Don't mess with a man's best friend! I'm borrowing that phrase from our own Eric D. Snider, who used it to describe the plot of Red, a thriller starring the great Brian Cox as a man on a mission to avenge the death of his beloved dog at the hands of a bunch of teenage punks.

As Eric noted, Magnolia Pictures picked up distribution rights for the movie and planned a late summer release. Well, it must be later than we thought, because Dread Central now tells us that Red will be unleashed to theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, August 8, followed by a "slow rollout" to more theaters nationwide.

"An emotionally gripping if slightly overwrought drama," is how Eric described Red in his review from Sundance, where the film premiered. Later he called it "a solid B-minus effort, and Cox's performance makes it eminently watchable." In addition to Cox, the cast includes Tom Sizemore as a bad father, Kim Dickens as a TV reporter, and Robert Englund and Amanda Plummer as white trash parents of one of the juvenile delinquent kids responsible for the death of the titular dog.

I've loved Brian Cox in many roles (Braveheart to Manhunter to 25th Hour to X2: X-Men United to Zodiac), so I have to believe he's a major plus for audiences looking for something a little different in August. How about you? Do you have any interest in seeing the Cox-avenging Red?

Back in January, Paul Dano signed on to play a crazy healer who gets taken under the wing of Brian Cox in The Good Heart. Now Just Jared has got some shots from Dagur Kari's production, as it gears up in New York. To the right, you can see Dano in hospital whites, playing frisbee. I guess Cox isn't the only one in the film who hangs in the hospital. (There's another picture over at Just Jared of both of them in their whites.)

The movie is about a man named Jacques (Cox) who runs a deadbeat bar in New York, "like a bar in a Eugene O'Neil play." Dano, meanwhile, is a young homeless man with healing powers who comes to the bar and heals all the men there -- including Jacques, who "is always in the hospital, nearly dying." In thanks, the homeless man is taken under Jacques' wing, to take over the bar, but things get tricky when a Hungarian air-hostess creates a triangle between the two men.

And then, at some point, they must find themselves committed. They're certainly not in a normal hospital if they're walking around on their own and playing frisbee. Whatever the case, the mixture of Dano and Cox sounds excellent, and it should be worth the crazy, healing, dramatic adventure.

I told you a couple weeks ago how THINKFilm had picked up the gritty prison thriller The Escapist, and how the film, which stars Brian Cox, was the last thing I saw at Sundance this year. Well, I actually had a double helping of Cox that January night, because right before The Escapist I watched Red, another film boasting a terrific Cox performance -- and now it's headed for theaters, too.

Via The Hollywood Reporter we learn that Magnolia has picked up Red, with plans to release it late this summer. The film (which I reviewed here) is a thriller along the lines of Death Wish, only instead of avenging his wife's murder, the Cox character is going after the punks who killed his dog. (Do not mess with a man's dog!)

The very last film I saw at Sundance this year, at a lively 10 p.m. screening and seated next to the dapper James Rocchi, was The Escapist. It was a perfect ending for the festival, and a great "guy movie" to boot (Rocchi and I are nothing if not burly, rugged men): Brian Cox leads a bunch of Limey blokes, including Joseph Fiennes, on a daring escape from a British prison. Familiar premise, but well executed with a few twists. Rocchi's rave review is here.

The flick was well received during its world premiere at Sundance, and yet somehow it didn't get picked up by any distributors before the fest ended. Now, finally, THINKFilm has come to the rescue. Variety reports that the distributor has paid about $1 million for the film and plans to release it in October, starting small and expanding over the course of several weeks.

Our post-modern age makes it easy (indeed, possibly too easy) to find takes or spins or twists on traditional stories or genre films; what's often harder is finding well-executed examples of those genres in the first place. (Put more bluntly, we've all seen plenty of recent ironic crime films or teen comedies -- but how few of those actually work as crime films or teen comedies?) The British film The Escapist, which made its North American debut at Sundance this year, not only works as a brilliant, twisting existential expansion of the traditional prison break film; it also works as a crackerjack example of the traditional prison break film. Brian Cox stars as Frank, a convict serving a life sentence; after hearing of his daughter's second overdose, he determines that he has to get out, he has to see her: "I have to make things right."

As played by Cox, Frank's hard to understand, but easy to like -- and the other way around, too. Cox is one of our best actors -- he's great in both high art and high trash, and The Escapist offers him a chance to work both ends of that divide. We watch, riveted, as Frank tries to break through the metaphorical wall around his feelings; we watch, riveted, as Frank tries to break through the literal walls keeping him from the outside. Frank's demeanor is pure prison -- a hot-forged alloy of defiance and resignation tempered by time -- but he's also more than just that facade.

Paul Dano's name might not be on the tip of tongues, but you're sure to have seen him, and liked him -- he played Klitz in The Girl Next Door, Dwayne in Little Miss Sunshine, and most recently, Paul and Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood. (If you haven't seen these, you should. And if you don't like him, why the heck not?!) Now, along with Explicit Ills, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Stanford Prison Experiment, MTV reports that he's going to be acting in the upcoming film, The Good Heart with his L.I.E. co-star, Brian Cox.

MTV talked with Cox at Sundance, and he said this new project, to be directed by Dagur Kári, is "a crazed film about a guy who runs a bar, called Jacques [Cox], in New York. It's a bar where all these deadbeats hang out, like a bar in a Eugene O'Neil play." How does Dano fit in? "This young homeless man comes in, and he has these extraordinary powers of healing; he can heal all the guys in the bar. He also heals my character, this guy who has these heart problems. The old man is always in the hospital, nearly dying." After healing the bar owner, Dano's character is taken under his wing so that he may take over the bar when Jacques passes on. Things get complicated when a "Hungarian air-hostess" comes to work in the bar and a triangle forms.

On the one hand, this sounds great. On the other, I can help but think about what it would be like with the previously-rumored stars -- Ryan Gosling and Tom Waits.

It took me years to get that horrible Natalie Imbruglia pop song out of my head, and now the singer/actress might be about to return to the spotlight. According to The Herald Sun, the Aussie-born actress was recently in Sydney to film a "secret screen test" for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which is gearing up production as we speak. No further information was available on exactly what kind of part Imbruglia was testing for, but one can only assume the 32 year-old beauty was up for the female lead. Imbruglia has recently re-focused her career on acting and back in October we noted that she was playing the lead in the Australian drama Elise, about a missing child. She also appeared in a 2003 action comedy called Johnny English, which was unseen by me but was apparently not very good.

Earlier rumors had Maggie Q latching onto a lead female role in X4, but nothing has been confirmed yet and there's always a possibility that there could be a female villain in the mix. Liev Schreiber is also supposedly circling the role of young Stryker, but we recently passed on the news that Brian Cox is also putting X4 on the resume he's currently sending around, so that adds to the confusion. One of our commenters recently pointed out, however, that the film may be going in the direction of acknowledging that Wolverine is a very old character, which would necessitate the young and old Strykers both being in the film. Makes sense, right?

Yesterday afternoon I was thumbing through some Sundance e-mails when I came across an interview pitch for Brian Cox, known to one and all for his many acting roles including Stryker, nemesis of Wolverine in X2: X-Men United. For a while it's been known that the role Cox originated was going to be taken over by the younger Liev Schreiber in the upcoming fourth film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so how come Brian Cox has X-Men Origins: Wolverine as his top credit on the actor bio sheet I'm looking at right now? An attempt by me to follow-up with the publicist who sent me the bio has been met with silence, so who knows if this was something that wasn't meant to be leaked or just someone's dumb mistake? I can easily see a publicist accidentally writing down X4 when they meant to write down X2. But the wall of silence hasn't yet dissipated. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

The official synopsis for X-Men Origins: Wolverine -- what a clunky title -- states that the film "explores the claw-wielding character Wolverine's violent and romantic past, and his complex relationship with Victor Creed and the ominous Weapon X programs, as well as his encounter with other mutants." Filming is expected to start in a couple of weeks, so if there are any last minute casting decisions to be made, now is the time, I guess. I'd definitely like to see dueling Strykers, but is time-travel a big part of the X-Men universe, cause otherwise I can't exactly see how they'd pull that one off. More likely that if this is true, there will be a prologue or epilogue with Cox getting to shine for five minutes.

Earlier this month a bunch of us came up with a list of the movie characters we'd love to have thanksgiving with. Now, here's the opposite. The title is pretty self-explanatory, so I don't need to set it up much. But as usual, we invite you to tell us of your own picks for worst Thanksgiving dinner guest. Please try to make it a movie character, though, because none of us know your annoying aunt, and plus this is a movie site.


Hannibal Lecter from Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising

If you were to have Dr. Lecter (Brian Cox; Anthony Hopkins; Gaspard Ulliel) to your Thanksgiving feast, you'd want to prepare and cook all the food yourself. Otherwise, you might end up eating human flesh instead of turkey (or turducken, or whatever non-people-based meal you prefer). Then again, you might actually end up the meal, which is certainly much worse than unknowingly tasting Ray Liotta's brains. So, the best thing is to not even invite the guy.


Graham Young from Young Poisoner's Handbook

Another character who might be an interesting guest, but like with Lecter, you'll need to keep an eye on the food, or at least on the tea. Graham (Hugh O'Conor), aka "the teacup murderer" likes to play with poison, and there's a good chance he's going to spike the dinner or drinks with thallium.

This summer seemed like the end of an era for a lot of the big franchises. Sure, some might be back, but I just don't think they'll be the same. For one of the last big summer releases, The Bourne Ultimatum, Universal has launched an online game, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It was announced that studio has teamed with Google for a promotional game with the somewhat lame title The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google. Players try to hunt down the elusive rouge agent, and at the same time the game takes you on a tour of You Tube, Google Maps and web searches. Participants will have to answer trivia, and find random clues buried on the net to compete for the grand prize of a 2008 Touareg 2.

So far, the marketing for the movie has been pretty typical; just a few posters and a couple of trailers, and of course the Bourne game is another attempt to fully integrate the web as a way of engineering some buzz. You can't blame the studio for wanting to cash in on a little hype, especially when you consider all the hoopla over those Cloverfield sites. The highly anticipated final film -- and it turns out it will be the final one in the series -- is bringing Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Brian Cox, Joan Allen, and Chris Cooper back for one last hurrah. Back in June, Jennifer had reported that instead of going back for more Bourne after this one, Damon was going to be working on the film version of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran with Bourne director Paul Greengrass. Bourne doesn't open for a few more weeks, so if you can't wait until August 3rd and you have a way with Google, you could always take a crack at winning that car.