Tonight, the screens will be full of James McAvoy and his Wanted co-stars bending bullet paths and pulling off funky tricks usually relegated to superheroes. The storyline sounds a lot like The Matrix, but luckily that also means keeping one of the previous flick's best features: a tough-arse female mentor. Tonight, Angelina Jolie will put aside her drama and revel in toughness and assassin death, but she's not the only one to do so.

Before Jolie took on the role of Fox, Uma Thurman rocked as The Bride. Above is my favorite scene from the first volume of Kill Bill -- the insidious whistling hospital scene. Considering all the NSFW elements of the two films, I figured this whistling teaser would be best. (But if you want more violence, watch them fight here.) It's Daryl Hannah at her finest, and Uma Thurman getting a nice bout of shut-eye.

Of course, there are a million different films that somehow tie into Wanted. If you're looking for more mainstream, successful action, you might want to check out Christopher Campbell's list of top critically acclaimed action flicks over at Spout.

The Last Rewind Answer: Believe it or not, while consensus has picked Marlon Brando as the man who wasn't considered for Fear and Loathing, it was actually Dustin Hoffman.

Here's a story for the little girls out there. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Handmade Films has cast the lead in their upcoming adaptation of Eloise in Paris. Eloise is to be played by young Australian actress Jordana Beatty. That's her to the right -- and doesn't she look the part? She'll join Uma Thurman, who is playing Nanny. (Miles away from the way Nanny was illustrated in the books, at least from what I remember.)

Beatty has been acting since she was four, and was cast after 4,000 other hopefuls had tried out for the part. Filming is to begin August 12th in New York and Paris.

Handmade is hoping the Eloise films become a franchise. There are certainly enough books to keep them going. The Eloise series was penned by Kay Thompson, and illustrated by Hilary Knight. They follow the crazy adventures of Eloise, who lives in the Plaza Hotel. She's largely unsupervised, except for her poor Nanny, and runs wild with her pug, Weenie, and her turtle, Skipperdee. They were published in the 50's but remain popular, as they have that Home Alone vibe without being annoying. The illustrations are charmingly retro. Buy the treasury for your daughter if you haven't already.

No word on release date, except that we should see it in 2009. Charles Shyer is directing. If they need a cheap and handsome pug to play Weenie, I have one who's dying to be a household name.

The only thing more annoying than double-dipping DVDs is refraining from buying the first release of a film you really love, and then waiting, waiting, waiting, and more waiting for a better version to come out. Of course, as soon as you finally cave in, eager to see the film again, that's when it will happen. I'm beginning to think that I should just go out and buy the old Kill Bill releases, just to get this whole production up and running.

Last June, it seemed like we were finally getting the Whole Bloody Affair, but November came and went without that super-tasty disc release. Almost a year later, we're getting teased again. In a talk with MTV, Uma Thurman says that Quentin Tarantino's animated stuff is really on the way, and she teased that the long-awaited and desired big DVD release could actually arrive soon.

One anime companion film has been made, and Thurman says: "It has nothing to do with me. It has to do with another character. You'll have to see." This, as MTV points out, probably means an extra helping of Bill himself. But she also says that this short could be part of a larger re-release, sort of Grindhouse style. "Right now he's putting the two films together with an intermission with an added anime sequence he had already written. So additional stories are in there, in animation."

Anime or not, just get us the damned DVD set, QT. I'm sick of waiting! I need my geysers of blood and Elle Driver.

The Life Before Her Eyes, the latest film by Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog), opened this weekend in limited release. In part as a response to the negative reviews by a number of critics, Perelman said recently in an interview that he's decided that it's better for audiences to know the ending going in (I did confirm with Perelman that he actually said this, because I was rather surprised that he would). And while I understand Perelman's desire to counter the critical response to the film in this way, I decided to take a look at what the negative reviews actually say.

First, I'm going to largely ignore the reviews (good and bad) that came out of the Toronto International Film Festival last year, because the cut of the film in theaters now is different. So let's look at what critics have to say about the current cut. Let's look at one titled (ever so objectively) "Hollywood and the War on Women", by Prairie Miller over on News Blaze. Miller starts her "review" of the film with a five-paragraph rant that tries to tie films about the Iraq war into a perceived "war against women" in Hollywood, going so far as to make the accusation that this war is fueled, in part, by male directors and producers whose coffers are being drained by alimony and child support payments. Uh, what?

It's been five years since Vadim Perelman's critically acclaimed feature debut with House of Sand and Fog. Now the director is back with his newest film, The Life Before Her Eyes, starring Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood and Eva Amurri. The film is about Diana, whose life starts to crumble as the 15th anniversary of the school shooting she survived nears; it flashes back and forth between older Diana (Thurman) and the younger Diana (Wood) and her best friend Maureen (Amurri) in the weeks leading up to the tragic event. Cinematical sat down with Perelman and Amurri at AFI Dallas to talk about the film, which opens in limited release this weekend.

Cinematical: Eva, can you talk about the challenges of playing this role, which is much more of "nice girl" than you've played in your previous films?

Eva Amurri: The earlier roles I'd had just happened to be more bad girls. This is the first role I'd had where the role was basically all good, this very pure, selfless girl. What's funny is that Vadim really cast us against type – in real life, I'm much more the "bad" girl, while Evan is the serious "good" girl. I was a little worried about it, but I trusted Vadim, and he did a great job guiding us through it. It was an interesting exercise.

(Editor's note: This review originally ran during AFI Dallas. It's being rerun this weekend in conjunction with the film's release.)

I loved House of Sand and Fog, and I've been waiting five long years to see what director Vadim Perelman would come up with next. His latest effort, The Life Before Her Eyes, starring Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood and Eva Amurri, is a lovely, nuanced film packed with imagery, and bracketed by an intriguing storyline. The film revolves around Diana, played as a teenager by Wood and an adult by Thurman; the younger Diana was a survivor of a high school shooting, as as the 15-year anniversary of the tragic event nears, the older Diana begins to unravel.

Perelman is not a director who hand-feeds his audience easy answers. With House of Sand and Fog he made heavy use of its moody, gray and brown pallette to set a dark and unsettling mood. With The Life Before Her Eyes, he turns to brilliantly saturated hues of flowers and water to create a sublime tone that evokes what's going on with Diana. The perfect life with professor husband Paul (Brett Cullen) and daughter Emma (Gabrielle Brennan) that she's worked so hard to create is a fairy tale fantasy built on an unstable foundation of unresolved guilt, and we know from the first frames that, hard as she works to sustain it, it's as fragile as the petals of the flowers that embower her garden.

Back in February, Uma Thurman surprisingly signed on to play Nanny in the upcoming film, Eloise in Paris, which is set to begin production this June in London, Paris, and New York. But before she begins filming that, Variety reports that the actress is quickly slipping another caregiver role into the mix -- a comedy by writer/director Katherine Dieckmann called Motherhood.

At least this flick will have her playing someone her age. (I still can't get over the fact that adapting Eloise's Nanny brought to mind thoughts of Uma.) She will star as "a harried mother of two prepping for her daughter's sixth birthday party as myriad urban challenges confront her," while Minnie Driver and Anthony Edwards will play her best friend and husband.

There's nothing like those pesky "urban challenges." Does someone steal the last package of fancy streamers or something? The shoot is scheduled to last 25 days, which gives her just enough time to wrap up before Eloise, and the film is said to be taking advantage of new Gotham tax incentives. While a fan of Thurman, I'm still wary of her comedic roles, so if you're like me, there's always The Life Before Her Eyes, which heads into limited release this week.

Ed note: Cinematical would just like to point out that it's awesome to have Goose back on the big screen. "More Goose!" we shall always shout from whichever rooftop will allow it.

I loved House of Sand and Fog, and I've been waiting five long years to see what director Vadim Perelman would come up with next. His latest effort, The Life Before Her Eyes, starring Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood and Eva Amurri, is a lovely, nuanced film packed with imagery, and bracketed by an intriguing storyline. The film revolves around Diana, played as a teenager by Wood and an adult by Thurman; the younger Diana was a survivor of a high school shooting, as as the 15-year anniversary of the tragic event nears, the older Diana begins to unravel.

Perelman is not a director who hand-feeds his audience easy answers. With House of Sand and Fog he made heavy use of its moody, gray and brown pallette to set a dark and unsettling mood. With The Life Before Her Eyes, he turns to brilliantly saturated hues of flowers and water to create a sublime tone that evokes what's going on with Diana. The perfect life with professor husband Paul (Brett Cullen) and daughter Emma (Gabrielle Brennan) that she's worked so hard to create is a fairy tale fantasy built on an unstable foundation of unresolved guilt, and we know from the first frames that, hard as she works to sustain it, it's as fragile as the petals of the flowers that embower her garden.

I'm in Dallas for the second AFI Dallas Film Festival, and having a great time so far. The fest has worked through some of those first-year kinks and things seem to be sailing along smoothly, though I know there's probably lots of finagling going on behind the scenes that makes whatever glitches do come up invisible to most of us here. Shuttle service for passholders this year is making it much easier to navigate the fest quickly and efficiently between venues. The festival lounge is great this year -- the space is nicely decorated, there are always yummy snacks on hand, the drinks flow all night long, and Guitar Hero battles happen nightly.

I kicked things off here on Tuesday moderating a panel on women filmmakers for a private event held for a group of high-powered corporate women. Filmmakers SJ Main (Luck of the Draw) and Robin Bliley (Circus Rosaire) made my job super easy; both had many insights to share about being independent filmmakers and women working in the business, and the women (and their husbands) in attendance had many thought-provoking questions that kept the tone conversational and interesting.

We have a new set of stills for you from the upcoming film The Life Before Her Eyes, starring Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood. The film, directed by Vadim Perelman and based on the best-selling novel by Laura Kasischke, is a dramatic thriller about Diana (Thurman), a suburban wife and mother who begins to question her seemingly perfect life--and perhaps her sanity--on the fifteenth anniversary of a tragic high school shooting that took the life of her best friend.

The film flashes back-and-forth between the younger Diana (played by Wood) and her best friend Maureen (played by Eva Amurri, daughter of Susan Sarandon), and the older Diana, who is haunted by the increasingly strained relationship she had with Maureen as day of the school shooting approached. As older Diana's life begins to unravel and younger Diana gets closer and closer to the fatal day, a deeper mystery slowly unravels.

You can see more stills from the film in the gallery below. The film is set to open in limited release on April 18.