Alexander Skarsgard is arguably one of the most astonishingly handsome men the industry has to offer. Standing at a lean 6’4, he’s the perfect life-sized Ken doll, with his hair styled just so and his smile hanging in an affable manner. The minute he enters a room, it’s easy to see why the blue-eyed actor pulls viewers in to HBO’s True Blood week after week as alpha male Eric Northman. He quietly commands the attention of a room, and that’s certainly not something you can teach.

That said, being the image of True Blood and subsequently the central  go-to guy for vampire-related fantasies, it would be a no-brainer  for Skarsgard to lean on the status his good looks has brought him to flesh out a more predictable career. Luckily, Skarsgard has started to deviate from that path as he heads for material that lets the actor work from the bottom up on a character.  It’s the same complex deconstructing his True Blood character goes through as the seasons pass. [Read the rest @ The Inquisitr]

It seems as though actress Imogen Poots has been one of those “up and coming actresses” for years now. With Greetings From Tim Buckley hitting VOD, we may have to come up with a new title for the bright, young actress. It’s obvious that Poots has arrived and isn’t going anywhere for some time. Currently the 24-year-old is receiving some attention for playing the fictional love interest in the new Jeff Buckley film. In Daniel Algrant’s Greetings From Tim Buckley, Poots’ character proves to be significant although their romance seems fleeting. Allie is essentially the character that helps the young Buckley [Penn Badgley] to overcome his insecurities about touching his father’s legacy.

While the role isn’t nearly as meaty as one would suspect, Poots does lend enough of her enigmatic energy for the audience to relate to Buckley, the young man, as opposed to putting the talented musician on a pedestal.  It’s the same energy that piques our interest in what else Poots may have up her sleeve. It seems we’re not the only ones, as she has a total of five films completed for 2013, including a Terrence Malick film starring Natalie Portman, and the upcoming crime film Filth starring James McAvoy. [Read the rest @ The Inquisitr]

Julianne Moore is an actress who has shaped the core of her career in the independent film world, so it’s no surprise that she would be returning to the Tribeca Film Festival with a quality film. This year she stars in the charming romantic comedy The English Teacher.

Doing a complete 180 from her character in Crazy, Stupid, Love, Moore plays an endearingly naive 40-year-old English teacher Linda. An unmarried A-type, Linda’s nose is always in a book, and for most of her life has found companionship, and the greatest life lessons in her favorite literature. Never going out of her safety zone to connect with anyone romantically, Linda neurotically has a mental checklist measuring up potential love interests to archaic stereotypes. (Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)

Daniel Algrant will be the first person to tell you that he had no intentions of making a Jeff Buckley film. So how did the writer/director ever become interested in making what is now the only film about Jeff Buckley? Like most people who are impassioned about the man, Algrant remembers the moment he heard Buckley’s music. It was after a late night drive with the film’s producer Fred Zollo. Zollo was interested in making a film about the estranged father and son relationship between  Jeff and Tim, and played Algrant some music. Once Algrant learned about the complex nature of the elder Buckley abandoning his son for the road, he saw a story that was universal. On a personal note, he saw a story that he connected to over issues he had with his own father. With that knowledge and Jeff’s story in his hands, Algrant set out to construct a story about a boy reckoning with the father he never had in order to become a man.

It’s a familiar tale even if one isn’t a huge fan of Tim or Jeff. Using the canvas of Jeff’s life proves to be interesting, if only because of the person he went on to become years after his death. It’s a starting point that we aren’t usually given in terms of where Jeff was before he recorded his first and last completed album Grace. Thanks to Algrant, we have a bit of an unorthodox version of what Jeff might have been like traipsing around New York City before the singer uttered his famous Hallelujah cover. If anything Greetings From Tim Buckley acts as another shard of glass in a whole menagerie of what Jeff Buckley meant to people. For Algrant, he was clearly just a man, and not a God as he’s often dreamed up to be. (Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)

Penn Badgley is certainly in the middle of having a moment. Getting his start on teenage fodder like Gossip Girl and John Tucker Must Die, the actor is taking a risky step outside of his usual repertoire with Greetings From Tim Buckley. Seen as one of the buzzed about performances of the Tribeca Film Festival, Badgley is deserving of the attention just for putting himself in the vulnerable position of playing the legendary musician Jeff Buckley.

What’s intriguing about Badgley’s performance is that he does an enormous amount of legwork as a musician for the film. A particular scene in a record store sees Badgley riff just as Buckley would, which gives a familiar sense that a legend simply unaware by the talent he possesses is on the precipice of something grander. That quality and the natural naivete Badgley has in his grasp is what pushes the film along. (Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)

James Franco Presents The Director, is a film by frequent collaborator and cinematographer Christina Voros. For her second time directing a documentary, Voros shines an accessible spotlight on a mysterious figure on top of a powerful empire.

Society suggests there’s a certain air a woman in charge might possess to run a brand as historical as Gucci. Those who are lucky to check out director Christina Voros’ portrait of Gucci’s creative director Frida Giannini might be pleased to find that the documentary dispels those illusions. Working from a unique three-act structure, Voros captures her subject in a natural light without shying from the regular demands of running a legendary brand.  A film that highlights the high-gloss fashion shows, to the sometimes-exasperating task of finding the perfect handbag for a collection, The Director reveals that every seemingly superficial piece has a grander purpose in the life of Frida Giannini.  (Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)

Actor, writer, and director Clark Gregg shows now more than ever that he’s a triple threat in his latest film Trust Me. Although most moviegoers will immediately recognize him for his bit parts in Marvel franchises such as The Avengers and Thor, Gregg extends himself past the popcorn movie roles in his second directorial feature.  Attributing the feeling that his age in the industry is catching up with him, Gregg has produced a tight film that sees him playing an agent, that’s less Ari Gold as he is a dedicated man dealing with the trappings of managing a hazardous child actor.

The agent is Harold, a child actor who couldn’t quite break into the business. Years later he’s still looking to land his big break in the business as an agent for bratty child actors and their momagers. You get a feeling that Harold is living a rather hapless, empty life until he meets a 13-year-old child actor, Lydia, played by the immensely  talented Saxon Sharbino. As the film winds on, he slowly finds out that there’s more than what meets the eye to his latest client. (Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)

Actress Zoe Kazan has lived up to her prestigious family name. The granddaughter of the great director, Elia Kazan, Zoe has gravitated towards quiet independent films (Meek’s Cutoff, Happythankyoumoreplease) as her main form of telling interesting stories through character work.  With last year’s critical hit Ruby Sparks, The Indie Spirit Award nominated screenwriter is slowly starting to reinvent what her name means to the industry.

This year she returns to Tribeca as an actress and a willing collaborator in The Pretty One.  The film sees Kazan as twin sisters Laurel and Audrey, two individuals who can finish each other’s sentences but on the outside appear to be cut from a completely different cloth. Audrey exudes confidence in her sleek and mature wardrobe, and Laurel is stuck inside of herself, wearing frumpy clothes and doting on their father. It has all the trappings of a cliché Hollywood film but doesn’t even go near any pitfalls past its initial set up. (Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)

Among the films that were screened today for members of the press, The Pretty One stands out from the rest as a touching Tribeca debut from director and writer Jenée LaMarque.  Deservedly so, its been at the top of our must-see Tribeca list and today it earned its stripes.  The Pretty One managed to exceed our expectations, leaving room for moments of comedic grace, mixed with a powerful message of self-awakening and loss. (Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)

A gritty misenscene to The Sunshine State, Director-Writer Laurie Collyer offers up a story about the depressive and economically stunted underbelly of sunny Southern Florida.  Sunlight Jr. offers a predictable story as each frame permeates the depressive lives of a local cashier Melissa (Naomi Watts) and her paraplegic boyfriend Richie (Matt Dillon). Together they must deal with a surprising twist in their love story.(Read the rest @ The Inquisitr)