports. Since the show's ending in 2015, many of the cast members have gone on to continue their film and television careers, while others haven't reached the same level of success.

Exclusive: Duplass Brothers Production recently wrapped production on the Katie Aselton-directed feature Magic Hour, starring Daveed Diggs. Aselton stars alongside Diggs in the project which she co-wrote with Mark Duplass.

Details regarding the project’s plot and character descriptions are under wraps. Magic Hour is executive produced by Duplass, Mel Eslyn and Jay Duplass. Emily Neumann produced.

Aselton is a multi-hyphenate with directing credits including The Freebie (2010), Black Rock (2012) and most recently, Mack & Rita (2022) and acting credits that span both TV and film. On TV, she starred in FX’s Legion and Apple TV+’s The Morning Show; and on the big screen, in Old Dads (2023), The Unholy (2021), Bombshell (2019) and the John Lithgow and Blythe Danner feature The Tomorrow Man. She is repped by CAA and Untitled Entertainment.

Up next for Diggs, he will star as Josh in the indie film A Tree...

Attention, aspiring screenwriters: Diane Keaton wants to play your creepy villain. Long the queen of comedy, the actress said she is open to playing “types,” provided the script is good. “I really like working, so I wouldn’t mind doing any types, at this point, it’d be fun,” Keaton said during a recent interview with IndieWire. “I could play some hideous person. Any creep. A killer. I’d be happy to look at it. Give me a chance. Whatever’s out there, that I like, I would take it.”

Since first making her name in classics like “The Godfather” and “Annie Hall,” the actress has carved out her niche as Hollywood’s go-to for charming goofballs, practically trademarking her scattered earnestness and bubbly lilt. While it’s intriguing to imagine those ineffable Keaton qualities mapped onto a power hungry witch or maniacal killer, her latest role is much more in her wheelhouse.

Diane Keaton plays Aunt Rita in Katie Aselton’s Mack & Rita. Photo: Gravitas Premiere We’ve all heard the term “old soul” before. Director Katie Aselton’s Mack & Rita explores that concept literally with the story of a 30-year-old who physically becomes the advanced age she feels on the inside.

Click here to read the full article.

For the 30-year-old at the center of Mack & Rita, a repurposed tanning bed and a New Age charlatan’s mumbo-jumbo summon body-switch magic: She emerges from the gussied-up contraption as the older woman she believes she truly is. The good news for the audience is that the septuagenarian is played by Diane Keaton. For Keaton, the movie is better news than Poms, but still a hit-and-miss affair. At times disarming, at others plain silly, it takes a few daring leaps without quite avoiding middle-of-the-road sitcom territory.

This makes sense given that screenwriters Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh are vets of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Actor-turned-filmmaker Katie Aselton (Black Rock, The Freebie), who played Keaton’s daughter in Book Club, directs the material with a sunshiny SoCal sensibility and an appreciation of the terrific comic cast, though more than a few barely escape being wasted. If there’s magic here,...

Multi-faceted filmmaker Mark Duplass discusses the movies he wishes more people knew about with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Duck Butter (2018)

The Puffy Chair (2005)

Prince Of Broadway (2008)

Tangerine (2015)

The Florida Project (2017) – Dennis Cozzalio’s review

Red Rocket (2021)

Starlet (2012)

Take Out (2004)

Mack & Rita (Tbd)

Old Joy (2006)

First Cow (2020)

Wendy And Lucy (2008) – Dennis Cozzalio’s favorite movie of 2020

Henry Fool (1997)

Trust (1990)

Amateur (1994)

Medicine For Melancholy (2008)

Shang-Chi (2021)

Your Sister’s Sister (2011)

My Effortless Brilliance (2008)

What the Funny (2008)

Humpday (2009)

True Adolescents (2009)

Man Push Cart (2005)

The White Tiger (2021)

Baghead (2008)

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (2012)

Language Lessons (2021)

Stevie (2002)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

American Movie (1999)

What Happened Was… (1994) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Manhunter (1986) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

My Dinner With Andre (1981)

Creep (2014)

Grown-Ups (1980)

Abigail’s Party (1977)

Nuts In May (1976)

Secrets And Lies (1996) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Naked (1993)

Parallel Mothers (2021)

The Freebie (2010)

East Of Eden (1955) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Strange...

After directing her first two features (both Sundance entires) in The Freebie (2010) and Black Rock (2012), Katie Aselton would move more into her acting career. So it was a big deal when it was announced that production on her third feature would begin in March of this year with a cast with the likes of Diane Keaton and Taylour Paige in the lead. With cinematographer Sean McElwee lensing in Los Angeles, this was written by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh.

Gist: Mack and Rita follows Mackenzie Martin is tired of doing all the things she has to do to keep up and get ahead in her 30’s.…...

Katie Aselton deserves to be in the sitcom hall of fame for her role as Jenny on FX's hit sitcom The League. She created a character like no other that will stand the test of time, and often outshined the rest of her cast, which included some of the greatest improv comedians of all time. Now, she turns a more serious note in the true life tale of Dread Pirate Roberts, playing wife to a DEA agent in director Tiller Russell's Silk Road. We recently caught up with Katie for a deep dive into the life of Ross Ulbricht, as well as a look at what else she currently has on her plate.

It's been a rough time for the entertainment industry as a whole, but Katie Aselton is navigating her way through the madness. She not only appears in Silk Road, but the acclaimed actress also shows...

Exclusive: Screen Gems has rounded out the cast for its forthcoming supernatural horror, Shrine, as production currently underway in Massachusetts. Joining previously announced star Jeffrey Dean Morgan will be Katie Aselton, William Sadler, Diogo Morgado, Cricket Brown, Marina Mazepa (upcoming Malignant), Christine Adams, Bates Wilde, and Cary Elwes.

Aselton is replacing Jordana Brewster, who was attached to co-lead the film but had to withdraw from the project but due to timing conflicts in production schedules.

Evan Spiliotopoulos is directing the pic with is based on James Herbert’s best-selling novel. It focuses on a disgraced journalist (Morgan) who discovers a series of divine miracles in a small New England town that has been touched by the apparition of the Virgin Mary and uses them to resurrect his career,...

Park City, Utah – There are still some films to be discussed in my Sundance coverage. Here’s write-ups of “Digging for Fire,” “Entertainment,” and “Results,” which featured the return of festival-approved directors, albeit heading in different directions.

At this year’s festival, two maestros of the ol’ mumblecore days stepped into the big-time spotlight with their new films that boasted their biggest casts and fanciest films yet. The first to show was Joe Swanberg, who has gone from super low-key directing to hosting a celebrity party this side of “This is the End” in “Digging For Fire.” The other is Andrew Bujalski, whose previous films were nerd alerts like “Mutual Appreciation” and most recently “Computer Chess.”

In a reverse course is Rick Alverson’s “Entertainment,” which doesn’t start modestly but attempt to reach a wide audience, but starts with a big promise to reach a very specific audience. An explanation on that below.

In this monthly column we spotlight new Blu-ray/DVD releases by interviewing directors about the scenes that stood out most for them while making their movies. This month, we talk to Katie Aselton about her cat-and-mouse horror Black Rock (out July 30). Following her 2010 relationship drama The Freebie, actress Katie Aselton (The League) returns behind the camera to direct Black Rock, a tense thriller set on a remote island off the coast of Maine. Written by her husband, Mark Duplass, the film stars Aselton alongside Lake Bell and Kate Bosworth as three childhood friends who travel to the island of their youth for a girls’ weekend that goes horribly wrong. Being hunted by a few veteran soldiers they encounter, Abby (Aselton) and Lou (Bell) hide in a childhood fort. Freezing...

Read More...

Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress; at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. "Paperback" Tweetable Logline: The second feature-length comedy by Sundance alum Adam Bowers. A smart, (painfully) real comedy/romance. Elevator Pitch: A pizza cook who never left his college town, never made anything of himself, meets the girl of his dreams, before realizing there's a huge roadblock to them being together. It's a story about what you do when you realize you might not do anything great with your life. It's in the vein of Woody Allen's films, or the show Louie, but it's something wholly original. Production Team:Writer/Director/Editor: Adam Bowers (New Low) Producers: Andie Bolt & Roger Beebe Executive Producer: Adele Romanski (The Myth Of The American Sleepover,...

A Many Splendored Thing: Evans’ Sophomore Feature Candidly Explores the Nebulous Nature of Desire

It’s been nearly a decade since director Rodney Evans debuted his tenderly recuperative Brother to Brother (2004), though his resulting sophomore effort, an adaptation of Ken Urban’s stage play The Happy Sad, has been well worth the wait. A realistic exploration of the pressures and expectations of modern day relationships depicted through the main intermingling of two couples, one black and gay, the other white and heterosexual, there are perhaps one too many coincidental encounters upon which the furthering of the narrative depends (especially considering this is NYC). Nevertheless, you’ll be hard pressed to find a film that takes such care to explore the difficult issues of love, desire, and sexual fulfillment (as hurdles that every relationship must address) as equally well as it delivers engaging characters. In a world obsessed with labels and the idolatry of tradition,...

Katie Aselton is in front of the camera and behind it for bone-chiller 'Black Rock', set on the picturesque coast of Maine.

Three childhood friends set aside their personal issues and reunite for a girls' weekend on a remote island off the coast. One wrong move turns their weekend getaway into a deadly fight for survival.

Katie Aselton, Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell star in 'Black Rock'

The writer-director-actress tells HuffPostUK about her latest project...

This is quite a jump in mood from light rom-com 'The Freebie', which you also created. What inspired you to write and create a chiller thriller like this one?

I approached the idea initially as an actor... The role of 'action heroine' was one I have always secretly lusted for and, until I created it for myself, had never been offered the opportunity to play. Then the idea of...

Interview Sarah Dobbs 21 Jun 2013 - 07:29

A chat with writer, director, and actress Katie Aselton about her new film, Black Rock...

It’s amazing that anyone wants to go camping any more. The horror genre has taken great pains to explain exactly why it’s a bad idea, so when the three childhood friends in Black Rock set off to a remote island to rediscover their friendship, you just know everything’s going to go horribly wrong.

Katie Aselton’s film manages to pack in most of the requisite survival horror beats while maintaining its own defiantly realistic atmosphere; there aren’t any monsters here, just a group of people failing catastrophically to understand one another. It’s an interesting change of direction for the mumblecore star, so ahead of Black Rock’s UK release, we grabbed her for a chat about the film...

You co-wrote, directed, and starred in Black Rock,...

You wouldn’t have to hit many film festivals to become a fan of the filmmaking couple known as Katie Aselton and Mark Duplass. He, along with his brother Jay, brought us low-budget winners like The Puffy Chair, Baghead, and Cyrus, while she directed The Freebie not long ago and has graced many an indie project with her own lovely style of matter-of-fact femininity. (Plus she’s freaking hilarious on The League.)

So now, after working mostly in the department of dry comedy, Ms. Aselton and her husband have taken a leap into stark thriller territory, and the result is a slightly familiar but otherwise relatively bad-ass tale of accidental murder, unhinged antagonists, and suspenseful struggles for survival. Black Rock is about three women (Lake Bell, Kate Bosworth, and the director herself) who revisit an old island they loved as children -- only to stumble across three hunters who really shouldn’t be there.

Last week Dread Central attended a press conference for the upcoming indie thriller Black Rock, and we’ve brought back some highlights from the event with co-writer/director Katie Aselton and co-star Lake Bell.

Black Rock follows three lifelong friends (Aselton who also co-stars, Bell and Kate Bosworth) who look to rekindle their friendship by returning to an empty island off the coast of Maine they used to visit together throughout their childhoods. Once there, they realize they are not alone when they encounter three servicemen who have come to the island to hunt; as things quickly get out of hand between the two groups, the women are left fighting for their lives and looking to escape what used to be their refuge.

Check out the highlights from the Black Rock (review) press conference below, and look for the film in limited theaters and on VOD everywhere this weekend.

Question: Katie,...

Black Rock

Directed by: Katie Aselton

Cast: Katie Aselton, Lake Bell, Kate Bosworth

Running Time: 1 hr 23 mins

Rating: R

Release Date: May 17, 2013 (VOD)

Plot: A trip to a small island by three reunited friends (Aselton, Bell, Bosworth) turns into a moment of survival.

Who’S It For? If you think Katie Aselton is just Kevin’s wife on “The League,” you should definitely see this movie.

Overall

In the man’s world that is moviemaking, Katie Aselton’s name continues to rise on the list of interesting female filmmakers. Her directorial debut was The Freebie, where she acted opposite Dax Shepard in a couple’s flirtation with a night of polyamory. She and on-screen husband Shepard decided to give each other one night before settling down in which they could do whatever they wanted, despite the fact that imagining the other with someone else brings great pain. Freebie has a hell of an ambiguous ending,...

Katie Aselton Talks Black Rock, in theaters this Friday

Beloved as Jenny, the odd woman out amongst a gang of fantasy football obsessed men on The League, actress and filmmaker Katie Aselton directors her second feature, the white-knuckle thriller Black Rock, which is in theaters this Friday.

The film follows three lifelong friends who set out for a private camping trip at an iconic setting from their childhood. This empty island off the coast of Maine soon turns into a nightmare stomping ground for our trio of young women when they encounter a group of recently returned servicemen on a hunting excursion. After a misunderstanding quickly turns into a tragedy, the three ladies find themselves the targets of the hunt. What started out as a simple getaway to recall old times is now a race for survival as these ordinary woman must find extraordinary strength in order to beat the...

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Chicago – I really admire the girl power approach to the thriller genre in Katie Aselton’s surprising genre effort, “Black Rock,” but the admirable effort doesn’t change the fact that the movie just doesn’t feel fully fleshed out nor does it play to the strengths of its filmmaker. The what-if scenario that incites the action of “Black Rock” is captivating but Aselton and co-writer/husband Mark Duplass don’t build on that scenario enough to make the venture successful overall. I really wanted to like “Black Rock” given how much I truly think Aselton holds “The League” together and love Duplass but the script needed more work and the direction needed to be tighter. We need more directors as unpredictable as Aselton (after “The Freebie,” No One would have predicted her follow-up would look like this) but just being unpredictable isn’t enough.

Sarah (Kate Bosworth) wants...

In her first directorial turn, actress Katie Aselton impressed indie audiences with her relationship comedy The Freebie. Looking to go in a completely different direction with her sophomore effort, Aselton and husband Mark Duplass worked up the outline for a survival thriller. Duplass wrote a screenplay and the indie finance engine that the Duplass Bros. have nurtured kicked into high gear. Less than one year later, we have Black Rock. While this deserted island chiller has some good moments, it's hard to walk away without thinking that just a bit more time in development could have made this a much better movie. Things begin when Sarah (Kate Bosworth) goes to great trouble to assemble her two best friends Abby (Aselton) and Lou (Lake Bell) for...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

There is, ultimately, something to be said for the pleasures of a simple, sleek and well-shot run-or-kill-or-die thriller. The sort of film where the heroes are trapped in the middle of nowhere and find themselves threatened by hostile locals, and must then strike back to survive. At heart that's what "Black Rock," the second directorial effort from Katie Aselton, is, no more, no less. If you're hoping for a transcendent reinvention of the form, keep moving. If you're looking for a film like Aselton's erotic, neurotic and superbly acted "The Freebie," pass along. If you're looking for a well-executed example of a sub-genre with a Y-chromosome inflected plot and script, not as good as "Deliverance," but far better than a host of similarly-constructed films with bigger budgets and smaller IQs, you'll probably appreciate what "Black Rock" offers.  Based on a story by Aselton -- and a script by her frequent collaborator and husband,...

Title: Black Rock Directed by Katie Aselton (‘The Freebie’) Starring: Kate Bosworth, Katie Aselton, Lake Bell (‘No Strings Attached,’ TV’s ‘The League’), Will Bouvier, Jay Paulson (TV’s ‘Mad Men’) and Anslem Richardson (‘NCIS: Los Angeles’) Childhood friends who have known each other for years often have a tendency to drift apart as they enter adulthood, and begin to develop their own ideas what their lives should be like and what would truly make them happy. But there’s often is one person who becomes stuck in the middle of their friends’ continued fighting, who takes it upon themselves to take whatever means necessary to bring the group back together, no matter [ Read More ]

The post Black Rock Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"The Freebie" writer-director (and indie darling) Katie Aselton is following up her well-received debut with a film that couldn't be further from the winning romantic comedy. Boasting a screenplay by Mark Duplass, her husband and current co-star on FX's hit series "The League" (they also memorably appeared together in the Duplass brothers' "The Puffy Chair"), her second feature "Black Rock" centers on a trio of women (Aselton, Lake Bell and Kate Bosworth) who set out on an all-girls' trip off the coast of Maine. Once on the island however, the three are surprised to learn that a small all-male group have planned the exact same thing. Their getaway takes a turn for the dire when one of the men take it too far with Aselton's character, leaving the three fighting for their survival on the island. Indiewire called up Aselton and Duplass to discuss switching gears with "Black Rock," Aselton's chops as an action star,...

Katie Aselton is yet another indie actress-writer-director who has taken matters into her hands. There's no point in waiting around for careers to come to you. With some financial freedom from FX hit comedy series "The League," in which she stars with her multi-hyphenate husband Mark Duplass, who directed her, with brother Jay, in "The Puffy Chair," Aselton co-wrote, directed and stars in the R-rated thriller "Black Rock" which opens May 17 in theaters and VOD. She got a taste for directing herself with the 2010 micro-budget two-hander "The Freebie," a real, sexy, funny and painful relationship comedy in which she co-starred with Dax Shepherd ("Parenthood") as her loving but randy husband. "Mark was my ass-kicker," she admits. "I was convinced my phone was never going to ring again. 'Just make something on your own,' he told me. 'You can't say it's too hard.' He really was my champion in taking control.

After playing last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Katie Aselton’s Black Rock was acquired by Ld Entertainment (The Collection) for a theatrical run. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’m a big fan of Aselton’s film The Freebie and her co-stars here, Lake Bell and Kate Bosworth. I’m also a fan of this amazing alternate... Read More...

We start the Top 7. You finish the Top 10.

This weekend (April 12-14) is the first annual Chicago Critics Film Festival (Ccff), an amazing time for moviegoers to catch screenings of unreleased favorites from earlier festivals Cannes, Sundance, and SXSW. The event is organized by the Chicago Film Critics Association (Cfca, of which I am a proud member), and will take place at the Muvico Rosemont 18 theater right by Chicago’s O’Hare airport.

Click here for Free Passes to the screening of “Leave Me Like You Found Me” and Q&A with Adele Romanski – Saturday 4:30 p.m.

The festival begins this Friday night (April 12) with a screening of Stories We Tell, by Take This Waltz writer/director Sarah Polley. Continuing into Sunday night, with William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, the Ccff will feature screenings of numerous new Cfca favorites.

Included in this year’s lineup are: The Spectacular Now, directed...

The Stanley Film Festival, which will host its debut fest at the iconic and legendary Stanley Hotel in Colorado from May 2-5, has announced its official feature film line-up, with the Eli Roth-starring earthquake thriller Aftershock taking center stage as the fest’s closing night film.

Roth will be on hand to accept the Inaugural Visionary Award and take part in a Q&A after the film.

“Since his debut on the film festival scene with Cabin Fever in 2002, Eli Roth has become a leading force in the horror genre. Whether acting, producing, directing or writing – his many talents are what made titles like Hostel and Inglourious Basterds shine,” says Festival Director Jenny Bloom. “His body of work will set the Stanley Film Festival Visionary Award precedent high for years to come.”

The Stanley Film Festival is curated by Programming Director Landon Zakheim and programmer Michael Lerman, who selected films from 13 different countries,...

Among the 2013 SXSW Film Festival highlights (it played like gangbusters at its world premiere screening at the Alamo Ritz), Deadline reports that the horror comedy from first-time helmer and Duplass bros. film editor Jacob Vaughan scored a deal with Magnolia Pictures. Look for Milo to tour the Fantastic Film Alliance circuit with possible stops in Montreal, Los Angeles, Toronto and perhaps Sitges before settling down for a theatrical/VOD release.

Gist: Co-written by Vaughan and Benjamin Hayes, this ode to Gremlins, E.T. and a slew of bodily functions B-type comedies, this features the believable Ken Marino, as a desk job/hubby who discovers that his chronic stomach problems are due to the fact that he has a demon baby living in his colon.

Worth Noting: For the past decade, Vaughan has been hard at work in American indie film scene – he produced, shot, and edited the Independent Spirit Award nominated Dear Pillow,...

The stars have traveled to the sleepy town of Park City, Utah to once again celebrate movies and piss off the locals at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. We caught up with one of our favorite sexy funnygirls Kristen Bell, who is here with the coming-of-age tale "The Lifeguard." (Being a Sundance movie, how depressing it is? She’ll tell ya in a sec.)

The film stars Bell as a nearing 30-year-old who returns home to live with her parents and hopes to find herself through late nights out with friends and her high school job as a lifeguard.

Here Bell, who is six-and-a-half months pregnant, talks about how fiance Dax Shepard supports her in her time of need and why she wasn’t sweating the wedgies from the lifeguard suit.

What are you craving at the moment?

Hmmm. Nothing, believe it or not.

Is that just today?

No,...

Mark Duplass has proven himself an indie force to be reckoned with as one half of the Duplass brothers filmmaking team, so many will no doubt be curious to see how he fares making a foray into the thriller genre with "Black Rock," his latest writing effort helmed by and starring his wife Katie Aselton ("The Freebie") Get a peek at the results by checking out the just-released trailer below. In "Black Rock," Aselton stars as one of three friends (Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell play the other two) who venture off to a remote island in Maine to reconnect and be one with nature. Upon arriving at their destination, the trio soon learn that they're not alone... and not welcome. "Aselton's unassuming guilty pleasure gently diverges from a familiar scenario with impressively tense results," wrote Eric Kohn in his review out of Park City. The film is set to hit select theaters May 17th,...

As if relations between the sexes weren’t strained enough already, along comes Black Rock, a new thriller from writer Mark Duplass (from everything) and director Katie Aselton (The Freebie) that looks like it’s going to fan the flames further, ensuring that we get at least another year of clueless nincompoops publicly declaring their unsettling opinions about rape. The basic story follows three ladies (Aselton, Lake Bell, and Kate Bosworth) who trek out to an isolated island where they used to have camping trips when they were young; you know, to rekindle lost youth or something. When they’re out there though, the island proves to not be as isolated as they thought. They happen upon a group of three very male hunters (Will Bouvier, Jay Paulson, and Anslem Richardson), one of the ladies gets a little frisky with a bearded gentleman around the campfire, and then he gets way handsy and his buddies suddenly turn...

You might know Katie Aselton from her role in the indie dramedy The Puffy Chair, or perhaps from her directorial debut, the infidelity comedy The Freebie. But more than likely you know her as Jenny, the foul-mouthed female whose just one of the boys on the FX fantasy-football sitcom The League. But for Aselton's second effort as a director she's left all shades of comedy behind, diving into full-on thriller mode for Black Rock. Here she stars alongside Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell as three childhood friends who try to reconnect during a getaway to a remote island of the coast of Maine. There, instead of the camping and confiding they'd plan on, they find a batch of hillbilly hunters who go from friendly to deadly over the course of one really bad night. How does Aselton handle the daunting genre leap? Decide for yourself after taking a look at...

Ld Entertainment has debuted the first trailer for Black Rock, The League star Katie Aselton's second directorial effort following 2010's The Freebie. The director also stars alongside Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell as a trio of friends who head to the remote island of Black Rock for a weekend getaway. The ladies soon come to realize that they are not the only ones on this island. Take a look at the first footage from this thriller, which Katie Aselton also co-wrote with her husband Mark Duplass.

Black Rock - Trailer

Black Rock comes to theaters May 17th, 2013 and stars Katie Aselton, Kate Bosworth, Lake Bell. The film is directed by Katie Aselton.

Katie Aselton is Mark Duplass's better half in real life, but on FX's The League, they're just friends. As the show returns for its fourth season tonight, her character, Jenny, is so pregnant she's about to pop — but that's not going to interfere with the gang's fantasy-football plans (Dallas Cowboys training camp or the delivery room — you decide). When she's not keeping the guys in check, Aselton's busy directing movies; she started with The Freebie, and her second effort, Black Rock, was co-written with Duplass and co-stars Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell, as the three women attempt a getaway weekend and end up going to war against a group of ex-soldiers. Aselton took a break from her shooting schedule to chat with Vulture about vaginal hubris, necessary nudity, and hating vegans.Do people ever come up to you and expect to talk to you the way they do on...

Hit & Run

Directed by: David Palmer and Dax Shepard

Cast: Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Tom Arnold, Bradley Cooper, Kristen Chenoweth

Running Time: 1 hr 40 mins

Rating: R

Release Date: August 22, 2012

Plot: An ex-getaway driver named Charles Bronson (Shepard) risks breaking Witness Protection by driving his girlfriend (Bell) to Los Angeles for an important interview. Things get crazy when they are chased by a bitter criminal associate (Cooper) looking for the money from their last failed robbery.

Who’S It For?: Hit & Run has fast cars, a devoted couple in love, and Bradley Cooper in dreadlocks. Whether it fully delivers or not on the fun it hints at, it is definitely assembled to be a solid date movie.

Expectations: I don’t watch Shepard’s show “Parenthood,” so to me he’s still Ashton Kutcher’s old sidekick on “Punk’d.” Still, I was very willing to give him a chance.

Chicago – Pardon the clichés for a minute. I can’t help myself. Dax Shepard’s “Hit & Run” doesn’t just lose the drag race. It doesn’t just blow a flat tire or run out of gas. Think of all the Shalit-esque puns you can about a disastrous experience in a car and apply them to this lurching mess of five or six movies that aspires to be Tarantino-esque but completely misses its mark. There are a number of likable people in “Hit & Run” and they’ll walk away clean from this accident but audiences will want to quickly forget they ever took the ride.

Rating: 1.5/5.0

Shepard wrote, co-directed, and stars as Charlie Bronson, a name his character chose for himself when he entered the witness protection program after testifying against a notorious criminal played by Bradley Cooper. Bronson has been living peacefully in a small town with his lovely...

In the fast-car comedy Hit and Run, actor Dax Shepard plays an ex-getaway driver named Charles Bronson who risks breaking Witness Protection by driving his girlfriend (played by Kristen Bell) to Los Angeles for an important interview. Things get crazy when they are chased by a bitter criminal associate (played by Bradley Cooper, in dreadlocks) looking for the money from their last failed robbery.

Gaining notoriety from his role as Ashton Kutcher’s sidekick on MTV’s show “Punk’d,” Shepard can currently be seen on the show “Parenthood.” Off-screen, he is engaged/basically married to actress Kristen Bell (they are not formally married out for the cause for equal marriage in California). Hit and Run marks his second time co-directing a feature film, his first being a mockumentary titled Brother’s Justice, also co-directed with collaborator David Palmer.

In an exclusive interview, I sat down with Shepard to discuss...

Chicago – “Parenthood” star Dax Shepard has written, co-directed, and stars in the upcoming “Hit & Run” with real-life love Kristen Bell, Bradley Cooper, Tom Arnold, Beau Bridges and more. The Tarantino-esque comedy/action flick marks a giant leap forward for this often-supporting actor who now finds himself in the spotlight. The Michigan native recently sat down with us to talk about his inspirations, his past, and the hardcore fans of his NBC drama.

Hollywoodchicago.Com: Do you have that specific “I want to be an actor” moment in your memory banks?

Dax Shepard: I never had that “I want to be an actor” instinct when I was growing up. I was into drag racing and thought I was going to be a race car driver. But I was obsessed with movies and certain actors. I loved Nicolas Cage. And I did think, “Wow, if This guy can be an actor,...

Hit and Run

Directed by: Dax Shepard

Starring: Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Bradley Cooper

Rating: Not Yet Rated

Release Date: August 24, 2012

Trailer Score: 5/10

Thoughts by Tsr: Bradley Cooper’s hilarious dreadlocks are simultaneously the best and worst thing about this trailer for Hit and Run. That speaks to my overall reaction, as everything else exists in that middling ground where I can’t really be bothered to care one way or the other.

The one thing that could make this fairly entertaining is the natural chemistry between Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. They are a real life couple and what we see of them here is fairly fun. Unfortunately, these 150 seconds aren’t completely made up of scenes featuring the two of them, leaving us with too many sound effects masking curse words and too much “comedy” from Tom Arnold. Despite brief flashes – Cooper bursting into the room with the elderly people,...

If you aren’t familiar with Dax Shepard beyond Parenthood, and especially if you haven’t caught some of his more recent indie work, like The Freebie, you may be surprised by just how talented he is. Now, I don’t know if Hit and Run, the upcoming title that he wrote, co-directed, and stars in, is a surefire winner, but it looks like a lot of fun.

Coming to a theater near you on August 24th, Hit and Run is an action-comedy starring Shepard as a man whose past catches up to him when he least expects it… sort of. Unbeknownst to his fiancé (Kristen Bell), Charlie (Shepard) is in the witness protection program, and everything is about the life she thinks she’s in is about to start falling apart.

It’s from the producers of Wedding Crashers, though I’m not sure what information I want that to deliver,...

As a producer of "The Myth of the American Sleepover" and "The Freebie," Adele Romanski has helped shepherd two of the more insightful American indies about the travails of young adulthood. Stepping behind the camera for her directorial debut, "Leave Me Like You Found Me," Romanski shows herself equally capable of depicting nuanced relationships with this low-key character study. The movie nails the endless rollercoaster of uncertain romantic pursuits. The set-up is so minimalist it's essentially theatrical. Ex-lovers Erin (Megan Boone) and Cal (David Nordstrom) reunite for a camping trip in Sequoia National Park that doubles as couples therapy. Once convinced they belonged apart, a year of separation has made them eager to share a bed -- or, in this case, a tent -- once again. Initially, it appears time has served them well; gazing into each other's eyes and exchanging affectionate pleasantries, they're either meant for each other or.

Katie Aselton brought her debut film as a director to Sundance two years ago, premiering the low-budget, sweet and simple romantic comedy The Freebie. For her second effort she decided it was time to step things up, and though she still stars in her latest film in addition to directing, she's made a thriller that takes place entirely outdoors, features actual movie stars in Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell, and covers a whole lot of action that's bigger than anything you might have seen in The Freebie. In Black Rock Aselton, Bell and Bosworth play three childhood friends who travel to a remote Maine island for a reunion, only to find their trip completely derailed by an accident that leads to them being hunted down by some off-kilter hunters bent on revenge. The movie was picked up for distribution by Ld Entertainment almost immediately after premiering, which means that audiences...

Men are trying to kill them, and the women hiding in the woods are huddled together, completely nude and desperate.

They’re hugging each other for warmth after splashing through water that has soaked their clothes and, on such a cold night, could soon plunge them into hypothermia.

But this is also the moment Black Rock, a girls-in-trouble Sundance thriller starring Katie Aselton, Lake Bell, and Kate Bosworth, joins its sexy let’s-get-the-actors’-clothes-off sensibilities, with something a lot more intense.

“On the next level, really, that’s where the girls start to turn primal,” says Aselton, who also directed.

In her first directorial turn, actress Katie Aselton impressed indie audiences with her relationship comedy The Freebie. Looking to go in a completely different direction with her sophomore effort, Aselton and husband Mark Duplass worked up the outline for a survival thriller. Duplass wrote a screenplay and the indie finance engine that the Duplass Bros. have nurtured kicked into high gear. Less than one year later, we have Black Rock. While this deserted island chiller has some good moments, it's hard to walk away without thinking that just a bit more time in development could have made this a much better movie. Things begin when Sarah (Kate Bosworth) goes to great trouble to assemble her two best friends Abby (Aselton) and Lou (Lake Bell)...

Multi-hyphenate Katie Aselton returns to Sundance with her second film, a much different outing than her gorgeous and melancholy 2010 entry, The Freebie. This time around, Aselton has ceded writing duties to her husband, Mark Duplass, and the pair have made what will likely be referred to as “Deliverance for girls” for many years to come. But Black Rock is a twisty little horror outing that perhaps shares more with The Freebie than might be obvious from first blush. Both films hinge on interpersonal relationships, the confusion of behavioral signals and perceptions, and mistakes that have far-reaching consequences. Yet, Black Rock is most certainly a thriller and a genre picture, and its wooded island setting, thumping soundtrack (with remarkably sage picks from The Kills), and grim plotline only serve to show how well Aselton can cross genres with style. The film is centered on a trio of women, friends since childhood who were fractured years before by a...

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival rolls on in full force. And amid all the hype surrounding deal-making and the discussion of alternative distribution paths, it's easy to forget that there's a crop of interesting movies on the slate and that's what Sundance is really all about.

Among the most compelling films this year are director Colin Trevorrow's Safety Not Guaranteed, a time-travel comedy starring Kristen Bell, Aubrey Plaza and Jake Johnson; Don Coscarelli's John Dies at the End, a horror-comedy starring Chase Williamson, Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown; and V/H/S, a found-footage horror anthology from directors Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg and Radio Silence.

But the film we're most interested in this year is Black Rock, a flick that sounds like it was made for all the people that loved The Descent, but would've loved it more had it been directed by...