April 03, 2006
The Simpsons Movie
Trailers like this never work on the internet. They start by prentending to be teasers for other hotly anticipated summer blockbusters, but because you already know what you're getting when you click, the joke's over before it begins. But since I'm personally more excited about The Simpsons Movie than Superman Returns, let's just imagine we're sitting in the dark before Ice Age: The Meltdown (for $70 million worth of ticket buyers out there, you won't have to pretend)...
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Posted by Peter Debruge on April 3, 06 at 10:48 AM | Comments (86)
February 14, 2006
The Wild
Stop me if you've heard this one before: A bunch of Central Park Zoo animals (a lion, a giraffe and so on) break out of captivity and wreak havoc in the big city. No, it's not a Madagascar sequel. It's the latest offering from Disney's animation department, The Wild, and if it sounds suspiciously familiar, this isn't the first time that's happened between the folks at Disney and DreamWorks: Think A Bug's Life vs. Antz or Finding Nemo vs. Shark Tale.
Posted by Peter Debruge on February 14, 06 at 11:20 AM | Comments (238)
January 07, 2006
X-Men 3, Teaser
Uh oh. Looks like the Son of Krypton's gonna have some competition this summer. First, director Bryan Singer abandons the X-Men franchise to helm Superman Returns. Then, X3 loses its replacement director (Layer Cake's Matthew Vaughn), only to pick up Rush Hour bad boy Brett Ratner in the eleventh hour. But if you disregard the troubled backstory and compare the two superhero sequels on the strength of their teasers alone, X3 is the clear victor — and that's because the production has something to prove.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on January 7, 06 at 02:34 AM | Comments (13)
December 20, 2005
Apocalypto, Teaser
Set your clocks. On December 12, 2012, the world will end. And Mel Gibson will be there laughing and saying, “I told you so.” As all good teasers go, this fleeting first glimpse tells us precious little about Gibson’s next pet project, instead setting the tone (ominous and superstitious), setting (the ancient Mayan empire) and doomsday mentality of Apocalypto.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on December 20, 05 at 09:37 PM | Comments (31)
December 13, 2005
The Da Vinci Code, Teaser 2
With some 40 million copies in print, the latest teaser for The Da Vinci Code need not concern itself with spoilers. After all, by now everyone has read Dan Brown's book. Instead, the trailer (which features some much-needed footage after last spring's worthless Mona Lisa teaser) focuses on the revelations the audience most wants to see — namely, how the actors look in roles that avid readers have long since cast in their imaginations. After more than a minute of "spooky Louvre" build-up, the teaser offers the big reveal: Tom Hanks, looking less like another Indiana Jones than an older wiser Neo, as Harvard cryptographer extraordinaire Robert Langdon.
Dr. Langdon, I presume.
Posted by Peter Debruge on December 13, 05 at 12:10 PM | Comments (25)
November 17, 2005
Superman Returns, Teaser
It's a teaser, folks, and as teasers go, WB ain't givin' us much with this first taste of Superman Returns (especially not after whetting our appetites with so much more in that preview Dan Harris cut for Comic-Con this summer). Still, we'll take what we can get, and this first teaser announces two things loud and clear:
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Posted by Peter Debruge on November 17, 05 at 11:37 PM | Comments (6004)
October 07, 2005
Curious George
Just yesterday I was complaining about the way animation companies have forsaken the hand-drawn looks of traditional animation for all-CG toons that look too bright, too shiny, and much too phony (Over the Hedge brought it on) when along comes this delightful glimpse at the new Curious George movie. Now here's an adaptation that Ron Howard and the folks at Imagine couldn't seem to make up their minds about how to animate, but from what they're showing us here, it's clear that they made the right decision.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on October 7, 05 at 06:55 PM | Comments (6)
October 06, 2005
Over the Hedge
Sometimes I miss traditional hand-drawn animation. Over the Hedge is the perfect example. Why are these adorable little forest critters (a turtle, two possums, a skunk, a chipmunk, and a family of porcupines) computer-animated? When the movie comes out, the filmmakers will talk about how tough it was animating everybody's fur or getting the quills just right, when the truth is, their animated animals look like escapees from some 1995 After Dark screensaver.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on October 6, 05 at 01:40 PM | Comments (3)
October 05, 2005
Syriana
I can't decide whether I like the poster or the preview more for Stephen Gaghan's Syriana. For the past few months, I've been working my way into festival and test screenings of the fall's most anticipated films, ticking off the blockbusters that might qualify as Oscar contenders (Walk the Line, Memoirs of a Geisha, Jarhead and The Producers) and so far, I've come away almost empty-handed (I'll make an exception for Brokeback Mountain). Finally, a trailer that suggests a major studio movie of some merit!
Posted by Peter Debruge on October 5, 05 at 09:19 PM | Comments (1)
October 03, 2005
Nanny McPhee
Who's that knocking at my door?
Imagine Mary Poppins as a sinister old hunchback with hairy warts, crooked teeth, and a big bulbous nose. That's Nanny McPhee for ya. Where Mary Poppins insisted on curing her charges with a spoonful of sugar, fearsome old McPhee offers them a generous helping of sludgy brown measle medicine and insists they say "please." This is the stuff great children's movies are made of: Plenty of suffering mixed with a little bit of magic. How else to explain the success of the Harry Potter books -- or classics like Cinderella, Matilda, and the Narnia series, for that matter?
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Posted by Peter Debruge on October 3, 05 at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2005
Good Night, and Good Luck
First, let's just say that Good Night, and Good Luck is one of the best movies of 2005. It's a smart, eloquent representation of a grim chapter in American history, that rare Hollywood film made with adult audiences in mind and yet still clean enough to qualify for a PG rating. The movie is co-written and directed by none other than George Clooney (a nice surprise after Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which struck me as a snappy debacle). So why is the trailer such a misfire?
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Posted by Peter Debruge on October 2, 05 at 01:56 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2005
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
More like Harry Potter and the World of Tomorrow.
I know it's blasphemy to do anything but drool over every new Harry Potter preview, but from the looks of the latest Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire trailer, the boy wizard's next adventure will be more CG than it is live-action. Sure, one of the pleasures of J.K. Rowling's books is that she presents us with creatures that defy imagination, but they're only interesting insofar as they seem to be integrated into the real (Muggle) world. The more video-gamey the effects, the less tangible her elaborate fantasy becomes. CG run amok always reminds me of Sky Captain, where it was sorta the point, or worse, those cruddy Spy Kids sequels. But Harry belongs in a league of his own.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on October 1, 05 at 12:55 PM | Comments (138)
July 08, 2005
The Great Raid
War movies are like westerns -- a dying genre in a world too cyncial for conventional white-horse heroes (there's hardly even interest in Rambo-style action figures any more). So where does that leave a movie like The Great Raid, with its grizzled POWs and rah-rah heroics? If there's one thing director John Dahl's good at, it's strangling some life out of tired genre formulas (he found a dark new corner of noir in Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, while Joy Ride put some tingle back in the slasher movie). Let's hope he can do something interesting with this.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on July 8, 05 at 02:12 PM | Comments (20)
July 07, 2005
Waiting
Could Waiting be the Clerks for the chain-restaurant crowd? It's got all the signs: A caustic look at the fine art of table-waiting as a way of lashing back at countless years of bad tips, hostile customers, and on-the-job pranks. Considering that waiting is basically the unofficial career of Hollywood's struggling actor/screenwriter community, it's amazing we've never seen this movie before.
Posted by Peter Debruge on July 7, 05 at 11:37 AM | Comments (16)
July 06, 2005
Dark Water
Water, water everywhere.
They say New York has some of the cleanest tap water in the world. It's the pipes that're the problem. Well, the pipes and whatever malicious spirit is messing with the plumbing in Jennifer Connelly's Dark Water apartment. Cuz the stuff running down her walls looks like it was poured out of a spitoon -- not the kind of surprise you want to wake up to find splashing on your face.
Posted by Peter Debruge on July 6, 05 at 11:50 PM | Comments (17)
June 30, 2005
War of the Worlds
You would cry too if it happened to you.
I don't know about you, but my favorite Spielberg story is the one about how the rubber shark sucked so bad in Jaws that the greenhorn director had to shoot around it and, by keeping it hidden, actually arrived at a more effective horror movie. From his first blockbuster, Spielberg understood the secret of suspense, and he's been using that technique ever since. In fact, the entire War of the Worlds trailer campaign can be summarized by that tactic: Delay the money shot ... as ... long ... as ... possible.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on June 30, 05 at 10:10 PM | Comments (10)
June 29, 2005
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Willy Scissorhands.
"I'd give anything in the world just to go in that ah-may-zing factory." The words come out the mouth of a withered old geezer, but the sentiment's universal. Who wouldn't want to (re)visit Willy Wonka's factory, with its chocolate rivers and lollipop trees, as "reimagined" by Tim Burton? And considering that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reunites Burton with his kookiest star, that's just icing on the proverbial cake.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on June 29, 05 at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2005
Fun with Dick and Jane
Not to be confused with the new Tom Cruise movie.
Bonnie and Clyde. Mickey and Mallory. Honey Bunny and Pumpkin. But Dick and Jane? I love Hollywood's killer couples as much as the next guy, but do we really need to see bedbuddy bank-robbing duos reduced to the level of ... a Jim Carrey movie? And would it kill the spastic elastic man to act normal for a change? I mean, Eternal Sunshine made my 2004 top 10 list, but the sight of Carrey flailing about while sticking up a local Starbucks is just plain painful.
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Posted by Peter Debruge on June 28, 05 at 04:49 PM | Comments (16)
June 27, 2005
King Kong
Nice monkey.
It certainly beats a man in an ape suit, but the giant CG gorilla in Peter Jackson's new King Kong trailer isn't up to Lord of the Rings standards. Not yet, at least, but chances are, the digital effects featured in this first glimpse of the movie (which debuted across all the NBC-owned networks at 8:59pm ET tonight) won't be finished until much closer to the film's December 14 release date.
Posted by Peter Debruge on June 27, 05 at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
Elizabethtown
Cameron Crowe must have pissed himself when he saw Garden State last summer. In fact, we might as well start calling Crowe's latest "Bluegrass State" -- that's how much his new movie Elizabethtown looks like Zach Braff's impressive debut. When it comes to nailing the anxieties and fears of a generation, it's hard to top Garden State, and yet Crowe still seems determined to try. The similarities are uncanny. Consider this:
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Posted by Peter Debruge on June 27, 05 at 04:28 AM | Comments (187)
