When Kimberly Peirce gave us Boys Don't Cry, it was a critical explosion. She came, she moved us, and Hilary Swank came out of it with an Oscar. The film raised our expectations, and they rested there as Peirce moved out of the spotlight and worked behind the camera. The wait lasted almost a decade, but after nine years, she was finally back with Stop Loss -- another film in the cinematic, Iraq War whirlwind. While it was destined to fall under the weight of Iraq apathy, it was another example of Peirce's commitment to personal stories.

Stop Loss is the fictional account of a real problem: over a hundred thousand soldiers have been denied release when their time in Iraq is up. Instead of best wishes, they're sent back to Iraq, and life beyond the war's struggles becomes a distant, vague hope, rather than a present reality. Ryan Phillipe stars as Sgt. Brandon King, a man who is headed towards the end of his time in Iraq, or so he thinks. First, his unit is tricked and attacked. He loses some of his men, and struggles with the realities of warfare -- dead friends, and the fact that no matter how hard you try, innocent people will fall in the fight.

After an explosive entry to the cinematic world with the hard-hitting, Academy Award-winning Boys Don't Cry, Kimberly Peirce backed away from the movie spotlight. However, it wasn't a vacation. During her hiatus, she worked on a project that came to be Stop Loss, which hits DVD shelves today. Last week, Cinematical got the chance to talk to the director about the film, how she approaches filmmaking, and what her plans for the future are. It's a great discussion about how her life influences her work, and vice versa, and it's quite interesting when she discusses casting with a military metaphor.

However, her work's not done in the world of stop loss. While the movie is out to audiences, she continues to champion the soldiers suffering due to this practice. She's speaking in Washington, D.C. on the matter, and helping the cause through stoplossmovie.com -- where you can check out a collection of videos made by soldiers and their families.

(Note: We're re-posting our Stop-Loss review from SXSW to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend.)

It's been almost nine years since Kimberly Peirce's breakout film Boys Don't Cry, so expectations for her new project were bound to run high. Alas, she doesn't do herself any favors with the self-serious, emotionally hollow Stop-Loss. Why would someone who's so selective about the films she makes choose something so uninspired?

The title refers to the U.S. Army's policy of renewing soldiers' enlistments against their wishes, a necessary step when new recruits are in short supply and there's a war going on. Technically, the war in Iraq ended years ago, but this hasn't stopped the military from hanging on to thousands of soldiers who were supposed to have gone home when their time was up.

Stop-Loss is a fictional story about a real crisis, written by Peirce and Mark Richard and starring Ryan Phillippe as the soldier who gets stop-lossed. His name is Brandon King, and he has just returned to his hometown of Brazos, Texas, after a firefight in Tikrit that left some of his men dead or wounded. Brandon is a model soldier and staff sergeant, even to the point that his saintliness strains credulity, but he snaps when he learns he's being sent back. He tells his commanding officer (Timothy Olyphant) that he refuses to go, then flees the Army base.

MTV Movies Blog has the brand new poster for Stop-Loss, the upcoming film from director Kimberly Peirce. Outside of an episode of The L Word, Peirce hasn't directed anything since her highly acclaimed 1999 feature debut Boys Don't Cry -- the film that won Hilary Swank her first Oscar. The script for Stop-Loss was written by Peirce and Mark Richard (Huff), and the film stars Ryan Phillippe (whom I had never liked until last year's excellent Breach), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (one of the best young actors working -- see Brick, Mysterious Skin, and The Lookout!), and Channing Tatum (I intentionally missed Step Up, but he was great in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints).

Stop-Loss deals with soldiers who are "stop-lossed," meaning they are ordered to return to combat, even though they have completed their enlistment contracts. Phillippe plays a soldier who stands up to the government and refuses to return to battle. It is an MTV Films production, and the poster plays up the cast's beefcake angle, making the film look like Dawson's Creek Goes to Iraq. But I have a feeling it's going to be much better than that. I've been waiting to see another film from Peirce for a long while, and the trailer gives me goose bumps every time I see it. Stop-Loss is set for release on March 28th.

If there is one thing you can say about director Kimberly Peirce, it's that she likes to keep things fresh and interesting. She found huge success with Boy's Don't Cry, and now she's following up the story of Brendan Teena with Stop Loss -- a war story of all things, about a soldier who refuses to return to battle. If you thought that was a bit of a theme change, get a load of the other project she'd like to helm -- a big-screen adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. Yes, that's sci-fi, folks.

She recently talked about the possibility with MTV and says: "I love Childhood's End. That's a phenomenal book. We have a draft of that and we'll see if Universal wants to make it." What does she have in mind? "If you're going to launch something that big, you need a big movie star. It's probably not less than a 70 million dollar movie. You go to that movie with a certain appetite for spectacle." For those of you who haven't read it -- it's a different kind of post-apocalyptic future. In Clarke's world, aliens come to earth and help end wars, get people happy, and prolong life, which brings the Earth into a utopia. The twist -- these aliens look just like Satan.

But right now, it's just a script and a hope. Meanwhile, she's penning a "dark, sexual story" set in New Orleans that follows "the rise of a great American gangster." So, would you like to see Clarke's world hit the big screen, and can Peirce pull it off?

Timothy Olyphant has been a scene-stealing character actor for years now (go see Go), but he seems poised to take his stardom to the next level. Of course, he's the villain in Live Free or Die Hard, which opens today and which I am still struggling to get excited about. He's got a major role in Kimberly Pierce's long-awaited follow-up to Boys Don't Cry -- Stop Loss, with Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, and Jay Hernandez (Is that a movie or a Tiger Beat shoot?). He'll appear with the unreasonably attractive Jessica Alba in Bill, about a guy who mentors a rebellious teen. He also just signed on to play Agent 47 in Hitman, an adaptation of the much-loved video game (a new trailer for the film will play before LFODH). Even with all that going on, many still know him best from Deadwood, the wonderful HBO western drama that ran for three seasons, and was -- sigh -- taken off the air to make room for -- sigh -- John from Cincinnati. Deadwood's many fans (myself included) didn't take the cancellation well, but at least we've been able to calm ourselves with the news that creator David Milch planned to make Deadwood movies to give the series closure. Well, get ready to flip the freak out, Deadwoodians.

In an interview with comingsoon, Olyphant is asked about the status of the Deadwood films. And his response doesn't exactly inspire confidence: "I have no idea. There's been ongoing talk about those things for a long, long time. I, for better or worse, have the perspective of 'don't hold your breath.' My feeling is that the fact that show existed at all for as long as it did was a miracle of sorts. It was an incredible experience, and I'm very, very thankful, and as a fan of the show like everybody else, it would have been nice to see it end in a different way or have more life to it, but as far as I'm concerned, they don't owe me anything. It was a tremendous experience, I look at it that way. I walk away going, 'I must be a better actor because of that show.' Three years on TV is better than seven years on TV, you know?" So, ah...yeah. Pretty terrible news, huh? I suppose anything can happen, but I think it's becoming more and more likely that we're not going to see those movies. Really, HBO? Really, Milch? You replace my Deadwood with a show about a floating surfer, and now this?

After what The Hollywood Reporter presents as an epic search, Boys Don't Cry director Kimberly Peirce has finally found the man on whom she will hang her return to directing -- and it's ... Ryan Phillippe. Um, ok. Has he had a massive charisma-cum-talent transplant lately of which we are unaware, or something? Because Phillippe's not the first actor of his age who would come to mind as the answer to any talent-related questions.

Clearly knowing something we do not (or else having been told "no" by everyone she really wanted), Peirce is drafting Phillippe in to star in Stop-Loss, which she co-wrote. Assuming he signs that contract, Phillippe will play "a soldier who returns home ... and is called to duty again in Iraq through the military's 'stop-loss' procedure" but refuses to return to service. Already on board as the female lead is young Abbie Cornish, one of Kim's current favorite actresses; Peirce is hoping to begin shooting in August.