Director:Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Cast:(voices) Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Elle Russ, Stanley G. Sawicki
Release: October 22, 2004(Limited)
Synopsis:Marionette superheroes fight to end terrorism and put tired celebrities out of their misery.

Prognosis: Positive. If I could judge this simply based on the idea behind this movie (marionettes out to save the world in the name of freedom and American Imperialism for all) I wouldn’t really know how something like this would play in execution.

Seeing this trailer I can already feel that the path is now beset on both sides of those who will “get it” and those who will be confused at the use of small puppets on strings. I get it. It’s innovative and the trailer comes out swinging for the long ball and they hit it hard.

The first thing that happens in this trailer, after we move past the Paramount logo (it’s always cool to see that. COMING TO AMERICA did it well too. Any other good movie out there employ this technique?), the visage of Earth comes into view as the very serious voice over starts in.

”We live in a time of unparalleled danger…”

The angle here is that the earth is in peril from terrorists, global chaos, and we live in a climate where uncertainty is de regur. All this and only one hope for humanity? What better way to illustrate what could happen next than by blowing up the earth? Before you can try and cobble what one has to do with the other we get names.

(All in a sound that comes close to mimicking titanium slamming into titanium.)

“Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, George Clooney, Liv Tyler, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Moore, George W. Bush, John Kerry, and Kim Jong-Il.”

“Are all going to be really, really mad when they see…”

And here are the players: puppets. We get snippets of turban-wearing terrorists, sparks shooting out of a very low-grade plane model and other images of things that were popular way back when the Thunderbirds were cutting edge.

I’ll tell you something else about this film: Freedom hangs by a thread. This tagline is enough to elicit some smiles and it sure as hell beats the crap out of a few other “comedic” trailers that try and amuse. What is also worth noting about this trailer and may bring my journalistic cred into question: I saw the opening sequence that a majority of these clips were pulled from. My editor has read the script. Both of these things were both concluded with the idea that this flick is piss your pants funny. Obviously, no one has ever lost their lower bowel control due to a film’s hilarity but if you allow yourself to be open to the idea that marionettes can be laughable and are a marginal fan of the kind of comedy that Trey and Matt dabble in, you will not be disappointed.

The trailer makes fun of big budget actioneers and it works in ways that hit every worthy note.

Director:Louis Leterrier
Cast:Cole Hauser, Larry Cedar, Tom Sizemore, Robin Tunney, Dennis Farina
Release:September 3, 2004
Synopsis:When an overzealous group of four paparazzi photographers cause a car accident that injures his wife (Robin Tunney) and son, a hot young (and very angry) movie star named Bo Laramie (Cole Hauser) concocts a revenge plot against them. Also stars Tom Sizemore and Dennis Farina.

Prognosis: Negative. What a conceit.

The throaty voice over guy (who, by all intents and purposes, tries real hard in this one to sound as menacing as he can) breaks down the specifics of what you think is a long-range rifle; silvery accents come into view, there is a heavy use of black, and it all points towards a weapon of awesome power. Too bad you already know he’s talking up a frigging Canon. It’s then that the whole premise of the movie is built upon is shown for all to see and then he says it.

“It has the power to take a man apart.”

Whoa, right there, Lone Ranger. Take a man apart? I watch Hollywood Hunt Club. It’s a little less salacious than Celebrities Uncensored, but it is a few notches more exciting. I find the program a real humanizing look at guys who make a living following around celebrities that will fetch them enough to live on. Public place, public celebrity, available camera? It’s a tight rope to walk along but guys like Ben, one of their featured photogs, are the kind of guys who seem to love what they do and his travails are just good reasons why reality TV is just plain addictive at times.

The above explains why I have a hard time believing the whole cliché of a sleazy photographer and his posse plying their trade. Are they that gonzo? Do all the real in-your-face ones work for The Sun? But who cares about reality, really, when you have Hollywood, right? Right.

So, what you have here in this trailer is Tom Sizemore, a slick looking paparazzo, who has a ONE HOUR PHOTO obsession with a disposable celebrity. The star in question is played up as “just one of us” who just happened to win the genetic lottery and leads the real good life while still retaining his sense of commonality. He even takes his kid to soccer and really roots for him on the sidelines. It’s sweet if just a little unbelievable.

LARAMIE NAKED!

The above is the cover of a tabloid that the A-lister’s wife holds in her paws as they glide along in their car as she asks her husband gingerly “can they do this?” in such a tone it got me to think. The question I would’ve liked asked is: What the hell are you doing walking around naked outside your house? Correct me if I’m wrong but if I decide to get down nudie style with my bad self in the backyard I should know there might be a possibility someone might catch me doing that and have a camera phone at the ready. If you’re that, um, hard up to get naked use some of your cash and build a damn solarium, retard. Problem solved.

Moving from there, Sizemore looks like he’s playing the part of a kook of the highest order and there isn’t anyone else I would like to think could play the part better than him. I’ll give up some inches in this tug-of-war critique in saying that when I see some shenanigans like people breaking into the guy’s house, which the “bad” guys do, there’s a real good story there. That would be a great plot device, but then there’s a whole subplot of A-lister actor hitting Sizemore and the whole media circus surrounding how he has to attend anger management program and then Sizemore wants to destroy our Hollywood star, but this all just leaves me wondering what is going on. I’m thinking if I wanted to watch a vengeful photographer get back at a famous person I’ll just watch Celebrities Uncensored. The actor in this movie goes after a pack of these photographers, lethal style, taking things into his own hands but it just seems out of place. Maybe it’s just my reasoning but the guy is a major celebrity and he’s out picking these guys off one by one? I don’t buy it and I’m sure some real box office dollars will agree.

Director: Mike Nichols
Cast: Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen
Release: December 24, 2004
Synopsis: Director Mike Nichols brings Patrick Marber’s highly acclaimed theatrical tour de force CLOSER to the screen, an erotically charged tale of love, loneliness and betrayal featuring an all-star cast.

Prognosis: Negative. How many times does the question come back to what came first: the director or the acting?

Mike Nichols, the splendid eye behind such blockbusters as WORKING GIRL, WOLF, and WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM?, among others, comes at us again with this flick that has some heavy talent behind it. I don’t mean to disparage the bloke too much as it’s hard enough to make one movie but then to keep doing your job movie after movie it is quite a wonderful thing to have been able to do it; that being said, however, there are some major turkeys running around on this guy’s cinematic ranch. What is interesting to note, as well, is that he won an Emmy for Wit, a largely successful and evocative TV program that was carried on Emma Thompson’s shoulders. So, again, is it the director or is it the actor that really makes or breaks a performance?

As this trailer begins Jude Law and Natalie Portman (cribbing a page from Kate Winslet’s hair styling guide from ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) are excellent in the beginning bits of this thing. A car hits Portman and Law comes to help only to end up in bed with the girl. Not a bad way to start things off at all, I say, even if it’s Portman who looks like a girl who will sleep with you only to turn out to be a klepto. “Desire is a stranger…you think you know.”

From Law and Portman we move to Owen and Roberts. Clive is doing his charismatic thing he does with alarming attraction while Roberts, well, is Roberts. That toothy smile reminds me of so many of her previous pictures that I await the day when I don’t think of the haunting video cover to MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING or MYSTIC PIZZA when I see those teeth. Oh yeah, the two of them are supposed to be in love.

Cut to Law in front of a camera. Law takes pictures of Roberts, they flirt, and it is there that we see the beginnings of another movie about a sticky triangle that always seems to end up crushing someone under its foot. How does this one set itself apart, you may ask? It doesn’t, truth be told.

We get Law, Roberts, Portman and Owen at a art gallery (almost looking like a sketch from Kids In The Hall based on a affair gone horribly south) and then, seconds later, we get Owen making Roberts admit she had enjoyable sex with Law in a scene that makes me look twice to see if I haven’t been watching a trailer for INDECENT PROPOSAL 2: THIS TIME THERE’S NO MONEY INVOLVED. Portman, then, essentially does the same thing to Law.

Where does this all lead? Into the arms of the jilted and of the cuckolded, that’s where. This other Portman/Owen plot looks far more interesting, on second glance, when I see the moments that they share on the screen.

The trailer gets a positive from me for Portman and Owen’s interspersed bits and a big negative to Law and Roberts for doing nothing more than appearing like jerk-offs to their significant others and to us like whiny cheaters who just want things they want them with none of the consequences.

Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Fabrice Luchini, Michel Duchaussoy
Release: July 30, 2004 (limited)
Synopsis: Mousy tax advisor William Faber (Luchini) receives a new client, Anna (Bonnaire), a beautiful, nervous woman who has mistaken him for a psychiatrist. But when she confides in him about her awful love life, he is both too embarrassed and intrigued to tell her the truth….

Prognosis: Positive. I’ve been watching this trailer for weeks and have finally decided to include it here because it’s been haunting me.

The setup is great: woman goes in to see a psychologist, makes a wrong turn, ends up in a strange dude’s office, she assumes he’s the one she needs to talk to, she starts unloading, and he can’t bear to tell her she’s mistaken. That’s it.

What is so delicious to see unfold, then, is what happens in the middle and how it comes to its eventual conclusion. It’s sweet and endearing in a way, when you see how meek the man looks in opposition to the sultriness of this strange woman who enters his life unexpectedly, but it’s a foreign film that piques just the right kind of interest.

The man who directed this movie, responsible for GIRL ON THE BRIDGE and MAN ON THE TRAIN, has a great eye for not only direction but for having good stories to work with and mold. He knows what he’s doing with the people he directs and it shows in this trailer. These people look like they’re complete opposites but their attraction seems, somehow, more sublime.

Yes, it is French and, yes, it does start off with establishing who the director guy is and how nifty it is that a dude from the Washington Post liked this movie, but the film has a real attraction even without all that fluffery. It seems to have a levity based on a good story than it does a smart gimmick. The gimmick may be simply the what-if element of a woman taking a wrong turn plotline but there seems to be an affableness of all those involved. Plus, that French chick is screaming fine.

I know this one will be a movie that most here will let slide by at the art house, but I know my gut is telling me that if your lady wants to be taken to a romantic comedy you would be better served to endure this flick than most anything out there when this comes to your town, if at all. I wish there were more in this trailer to prove my point but since this is a foreign language movie, the marketing folks don’t want these actors talking out loud; especially if those people only speak French.

Director:Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer
Release: June 17, 2005
Synopsis: A new restart of the “Batman” franchise under the helm of “Memento” Director Chris Nolan and more in tone with the early “Batman: Year One” style comics. As a boy a young Bruce Wayne watched in horror as his millionaire parents were slain in front of his eyes, a trauma which led him to become obsessed with revenge but his chance is cruelly taken away from him by fate. After disappearing to the East where he seeks counsel with the dangerous but honorable ninja cult leader known as Ra’s Al-Ghul, he returns to his now decaying Gotham City overrun by organised crime and dangerous individuals manipulating the system whilst the company he inherited is slowly being pulled out from under him. The discovery of a cave under his mansion, and a prototype armoured suit leads him to take on a new persona, one which will strike fear into the hearts of men who do wrong – he becomes, Batman. In the new guise, and with the help of rising cop Jim Gordon, Batman sets out to take down the various nefarious schemes in motion by individuals such as mafia don Falcone, the twisted doctor/drug dealer Jonathan ‘The Scarecrow’ Crane, and a mysterious third party that is quite familiar with Wayne and waiting to strike when the time is right.

Prognosis: Positive. Riddle me this, Warner Brothers: Why on God’s green earth, when you have the epicenter of Nerddom at your fingertips, the veritable makers of the so-called “buzz” you industry love to talk about so much, wouldn’t you show this trailer at the Comic-Con?

What makes the question a little more puzzling to get an answer to is the additional evidence that someone had already seen the trailer for this movie well in advance of the release on the Internet, well in advance of the Con, and described it shot for shot? If you ask me, and I know you’re not asking and don’t care what the answer is, these last three weeks represent the worst handling of a film this magnitude in a long time. The audiences have left from I, ROBOT, the Con has come and gone, and the best thing you could do, Warner, is get a mention, mid-week, on a few significant movie sites. Who the hell cares about this anyway, right? It’s just a property that’s been raped more times than a child molester in general population, so forget it, right?

I can’t.

What I like about this trailer is, well, everything. We get Bale doing a voice over as we see a young master Bruce at his parent’s funeral. Bale says he caught of glimpse of something the night his parents were murdered and he’s been looking for it ever since. The violins in the background, pulled taught and ratcheting the tension just enough, are well placed and fit the moment here like a found puzzle piece that completes a picture.

He’s shown traversing some pretty rough terrain: snowy, rainy, sandy, cold. We understand he’s on a quest and when it seems he can look no further, we get a shadowy figure that blocks our view and it only heightens speculation what it could be.

Bale eventually says that thing that wants revenge is him. We catch a too-fast glimpse of the bat-costume but this teaser has done more than enough. It establishes itself as the anti-Batman of all that have come before it and it states, categorically, without even uttering a word, that there is no kiss from a rose nor will there be any stories written on the size of anyone’s cod pieces. Of all the films that don’t come out until next year, CONSTANTINE being the exception here, there isn’t really another movie that shows just enough of the film to really whet an appetite. Movie marketing 101 should always start with the rule that if you have a fan base that is wanting to see your film (your Spider-Man freaks, your X-Men nuts, your sequel junkies) get some actual clips out there for geeks to pick apart. People will talk endlessly about your film until you give them another taste. By doing this, by heightening expectation, you can, at the very least, guarantee a good first weekend opening and this trailer does a great job in getting that result started. Getting your property known is the name of the game and, so far, the movie is getting known for all the wrong reasons.

It’s a great trailer, it has a great premise, but there is piss poor managing of the entire execution of the release for this thing. (I still wish you could have seen how surly Bale looked for the prerecorded bit right before a lackluster Q/A at the Con. Hilarious.)

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