First Look at Kate Winslet in 'A Little Chaos', Brit Marling in 'The Keeping Room', Tobey Maguire in 'Pawn Sacrifice'

The summer is coming to a close and with the fall right around the corner that can only mean one thing: time for the Toronto International Film Festival. I won't be attending so don't expect a full rundown, but dammit the line-up they have assembled is hella impressive, with possible awards contenders like Foxcatcher, The Drop starring Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon's Wild, and Jason Reitman's Men, Women, and Children holding key slots. If you want to see the list check it out here. With the festival announcement comes the expected flood of first look images, and here are just a few from some movies I've been eagerly awaiting.

Kate Winslet and period dramas go hand-in-hand, and she'll take on another one in A Little Chaos, the festival's closing night film. Alan Rickman directs and co-stars with Paul Dano, Stanley Tucci, and Matthias Schoenaerts,. Here's the synopsis which involves Louis the XIV and the Palace of Versailles, but not in the way you might think: A landscape gardener with a taste for the unconventional is invited to design one of the fountains at the Palace of Versailles. As she battles with the weather, the perilous rivalries at the court of Louis XIV and her own private demons, she finds herself drawn closer to the formality and enigma of the architect who hired her. 

Audiences are just now having a chance to check out Brit Marling in the brilliant Sundance film, I Origins (review here), but she's now hitting Toronto with The Keeping Room. Directed by Daniel Barber (Harry Brown) and co-starring Haileen Steinfeld and Sam Worthington, here's the the story is described as: Left without men in the dying days of the American Civil War, three Southern women - two sisters and one African-American slave - must fight to defend their home and themselves from two rogue soldiers who have broken off from the fast-approaching Union Army.

I suck at chess but movies about chess are a personal favorite, and Pawn Sacrifice is one that I've been waiting for. Tobey Maguire stars as legendary chess champion Bobby Fischer in the Ed Zwick-directed film, which centers on his 1972 World Championship match against Russian champ, Borris Spassky, seen here portrayed by Liev Schreiber. Steven Knight (Locke) wrote the script with Peter Sarsgaard co-starring. In this remarkable true story set in the height of the Cold War, chess legend Bobby Fischer is locked in a gripping championship clash with the Soviets as he struggles against his own psychological demons while the whole world anxiously awaits the outcome.

Read More

Dakota Fanning and Theo James Board 'Franny'; Peter Sarsgaard and Liev Screiber In 'Pawn Sacrifice'

* Dakota Fanning and Theo James (Divergent) have joined Richard Gere in Franny, from writer/director Andrew Renzi developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Gere plays a rich, hedonistic philanthropist who ingratiates himself into the lives of a newlywed couple (Fanning and James) in order to recreate the life he once had. [Deadline]

* Tobey Maguire's Bobby Fischer biopic Pawn Sacrifice has been in the works for years, but it took a major step forward when Ed Zwick recently came aboard to direct it. With Maguire set to play the famous chess champion, Peter Sarsgaard and Liev Schreiber are the latest to come aboard. Schreiber will play Russian champ Boris Spassky, who Fischer had his historic world championship match against. Sarsgaard is Fischer's priest and close friend who helped him through the stressful period when he was a pop culture icon. [THR]

Read More