Now, now, Nightmare on Elm Street and Mortal Kombat both hold precious spots in our nostalgia-addicted hearts, so let's not argue about whether Freddy Krueger or Liu Kang would win in a bloodbath. Let's just acknowledge the facts: Freddy is a downloadable player in the new Mortal Kombat game, and you can watch him claw the daylights out of his opponent in the following video. No, this is not a dream.
After scoring a critical and commercial hit with his directorial debut, 2009's Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer decided to make the relatively humble crime comedy 30 Minutes or Less (in theaters Friday) as his follow-up, rather than take on some huge Hollywood work-for-hire gig like Mission: Impossible 4, which he was once in the running to direct. And as he tells Cinema Blend, when he watched the first trailer for the Brad Bird-helmed spy sequel, he knew he'd made the right decision.
This is how it begins, Marvel. First, fans are checking out construction on the Cleveland set of The Avengers; next, they're posting videos, spy pics and scene descriptions to the Internet at a pace that can only be described as break-neck. (If you don't believe that, just ask Christopher Nolan.) ABC affiliate WEWS in Cleveland hit the still-building set of Joss Whedon's superhero supergroup spectacular during lunch hour, and found many local residents delighted at the prospect of a Hollywood production shooting on their very own streets. Never mind that Cleveland is reportedly being used as a stand-in for New York. Click through to see what foam rubble looks like.
The word around Movieline HQ has Ralph Fiennes's directorial debut Coriolanus making a splash -- but not too big a splash -- in a congested awards season to come. A lot of that depends on how The Weinstein Company positions the Shakespeare updating/adaptation, even among its own robust 2011 Oscar crop that also (for now) includes W.E., The Iron Lady, My Week With Marilyn and The Bully Project. It couldn't hurt to emulate this trailer from UK distributor Lionsgate, which adroitly knits the war, revenge and family angles into a tapestry of highly regarded actors including Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox and Jessica Chastain. Let's get a look.
Paramount Vantage wants you to fall in love with Like Crazy like crazy. (Ding!) Less than a week after debuting the teaser trailer for the Sundance award-winning brokenhearted romance -- and after fixing an apparently cruddy and blogger infuriating sound-mix with a second teaser -- the full-length trailer for the film has arrived with less fanfare, but more Felicity Jones. Judging from the two-minute clip, that's a huge win; girl's gonna be a star! Click through to watch.
Lest you think The Change-Up and this weekend's 30 Minutes or Less are the final entrants in this summer of R-rated comedies, The Weinstein Company still has Our Idiot Brother scheduled for Aug. 26. The Sundance hit features Paul Rudd as the titular dullard, along with Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer as his put-upon sisters. Should be an easy sell, right? (Especially to the indie hipster crowd.) Well, maybe not -- provided this new Funny or Die video of Rudd pitching marketing ideas to Harvey Weinstein is legitimate. Wait, it's not? It's just a hilarious spoof? Oh, good. Click through to laugh.
Ever wonder what it's like to hang out on the set of an alien-themed movie with Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig? Now you can find out, thanks to a bonus feature from Paul (now available on DVD and Blu-ray) that shows the Saturday Night Live stars performing an impromptu desert musical with Joe Lo Truglio (Superbad) for crew members. Trust me, it'll have you praying for a big screen adaptation of Who's Your Alien, Now?
Call the trailer for The Odd Life of Timothy Green the flip-side of yesterday's grim sociopath drama We Need to Talk About Kevin. Just like in that clip, a mysterious child is born, except this one's not a soulless weirdo -- this time, he's a cute soccer player! And his mom isn't an exasperated Tilda Swinton -- it's a plucky Jennifer Garner! Luckily, one major similarity they share is quality. I can't believe I want to see this quaint Disney jam.
When the first image of Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle was released online last Friday, the Internet reaction went from meh to meh. This is par for the course when dealing with superhero-costume-first-looks, but lest you think the online handwringing about leather pants and Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses didn't reach Hathaway herself, the Dark Knight Rises star is here to set you straight.
The last time I saw a trailer as eerie as We Need to Talk About Kevin's has to be... hmmm, Buried? With Ryan Reynolds acting all "traumatized"? I think so. We Need to Talk About Kevin pairs Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as hapless parents who can't figure out why their son Kevin is such a creep. Hint, Tilda: He's soulless.
One of the more famous staples of Michael Bay's visual vocabulary is, without a doubt, the 360-degree spinning shot, in which the camera circles actors as they stare meaningfully into the distance -- one of the most instantly recognizable directorial flourishes around (also see: J.J. Abrams and those damn lens flares). Within, marvel at the signature circular hero shot in a supercut edit piecing together said shot for a minute and a half of Michael Bay epicness.
After taking a 13-year sabbatical from feature directing, comedy legend John Landis is back with the black comedy Burke and Hare, which stars Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis (sans CG, looking like himself!) as notorious 19th century criminals William Burke (Pegg) and William Hare (Serkis), who committed a series of murders in order to sell their victims' bodies to science. Watch three new clips from the September release and decide: Is Landis back in fine comic form?
Throughout the baseball season New Era has released some fairly hilarious commercials-cum-viral videos featuring Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski and the increasing stakes of their Yankees/Red Sox fan rivalry. The fourth spot has come online just in time for the latest on-field Yanks/Sox tangle -- the teams meet for three games in Boston this weekend -- and while it isn't as funny as the previous ones, it does feature Krasinski in a Yankees bikini. Photoshopped, but hey: still comedy!
Troy Nixey's upcoming film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark shares elements in common with producer Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth -- the little girl heroine, the gothic old mansion, a world of fantastical creatures with sinister secrets -- but its supernatural antagonists are tinier, scarier, and way more desperate for you to come "play" with them. Find out more about the goblin-like "homunculi" that live in the basement in two new clips from the upcoming horror-fantasy.
Happy Friday! What are you up to? Lunch? Drinks? Supply-room tryst with the intern? Wait, what? You're working? Pffft! I'll totally pretend I didn't hear that, instead referring you this artsy blast from the past featuring Terry Gilliam somewhere at or near the height of his Monty Python powers. Who is ready to make some cut-out animation?
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