Trailer: Alice in Wonderland

Link to trailer

Another year, another Tim Burton film. How many more can this guy make? Wait, that didn’t start right, let’s try it again.

Tim Burton’s working with Disney now? Maybe someone will tie him down to a script. Damn, no, again.

Oh boy! A new Tim Burton film! It looks great!

Of course, Tim Burton films always look great, don’t they? That’s what gets us in the theatre, right? That’s what makes him great. And frustrating. One of these days we’ll express both our feelings for Burton in a review of “Edward Scissorhands,” but today I need to talk about this.

This is a cool trailer. It makes me want to see the movie, but I have the same reservations I always have about Burton. He’s a master of his own unique visual style, which he’ll cram into almost any film whether the film likes it or not. Ironically, Burton’s best movie, “Ed Wood,” was his least Burton-esque. Strange. But Burton’s usual downfall of preferring visuals over scripts has gotten better in the past few years. We both liked “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Corpse Bride,” and “Sweeney Todd.” Two of those movies (and “Ed Wood”) came from strong source material that demanded a strong narrative to work. “Alice in Wonderland” has the opportunity to actually blend a story with Burton’s visual style. It could be great; if he lets it.

Trailer: Bruno

I really liked Borat (I recently found it for 3 dollars and watched it again), so I’m really interested to see Sacha Baron Cohen’s next movie, Bruno (sorry, no umlauts here). Longtime fans of Cohen’s antics may remember Bruno from Cohen’s “Da Ali G Show,” where he interviewed prominent figures in the fashion industry. Cohen’s a real comic talent, and given the content of the Bruno trailers and the great early buzz, I’m hoping he’s going to strike gold again.

…But…

Cohen’s really going to have to hit another home run with Bruno, because it will prove that he’s not some one-film wonderboy, that he’s able to put together another film with creative situations and outrageous dialogue. Sure, he’s willing to push boundaries, but can he still make it funny? All signs point to yes. Larry Charles, the director of both this and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan, had great ideas of how to direct a comedy then and this film should be no different. Will they both make a great comedy again? Here’s hoping.

Extended Clip: “GI Joe: Rise of Cobra”

Crap. It’s gonna suck. Want proof? Listen to the meathead on the left when he says “You get the warhead; I’ll get the kill switch.” That’s just…is that a line?

Oh, and they fit in the “Real American Heroes” line, and we’re betting it’ll sound even worse in-context. New rule: If you’re going to shove a bunch of expected lines into a film [we're looking at you, "Terminator Salvation"], pay attention to how they did it in “Star Trek”. They’re the only ones so far this summer who have sold their various catchphrases.

[Sean's note: Dear god, how I hate the song at the end of this clip.]

Trailer: Sherlock Holmes

There’s action.  There’s wit.  There’s a big guy about to pulverize a little guy.  It’s definietly a Guy Ritchie movie.  Purists of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work should start listing problems immediately.  We just won’t go see the movie with them.

Trailer: “The House Bunny” is going to redefine “trainwreck”.

There is no one in this movie who has done something so terrible that the punishment should be being in this movie.  Anna Faris, Colin Hanks, and Christopher MacDonald, and Beverly D’Angelo are all talented people.  Katherine McPhee and Rumer Willis might be talented actors, and yet, they’re all going to be in this vomit-covered tripe.

There’s a part of me that wants to take this trailer at a deeper level; that wants to convince myself that there’s some heart buried somewhere under the hot mess that is the fifteen second cuts.  But I’m not that great at kidding myself.  This movie is going to be wreck, and what’s worse, it’s going to be an overdone wreck.

Could someone get ahold of the think tank in Hollywood that continues to churn out this ridiculous, sanctimonious crap that swears it’s about character empowerment when it’s clearly about T&A and wearing the right kind of shoes?

And before you argue the point, yes, Happy Madison [Adam Sandler's production company] produced “50 First Dates”, which is a sweet, warm-hearted romantic comedy.  But Happy Madison has also given us such dredge as “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”, “Click”, “Grandma’s Boy”, “Joe Dirt”, and the entire shelf of utterly unfunny hack-fests that have kept Rob Schnieder* employed for the past nine years.

You want a movie about a woman finding her inner beauty and accepting her outer self?  Rent “Real Women Have Curves” and avoid this cliched, idiotic, and insulting glurge-fest.

*”Deuce Bigalow” [1999], “The Animal” [2001], “The Hot Chick” [2002], “Deuce Bigalow:  European Gigolo” [2005]

(Sean: Why do college movies always have to involve fraternities and sororities? I know a ton of people who went to, or are currently in college that never came anywhere close to greek row.)

Trailer: Flash of Genius

The “Flash of Genius” trailer was the one bright spot of having to sit through the contrivance fest that was “Mamma Mia” [see: Gut Reaction].  Greg Kinnear is a strong actor, and he plays the downtrodden everyman with a lot of openess that doesn’t come off as hokey.  Lauren Graham will no doubt be perky and upbeat while also dipping into the role of supporting, loving wife.  “Flash of Genius” has two options:  It will be a strong biopic that will make people cheer at the right moments, or it’ll be an overly-dramatic, too-long collection of scenes of Greg Kinnear looking serious, sad, determined, and tired.

The tone of the movie is going to rest on the writer and director.  The writers are Phillip Railsback, who holds two other credits to his name, according to imdb.com, and John Seabrook, who apparently wrote an article about the real Bob Kearns.  There are no ridiculous, overblown speeches in the trailer; I’ll take that as a positive sign that the writers are trying to tell a story as it happened and not a story as it should be dramatized for maximum effect.

The director, Marc Abraham, is a first-timer, though he has a stack of producer credits under his belt that are mostly impressive.  Given the nature of trailers, his directional style is still unclear, as the point of the trailer is to tell you just enough story to get you interested and not show you any interesting techniques the director may be putting to work.

“Flash of Genius” is balancing on a fence.  On one side is an over-dramatic, eye-rollingly syrupy story of a poor, common man getting picked on by the big corporation.  On the other side is the honest story of a college professor with a couple of degrees who refused to back down when his useful invention was bogarted by a couple of jerks in suits.  I’m hoping “Flash of Genius” will end up on the honest side, and skip over all the usual underdog story hurdles.

Who Watches the “Watchmen” Trailer?

You do, now, and you’ll also see it at the front of “The Dark Knight”. Thanks to our advanced-screening status, we didn’t get to see this trailer on the big screen. On the upside, we now have yet another reason to see “The Dark Knight” again.

This is obviously a trailer meant to show you just how good this movie is going to look, and that’s great. Given the source material [of which we, as a couple, are huge fans], it looks like the director and the visual team in general have really put a lot of thought and time into making whole pages into moving pictures.  It’s unfortunate that the song playing over the whole trailer ["The Beginning of the End is the Beginning" by Smashing Pumpkins] was used heavily in “Batman and Robin”, but it does fit very well with the overall look and feel of the trailer.

We still can’t say for certain if “Watchmen”, the movie, is going to live up to its deserved reputation as a piece of fantastic graphic fiction, but so far we’re sold.