I know we were kinda just talking about this, but at a point in time when women's rights and representation are threatened at seemingly every turn by bureaucrats, ideologues, campaign financiers and bald-faced misogynists, how predictable should it have been that the new trailer for What to Expect When You're Expecting — the best-selling, most influential maternity guide in the known universe — would marginalize the actual mothers and focus almost entirely on the guys? Don't change, Hollywood! Actually, yes. Maybe change just a bit.
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With relations between the sexes having recently hit a dispiriting cultural low (news avoiders may consult Time Magazine's helpful round-up "Are Women People?" for cringe-inducing details), now is as good a time as any to ask and perhaps answer the burning question, "Why don't women narrate movie trailers?" Conveniently, the BBC is here to offer some insights.
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Sort of: "Hidden from the scrutinising eyes of the [Romanian] Secret Police, Irina Margareta Nistor dubbed over 5,000 foreign films that entered the country illegally and were distributed on the black market. Her husky and high-pitched voice became the symbol of freedom and Chuck Norris, Van Damme and Bruce Lee became national heroes. Chuck Norris vs. Communism follows the story of the tapes, the collapse of communism in Romania and the advent of the new capitalist era." And surprise! The filmmakers are crowdsourcing the budget. Click through for the teaser and invest accordingly.
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Here's a trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the forthcoming Timur Bekmambetov film featuring our 16th president as an axe-wielding killer of the undead. There's not much more to say that you can't derive from the super slo-mo, mega-loud hyperviolence promised herein. America's youth has got to get its history from somewhere, I guess.
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There are no new ideas in Hollywood, hence a Bourne franchise reboot whose first trailer -- just released via Apple -- borrows somewhat heavily from the opening titles of Psycho. (At least they're both Universal films, right? Score one for synergy!) But that's immaterial here after a certain point, probably around the time when Stacy Keach is all WHO IS HE? or when a house blows up or simply when Jeremy Renner's Aaron Cross is revealed in all his rifle-toting, tree-hopping glory. Who can resist?
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Fun fact: Legendary philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand shared a birthday with Groundhog Day -- a curious coincidence hinting that Punxatawney Phil guaranteed more than just six added weeks of winter when he saw his shadow Thursday. How about two more years of Atlas Shrugged adaptations?
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The first American trailer for the sci-fi thriller
Lockout makes eminently clear what the
hard-boiled European original elided a bit: This is as close to an
Escape From New York remake as any of us are likely to get.
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That bottomless treasure trove of pop-culture conservatism know as Big Hollywood has done it again, showcasing a guest post from Kirk Cameron about his new documentary Monumental. It has it all: Growing Pains call-outs, Ronald Reagan quips, history tourism, longing gawks at American flags, Cameron and family saying grace... everything, perhaps, except Sarah Palin excreting some half-truth about Wasilla. Have a look!
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Here is a trailer for Jeff Who Lives at Home, which tells the very unusual story of sibling men-children (Jason Segel and Ed Helms) dealing with crises of various import. Epiphanies are had, edgy humor is achieved, Porsches are wrecked. Susan Sarandon cries and enjoys the cathartic eruption of office fire sprinklers. Some kids sing cheerily over the closing credits. It opens March 16. What did I miss?
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Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson may be pleading the indie case and fighting the unfortunate cultural fight to shore up interest in his cancer drama All Things Fall Apart, and the film's marketing may have improved since its LOLtastic first teaser last year. But in the end, as the latest trailer will attest, the film still looks about as appealing as a ham-and-chemo sandwich -- with extra ham, natch.
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In the new trailer for Detachment -- the latest entry in the teachers-are-big-ole-saints genre of filmmaking, Adrien Brody plays a teacher who has not spent all his life living in a gangsta’s paradise. That’s where the conflict is. He wants to help his group of troubled students, but he can barely get them to sit down, let alone listen up. The execution looks charming enough, and the movie fared well at Tribeca, so let’s indulge director (and showman) Tony Kaye’s vision and dig this new group of Freedom Writers.
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The latest trailer for Tower Heist is out, and not a minute too soon as Universal prepares to undertake Hollywood's most adventurous journey yet on the VOD frontier: Releasing Brett Ratner's comedy to on-demand audiences just three weeks after its Nov. 4 theatrical opening. Exhibitors are pledging boycotts, pundits are wringing their hands, and competing studios are paying extra close attention to how it could all affect them. All of which misses the bottom line for viewers, which is: How much???
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Awards season isn't completely over for some of your favorite films from last year: The 12th annual Golden Trailer Awards pit the best marketing campaigns, trailer, and posters from films in 2010 and 2011 against one another, which means the Tree of Life trailer is up against that of The Social Network, the vampire remake Let Me In competes with the spooky remake Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and Cars 2 battles Rango. Never mind that half of these films haven't come out yet!
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