Showing posts with label trailers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trailers. Show all posts

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Trailer Watch!

Alright, so not all of these are all that recent, but they caught my eye only recently. I'm ignoring the new trailers for those obscure art house films coming out, namely 'The Dark Knight' and 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull', as I suspect there isn't much interest in them.

The links below are to the direct 'mov' file download, but the trailers can probably be found in lower quality on Youtube as well.


The X-Files: I Want to Believe: The X-Files is back! The trailer isn't exactly awe inspiring, and our intrepid heroes are starting to show their age, but it's Mulder and Scully, back in action in a standalone (i.e. non mythology) sci-fi thriller! The trailer features a tantalizing taste of that classic theme to get fans' pulses racing! 'I Want to Believe' sounds a bit clunky as far as names go, but I guess it's a line that's fairly representative of the show.



Star Wars: Clone Wars: Star Wars is the franchise that just can't be killed. George Lucas is back with yet another offering in the prequel franchise designed purely to make money and sell toys and little else. This time it's a prequel to the last prequel, and like the last few films it is computer animated (low blow, I know, but let's face it, this seems like a natural progression from the CGI infested 'Revenge of the Sith')! Looks mildly interesting, if a little too 'made for TV'; I wonder how it'll fare when it comes out in cinemas...



The Happening: M. Night Shyamalan made such an impact with 'The Sixth Sense'; 'Unbreakable' was pretty terrific too, but it's been a steady slide downhill since then as far as I'm concerned. This trailer invokes his two biggest successes, 'Sixth Sense' and 'Signs', and still puts his name front and centre despite the fact that the guy wrote and directed the decidedly poor 'Lady in the Water'. The lamely titled 'The Happening' looks interesting and is stylistically pure Night, but the early word on the supernatural thriller has been devastating.



Tropic Thunder: This is easily the best trailer of the bunch - it's a red band (i.e. R rated) trailer that is absolutely hilarious. Written and directed by Ben Stiller, the film stars Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Black as actors shooting a war film who end up in the middle of a real war but continue to assume that it's all make believe. And yes, that is Downey Jr. in blackface as a method actor who has surgery to make himself appear African American! That gag at the end with the kid is simply brilliant! I can only hope that the final film is even half as funny, but based on this trailer 'Tropic Thunder' has shot up towards the top of my most anticpated films list!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Videos du jour

I don't normally embed videos on this blog, but I'm going to make an exception this time (might become a habit, actually).

First up, I was reminded about Neil LaBute - by most accounts a good film director and an even better misogynist - while reading about his film In the Company of Men. This led to me perusing his IMDB profile, where I was also reminded that he directed the Nicolas Cage 2006 remake of creepy and weird 70s horror flick The Wicker Man. Now, I haven't seen the Wicker Man remake, but I have seen this hilarious Youtube video, "Best Scenes from The Wicker Man". If you've never seen a man in a bear costume bitch slap someone, then you need to see this clip. MAJOR SPOILERS for the Wicker Man, btw, but if you give a damn about that fact, you need to go see a doctor ASAP.



I've posted about this clip before, over a year ago, but it never gets old!

Next up is the just released trailer for one of the most anticipated films of the year, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.



There are links to high quality versions at Dave's Trailer Page. There are a couple of things I don't like about the trailer - Indy's quip when he falls onto the truck feels off, and some of the effects look wonky (including, bizarrely, Ray Winstone's pants) - but overall it's pretty cool and looks old school with modern effects (kinda like Jackson's King Kong - there's even a cliffside scene in this trailer that looks reminiscent of Kong). And I can't deny that when that iconic Indy theme music kicks in, I get a little excited at the prospect of there being a new Indiana Jones movie. Oh, and Evil Commie Cate Blanchett? Awesome.