With Hanna, director Joe Wright (Atonement) is trying to create something that is part art film, part international action film, and part fairy tale (Terence Malick meets Run Lola Run meets The Brothers Grimm, you might say). And, at least for its first hour or so, his strange hybrid casts an undeniable spell.

When we first meet 16-year-old Hanna (mesmerizing Saoirse Ronan) she is hunting a buck in the forest with a bow and arrow. She has wild, nearly-white hair and placid blue eyes, and she moves swiftly and stealthily after her prey. She shoots the buck, it staggers forward a few yards, and collapses, not yet dead.

“I missed your heart,” she says matter-of-factly. She then pulls out a gun and shoots the deer in the head.

Hanna is being raised in the forest by her father Erik (Eric Bana)—and he’s teaching her more than just survival skills. He’s training her to be an elite assassin and a world scholar. But he knows that their little idyll is temporary. Soon, she’ll want to leave the nest and explore the world on...

Inception is the gift that keeps on giving. Hollywood, of course, is nothing if not self-cannibalizing.  It takes any kind of success and witlessly tries to duplicate it. But how do you duplicate a film as original, twisty, and downright weird as Inception? You don’t, of course. But maybe you greenlight intelligent, complex sci-fi thrillers that you might otherwise have ignored. Hence, we had The Adjustment Bureau, which wasn't particularly good but was at least a break from the standard Hollywood fare. And now we have the excellent Source Code.

Thank you, Christopher Nolan.

Source Code is directed by Duncan Jones, and if that name doesn’t sound familiar, how bout this one: Zowie Bowie? Yup, he’s David Bowie’s son, all growed up, and he’s turned into a darn good filmmaker. (His little seen Moon got critical raves.)

His leading man is Jake Gyllenhaal—Jakie-pie, in my household (ahem)—who is one actor I could see seamlessly taking over the Bourne franchise. He’s sensitive, yet...

About 12 years ago, Michael Cuomo was a bright-eyed young intern here at Baltimore magazine. After graduating from Loyola University, he moved to New York to study journalism at NYU. Somehow, he got bitten by the acting bug. So he dropped out of school and started taking acting classes with famed acting coach Joseph Chaikin.

Off-Broadway work and commercials—like the current one for an AT&T netbook where he’s trying to explain the nature of his device to TSA workers (“It’s a computer AND a phone”)—followed.

Now he’s at the SXSW Film Festival with his newest film, Happy New Year, where he plays a badly wounded (emotionally and physically) Marine staff sergeant being treated in the PTSD ward of a small VA hospital.

I caught up with Mike over the phone. Here’s a little taste of our conversation.

The Google box is abuzz today with the following question:

Was James Franco really trying to do a good job last night? Or was he ironically commenting on the experience, even as he was having it? (The same question, by the way, could’ve been asked of his weird stint on General Hospital).

If he saw himself as some sort of Keyser Soze-style imposter—“The greatest trick James Franco ever pulled was convincing the world to let him host the Oscars”—shouldn’t he have been, well, funnier? Or at least, more clear in his intentions?

And if he was some sort of rebel party crasher (because that had to be it, right?), wasn’t that a bit disingenuous? After all,  127 Hrs. was nominated for best picture and he, for best actor. His director, Danny Boyle, won for Slumdog Millionaire two years ago. His Milk co-star Sean Penn won best actor that year,...