Beaks here...

It's been a long, agonizing wait, but Rian Johnson's wonderful THE BROTHERS BLOOM is finally headed to theaters this month. Starring Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as brothers in the art of the con, and Rachel Weisz as the lovely eccentric who comes between them, the film is a throwback to a lively and sophisticated style of filmmaking that seemingly died in the 1960s - right around the time Jules Dassin married Melina Mercouri. But it's also got a touch of Ashby and Truffaut sprinkled throughout. It's a singular work, and a very impressive follow-up to Johnson's brilliant debut, BRICK.

There have been trailers floating around since BLOOM premiered at last year's Toronto Film Festival, and while some of them do a fairly effective job at selling this tough-to-categorize movie, the best way to prove you've got the goods is to showcase full, uninterrupted scenes. That's what Summit Entertainment did last week when they got Hulu to host the first seven minutes of Johnson's film. And if that didn't win you over, then please check out this elegantly staged (and played) scene between Adrian Brody and Rachel Weisz.

THE BROTHERS BLOOM opens in limited NY/LA release on May 15th (so there's your excuse to skip ANGELS AND DEMONS). It then expands to "select cities" on May 22nd, and finally goes nationwide on May 29th. How "nationwide" might be contingent on how well it does in the major markets, so to our big-city readers, make sure you support the movie on opening weekend to ensure that our film geek friends in Wichita will get to enjoy BLOOM on the big screen (as Johnson intended).