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Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Shrink, which premiered at this past Sundance Film Festival to some pretty great buzz. Starring Kevin Spacey, Saffron Burrows, Keke Palmer, Mark Webber, Dallas Roberts and Robin Williams, Shrink follows "a psychiatrist (Spacey) whose boutique L.A. office, A-list clientele and best-selling pop psychology books form a thin layer of respectability over his ruined personal life, insurmountable grief, serious pot problem and a host of other crises," so says James Rocchi, who covered the film for Cinematical during Sundance and interviewed its star, Mr. Kevin Spacey.

Reminiscent of his character from American Beauty, Spacey (as the celebrity shrink-turned-pothead) delivers a performance here that's not to be missed, and the supporting cast takes what could've been another film about annoying egotistical Hollywood types from Los Angeles and turns it into one that's funny, serious, sweet, sincere and a little bit sideways. Definitely worth the watch. Check out the full synopsis after the jump and click below to view the full poster. Shrink hits theaters on July 24.

In Shrink, screening in the Premiere section at the Sundance Film Festival, Kevin Spacey plays a psychiatrist whose boutique L.A. office, A-list clientele and best-selling pop psychology books form a thin layer of respectability over his ruined personal life, insurmountable grief, serious pot problem and a host of other crises. Spacey developed the film with his Trigger Street production company, with Jonas Pate directing Thomas Moffet's script, and Spacey part of an ensemble cast that includes Robin Williams, Saffron Burrows, Mark Webber, Dallas Roberts and Keke Palmer. I asked Spacey if doing so many scenes revolving on just two people talking is an actor's dream, or an actor's nightmare: "As compared to? Explosions, and cars flying through the air? I think it's an actor's dream, and I also think it's an audience's dream; there's noting quite like being able to go to to a play or the cinema and watch people exchange as human beings, I think."

Spacey spoke with Cinematical about smoking fake weed, how Sundance has changed the movies, how Hollywood eats its young, his voice-over role as the supercomputer GERTY opposite Sam Rockwell in the Sundance selection Moon, and much more.

You can listen to the interview here at Cinematical by clicking below:



You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

After skating the edges of the Western genre for years, with his 'urban Western' Cop Land and his country western-flavored music biopic Walk the Line, James Mangold has finally taken the plunge and made a full-on Western with 3:10 to Yuma, and the result is a success. While very faithful to the 1957 original -- some scenes are actually recreated word for word -- this film is also Mangold's own, stirring up the same ideas he's always shown interest in. If you're a Mangold fan, you know there are shadings of the classic High Noon situation in all of his films, with the good but under-pressure man standing by his principles as he's deserted by everyone around him, and 3:10 is no exception. This time, the good man is a poor, hobbled rancher named Evans, played by a typically dour Christian Bale. Evans is so broke he's about to go under when an opportunity presents itself -- he can make a fistful of cash if he's brave enough (or stupid enough) to walk a notorious and recently captured gangster named Ben Wade to the train station that will take him to prison.

Stepping into the shoes of Ben Wade is Russell Crowe, who plays the part as though he's certain that he's the film's good guy. When the film first catches up with Wade, he's sullen and bored with the criminal life, and prefers to sit up on a ridge and draw pictures of wild life, while leaving the scheming to his frustrated goons. Not that he's a pacifist -- Wade is a man capable of quick, brutal violence (even with a fork), although not prone to hatred or stupidity or any of the other dull characteristics we'd tend to associate with a man who robs and kills for a living. In fact, Crowe's (and Mangold's) decision to give Wade an abundance of good qualities to cancel out the bad ones may be a bit too much at times -- after all, we don't really want to root for this guy, do we? It's always something of a cheat when a movie tells us that the bad guy has taken many lives in the past, but doesn't really show us that side of him during the film.

This just might turn out to be a remake of The Little Engine that Could. First, Sony Pictures dropped director James Mangold's proposed remake of 3:10 to Yuma for unknown reasons, even with Russell Crowe attached to the project, and Tom Cruise and Eric Bana reportedly interested in separate roles in the film. Then the picture ended up at Lionsgate, who trimmed the budget from $80 million to $50 million, and added Christian Bale in the process.

Lionsgate announced today that Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol and Dallas Roberts have been added to the cast, and shooting (literally) is expected to start in October. Crowe will never be able to replace Glenn Ford in the lead role, but it will give him a chance to atone for his turn in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead. Okay, that was a cheap shot (no pun intended), because I actually really liked that movie. No word on whether Crowe will be wielding a telephone handset or a shooting iron in his holster, but he's deadly with either one.