sbjctjournal has posted a wonderful interview with Toni Collette featuring an AMAAAZING new photoshoot. Head over to their site to read the full article. Award-winning actress Toni Collette arrives straight from Canada, where she just wrapped up one film. She’s got two premiering at Sundance, and a third coming out in March. But the stereotype of egocentric Hollywood actress-on-the-go doesn’t quite fit this thoughtful, quirky soul. Toni is someone who is deeply aware of her relationship to nature, humanity, and to the planet itself. She talks to sbjct about the fact that nobody exists in a bubble; we are all connected, and we are all part of the human collective.

I think we’re all living at such a pace that just creates ignorance. I think until you have some space and some time and some silence, you don’t actually absorb the context of your life. And if you start to look at your existence, and you start to look at the world and the imbalance of the types of lives being lived and the types of experiences being had, you can’t help but want to help other people. I think it’s awareness. And I think we live in a time and in a society that is driven by things that really are not a priority, and the things that are important are often overlooked, and once you connect with those, it will ultimately give you a much richer life. And a deeper appreciation of what you have.

The trailer and poster for “Unlocked” has been released today, and it looks very good. That being said, the film has been awaiting theatrical release for over three years, so one was worried what could have gone wrong. London is under biological attack from terrorists in Unlocked, and only Noomi Rapace has the key. Rapace stars as a CIA operative who finds her mission compromised. She’s forced to team up with an MI5 agent, played by Orlando Bloom, to track down the terrorist infiltration and prevent a major attack. Along the way, she’s ably assisted (or hindered?) by the likes of Michael Douglas, Toni Collette, and John Malkovich. Quite a cast. Veteran British director Michael Apted is behind the camera on this one, which makes sense given his Bond pedigree on The World Is Not Enough. Unlocked arrives on 5 May. Screencaptures have been added to the photo gallery, alongside the film’s poster. I’m still wondering if the shots of Toni firing a machine gun might be a spoiler :-) I guess we’ll find out soon.

“Fun Mom Dinner,” starring Katie Aselton, Toni Collette, Bridget Everett and Molly Shannon, premiered Friday on the last day of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival in Park City. In the film, the four women, whose kids are in the same preschool class, get together for dinner — and things take an unexpected turn. Alethea Jones directs this comedy, written by Julie Rudd; part of the Premieres program. Edit: Lots of additional pictures have been added.

With many thanks to Item7, here’s a first look at Toni Collette and Matthew Goode in the upcoming “Birthmarked”. Collette and Goode are portraying two respected scientists who quit their university jobs in 1977 to conduct an experiment they think will revolutionize understanding of human identity. The project aims to raise three children contrarily to their genetic predispositions to prove the ultimate power of nurture over nature with a newborn girl adopted from two feeble-minded parents, is raised to be smart; a newborn boy adopted from two anger-prone parents is raised to be a pacifist; and their own biological son, who comes from a long lineage of scientific brains, is raised to become a revered artist. “Birthmarked” can be expected to release in late 2017, early 2018.

…and no one’s there, the title should say. While director Alexandre Moors and actors Tye Sheridan and Jack Huston were in attendance at last night’s world-premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, but the “stars” of the film – Jennifer Aniston, Toni Collette, Jason Patric and Alden Ehrenreich – were not there. To make news worse, reviews for the film have been disappointing so far. That comes as a surprise, given the talent involved and the book it’s based on. Plus, Ehrenreich is one of the most promising actors of this day – and the next Han Solo. Nevermind, let’s see where “The Yellow Birds” is going. Here’s the first press echo after its screening.

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter
An excellent novel about the Iraq War and its homefront fallout has been turned into a rather flat and disappointing film in The Yellow Birds. […] Then there’s Bartle’s poor white trash mom Amy (Toni Collette), a woman distraught about her returned son’s aimless life once he’s back. No matter the talents of the actresses playing the mothers, what they’re asked to do is strictly one-note stuff dramatically, so little is gained by having them enact so many repetitive scenes.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety
It’s unusual, at the Sundance Film Festival, to see a drama about a subject like the Iraq War. The economics of scale required to stage an authentic combat scene don’t tend to mesh with indie-film budgets — and besides, there are enough towering war films in our time that the bar for them has been set extraordinarily high. […] We get endless scenes of Brandon lying around in bed, skulking over to the convenience store to buy a six-pack, or warring with his mother (a convincingly emotionally bedraggled Toni Collette). He’s got his big secret about what happened over there, and he’s going to take forever to tell it, even as he’s stalked by a dour CID officer (Jason Patric) and by Murphy’s mother, Maureen, played by Jennifer Aniston, who conveys a truth-at-all-costs desperation, even though she’s a shade too punchy and telegraphed about it.

Mike Ryan, Uproxx News
In Alexandre Moors’ The Yellow Birds (based on Kevin Powers’ book of the same name), Ehrenreich plays Brandon Bartle, a 20-year-old from Virginia who enlists in the Army during the Iraq War. The Yellow Birds has been kind of billed at Sundance as “the Iraq War movie,” but even though a large portion of the film takes place in Iraq, it doesn’t feel altogether like a war movie. It feels more like a movie with a mystery. The Iraq scenes are shown in flashback after Bartle returns to Virginia a very different human being than he arrived. And Ehrenreich almost seems like two different people, transforming from the confident soldier, to the depressed and volatile man comes back, one his mother (Toni Collette) barely recognizes.

“xXx: The Return of Xander Cage” is playing in theaters today, and critics are either embracing or dismissing the third installment of the series for the loud, action packed nonsense that it is. Returning to the franchise he launched in 2002, Vin Diesel reprises the titular role as an extreme-sports thrill-seeker-turned-government-operative long presumed dead by the NSA. Cage is a man with his own very particular set of skills, and the ruthless agency chief (Toni Collette) enlists his help for a high-stakes operation that involves racing against a band of renegade evildoers in pursuit of “Pandora’s Box,” a curious device that’s knocking military satellites out of the sky and into densely-populated areas. Here’s a couple of reviews with more highlights on Toni Collette’s character (and the critics consensus that she is too good of an actress for this).

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Who wanted Xander Cage back? Is it you? It sure as hell isn’t me. […] Toni Collette, who is way too good for this crap, also shows up as Agent Marke, another suit barking orders at Cage. The Australian actress must be wondering how she went from being nominated for Oscars and Emmys to starring in this toxic fluffball.

Mike LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Toward the end, the action becomes repetitive and tiresome, but there are pleasures to be had. Diesel is a terrific action star, in that he can give a movie a lift just by being there. Collette embraces the cold-blooded extremes of her role.

Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com
A disaster ensues, and stern buttoned-up spymaster Marke (Toni Collette, here probably earning more to merely maintain an erect posture than she usually does when she’s actually being an incredible actor) calls a meeting at an appropriately eerily-lit CIA boardroom.

Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader
There isn’t much point in reviewing a film that summarizes itself thusly: “Kick some ass, get the girl, and try to look dope while you’re doing it.” But a job’s a job: Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is, according to this third entry in the XXX series, the guy you call when you need “someone that can walk into a tornado and come out the other side like it was a damn gentle breeze.” (This line is spoken by Academy-Award nominee Toni Collette, who looks appropriately miserable throughout.)