Archive for the 'Trailer Tuesday' Category

Trailer Tuesday: Iron Man 2

Published by Andy on March 9, 2010 in Coming Soon, Trailer Tuesday and Trailers. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Is this really anything eloquent or witty I can say about this Iron Man 2 trailer that isn’t summed up by simply saying: Wow? Still, this trailer gives us a deeper look at Whiplash, played by Mickey Rourke, as well as glimpses of Rhodey Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). And even though the cast is eclectic and talented and Scarlett Johansson makes me drool, the driving force behind Iron Man 2 will be Robert Downey Jr.’s charisma and charm.

As always, please share your thoughts. Will Iron Man 2 be better than Iron Man?

Trailer Tuesday: Tron Legacy

Published by Dan on March 9, 2010 in Coming Soon, Trailer Tuesday and Trailers. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

At this point, nine months out, I’m not sure there’s anything we can say here about Tron Legacy that hasn’t already been said from what little we’ve seen. Andy’s not so hot on Tron Legacy. I think it looks exciting, slick and am chomping at the bit.

Tron’s first theatrical trailer– the one debuted before Alice in Wonderland– has been released to the internet. Judging by the $114 million haul Alice made over the weekend, most of you have probably already seen its combination of adrenal kicking rhythm, crackling energy and uber-fine visuals, but that doesn’t make repeat viewings look any less sexy or thrilling. With Jeff Bridges’ recent stock  increase thanks to a Best Actor win, by the time December rolls around and Disney’s hyper-refined marketing machine’s had another nine months to play it up, Tron Legacy should be incredibly high profile.

Long term success will obviously boil down to whether director Joseph Kosinski has made a good movie, but I have yet to see anything that says he hasn’t.

In the mean time, enjoy… or enjoy more by viewing the Tron Legacy trailer in larger, sexier HD right here.

Trailer Tuesday: The Pirate Movie

Published by Andy on March 2, 2010 in Trailer Tuesday and Trailers. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I’m sending you back to 1982 via Trailer Tuesday with The Pirate Movie, a musical loosely based on Gilbert and Sullivan’s “comic opera,” The Pirates of Penzance. You remember 1982. It was the year of the Tylenol cyanide scare, the first artificial heart transplant and the year Michael Jackson’s Thriller sold 20 million albums to become the biggest selling record ever.

Me? I had just turned 8 years-old and had spent that summer crying at E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, crapping my Underoos out of fear in Poltergeist and watching Rocky whoop Mr. T’s mohawk hairdo into submission in Rocky III. And just so we’re clear, 1982 was all the year of The Beastmaster, Blade Runner, Creepshow, Conan the Barbarian, The Dark Crystal, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gandhi, The Man from Snowy River, An Officer and a Gentleman, Porky’s, The Secret of NIMH, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Tex, The Thing, Timerider, Tootsie and Tron, to name a few.

I’m 100 percent sure I didn’t see The Pirate Movie in theaters, but I’m fairly certain I caught in on HTN or HBO a gazillion times and was head over heels in love with Kristy McNichol (she played Buddy on ABC’s Family from 1976 to 1980). When she sang “Hold On,” I was in rapture, especially with that low-cut dress. In fact, there were many memorable tunes in The Pirate Movie, including Christopher Atkins’ (The Blue Lagoon) snappy ballad, “How Can I Live Without Her,” and the entire cast performing the movie’s grand finale, “Happy Ending.”

Check out the trailer below and if you want to whisk away to a time when synth-heavy, pop-musicals were all kinds of awesome (Oh yeah, you know damn well if you were born in the 70s you loved Xanadu), I suggest you Netflix The Pirate Movie pronto.

Trailer Tuesday: Defendor

Published by Dan on February 23, 2010 in Coming Soon, Trailer Tuesday and Trailers. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

So you know about this little movie called Kick-Ass: sewer-mouthed kids dressed in bright pajamas and capes who cheerily introduce bad guys to the pitfalls of additional holes in the head/the miracles of modern day prosthesis. If it can get past it’s first-blush head-trip of being insanely crude just for the sake of “we can”, Kick-Ass will be the latest entry in a deconstructive super-hero sub-genre that’s as interesting as it is fun.

With Kick-Ass‘ April arrival sucking all of the air out of the multi-plex, the also-ran superhero flick Defendor may be left in the lurch. The movie stars Woody Harrelson as a “slower than normal” everyman out to avenge his mother’s death. Apparently, it’s part comedy, part drama and part sympathetic character study. Either way, it’s set in the steamy dark alleys of a major city and has Woody getting beat to a pulp.

Of course, Defendor and Kick-Ass are just the latest– not the only– entries into the “real” superhero subgenre. 1999 gave us the love-it-or-hate-it Mystery Men and 2006 introduced us to Special, a hard-knock look at a delusional guy who uses his new “does he or doesn’t he have them” super-powers to fight crime. Another film along the same lines, Super (directed by James Gunn, the guy who gave us the silly, fun and underseen Slither) is due this year as well.

We’ll see how the genre continues to hold up, but with real people in real cities living the superhero dream, movies like Defendor continue to be no less fascinating. Defendor is arriving on Friday in limited release, but with positive reviews coming in, deserves to be seen when it arrives sooner than later in your Netflix queue.

Trailer Tuesday: Killers

Published by Dan on February 16, 2010 in Coming Soon, Trailer Tuesday and Trailers. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Despite the triumphant return of Tom Selleck’s hallowed mustachio– which incidentally, has been missing from theaters far too long– and Katherine Heigl’s chest, Trailer Tuesday presents to you a movie that looks so lifeless, it doesn’t have a poster yet: Killers.

I’ll come to an understanding of the metaphysical laws of dark energy before ever I fathom Katherine Heigl’s appeal. Seriously. Since Knocked Up, the lady’s screen presence is so blase and nondescript as to being completely replaceable via any other blond actress with teeth.

So, Killers: An oh my dreamy boyfriend turned husband isn’t who I thought he was–he’s a spy!!– romcom-thingy. Killers doesn’t look like it’ll be sweeping the knee of any trends except letting Heigl nail a hat trick of mind-numbingly boring and completely uncharismatic movies.

Watch the blah-ness below– then diagnose why this trailer ruined my Tuesday in our comments section.

Trailer Tuesday: Get Him to the Greek

Published by Andy on February 16, 2010 in Trailer Tuesday. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The first trailer for the upcoming Jonah Hill (Funny People) and Russell Brand (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) comedy, Get Him to the Greek, premiered last week and on first watch it looks to be pretty damn funny. I will admit, there was no knee-slapping, gut-splitting moment for me in the preview, but considering the two stars and the folks behind the camera (it’s directed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall helmer, Nicholas Stoller), I can’t imagine this will suck. On the other hand, I said that about Judd Apatow’s (he’s producing, of course) Funny People and that movie was a huge disappointment.

Brand is actually reprising the role he played in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, that of drugged-out, sexed-out, cuckoo rocker Aldous Snow. Hill’s character must fly to England to bring Snow back to the states for an anniversary concert at L.A.’s Greek Theater. The movie also stars Sean “P.Diddy” Combs, Rose Byrne (Knowing), Colm Meany (Law Abiding Citizen), Aziz Ansari (Funny People) and cameos from Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lars Ulrich, Dee Snider and Meredith Viera.

Take a peek at the trailer below and let me know what you think? Yay or nay?

Trailer Tuesday (Belated): The Back-Up Plan

Published by Andy on February 10, 2010 in Trailer Tuesday. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

I’ve never missed a Trailer Tuesday since Andy at The Movies.com went online in March of 2009, so here’s a belated preview for your viewing hell enjoyment. This is the Super Bowl spot for the new Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy, The Back-Up Plan. Personally, after watching this pile of turd, I think “romantic” and “comedy” aren’t even on the radar. More like “mind numbingly dumb” and “100 percent shit-tastic.”

For those who care and probably went out and bought Monster-in-Law, The Back-Up Plan tells the story of Zoe (Jennifer Lopez), who not only wants to find the love her life, but also wants a kid. Her best pal donates his sperm and she is artificially inseminated. Ironically, as she’s leaving the clinic, she meets Stan (Alex O’Loughlin) and they fall in love and the rest of the movie is spent with the couple dealing with her pregnancy.

Yeah, I know. Sounds moronic. Anyway, happy Tuesday Wednesday. Try not to kill yourself after watching this. I don’t want blood on my hands.

Trailer Tuesday: Cop Out (Red Band)

Published by Dan on February 9, 2010 in Coming Soon and Trailer Tuesday. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

First impressions of director Kevin Smith’s new buddy comedy Cop Out (formerly known as A Couple of Dicks) have been tepid to say the least. The jokes are obvious, flat, lazy and worst of all, unfunny. Watching the green band trailer was actually boring. Taking part in that two minute experience is like watching the introduction of that horrible Budweiser Super Bowl commercial with the cow breaking through the fence. Cop Out looks like it’s trying, but its trailer hints at a movie that falls completely and awkwardly flat. And that makes me sad.

See, I like Bruce Willis. I even like Sean William Scott and think Tracy Morgan, despite all his 30 Rock love, is OK. Even Kevin Smith, the cutting edge potty mouth turned dull butterknife thanks to his aped success, had me all pumped up with optimism in the hopes he’d use a movie he didn’t write to turn out something fresh. All that good will. Squandered.

And that makes me sad.

So the red band trailer comes along. It’s definitely a step above the green band and takes some unexpected swings but it’s still loaded with the same stuff from the first trailer that didn’t make me laugh.

Or smile.

Or grin.

Or smirk.

And that makes me sad.

Trailer Tuesday: The Losers

Published by Andy on February 2, 2010 in Trailer Tuesday. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I just can’t fathom why The Losers would position itself for an April 9, 2010 release when the inevitable bulldozing from Kick-Ass comes the following week. Honestly, The Losers seems more like an August release, something to keep the fires of summer burning but not quite shiny enough to see the light of day in the April to July cash cow window. Also, other than Zoe Saldana (Avatar) and Chris Evans (Push), there really aren’t any standout names in the cast. And yes, I purposefully left Jeffery Dean Morgan (Watchman) out of the mix. That guys two seconds away from spending the rest of his career on the Lifetime network or in Hallmark made-for-TV movies.

What do you think of the trailer? Have you read the Andy Diggle’s graphic novel of the same name? Again, my take – it could be good, but other than possibly seeing Zoe Saldana’s naked body, I can’t really think of anything else attention grabbing in this trailer.

Trailer Tuesday: Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Published by Dan on February 2, 2010 in Coming Soon and Trailer Tuesday. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

You’ve got to hand it to a filmmaker so tenacious, focused and crazy that after Sundance ‘09 rejects him, he shows up anyway and drags the strip shouting “See my movie!”… which ends up selling in spite of it all.

Meet James Nguyen, an ultra-low-budget auteur who, over the course of four long years, wrote, directed, shot and… well, everything’d Birdemic. Like Alfred Hitcock’s The Birds, but infinitely crappier “awesomer”, Birdemic is best described by the film’s official synopsis:

A platoon of eagles and vultures attack the residents of a small town. Many people died.  It’s not known what caused the flying menace to attack. Two people managed to fight back, but will they survive BIRDEMIC?

No clue! But, unlike many of its accepted Sundance brethren, Birdemic’s has survived to see the light of day thanks to indie studio Severin, who after seeing Nguyen driving his blood/bird/homemade sign plastered minivan prowling the streets of Park City, acquired the rights back in August of 2009.

Enter 2010, where Birdemic is scheduled for two drunken screenings– one in Austin on March 2 and the other in LA on February 27– before hitting DVD and subsequently carving a beloved niche in both home theaters and cinema’s hallowed halls.

In the mean time, prepare your socks. They’re going to be knocked clean off when you witness the Birdemic trailer below: