Universal Pictures recently send us over stills for the upcoming Peter Berg (Battleship) thriller "Lone Survivor". The upcoming film stars Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Eric Bana. "Lone Survivor" opens in limited release on 12/27 and theaters nationwide on 1/10/2014.

For more informaion on this film, you can visit the film's official website at: http://www.lonesurvivorfilm.com/site

Plot Synopsis:

Based on The New York Times bestselling true story of heroism, courage and survival, Lone Survivor tells the incredible tale of four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda operative who are ambushed by the enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan. Faced with an impossible moral decision, the small band is isolated from help and surrounded by a much larger force of Taliban ready for war. As they confront unthinkable odds together, the four men find reserves of strength and resilience as they stay in the fight to the finish.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Marcus Luttrell, the author of the first-person memoir "Lone Survivor," whose book has become a motivational resource for its lessons on how the power of the human spirit is tested when we are pushed beyond our mental and physical limits. Starring alongside Wahlberg as the other members of the SEAL team are Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster.

Lone Survivor is written and directed by Peter Berg, who again crafts a striking portrait of the unbreakable bonds between men that he first explored in Friday Night Lights.

WARNING: DO NOT EAT FRIED CHICKEN BEFORE OR WHILE WATCHING THIS MOVIE.

William Friedkin’s “Killer Joe” gets my vote for the most unforgettable WTF movie of 2012. It wallows in the sheer depravity of its deliberately idiotic characters without apology, and it is one of the most darkly hilarious movies I have seen in some time. I’m not sure I have “enjoyed” a comedy this black since Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” and that was the WTF movie of 2009! It marks the second collaboration between Friedkin and playwright Tracy Letts whose play “Bug” Friedkin adapted into a movie back in 2006. With “Killer Joe,” neither is out to show the audience any mercy as they challenge them in a way most filmmakers don’t ever bother to these days (especially in the summertime).

The movie takes place in Texas and features some of the dumbest or (to be more polite) most dimwitted characters on the face of the earth. Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch) is a drug dealer who is in debt to his suppliers by several thousand dollars, and his solution is to have someone murder his mother as she has a $50,000 insurance policy. His father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) shows only the slightest moral opposition to this plan as he divorced Chris’ mother a long time ago and has since gotten married to the conniving Sharla (Gina Gershon), and Chris already has one person in mind to carry out this cold-hearted assassination.

That person is Joe Copper (Matthew McConaughey), a police detective who works as a hired killer on the side. Now Joe demands an upfront payment of $25,000 for his services, but Chris and Ansel can only pay him after receiving the insurance payout. As a result, Joe ends up taking a retainer to make up for that: Ansel’s daughter and Chris’ sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Like with all crimes based on greed, all the careful preparation can’t keep these characters from falling into that nasty realm of disaster. But long before the movie’s end, you will agree that they all have earned the fate they ever so thoughtlessly brought on themselves.

If this seems like an unusual movie for Oscar winning director Friedkin to make, it shouldn’t. Friedkin’s movies, with the exception of “The Exorcist,” have never had characters that are deserving of redemption. “Killer Joe” will be seen by many as a bold motion picture of his, but his resume of work shows that he has never passed judgment on any of the characters that inhabit his movies. He is also a brilliant filmmaker in that he surrounds himself with a cast of actors who don’t easily judge the characters they play either.

McConaughey has been on a roll ever since he gave up making those dopey romantic comedies for movies like “The Lincoln Lawyer” and “Magic Mike.” With “Killer Joe,” he ends up giving perhaps the bravest and boldest performance of his career to date as his character is as immoral as they get. We never learn why he decided to get into this line of work while being employed as an officer of the law, but it doesn’t matter in the end. McConaughey gives us a mesmerizing portrait of a character who is more than aware of how amoral he is, and he is not about to apologize for that.

The other actors like Emile Hirsch and Thomas Haden Church deserve a lot of credit as they portray the dimwitted nature of the characters perfectly without just playing it for laughs. They play each character as being serious in what they say and what they do, and that allows the audience to laugh uncontrollably at certain moments because they almost won’t believe how badly they screw things up. Both Hirsch and Church are perfectly cast here as they invest their characters with a history that shows on their faces and which doesn’t always need to be made clear with words.

A special badge of courage however needs to go to Gina Gershon who plays Ansel’s current wife Sharla. It feels like it’s been a while since we have seen her in anything, and she is at her most unglamorous in “Killer Joe.” Her character thinks nothing of opening the front the front door without wearing anything from the waist down, and this is not to mention what McConaughey ends up making her do with a piece of fried chicken (I’ll let you witness that for yourself). Even as her character wears too much makeup to where her mascara runs down her face, making her look like a The Joker, Gershon gives a truly fearless performance as someone who thinks she’s better than the people around her. Of course, her character finds out in the worst way possible that she is not.

The one person however who really caught my eye was Juno Temple who portrays the youngest child of the Smith family, Dottie. You may remember Temple as Selina Kyle’s street smart friend from “The Dark Knight Rises,” and she makes Dottie a fascinating enigma. Her character is at times willfully innocent, seemingly naïve, but she actually becomes the only member of this trailer park family with any sort of intelligence. Temple is utterly beguiling in “Killer Joe,” and I look forward to seeing more of her in the future.

“Killer Joe” was already earning infamy before its release as the MPAA gave it the dreaded NC-17 rating which, at this point, it wears on its shoulder without apology. Did it earn that rating? Well, yes and no; this is certainly no movie to take your kids or impressionable teenagers to see. Then again, if “Killer Joe” were released by a major movie studio, it would have somehow gotten an R despite its content. Whatever you think this movie deserves the NC-17 rating or not, the hypocrisy of the MPAA remains maddening and never ending.

Friedkin has been leaving in the shadow of his most famous work for years as if no one would ever let him get past “The Exorcist,” “The French Connection” or even “Sorcerer.” The truth however is that he has not lost his talent in setting up scenes that have tremendous suspenseful impact. This is especially the case whenever McConaughey is onscreen because when he appears you know things are going to get really bad. Friedkin also is well served by his collaborators such as cinematographer Caleb Deschanel who finds a twisted beauty in such utter depravity, and composer Tyler Bates gives the movie’s most suspenseful and horrifying moments a strong atmospheric quality that makes the story all the more claustrophobic.

It’s hard to say where exactly “Killer Joe” will end up on William Friedkin’s long resume of work, but it is safe to say it is far more accomplished than other movies of his like “Deal of the Century,” “The Guardian” and “Jade.” With this film he gives willing audience members an experience that they will not easily forget, and he directs Matthew McConaughey to one of the best and most explosive performances of his career. Those in the mood for the most disturbing of black comedies should not pass “Killer Joe” up.

* * * ½ out of * * * *

Written & Directed by: The Wachowski Brothers

Starring: Emile Hirsch, Matthew Fox, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon

Let me say at the start that this movie is not good. I admit that. However, I also have to admit that I kind of liked it. It is a live action Japanese comic book with elements of “Tron,” modern video games, bad kung fu, and oddly enough, an A-Ha music video. It is cheesy, corny, silly and annoying but at times it was also wonderful, fun, and the good kind of cheesy. The movie is seizure inducing not just because of the flashing lights but also because the whole picture is at war with itself.

Adapted from the Japanese animated show from the 1960’s, “Speed Racer” is the story of the Racer family. Pops makes race cars and his sons Rex and Speed drive them. After a family tragedy, Speed must live up to and surpass his brother Rex’s legacy, but in order to do that, he needs to grow up and face the injustices of the “real” world. Although the physics alone in this movie made the “real” world of Speed Racer far less real than even the average video game, it is still an intriguing world of 1950’s charm and old fashionedness behind all the glitz and bright shiny lights. Perhaps this is why this movie looks so much like one of the best video game adaptations I have ever seen. Now “Speed Racer” isn’t a video game (that I know of) but if it were, this movie would be a remarkable feat. As just a movie though, it is still pretty inventive and different.

The tone and comedy of the movie seem more suited for kids (except for a handful of very adult jokes), and that is both a strength and a weakness to the movie. For example, some of the funniest and most groan worthy moments come courtesy of Speed’s younger brother Spritle and his chimpanzee Chim-Chim. Now, having grown up on a steady diet of Chimp classics such as “Lancelot Link” (and to a lesser extent the Orangutan oeuvre of “Any Which Way but Loose” and the dreadful Tony Danza “classic” “Going Ape!” which seemed to be the only movie on HBO at one point in the 1980’s), I have always loved comedy bits with Monkeys and Apes. I can appreciate some cheap laughs from the chimp. However, there were also moments that were just preposterously stupid. One gag would make me giggle and the next one would make me want to leave the theatre.

For me the whole movie was like that. Parts I would just adore and at other times I would just totally loathe the movie. The art direction and color schemes were just spectacular. The casting and wardrobe were magnificent. However, then you have the races that were sometimes exhilarating and at other moments it gave you a “will this chase never end?” déjà vu that I haven’t experienced since the pod race sequence of Episode I of “Star Wars.” If he were alive, even H.B. Halicki would have argued that there were too many car chase sequences. At the same time, the races were almost more interesting than the actual plot.

The movie is all over the map, but ultimately it was an interesting experience. I don’t know if I would ever want to see it again, but I can say that it was inventive and I kind of dug it. I think few would get the cornball charm of this movie, but for the few who feel the way I do, the highlights might outweigh the movie’s detractions.