Cool effects? Check?
Modern setting fantasy? Check.
More cool effects? Check?
Anyone starring except Nicolas Cage? Ch...god damnit, this movie almost looked like a fun action flick. I was all ready to maybe get a decent plot out of it but be content with just a fun setting, then they go and ruin it by casting Nicolas Cage. I don't know, maybe if the guy had more than one tone of voice I'd respect him. And it's not like everything he touches turns to dust; he's like Jim Carrey - capably of putting out the occasional great movie (Adaptation, The Weatherman, Matchstick Men, or in Carrey's case Eternal Sunshine), but usually annoying as hell. With Cage, action movies are probably going to go the National Treasure route instead of the quality route. I guess I liked seeing National Treasure with my family on Thanksgiving, though, so there may be a place for this movie, too.
Greenberg
I feel like I'll be a bit young to truly appreciate this movie. I've repeatedly seen "shit, I'm getting old" movies done well, and I repeatedly like them, and I repeatedly feel left out of the loop. Probably because, you know, I'm 19. Still, as I said, they're often good. Melancholy comedies are pretty much my bread and butter of favorite movies, I almost always like Ben Stiller, etc. It'll be nice to see him as something other than this
or this
It sometimes seems like the guy only has two characters. And I wouldn't like him so much if I didn't like those characters, but I know he's capable of more. Or at least, that was my impression. Maybe I'm wrong - I can't remember the last thing I saw him in where he wasn't either a nut-job or a bumbling romantic comedy lead.
Point is, I wah see Greenberg.
I guess that's all I've got for now; I wrote most of this a couple of days ago and haven't found any more trailers I care about in the mean time. Bad romance / rom-coms are about it. Next time let's check out the Christmas season movie options.
Just two trailers today, but I'm VERY excited about both. If you haven't been watching the trailers I usually embed here, I recommend you actually watch these two.
Inception
Weird looking, I know. But dark, noir-esque sci-fi is so good. All I know about this movie beyond the style is that it starts DiCaprio and is directed by Christopher Nolan, but really. Why would I need more than that? This looks fantastic. It looks very much in the style of The Matrix, while possibly being less action packed and more with its roots in Chinatown and Bladerunner. That's some big expectations, I know. I have big expectations for this movie.
Let's pick this trailer apart, starting simple. Awesome lead? Check. Awesome director? Check. Cool looking cinematography? Check. Foreboding music? Check. What else we got?
The tagline: "your mind is the scene of the crime". That inspires so many cool ideas. It means this is probably a movie that starts with a crime, then follows DiCaprio around while he tries to solve it. It's a detective movie in other words. It also suggests some sort of telepathic thing going on. Mental shenanigans are involved. I don't know about you, but I'm a man who loves telepathic shenanigans, dark settings, good actors, and detective movies. Rolling them all together sounds like Christmas morning.
The other thing going on in the trailer is this gravity manipulation business.
The shot of this glass of water is super cool. Something is making gravity shift around, and it's creepy. Apparently it's killing people, too, given that scene on that hotel floor. It doesn't seem like this gravity manipulation would be a world wide thing, or society would crumble. No, my guess is that someone has figured out how to make someone's personal gravity change or just make them think their personal gravity has changed. This would fit with the "your mind" part of the tagline. Someone is screwing with the way people's minds work or perceive the world, and it's throwing gravity all over the place.
Or maybe the whole movie takes place in DiCaprio's head, and it's just about him going nuts. You heard it here first, kids. If I'm right, I totally called that 9 months before the movie came out.
The name Inception is one last bit of info. Something is beginning, this title says. Something new has been created, and it's going to change the way the world works. Looks like it's going to change the way gravity works. Maybe it's a gravity gun. Or maybe it's the emergence of telepaths. Whatever it is, I can't wait for it to get here.
What a crazy idea. This is so sci-fi it hurts. It's so cool. Man, everything about this trailer just leaves me wanting more. That's how a trailer should be.
...
I hope it doesn't suck.
...
It'll probably suck.
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Speaking of movie persons who I like, check out that cast! Holy shit! Ewan McGregor is one of my favorite actors, now that I think about it. I can't remember seeing him not do well in a role. Then George Clooney on top of that... More like that on top of George Clooney! He's a good actor, he's smooth, he's funny, and he's got all the ladies in love with him. I don't think I've seen him play a bat-shit insane character before (Burn After Reading comes close), so this should be good. Uniquely crazy characters are great; I hope he can be memorable rather than just nuts. Plus the two leads have The Dude and Kevin Spacey backing them up. Sweet.
I guess we've got a telepath theme today. I like the plot sketched out in the preview a lot. Comedy about the U.S. government training psychic super soldiers that also happen to be nuts... Sounds fun. It could easily turn into Clooney stealing the show and making us forget about any importance the plot may have had to begin with, but I don't see that with Ewan backing him up. I believe he's capable of grounding us.
What I don't like is all the "based on a true story" BS. Movies love to say they're based on an incredible true story, but the truth is that they're not. Every writer gets inspiration from somewhere; every story is based on something that actually happened. They're based on ideas their writer had, which come from that person's experiences. They're all based on real life. Even Donnie Darko. Just because this one lines up more with real events doesn't make it less fictitious. Trust me; The Men Who Stare At Goats will leave up for debate whether Clooney is really psychic. Judging by the cloud thing in the preview, they may even come out and say he is psychic. That, my friends, means that this is not a true story. Psychic people don't exist.
Aside from that sad necessity of marketing, I love everything about this movie. I'll be the first to admit that I'm obsessedwithgoats,
(
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so it makes sense that I'd want to see this movie no matter what it's about. That shot of Clooney staring down the line of goats and then one falls over... that's just so funny. It's hilarious. I love it. Everyone looks so crazy, which is awesome. There's goats. There's psychic super soldiers. There's guys running into walls. There's George Clooney and Ewan McGregor. What could possibly be better than this? When's it coming out?
This time we've got a couple movies that are coming out soon. Note that in addition to these I recommend the following movies coming this month and early October that I've commented on in August:
9 - coming September 9th because they're clever. The Invention of Lying - September 25th Zombieland - October 2nd A Serious Man - October 2nd Toy Story Double Feature - October 2nd
Damn. I might have to pull a quadruple feature October 2nd. Now on to the meat.
Extract - September 4th
I thought this was a documentary from the movie poster. Boy was I wrong. Jason Bateman is never any character other than Michael Bluth, so I guess it's a good thing that Michael Bluth is a fun character to watch. Juno's dad is rapidly becoming my favorite actor; so good in both Juno and Burn After Reading. Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck. Mila Kunis is pretty good... LOOKING. That beauty pageant judge from Little Miss Sunshine is so much fun to hate. Man, I wonder what that actress is like in person. She must be the most lovable middle-aged lady ever to parody horrible moms as well as she does. Anyway, even if the premise sucked (which it doesn't), the cast is fantastic. Plus it looks funny. Definitely on my list to see.
I Sell The Dead - September 7th
You go, Dominic Monaghan. Looks mildly entertaining. Not great, but deece. Grave robbing is just such a hilarious concept, man, it's a wonder this thing doesn't look like a total riot. But yeah. Zombedy told through flashback. Nothing wrong with that. It's got some awards, too, so maybe it's better than it looks.
Gamer - September 4th
Okay, first of all, didn't this movie just come out last year? Except then it was called Death Race. No, seriously, if you watched the Gamer trailer go watch thisDeath Race trailer now. It's the same fucking movie except one is Twisted Metal and the other is Counter-Strike. I would bet a large amount of pride that the one twist Death Race has (that is given away in the trailer) also shows up in Gamer. They even look the same with that overly gray, gritty modern action movie look going on. Someone aughta be sued.
Okay, so that's silly, but let's move on to ridiculous. The plot. Um... what? Death row inmates are put up to be controlled in some sort of real life Counter-Strike thing? Aside from the fact that this remote controlling people technology is just stupid, if it existed, I don't think we'd be using it to control death row inmates in some sort of stupid video game. Why the fuck would we bother with that? I don't think there'd be much of a market for watching that game over regular games, and I don't think there'd be much of a market for playing that game instead of a digital one. But I'm being silly; that's not what this movie is about. This movie is about a premise that thinks it's clever and the market that comes along with the word "gamer". They're trying to appeal to gamers, and it's fucking working. I only know about this movie because someone said to me "d00d, did you hear about this Gamer movie? I think it's about video games."
It stars Gerard Butler, who I just saw as the lead in The Ugly Truth. Yes, this is King Leonidas again. I will never be able to take him seriously. Gamer seems to think it's a serious movie, or at least it wants us to think that it thinks it's a serious movie so that we can laugh at how stupid it is that it thinks it's a serious movie. So you've got Gerard Butler in this stupid, "serious" action movie just a couple weeks after I've seen him giving people pep talks in The Ugly Truth about men and women. I wonder if he magically always has the same amount of stubble in this movie, too.
Also, what the fuck. The premise is so stupid. If you survive 30 games you get to go free, right? What the shit is up with that? You have no control over whether or not you win. That's like saying "if you play 30 dota games in a row and don't have any leavers you go free." You have to get super lucky; you have to get a good player controlling you every time, and your player has to be lucky every time. That's just stupid. That's just... I can't express how bad this premise is.
Of course the biggest problem with the premise is that it requires a teenage guy to be in a lead role. I've never met a pubescent guy who doesn't piss me off in one way or another, myself included. It also means that if what plot there is requires this kid to be anything except a total fuckhead, it's not going to be realistic.
I hate middleschoolers.
Then there's a cameo by Ludicris. Like... I've been writing about this trailer for about 5 paragraphs now, and I still have more to say about how stupid this movie looks. What does that tell? I bet I could go see it, come home, and write a blog post about this film by cutting and pasting this rant, then adding "also there was this one part where the action sequence was particularly cool." Yeah.
I'd probably see it if Danl was in town, though. Oh, that reminds me. Riddle me this: Danl wants to see this movie but thought G.I.Joe looked like a waste of time. At least the preview for G.I.Joe had some sweet bullet time dives, cool green smoke effects, and a tag-line to kill for. "What does it accelerate?" "You." Hahaha. So good.
Apparently I have a lot to say about Gamer. I don't think there's much else I've heard of coming out in September anyway, so let's stop here. If you want more previews, though, I recommend Avatar and Inception, both of which I'll be talking about soon.
Despite my best efforts, there's still a lot of trailers I haven't covered out there. Fortunately, there's not much to say about most of them. Because there's a bunch of them and not much to say, I'm not going to embed these ones - instead I'll link them. Now without further ado...
Toy Story Double Feature: In preparation for Toy Story 3, Pixar is re-releasing the first two installments in this franchise... IN 3D! Actually, the 3D part is not cool. I hate having to wear those silly glasses. Whatever, these movies were great the first time around. Toy Story marked the move into modern animation instead of classic Disney animation, and at the same time it was one of the best kids movies I've ever seen. I'm biased, though, since I grew up on the stuff. Then #2 came out and didn't suck, a feat which I'm very impressed by. So yeah. If you're into Pixar movies and don't mind the 3D gimmick, head out to this one. It's only going to be around for 2 weeks in October.
When In Rome: Yeah, bitches! Shitty romantic comedies starring Sarah Marshall! That's her name, you know. Sarah Marshall.
Tron: Legacy: Tron has The Dude in it? That's the movie I want to see; fuck Tron. I want to see Tron set at a bowling alley. I want to see The Dude just out for a bike ride when some asshole cuts him off and ruins his day. Yeah. I've never seen Tron, so I have no reason to fan-boy out about this movie. Thus to me, it just looks like another bad movie about an animation team having way too much fun for their own good. Er, I mean, another bad action movie.
Law Abiding Citizen: Ew. I hate torture movies, and I hate "bad things happen to good people for no reason" movies. Okay, I hate the torture movies, and I hate the kind of "bad things good people" movies that only use that motif to set up the torture parts of the movie. This looks like a good example.
Whiteout: This looks like a great one shot RPG where everyone dies at the end. Maybe I'll run something like that in a few years for ERPL. Looks good enough to go see with Danl and not as bad as the premise would have me believe.
I just found this preview for a movie called Inception, but I think I could write a whole post on that preview alone. So I will in a couple days. Until then.
Danl requested this one. It's appropriate that he would be the one to point this movie out to me because he's probably the only person I'd actually consider seeing it with. This looks to be very much a bro's night out flick. It's a zombie movie, it's light hearted, the jokes look just good enough to both laugh with and at, and there's ample opportunity for Left 4 Dead references. It'll be fun, but it's not like it's new. Zombie films have been beaten to death as of late, and Shaun of the Dead covered a lot of the zombie comedy (zombedy?) stuff already. This looks like its mostly that southern guy killing zombies in cool / ridiculous ways and then making snarky comments about it. The gags look good enough, though that "zombie kill of the week" one from the preview is probably the high point of the whole film. But if this comes out and you're a guy, call me up. We'll grab a couple bros and head up to Lakeville.
The Bluetooth Virgin
This looks promising to me. It could be a smart comedy about the writing process while also being a decent parody of the Hollywood system, or it could wish it was that while actually being pretentious, unfunny, and bad. Maybe the jokes are good; maybe they suck. Maybe the protagonist is likable, maybe I want to punch him in the face, or maybe he's just boring. I'm not sure what to think, but I am intrigued. I like movies about writing - Adaptation and Barton Fink both come to mind as great ones, though this looks much less weird than either of those.
Alice In Wonderland
Oh Johnny Depp. You so creepy.
It looks cool, I'll give it that. Tim Burton stuff always looks cool. The question becomes whether any other part of it is any good. I have no knowledge of the script's quality, or even plot. Hulu says that this movie is about Alice returning to Wonderland for a second time when she's grown up, so who knows what the story involves. Maybe someone sucked all the brightness out of the world, which would explain why all the landscapes look so dark. Whatever. I'm not impressed enough to get excited. We haven't been given enough to work with here. Without more, I'm assuming this is just another Charlie and the Chocolate Factory style remake money grab. Given Johnny Depp's lead role and Tim Burton's involvement, I think we can expect exactly what we got with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: a decent modern take on a classic film much in Burton's style. I'll see it, nod my head in recognition of the neat visual style and crazy Depp antics, then be done with it.
Actually, maybe I won't. This is going to make a third movie like that after Charlie and Sweeney Todd. It's a good formula, but it's becoming old, and this is the one I'm least interested in to begin with. We'll see. Maybe someone will convince me it's worth it.
Ninja Assassin
Yeah. I'm not even going to embed this preview. Suffice to say it's exactly what it sounds like. Exactly what it sounds like.
Taking Woodstock
This one is a Madelyn request. I wasn't impressed when I first heard about this one, and the trailer I saw before District 9 was hardly inspiring. This Hulu trailer, though... It gets me more excited. Demitri Martin is mostly great, and this trailer takes it from "probably bad comedy" to "mediocre comedy with a heart" in my mind. That's much more viewable. Still, while trying to come up with things to say about it, I can't think of much. It's a pretty bland story; I could write you the plot and all major twists from the name alone. There will be a scene with someone from town trying to shut them down, parents not liking the idea then deciding it's great, a revelation on the part of or humiliation of the bad guy just in time for him to join in on that mud slide, and undoubtedly a romantic scene on a hill with a beautiful girl and Demitri that gets rudely interrupted by the crazy / in your face / over the top best friend. Still, stereotypes can be fun, and I'm curious about any progress in Martin's career. Friends could convince me to go. Okay, I'll be honest, a girl would have to convince me to go.
Next time I do trailers I'll be talking about Ponyo, Toy Story 3, and Tron: Legacy. Until then!
Before we get started, I note that Hulu has a trailer for New York, I Love You, an obvious sequel to Paris, Je t'aime. I'd talk about the trailer, but I haven't seen the french film despite its repeated suggestion to me. To the "movies I need to see" list!
A Serious Man
New Coen Brothers! This movie was filmed partially at the old St. Olaf science building across town from me. I kept saying I was going to go over and try and be an extra, but no one told me when they were actually in town and I missed it. Lame. I know a girl who got called back for a part in this film, too. Yeah. How's that for a stretched connection.
Oh man does this movie look bleak. The premise seems to be "Jewish man in horribly bleak 60s small town / at small town liberal arts college". I'm sure the Coen Brothers will succeed in making me feel like my entire existence is boring, depressing, and pointless. I'll walk out of the theater thanking them for showing me this, but I'll be depressed at the same time. That head slamming into the wall pulse through the trailer is almost intolerable, which is the point. Life is like slamming your head into a wall over and over again. Ugh. Is there anything less depressing out there?
Adam
The story I want to tell about this preview would be in bad taste now that I've posted a link to this blog on facebook. Such a shame. Suffice to say that this movie looks okay. Nothing about this movie appeals to me more than other romantic comedies. Watching someone be awkward because of Asperger's Syndrome is not something I feel compelled to do. I don't have faith in this movie to show an above average representation of the condition, so I don't feel like I can learn anything from it in that regard. From there it becomes a totally average romantic comedy where the thing keeping our romantic leads apart is social awkwardness. Then the whole time I'm watching it I'll have a voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm going to walk out of the theater thinking I'm now an expert on Asperger's, and that I'm going to end up making a fool of myself some day when I meet someone who has it. I'd rather watch Hugh Grant learn how to love and leave the theater feeling good about myself than watch the struggles of these characters and leave the theater feeling guilty.
Brothers
I hate movies like this. Specifically, I hate movies with no sense of humor. Pure drama just can't hold me if I'm not having any fun. I don't watch movies for a brutal, relentless experience, I watch them because either I want to be entertained or I want to be entertained while thinking about a particular part of life. I know that war is horrible and that it does horrible things to the people that survive it. I know that I should be considerate to such people, and if I knew what I could easily do to help veterans I would help them. What I don't want is to watch a family get torn apart by war. That just isn't my idea of a good afternoon. I'd rather spend two hours thinking about how to help vets than to watch a movie about how shitty it is to be one.
At least it has Natalie Portman in it.
Hot Tub Time Machine
Really? Really? Do I even need to watch this trailer? I mean, I guess for posterity's sake I should before talking about it, but... really?
Is that a movie with John Cusack, Rob Corddry, that black guy from all the Judd Apatow movies, and some nerdy dude all in the same scene? If you told me those four guys were the stars I'd be there in a heart beat. But even three actors I love will have a tough time saving a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine.
...
Really? It's called Hot Tub Time Machine?
...
I might have to go to this one.
The Invention of Lying
Nothing beats a romantic comedy with a likable gimmick. The script looks good, I love the lead, and it's a premise with... well, hopefully they can milk 90 minutes out of it. I know I'll like it for the first 15, if nothing else. I'll need an excuse to go see it, though. Maybe I can find some sappy bros to go with. I've always secretly wanted a girlfriend who insists on going to see all sorts of bad romantic comedies so I have a reason to see them. This one doesn't look bad, though, so I'm sure I can sucker someone into coming along.
There's still a few more trailers left that I like the look of, but I think five is a good stopping point. Next time I'll have to check out Alice in Wonderland. All I know right now is that Johnny Depp's mad hatter poster scares the crap out of me. I had to look at it for like an hour waiting to get into the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and the whole time I felt completely unnerved. Had to avert my eyes.
I'm feeling some quick thoughts about upcoming movies and their trailers today. Let's get right to it.
Nine
I'm always interested in animation that looks targeted directly at adults. Nine doesn't look quite there, but teen action movies are at least older than Disney's target audience. The cast is all people I don't immediately recognize but whose names bring a good feeling to mind. Post-apocalyptic worlds are always fun, and the giant robots running around are... well, they wont beat out Transformers, but they'll do fine. Whoever that old guy is at the beginning has a look to him that I love. Plus the release date is perfect. I'd be excited for any weird looking animated action movie produced by Tim Burton and set in a dark, horrible future. On the other hand, chances are it'll pull an I Am Legend and be great right up until they find the surviving humans and save the planet. Meh.
The Time Traveler's Wife
A great book, but the trailer isn't doing it for me. I like both of the leads. Rachel McAdams I recognize from The Wedding Crashers. Actually the way I found out this book was getting adapted was by snooping around on The Wedding Crashers' IMDB page. She's good but nothing special. Good looking, if nothing else. Eric Bana I recently saw in Funny People, where he plays a not-quite-over-the-top Australian husband-of-love-interest. Does it damn well, too. I liked his scenes a lot, and I imagine he'll make a fine Henry. My problem with the trailer is two-fold. First, I like both leads, but I don't love either of them. They'll do fine, and that will be fine. That's fine but not amazing. Second, the time travel looks shitty. One of my favorite parts about the book is that Henry time travels around his life in a very realistic way. He shows up with no food in his stomach and butt naked, which leads to him becoming adept at breaking into places with food and mugging people to take their clothes. These things are at times central to the plot of the book, or at least provide extra drama in a movie that wants as much sap as possible, so I don't expect they'll change. What they've done, though, is make Henry fade away in some sort of holy light. Bullshit. He just vanishes. One second he's there, then the next he's gone. Tension is built up for Claire because she never knows if Henry is just going to disappear whenever she turns around, even if they're just shopping for groceries. In the movie version she'd have to ignore the brilliant flash of light and the high pitched ringing to have that happen to her. I bet they'll use the "suddenly vanish" effect anyway because it's a good one, but to do it realistically they'll have to come up with some reason for Claire to be half blind and deaf. Realism is obviously very important in time travel movies.
Cold Souls
I somehow missed this one in my numerous passes over Hulu's trailer pages the past few weeks, but was alerted to it by Dan Haas when he asked why I'd been telling him about all sorts of movies he didn't care about and not this one. Glad he asked, because this movie looks great. I love Paul Giamati when he isn't in something terrible (note: this is most of the movies I've seen him in). The main character is named the same thing as the actor playing said character, which would be a nice stylasitic statement about the film, saying that it doesn't take itself too seriously while at the same time saying it's trying to say something about the real world. It would be if it weren't for the fact that the film's advertising campaign shoves this fact in your face, making it come across as more of a pretentious choice than an artistic one. The plot looks goofy and fun, and I believe it when they tell me there's good jokes in there. Add what appears to be some interesting thoughts on the nature of one's self and the soul on top of that, maybe throw in a dash of commentary on modern society, and you could end up with a fine couple of hours. I'm excited.
Daybreakers
Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah. I'm a fan of good vampire stories. Yes, they're over done, but that wasn't always the case. The road that Buffy paved back in the 90s was a good one, and it's not the vampire story's fault that so many angsty teenagers where the ones to drive down it. Then I'm a sucker for new takes on old ideas, and Daybreakers has a doozey of one of those. A world where the majority of people have become vampires... My head is filled with ideas from that sentence alone, and it looks like Daybreakers expands on a hell of a lot of them. A unique setting, explosions, escaping undead monsters, human farms, more explosions, crossbow machine guns (hopefully), Angel-esque vampires, and the inevitable "get the vampire cure into the blood supply" climax... I can see the whole movie playing out in my head already, and I love every minute of it.
An Education
Any movie based on a book by Nick Hornby is a movie I feel obligated to go see. This one doesn't look as good as About a Boy or High Fidelity, but that's some serious competition. Even if it's the worst of the three it could still be one of my favorite movies of all time. Not sure this one will be, though. Smart pubescent kids with problems stories are everywhere, I don't know if I need to see another. An Education does look more adult than most. I think the idea of a 15ish girl and a 30-something guy having a romance is just off-putting. Maybe it's a touching tale! Maybe it's a beautiful story. Maybe. Maybe it's just kinda weird.
Alright kids, that's all for now. Turns out there's a lot of trailers out there, and I'm determined to watch them all. Then once I've watched them, I'll be determined to write about them here. It's sad I didn't start this blog a few months ago; I would've loved to write about (500) Days of Summer, In the Loop, Public Enemies, Up, and the rest of the spring trailer season. Guess I'll just have to do a recap post sometime in early September or individual posts about those that I've seen.
