Trailer (Eh, Video) Tuesday: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”

Regardless of his legal troubles and his innate weirdness, Michael Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers of all-time to grace the pop music landscape. I was a huge MJ fan in elementary school and enjoyed most of his music, even the more recent stuff that didn’t quite have the velcro-stick of his “Thriller,” “Bad” and “Dangerous” recordings. I remember wanting a “Beat It” and “Thriller” jacket in 4th grade and having to settle for sparkly socks that just didn’t look quite right on a baby-faced 10 year-old wearing Levis and burgundy loafers. Love him or hate him, he is an icon and to me the real tragedy of Jackson’s death isn’t the actual physical dying, but that something, even from a young age, had already died and caused him, for whatever reason, to see himself as less than the wonderful person he was, both inside and out.

So my “trailer” for this Tuesday is Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” perhaps the greatest music video of all-time. When I choose to remember Michael Jackson, the way he looks – happy and vibrant (and zombie-ish) in “Thriller,” is how I’ll keep him in my head. Thanks, Michael.

Amy Adams to Join Wahlberg and Bale for Boxer Pic

The lovely and wonderfully bubbly Amy Adams is set to star alongside Christian “It’s F***ing Distracting” Bale and Mark “Say Hi to Your Mother For Me” Wahlberg in David O. Russell’s (“Three Kings”) soon-to-film boxer pic, “The Fighter.” According to Variety, Adams would play the love interest of Wahlberg, a “gritty” Massachusetts bartender. Bale would play Wahlberg’s half-brother and boxing trainer. The article also mentions Melissa Leo (“Frozen River”) as also being cast in the film. I don’t know about you, but that’s a phenomenal director and a first-rate cast right there. I’ll be looking forward to learning more about this movie as it begins shooting and gets a release date.

Michael Bay Gets the Last Laugh

After the one star reviews started piling up earlier this week, I wondered if “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” would be a box office bomb and another causality in a summer movie season that has been balancing precariously between the chasms of surprise and letdown. However, two things changed my mind: One, I caught a showing of “Revenge of the Fallen” and watched the audience ooh, ahh and laugh, like Michael Bay had left a trail of moldy bread crumbs and they were gobbling them up like starving children. Last, not only did “Transformers” win the weekend box office, but it completely obliterated every other movie in theaters. Not only did it gross $112 million over the weekend, but it’s grossed $201 million and has only been in theaters since June 24. That’s less than a week. To put that in perspective, “Up” and “Star Trek” have both been out for five and eight weeks respectively and “Revenge of the Fallen” is only $50 million behind them.

With “Public Enemies” as the only real competition for the July 4^th weekend, I’m guessing you’ll see “Revenge of the Fallen” come close to the $300 million mark by July 5^th. After that, it’s all up in the air. Aside from “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince” there is nothing that would seem capable of knocking “Revenge of the Fallen” from a top two placement from here on out. That is, only Harry Potter and perhaps negative word of mouth. But that seems unlikely. Based on my observations at the theater, people loved the second installment of Bay’s robots-in-disguise saga.

The top five was rounded out by “The Proposal” ($18,466,000), “The Hangover” ($17,215,000), “Up” ($13,046,000) and “My Sister’s Keeper” ($12,030,000). “Land of the Lost” and “Terminator Salvation” dropped out of the top ten, barely grossing $1 million and I’m pretty sure we won’t hear from them until their respective DVD/Blu-ray releases.

First-Look at Edgy Teen Drama “Beastly”

I use the word “edgy” in the title of this post because “ridonkulous” wouldn’t quite fit. I thought this “Beastly” was a Sci-Fi channel or made-for-television movie when I first saw it advertised, but now I realize it’s something planned for a July 30^th, 2010 release to the big screen. The studio is calling it a retelling of the classic “Beauty and the Beast” tale; I call it latching on to the “Twilight” teat and hoping to ride the wave of supernatural teenage lust, this time with Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens as The Beast and Beauty, respectively.

Here’s the summary from the studio:

Kyle Kingson (Alex Pettyfer) has it all – looks, intelligence, wealth and opportunity – and a wicked cruel streak. Prone to mocking and humiliating “aggressively unattractive” classmates, he zeroes in on Goth classmate Kendra, inviting her to the school’s extravagant environmental bash.  Kendra accepts, and, true to form, Kyle blows her off in a particularly savage fashion.  She retaliates by casting a spell that physically transforms him into everything he despises. Enraged by his horrible and unrecognizable appearance he confronts Kendra and learns that the only solution to the curse is to find someone that will love him as he is – a task he considers impossible.

Repulsed by his appearance, Kyle’s callous father banishes him to Brooklyn with a sympathetic housekeeper and blind tutor. As Kyle ponders how to overcome the curse and get his old life back, he chances upon a drug addict in the act of killing a threatening dealer.  Seizing the opportunity, Kyle promises the addict freedom and safety for his daughter, Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens) if she will consent to live in Kyle’s Brooklyn home.  Thus begins Kyle’s journey to discover true love in this hyper-modern retelling of the classic “Beauty and the Beast” story.

Seriously? Hyper-modern? Ewwwwkay. Anyway, I’m betting this doesn’t see theaters and ends up a direct-to-DVD showcase of nonsense. If I want my Vanessa Hudgens fix, which I don’t, because that would close to pedophilia, I’ll either watch “High School Musical” or I’ll find her racy pictures on the Internet. Either way, “Beastly” holds no appeal to this guy.

Click the thumbnails below for some “Beastly” images.

Daybreakers Trailer Breaks From Scientific Fact

While the motto for the first 30 years of my life could easily be described as “Live for today because the nukes are coming tomorrow”, the motto of my last four years would probably be “Vampires are dumb”. I know I’m in the minority here but I’m pretty sure that somewhere around 1987, scientific research did indeed show that vampires, with their crazy eyes and pointy-toothed hissing preferences, were somewhere around 93% lame.

So hey, imagine my surprise when I found the premise and trailer for the genre-vampire* film Daybreakers to be kind of rad. Sure, there’s still the whole crazy eyes/pointy teeth angle, but the idea of a spiritual sequel to Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (the novella, not the depressingly dumbed down movie), with a vampiric society running out of options feels all kinds of right… except for the batty man-creature reveal about midway through. It was lame in Francis For Coppola’s Dracula, it was lame in Underworld and it’s lame here.

Still, silly bat-folk didn’t stop me from overcoming built-in cynicism and with always off-center Willem Dafoe brandishing crossbows and most people wishing they could share loins with vampires that may or may not sparkle, what’s not to like?

*Blue palettes, guns and action. Underwold, look what thou hast wrought!

Richard in a Box

Richard Kelly. Way back in 2001, when the writer/director stormed the scene with his dark, brain-twisting cult fave/critically examined Donny Darko, he was touted as the next genius auteur. Of course, a second film has a way of changing overblown expectation and when Kelly followed up with the bloated, unintelligible cluster-hump known as Southland Tales in 2006, the same folks originally singing his praises were left holding a wet bag of dog crap, wondering if their pretentiousness had jumped in the way of good sense. Still, there’s nothing to erase the memory of past like next and well, sophomore projects… you know.

You’ll have a chance to judge for yourself when The Box, Richard Kelly’s seemingly straightforward thriller about a gift that allows a struggling family untold riches, but at a moral price. The premise is great and the trailer, full of Kelly-istic madness, does a great job of selling it.

See for yourself:

District 9 Lovefest Continues

The upcoming film District 9 has been working on gaining your attention by not really trying hard to gain your attention. In some circles, this is called viral, but viral actually spreads. Nevertheless, District 9 has released another “viral” video in its line of its universe-based trailers. I’m not a the biggest fan of the technique and voice over. It feels too Starship Troopers/campy, while the film footage contrasts gritty and radtastic.

Maybe I’m over anlayzing. Maybe I’m not, but I still like what I’m seeing and am looking forward to District 9 coming out as a counter punch to the doldrum-ariffic summer pummeling (with a few exceptions) we’ve taken so far.

Hitman Takes Another Contract Out on Your Sensibilities

Remember the film adaptation of Eidos’ video game Hitman? A shoven-headed and not-all-that-intimidating Timothy “Where’s he go?” Olyphant? A constantly stripping generic Eastern European Olga something or other? Shooting? Exploding?

I do. Barely. And it was boring, pastiche and blah.

But that don’t matter because apparently, it made some kind of money. IESB is reporting that Kyle Ward (screenwriter for another video game adaptation, Kane & Lynch, with Bruce Willis attached to star) has been given quill and parchment for scripting Hitman 2: The Rogaine Chronicles.

I know you’re excited.

I am too.

Academy Expanding Best Picture Noms to 10

Sid Ganis, president of The Motion Picture Academy, announced today the best picture category at next year’s Oscars will be enlarged from five nominees to 10. Ganis said, “Having 10 best picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.” Translation: The Pixar mafia henchmen beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of them because “Ratatouille” and “Wall-E” both got the best picture snub.

The question to ask now, even with Ganis’ explanation, is why? I mean, don’t get me wrong, last year I would have been pleased to see “Wall-E” and “The Dark Knight” added to the list of best picture nominees, but these are awards and there are voters and hey, that’s the way it goes. No, something tells me the motivation behind the increase in nominees isn’t grounded so much in artistic rationale, but rather an attempt by an elitist, insular sect of Hollywood to open it’s proceedings, particularly the category with most clout, to the folks dwelling between Los Angeles and New York City.

Ultimately, I don’t like this move at all. After I remove my personal feelings I am absolutely petrified and nearly certain the best picture category will morph from a handful of elite, well-made films nominated to a diluted smorgasbord of cinema ranging from the great to so-so, and all in the name of connecting with those who probably don’t want to connect anyhow. This is going to be a failed experiment. Mark my words.

Ponyo Trailerizes the U.S.

Anime (Japanese animation), in the U.S. at least, has always been a niche format. I’m not sure why it’s been so hard for American audiences to embrace it, but it’s probably because a) the style is reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons (ie-”crappy”) and b) years of ridiculous dubbing have made it a running joke (“NO! NNNNNNN… IDON’TWANTOTOGOWITHYOUWAITWHATAREYOUDOINGNNNNNYAAAAH!”)

Over the last few years, Disney’s been trying to bridge the cultural divide with their U.S. releases of Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki films Spirited “I won an Oscar” Away, Princess Mononoke and Howls’ Moving Castle. The anime– a shorthand animation technique that differs from American animation style in that it uses less frames for movement and its trademark minimalist facial animation– is obviously still there , but the dubbing has been painstakingly created to feel both natural and actually sync with what’s being seen on screen. The results are fantastic, and if you can “get past the style”, these films offer up heart, incredible visuals and detailed transport into fresh, “weird” and charmingly fantastical worlds.

The latest Ghibli/Disney stateside release is Ponyo (originally released in 2008 in Japan as Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea). Due in U.S. theaters in August, Ponyo is Hayao Miyazaki’s take on The Little Mermaid, which you’d never know by watching the trailer below. The U.S. release also includes a heft dollop of real voice talent, including Liam Neeson, Matt Damon and Cat Blanchett.

Anime may not be for everyone, but if there’s any anime to test the waters with, it’s Studio Ghibli’s stuff fresh-faced takes on avoiding the often loud and busy narrative style of their American animation counterparts.