The first trailer for The Box debuted late Wednesday, featuring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella in all their '70s-era period splendor. Another nod to the old days might be found in director Richard Kelly's liberal use of just about every shot, technique and theme he could borrow from The Shining. But in a good way! Sort of.
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The first teaser for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender is live, and it seems to confirm a dirty little secret currently unfolding in the backwoods of Pennsylvania: Manoj is back! (I think.)
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Your monthly burst of Inglourious Basterds hype is here for June, with the Weinsteins following its Cannes premiere with a shiny, more-linear-than-ever new trailer for the film. There's also more Brad Pitt than you've likely yet seen, and virtually none of the fest's Best Actor prize-winner Christoph Waltz, so let there be no mistaking who is in charge here. And if you wanted a better idea of what Mike Myers is up to in the film, you've got a hint of that as well. Just add a title card exclaiming, "Now with 30 minutes fewer Basterds than Cannes," and this might actually get people excited yet!
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It's time for another attraction, as Francis Ford Coppola would say, and this too was a modestly budgeted angsty-white-male tragicomedy (caution: may contain trace amounts of metaphysics, but not enough to sustain serious brain damage) that debuted at Sundance, entitled World's Greatest Dad. As this comes from the darkly askew mind of Bobcat Goldthwait -- whose Sleeping Dog is considered the Citizen Kane of dog-blowing movies -- a healthy dose of sickie humor is to be expected. And that's established out of the gate, with the greatest abortion haiku we've ever heard. Star Robin Williams seems re-energized here, finding the inner life of his high school poetry teacher and dad to a perverse 16-year-old.
Verdict: Abortion Haiku -- c'mon. Who can resist that?
The Sundance guide, where Cold Souls made its world premiere, describes the Paul Giamatti film as a "metaphysical tragicomedy." That in itself might be enough to send you running for the doors, and the added fact that Giamatti plays himself in the film might not help bring you back. Still, some people like metaphysical tragicomedies about famous actors playing themselves, and for them, something from anyone besides Charlie Kaufman -- in this case, writer/director Sophie Barthes -- might be a refreshing glass of mindfuckade.
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The first full trailer for the Roland Emmerich disaster epic 2012 is online, introduced by the filmmaker himself in a decidedly downmarket, casual-day-at-Sony greeting. And as you yell at the monitor to simply get to the apocalypse, just take a moment to know how good you've got it before the main attraction begins. It's all downhill -- blazingly, floodingly so -- from there.
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On today's Two-Minute Verdict we steal a glimpse at HBO's new comedy series, Bored to Death. Choosing the hipster-infested Brooklyn brownstones of Flight of the Conchords over the Spanish Colonial bungalows of Entourage's Hollywood Hills, the Jonathan Ames-penned series stars Jason Schwartzman as a "moonlighting private detective."
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You know how sometimes there's a comedy trailer that's so aggressively formulaic and awful that you can pretty much guarantee you're going to see it shown before every single movie until the film in question finally comes out? (And even then, two weeks after, you'll probably go to some weird theater you've never been to before and they'll start playing this trailer and you'll shout, "What? No! This is out already!")
I'm pretty sure Old Dogs is going to be that movie for us.
In a bid to illustrate...something...Michael Moore sent a whole bunch of out-of-work actors to the Loews theater in Manhattan to record the reaction to the trailer for his new film, which takes on the government bailout. The volunteers had the message "Save Our CEOs" emblazoned on their T-shirts and on tin cans that innocent, trapped moviegoers could donate money into, if they wanted.
This footage...we need to talk about it.
First things first: Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's first dramatic feature since winning an Oscar for The Departed, looks like a creepy enough, well-pedigreed Hitchcockian thriller. Look -- it's Ben Kingsley! Max Von Sydow! Michelle Willilams! Mark Ruffalo! Patricia Clarkson! And listen -- it's Leonard DiCaprio, crossbreeding his Revolutionary Road style and a Chowderhead accent that's almost as scary as the sprawling asylum that traps him. The video is after the jump.
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It Might Get Loud is the latest doc from An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim, but make no mistake -- there will be no Bill Clinton in Wayfarers giving a 90-minute, sax-assisted PowerPoint presentation on the dire state of The Blues. Instead, Guggenheim invites three of the greatest rock gods of their generations to discuss a shared love of the electric guitar. The members of this summit: Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, whose creamy, Far Eastern-inflected melodies provided a magic carpet atop which Robert Plant's vocals could truly soar; U2's The Edge, whose rapid-fire licks had an aura of timelessness and portent to them, as if calling a lost generation to battle; and The White Stripes' Jack White, who, like the upholsterer he once was, is skilled at stripping down the best techniques from both these virtuosos, adding a spring of Detroit dance-punk, and in doing so creating a whole new suite of rock n' roll furniture, each piece as comfortable and familiar as your favorite chair.
I have no idea how this clip hid so well online since late April, especially after its YouTube predecessor found traction in the initial outrage around Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. But there it is, awaiting a special extended edition of Movieline's Two-Minute Verdict: This vivid dream sequence from the forthcoming drama Madoff: Made Off with America, which may make the enduringly cryptic After Last Season look like Kubrick in comparison.
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Here's five reasons to see The Final Destination:
I can think of no better way to start the week than with the first trailer for New Moon, which combines virtually all the wolfcake-y, groin-tingling teases of recent weeks into one slick burst of potboiler pop. The bad news: You'll have to wait a few months for a glimpse at Scary Dakota Fanning. The good news: ZOMG a Shapeshifter!
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It may not surprise you to know that The Goods was produced by Will Ferrell's company Gary Sanchez, as the car salesman comedy bears all the hallmarks of the ex-SNLer's work: a deluded egotist at its center (here played, in a stretch, by Jeremy Piven), a vaguely unflattering wardrobe that looks snatched from the disco era, and David Koechner in a supporting role. What may not be apparent, though, is that the movie boasts a secret star performance that's glimpsed for nary a frame in the new trailer below.
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