Alexander Skarsgard

The lucky folks at the Sundance Film Festival were treated to the premiere of The East this weekend, but we get a consolation prize: the gripping trailer has been released. Brit Marling plays Sarah, a woman contracted from a private intelligence firm to get inside an anarchist cult called The East. The group strives to take down various morally corrupt corporations and CEOs — those folks generally relegated to "white collar" prisons — and create serious havoc. As Sarah investigates, becoming familiar with The East and its members (including Izzy, played by Ellen Page), she finds herself drawn to its charismatic leader, Benji (Alexander Skarsgard).

This trailer makes the concept of an extremist group launching a violent revolt feel very realistic, and it actually scares me a little bit. The cult aspect is extremely intriguing, and I'm excited to see Page and Skarsgard paired together on a movie like this. There's no official release date for the film yet, but you can watch the trailer after the jump.

The True Blood panel at Comic-Con is always a fun one, because we get to see new footage, the cast loves joking around, and well, it's an eye candy party. For this year's panel, Joe Manganiello, Alexander Skarsgard, Stephen Moyer, Sam Trammell, and Christopher Meloni showed up and looked hot, as did their female costars, Rutina Wesley, Deborah Ann Woll, Kristin Bauer, and Anna Paquin. Anna was glowing with her growing baby bump. The cast and creator Alan Ball (who is departing after this season) gave some details about the rest of season five, and they even got around to talking about Fifty Shades of Grey and Magic Mike — and we saw some hot moves from some of the panelists. Read on for the highlights.

• We saw a preview of the remainder of the season, with lots of juicy tidbits. The most interesting things I saw were a very alive-looking Luna, a flash of Godric, Sookie trying to get rid of her fairy powers through a ritual that would make her forget Eric and Bill, and Sookie and Bill hooking up again.
• For the rest of season five, Ball teased that we will see three more romances, but he wouldn't say who they're between. He was more forthcoming about sex scenes, saying we'll get some "very hot sex scenes," and some "wacky, what-the-f*ck sex scenes. All tastes will be satisfied." We definitely know one of those participants will be Alcide, because Manganiello declared, "I sexually eviscerate one of the other cast members." I assume it's Sookie, but really, I don't care who Alcide gets it on with, as long as we see Alcide get it on!
• Skarsgard was asked how he felt about his name being tossed around for Fifty Shades of Grey, and Skarsgard said, "I gotta read that book." While he mentioned that he hadn't seen a script either, Moyer wisecracked, "He's just lived the life."
• New castmember Meloni talked about the differences between True Blood and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, cracking that "trying to figure out what's a sex crime on this show is very difficult." It sounds like he's having fun, though, because he said that he loved his recent scene in which he stakes a child vampire because it was so shocking. "It's pretty much the one thing I wanted to do." If he was going to be a vampire, he said, "I was like, 'You gotta let me stake someone.'"

Read the rest of the highlights, including the Magic Mike-inspired strip show after the jump.

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Domenico Dolce (above, right, with Stefano Gabbana) will debut his first book of photography, Campioni — Fotografie by Domenico Dolce, at Dolce & Gabbana stores this July. The book will feature 67 black and white photos of young soccer players. "With my images I wanted to pay tribute to the strength and innocence of these players, and at the same time I wanted to realize one of my dreams: to take photographs," Dolce said. [WWD]
  

• Viktor & Rolf collaborated with Bugaboo on a baby stroller called the Cameleon3. The limited-edition stroller will be available at Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Neiman Marcus in September. [LilSugar]
  

• Director Jalil Lespert is working on a fictional film that tells the real-life love story between Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. Bergé has given Lespert his blessing, but no details about casting in the film have been made available. [Styleite]
  

• Calvin Klein has tapped actor Alexander Skarsgard to be the face of its new men's fragrance, Encounter. Skarsgard plays the part of Eric Northman on the HBO series True Blood, which premieres its new season on Sunday. [Fashionista]
  

• Kate Moss and husband Jamie Hince have added a new member to their family: a Staffordshire mix named Archie. [PopSugar]
  

He plays sexy vampire Eric Northman on True Blood, and now Alexander Skarsgard is amping up the hotness even more: the handsome star has just been named the face of Calvin Klein's new scent, Encounter ($40-$72). "Alexander Skarsgard perfectly reflects the Encounter attitude — modern, stylish and unapologetically masculine," said Catherine Walsh of Coty Prestige (the brand behind Calvin Klein's fragrances).

Alexander will star alongside model Lara Stone in the campaign, which will play up the tension between a man and a woman. "Their idea for their concept was very intriguing to me — it was almost like a short film, and very film noir. It felt interesting to me," Alexander told WWD. Look for the juice, which contains notes of cardamom, rum, patchouli, cognac, and cedarwood, out globally this September.

I don't remember aliens making an appearance in my own childhood sessions with Battleship, but I suppose when you try to make a toy into a feature-length film, you're afforded a few liberties. Unfortunately, the producers of Battleship may have spent too much time finding creative ways to explode things and not enough time on a plot, ending up with underutilized actors, in a wishy-washy destruction story.

Battleship starts out in 2005, when the US establishes the Beacon Project, an effort to reach out to potential life forms on a planet that has a similar climate as the Earth. The government sets up a powerful signal on Hawaii capable of sending transmissions to the foreign territory. Little do they know the frequencies are being received, and not by friendly folks. Enter brothers Alex (Taylor Kitsch) and Stone (Alexander Skarsgard). Stone is clean-cut and responsible while Alex is generally a mess. We first meet them in a bar scene that turns to Alex breaking into a convenience store to steal a chicken burrito for his future girlfriend, Sam (Brooklyn Decker). Thanks to Kitsch's surprising physical comedy skills, the scene is the highlight of the movie. It all goes to the aliens after that.

Read the rest of my thoughts on Battleship after the break.