The good news: We have a trailer for Salt, the Phillip Noyce-directed spy thriller once meant to star Tom Cruise, then rewritten to accommodate the gifts of noted orphan-farming she-commando, Angelina Jolie. The bad news: It's dubbed completely in Russian.
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In the second major sponsor switch-off of the week, Stephen Colbert agreed to back the U.S. Speedskating team last night after their original sponsor, DSB Bank, folded. A heroic gesture for sure, commemorated by special guest Dan Jansen and executive director of U.S. Speedskating Bob Crowley, who signed papers on air. Despite the fanfare though, it's Colbert's fans -- and not the show -- who will be supporting the team. Now, if only he could volunteer members of the Colbert Nation to pay for a scripted drama on NBC. The bit in question comes about two minutes into the provided link. [Colbert Report]
We'll make this fast: the trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has hit YouTube in what's almost certainly a leak, given the lack of fanfare and terrible quality. So if you want to go see it, check it out now! No magic dagger can grant you the opportunity to reverse time should you not be fleet of foot enough. (UDPATE: It's now online for real -- check it out after the jump.)
Meanwhile, how is it?
· Upstaging Ann Curry
· Attempting to drink a "boo-tini" despite Ann Curry's angry pronouncement, "You're not allowed to have vodka!"
· Humping Al Roker's leg
Since the tragic death of Heath Ledger 20 months ago, several music videos directed by the Australian actor have been released posthumously, including Modest Mouse's animated "King Rat" and Nick Drake's eerie visual representation for "Black Eyed Dog" (in which director Heath turns the camera on himself, and is pictured drowning in the bathtub). Yesterday, a new music video for the Oscar nominee's childhood friend, rapper N'Fa, surfaced. It is believed to be the final project over which Ledger had complete creative control.
Before its full trailer was released just this week, James Cameron's Avatar had three notable preludes: its debut footage at Comic-Con, an online teaser trailer in August, and, of course, the big chunk of screen time from Avatar Day. Each of those clips was met by...well, let's say less-than-universal acclaim. That said, the newest, final Avatar trailer is probably its best yet.
You know that something crazy happened during an episode of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson when people are talking about something other than the cold open in which a sailor, a mermaid, a bondage submissive, three puppets and the host (wearing a pirate's hook) lip-synched to "In the Navy." So just how did guest Alicia Silverstone's segment top that mish-mash performance, as she innocently promoted her new book about veganism, while sagely steering clear of any flesh chewing-rape comparisons?
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James Cameron might beg to differ as long as his second, much-improved Avatar teaser awaits Web release this Friday, but the new trailer for Clint Eastwood's Invictus signals the arrival of the last real Oscar-bait sales pitch of 2009. And with its biopic creds, big themes, and bad accents by American actors, it is definitely selling hard.
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The induction of a new Royal at Walt Disney Parks is always a grandly ceremonious affair, involving the unfurling of comically oversized scrolls and the bellowing of decrees by stately Magic Kingdom spokespeople in tri-cornered hats, the various members of their adoptive family looking on in delight. (And, in select cases -- specifically at Disneyland Resort Paris -- they celebrate afterward with a two-day orgy.)
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When Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass agreed to keep making Bourne movies for Universal, there was an implicit promise that in doing so, the studio would let the two men make a tougher, more uncommercial film like the Iraq war thriller Green Zone. Now, the trailer for Green Zone's been released, and we can see why Universal was so quick to accede to the pair's demands -- with a little trailer-cutting sleight-of-hand, Green Zone can be sold as The Bourne Identity, but with sand.
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I honestly don't know much about Brian McKnight outside of the fact that he sang that song "One, you make my dreams come true, Two, electric boogaloo, etc..." and that he was one of the non-Hitler-like contestants on the last season of Celebrity Apprentice -- but apparently he has a show! It's called The Brian McKnight Show, and it airs on The CW Plus. (Other things I didn't know: That The CW came in a plus-size.)
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If you can't wait until the Emmerichian disasterpiece 2012 arrives in theaters next month, then it's your lucky day. Rather, Oct. 27 is your lucky day, because that's when the good people at The Asylum -- those geniuses who brought you Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus -- unveil their schlocky new grab-your-family-and-flee-the-apocalypse knockoff 2012: Supernova on DVD. Click through for the trailer.
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Of the many delights of my recent (Fox-underwritten) trip to England for the premiere of Fantastic Mr. Fox, coming into close proximity of comedy demigod Bill Murray -- who voices the character of Badger -- certainly ranked among the greatest. His presence at a roundtable interview was kept something of a will-he-or-won't-he mystery until the very last moment, when, sure enough, there he was. An awed silence swept through the cramped Nags Head Pub, as though we had just glimpsed a unicorn or manticore -- even better, really, since no unicorns or manticores ever starred in Ghostbusters.
Welcome to the wholly accidental Werewolf Week at Movieline, a fluke of timing in which we've become something of a repository for lycanthropian studies. You've seen the bad, and you've seen the awkward -- now see the mostly good as The Wolfman rebounds from its heavy gothic roots to a sleeker, more sinewy rock 'n' roll beast. (Alas, we can't do anything about Anthony Hopkins' cliches.)
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Serious Moonlight is supposed to be a light-hearted comedy, but it's got long odds. First, there's the unlikely premise: Meg Ryan duct-tapes cheating husband Timothy Hutton to the toilet until she can force him to fall back in love with her. Then, there's the side-story of loss, as Serious Moonlight is based on a script by Adrienne Shelly, who was brutally murdered before her film Waitress was scooped up at Sundance in 2007.
And finally, there's one other thing. And I think you know what that thing is.
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