We’ve had Nights, Dawns, Days, Lands, Diarys, Dawns again….. other things….. And now, we have Dances. Straight to DVD, yes. Worth checking out, probably not.
Empire have the exclusive on the first trailer for Watchmen, the Zac Snyder-directed movie adaption of the brilliant graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. You can watch it here or on the no-doubt-soon-to-be-removed youtube version below.
(EDIT: the Empire online link has been removed for now. The article (here) clearly went up too soon, although AICN are linking to it too.
EDIT #2: Empire seem to have lost their exclusive. It’s up all over the net, and Apple trailers has the glorious HD version here.)
The film itself isn’t due out until March 2009, but to say it’s eagerly anticipated doesn’t even begin to describe the fans’ expectations.
Set in a parallel 1980’s set world, Watchmen tells the story of a group of costumed superheroes, who are now outlawed. They have to renew their association, though, when one of their own is murdered and the whole group appears to be targeted.
Snyder’s film version has cast Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhatten, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Patrick Wilson as Niteowl, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias and Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II.
The trailer is fab. The comic-to-film comparison is very impressive, without appearing too comic-y. For the special effects on Dr. Manhattan to be this good so early in the process bodes well. Although he does appear to have been given a pair of hide-his-modesty briefs at 1:38 – let’s hope that’s just the trailer! We’re still not quite buying into Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, but the others look the part (well, as much as you can tell at this stage with the masked Rorschach).
And a comment on the choice of song used: the Smashing Pumpkins’ The Beginning is the End is the Beginning. Not The End is the Beginning is the End, as used on Batman and Robin – nice cheeky touch! Hopefully it’s Snyder’s way of telling us that this won’t be shit.
The first trailer for the John Moore-directed Max Payne has been revealed to the interweb:
For some reason, this seems better the second or third time you watch it. As trailers go, it’s nicely paced and edited, with some good shots on view without (seeminly) giving too much away. It helps that it has Marilyn Manson’s “If I Was Your Vampire” as the soundtrack. Hard to say at this early stage if Wahlberg &co will do justice to the video game source, but we’re not giving up hope. Yet.
Next up is the redband trailer from Choke, based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel:
Still using the great Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song, “Satan Said Dance”, (anyone else noticing a trend in trailer songs being used….?), this trailer has more new footage, more new laughs, more naughtiness and, more importantly for some of you, more boobs! This film is shaping up nice and the early good word from the likes of Sundance and SXSW bode well.
And if you haven’t joined the Fox Searchlight facebook page yet, go do so now! Just the other week, they sent members a link to four potential TV spots for Choke, and we got to vote on the best one. So even if the one you vote for didn’t get picked, you still get to see all the clips. And wait! There’s more! The official movie page, http://www.chokeonthis.net, has some extra clips, such as passages from the book being read by exotic dancers. Need to get past the US age restrictions? Then pass yourself off as a wealthy writer-producer (Name: Larry David, DOB: 2 July 1947, Zip Code: 90210).
And on a different note, we have Elegy:
No soundtrack songs involving Satan or vampires, but we still have the potential ick-factor of Penelope Cruz sleeping with Sir Ben Kingsley. Yep, you read that right. This is adapted from Philip Roth’s novella The Dying Animal and directed by Isabel Coixet, and concerns a college professor (Kingsley) having an affair with one of his mature students (Cruz). Dennis Hopper and the ever-excellent Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard round out the supporting cast.
Correct Opinion: bringing a little something for all the family.
This seems to be both very intriguing and kinda boring all at the same time. The general premise is sound, but all of a sudden Nicolas Cage figures out what the numbers mean, but not only that, but is at the exact time and place of the mini-disaster, since we can assume its a prelude to something worse. Or, just like in the trailer for Next, they’ve already given away the best and biggest set piece of the movie, and the whole thing ends with a whimper.
Director Alex Proyas run of movies have been getting continuously bigger and more expensive, while the unique visualisations of his earlier stuff has been getting more and more watered down, to the point where we are now looking at trailers for his movies, which look like they could’ve been directed by any music video director turned Hollywood Hack. But who knows, this could surprise us all and turn out not to be a big piece of shit.
Jack Bauer isn’t scared of anything. Not one thing in the whole world. So why all of a sudden is he scared of his wobbly reflection. Is it because he thinks he’s starting to look like Donald?
Also, does anyone else think that Alejandra Aja would’ve been a much better choice to direct Silent Hill? Also also, they seem to be giving away the fate of several key characters in this trailer, no?
After last week’s mega uber excitement over the teaser trailer for the teaser trailer, today the world was finally shown the actual teaser trailer for Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig’s second outing as James Bond, directed by Marc Forster.
This is, quite frankly, a very good trailer. It combines rapid bursts of the action shots (that’s a nifty thing he does with the ropes) with possibly-iconic money shots (Bond’s approaching silhouette across the horizon), and a nice working of the famous theme tune. This bodes well for Quantum of Solace (is it just me, or is the name actually growing on anyone else?) to be a fine successor to Casino Royale.
Craig seems even more comfortable in the role. It probably helps that he’s got all that anger to work with (he’s not at old-school Bond suaveness yet) and a personal revenge mission story that’s reminiscent of Timothy Dalton’s Licence ot Kill. He may be full of “inconsolable rage”, as Judi Dench’s M puts it, but he’s still making time to bed Gemma Atherton – Bond will be Bond! There are only brief shots of Mathieu Amalric’s Greene and Olga Kurylenko’s Camille, which is to be expected at this stage. They have pretty big important parts, so it’s good to see the film makers keeping them under wraps for now.
There are easy (and lazy) comparisons to the Bourne series which can be made, but that is to be unfair to the newer Bonds. Bourne may have broken the mould of the spy genre, but dammit if Bond didn’t make it what it was to be broken in the first place. But old hand Martin Campbell managed to make a distinct Bond stamp with Casino Royale, and it’s now looking like Marc Forster (whose appointment seemed like a gamble at the start) will do likewise.
(You can see a much better high-def version of the trailer here)
The only thing worse than watching Don Cheadle swap Hotel Rwanda for this, is knowing that Lisa Kudrow seems to know that her career is circling the drain, but she still signs on for crap like this. Somebody has to pay for all that eye makeup, and her Friends are here to help her now.
Following on from the initial teaser, a new full length trailer has been released, giving little new information, but more of the cast, including Michelle Monaghan and Rosario Dawson. Appearantly its based on an original story idea from The Berg himself, but after watching this trailer, its seems possibly that he may have gotten that idea while watching Die Hard 4.0.
Correct Opinion 