FRED Entertainment

Director:Jeff Feuerzeig
Cast: Louis Black, Bill Johnston, Daniel Johnston, Mabel Johnston, Jeff Tartakov
Release: March 31, 2006 (Limited)
Synopsis: Daniel Johnston, manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist is revealed in this portrait of madness, creativity and love.

Prognosis: Positive but with corrections. I think that one of the worst things you can do when pimping your product to a populace is shower too much praise on it; this only results in heightened expectations that fall short. Every time.

When I see a synopsis claim that uses the word “genius” to describe the subject that we’re about to watch I get instantly cynical and skeptical. I don’t care if this batshit crazy music man really IS a genius but I want to come up to my own conclusions about such things. Thankfully, the trailer never drops the G word and I am amazed that I am so drawn in by this movie’s substance.

On first glance this trailer immediately grabs me when we see our musical, filmic namesake standing on a stage, looking at a handheld camera as a throng of fans cheering in the background. The musical interlude that twinkles in the background as the screen flickers to a NAPOLEON DYNAMITE-esque hand-scribbled Sundance award proclamation along with words of praise from AIN’T IT COOL is endearing.

The archival video footage of Daniel Johnston from years ago, in his own voice, explaining who he is and allowing us to get a feel for this un-rock star is appropriate in a way that the modern footage that’s interlaced with it offers the audience a nice balance of offering something old with something new.

On top of getting information, quickly, about who this quirky songster is you also get a voiceover from someone who sounds well versed in musical comings and goings; it could be one of those twats that love to pour endlessly over old issues of Rolling Stone or NME and are proud as punch to think they are a part of a critical literati but it’s evenhanded. When you hear someone else, a woman, say that underneath all this talent there was something really really wrong with the guy you can sense that this is why the film got made in the first place.

This point is expounded upon as, ostensibly, those who knew him clue is in on the fact that not only was this dude tossed like a rainbow into a mental ward but that the doted on the devil much too much for his own good. Again, the sounds of those talking are laid out over a bed of fresh looking images. An abandoned, dilapidated nuthouse is used as background for Johnston’s audio diary of his time spent inside the kook clink. Shots of deliciously piled drugs from our nation’s pharmaceutical overlords give the idea that Daniel was somehow eventually treated for his psychoses.

The last moments of this trailer are spent showing the once rail thin Johnston about three times the man he used to be, perhaps a side effect of the medications, as his own music plays along images of his life as it is now. There are still people cheering for him, he still has that wily sense about him and his music seems just as poignant as it was over twenty years ago.

I don’t know a thing about him but yet, simply based on what I see here, I think I’d like to.

Director:Mary Harron
Cast: Gretchen Mol, Lili Taylor, Jonathan M. Woodward, David Strathairn, Cara Seymour
Release: April 14, 2006 (Limited)
Synopsis: The story of Bettie Page, uber-successful 1950’s pin-up model, one of the first sex icons in America, and the target of a Senate investigation (based on her bondage photos).

Prognosis: Negative. Don’t you love seeing those faux hipster chicks who wear their hair like Bettie Page? They wear those same kind of era sunglasses, usually carry themselves with the kind of bitchiness that’s usually reserved for captains of the cheerleading team in high school and like to surround themselves with like-minded dweebs who feel that they’re all worse off living in the now instead of being really cool by emulating long dead iconoclasts? No? Maybe I’m the only one who loves seeing these kinds of ladies and making fun of them.

Off the bat, I love that this movie is rated R for “Nudity, sexual content and some language.” There needs to be more of these kinds of movies in circulation as the dearth of them only make it harder for young boys to come of age with the right kind of material laying around the Blockbuster. They’re sure not going to get it with all these actresses who want to go the tease route and I am even more pleased when the first barrage of images for this film is Bettie in all kinds of poses. They’re tame, to be sure, but you can’t just expect to have things get wild from the word go.

But, oddly enough, the trailer just explodes right into things with showcasing our talent young femme in color and black and white. I am not sure what’s more exotic or erotic but Bettie really isn’t shown to be so much of an innocent girl drawn into a world that was not her choosing but that being a pin-up was just her destiny.

The trailer starts off with her just getting her picture taken in gun boat bras and granny panties but things take a turn for the kink when a nebbish little man brings out these mammoth looking leather boots. I haven’t a clue if this is where her S&M phase starts or what but when a man off the street walks up to her and asks whether it makes her feel like punishing, crushing, humiliating, among other things to dudes when they gravel in front of her. The moment is perfectly rendered and I start to realize that Bettie wasn’t just some Playboy fantasy girl but that she was a full-on dominatrix who reached her subjects from beyond the page.

One of the things I fault this trailer for, though, is its simple omission of any substance here. Yeah, it’s great that we get this woman romping around in her skivvies for a full two minutes and that we get some real titillating video to watch but what about this woman’s private life? I have to assume she wasn’t all about her underwear and was so much more than the sum of her parts. I wouldn’t know any of that, though, because all I get is a little hesitation from Bettie about her fame being so constraining but I want to teased and pleased. This trailer, though, just leaves me blue in more ways than one.

Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Nora Zehetner, Noah Segan, Noah Fleiss, Emilie de Ravin, Meagan Good
Release: March 24, 2006 (Limited)
Synopsis: Brendan Fry is a loner at his high school, someone who knows all the angles but has chosen to stay on the outside. When the girl he loves turns up dead, he plunges into the school’s social strata like a fist through a honeycomb to find the “who” and “why,” with the same single-minded devotion to his self-appointed task as the hard-boiled heroes of old.

Prognosis: Pass. Originality of Vision.

This film was awarded a prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival for it’s originality of vision but does that mean it had a nice way of telling a story or that it just looked good on screen? I’m not sure what kind of an award an OOV really is but I can’t say that anything about this trailer really makes me want to find out for sure.

It opens up really wonderfully, though, when we get the R rated red banner that comes before everything. I am jazzed that, at the very least, there will be some wildly objectionable content to follow. I am quickly slowed down in my enthusiasm when we see our first player standing in a phone booth.

Now, why there happens to be a phone booth out in the middle of nowhere I don’t know but the little scroll of jive/slang that appears when our other player, the one on the other side of the phone, is hysterically rambling on about a “brick” and a “pin.” Ooo”¦I feel so in with the hip kids.

When I see that the crying girl on the phone was our Australian outback steakhouse fraulein from Lost: Emilie de Ravin. She seems to have gone missing following the exchange between our guy from the beginning but that’s quickly run over as we go back to our dude who brings in his buddies into this situation.

Our man starts to rattle off those code words again: brick, tug, pin. All the while these words are rattled off we get real smoky visuals of these words appearing and dissolving off the screen. I’m not really impressed as I am perturbed by these Sesame Street phonics lessons. I know they’re trying to be all sort of indie with the vibe and look but I’m not feeling very engaged with the material.

What starts to change my direction on this movie is the motion we gain by starting to show what all of this means within the context of the flick. The characters start interacting with other people, the mystery starts to grow deeper as discordant images piece themselves together.

Our hero gets his ass kicked by a Buddy Revell look-a-like in his high school’s parking lot. He, of course, gets to make a smoky cool joke about how he never saw that kid who beat him up before in his life and that he was glad he was looking for lunch money because he was”¦brown baggin’ it. Oh, SNAP! Did you fuc%&ing see that come back?? “Brown baggin’ it.”

Yeah, it’s edgy in that wink-wink sort of way. And the trailer doesn’t especially award you for paying attention to what’s happening as it does make you feel special just for watching what it has to offer in the sense of how cool it is trying to be; and it’s trying hard.

What’s odd is that I still want to see this movie however complex this story might be. There seems to be something between all of this and I can’t help but feel this flick rises ever so greater above the rest of the usual sludge.

Director: Kurt Wimmer
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, William Fichtner
Release: March 3, 2006
Synopsis: Set in the late 21st century, a subculture of humans called Hemophages has emerged who have been genetically modified, giving them enhanced speed, incredible stamina and acute intelligence. To the government’s dismay, more and more of the population are being transformed, and they have set out to rid the world of this new subculture that they deem menaces to society. One rogue warrior is bent on protecting her race ““ and seeking revenge on those who changed her life forever. With fierce fighting skills and chameleon-like abilities, Violet (Jovovich) sets out to destroy a government-designed time bomb that will eliminate all Hemophages. To Violet’s surprise, the deadline device is a nine-year-old-boy, who was raised in a laboratory and goes by the name of Six (Bright).

Prognosis: Can’t believe the hype…yet Do you know that there are only two movies I ever really came close to walking out on? I usually reserve the opportunity to see a movie as a chance to allow a filmmaker their chance to tell me a story all the way through. That’s why THE JERKY BOYS and THE FIFTH ELEMENT will always hold special places in my filmic heart as two of the worst films I had to ever endure. Milla Jovovich was only part of the problem in that movie but she’s kind of a one-note actress.

Case in point is the trailer for this movie.

Okay, so Milla is narrating this trailer. We open up with her kicking the crap out of some baddies who are wearing plastic scuba gear apparati, using the same kind of billy clubs made famous in DEMOLITION MAN. What’s amusing to me is that she’s trying to be this hardcore lady but when she finally stops kicking all these dudes asses for a moment and her gut is flopping up and down, she wants to break down the story from the beginning.

I don’t know what futuristic society set out to make super warriors who bear an un-original likeness to Nazi soldiers with samurai swords but it’s like a 13 year-old was given the chance to bring their comic book to life and they’ve included every old and busted archetype they’ve ever seen. AEON FLUX seems to have fused with the leftovers from THE 6TH DAY and those obnoxious shiny black bad guy uniforms from SPACEBALLS.

I’m not sure whose idea it was that this new futuristic world was so unkind to our lungs that people have to wear plugs in their noses which look about as serious as seeing them in the nostrils of Bob and Doug McKenzie from STRANGE BREW but it’s all downhill from this point forth.

We get more of our super soldier Nazi ninjas doing all they can to look as cool and dangerous as they can and Milla brings up the rear, or specifically, her rear in some retro Hypercolor pants and matching half-shirt. And let’s get this out of the way: she’s always wearing a half shirt. I so forgot to consult my military training from the future manual where it states that standard issue uniforms for the good guys are no longer are to be used for maximum protection but should, instead, incite chubbies from all men who dare gaze on her fleshy tummy. It’s mindless, stupid and completely doesn’t serve any logical purpose.

What’s more is the dreadful dialogue. When it is employed, Milla saying crap like “copy that” or “killing is what I do, it;’s what I’m good at” makes being an apologist for all the bad movies I still defend by the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme so shaming; how can I stick up for those when I want to run screaming from this trailer? I don’t know but I am sure I’ll rationalize it somehow.

And, to be fair and balanced, I can’t dismiss this trailer completely out of hand. Even though the music is downright pedestrian I like some of the visuals employed. The effects work in some places is interesting and the handling of some of the battle sequences brings a fresh perspective on how a B movie can be properly executed if enough cheese is tossed at the screen.

I can’t wait until I ignore this movie completely when it’s released theatrically and then rent it when it explodes, or implodes, depending, on DVD. If it does bad enough at the box office I hope to see it being released on DVD within the month.

Director:Lori Silverbush, Michael Skolnik
Cast: Anny Mariano, Paola Mendoza, Judy Marte, Dominc Colón
Release: January 27, 2006
Synopsis: A dramatic narrative feature based upon the real stories of girls from the streets and juvenile jail, who lent their voices and unique stories to the filmmakers. These are girls who struggle with all the highs and lows of teenage life in an inner-city world that makes its own rules.

Prognosis: Positive. My real, elapsed city time of what I spent in downtown Chicago proper? It comes out to 4 months. I spent one semester at a school that was successful for me, academically, but completely wrong when it came to defining my professional and artistic goals. The city is alive with pleasure but I can’t imagine what it must be like for some kids to be mainlining that electricity, that vibrancy, of a big metropolitan town.

“I ain’t come here to change your life”¦That’s a fact.”

I thought it was Don Cheadle who starts this thing out. It looks like a tinier Mean Joe Brown from LEAN ON ME but it’s a nice man in a collared shirt and a black, armless sweater.

One of the other things that you learn quickly, and this is where the props begin, is that this movie has been around. The NOMINATIONs, the OFFICIAL SELECTIONs this movie has been accorded is impressive for a movie that doesn’t sport a real noticeable “name.”

Our Cheadle-esque character is barking at a pack of girls who don’t look like debutantes and are obviously being yelled at because of whatever happened before this trailer began. The mix of a real nice slice of music and the delicate way this trailer delivers us to the first moment of this film’s core through its cutting is very well appreciated.

Also, what’s nice is that while there are a lot of quotes flying around, The Post, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, the trailer doesn’t let it stop telling the story of why we’re here, trying to figure out if the flick is worth our time; the narratives of these women, these hardcore chicas, rolls right through the words.

I start to worry that this is going to stray into derivative territory as we discover these are women come from a pedigree of drug dealing, addiction and runaways. I have to believe that this territory has been treaded on before and that this has something new to say. The three ladies who are focused on are all shown in the middle of their lives of destruction.

When each one of them are tarried away to the clink I am pleased that things get more interesting with the advent of finding out, through our Cheadle stand-in, whether there can be a change in the ways people either change their life or become a statistic of recidivism.

As this trailer comes to a close, the real meat of this story obviously not being able to come in the form of a money shot, I think that this is the kind of movie that GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’ should’ve been. You want to show the dangers of people, kids, getting involved with the kind of trades which put them behind bars and destroy lives but by putting some real looking faces on the issue without sweetening the story with bulletproof vests and ho’s you are doing the narrative a great service.

Director:Christophe Gans
Cast: Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen, Jodelle Ferland
Release: April 21, 2006
Synopsis: SILENT HILL is based on the Konami game in which Rose (Mitchell) desperately searches for her lost daughter in the mysterious, terrifying town of Silent Hill, where they are trapped.

Prognosis: Negative. Quick, name the most successful movie to have been adapted from a video game.

That sound of crickets chirping? Yeah, there haven’t been that many to speak of. Sure, you’ve got Milla Jovo-whatever who was serviceable in RESIDENT EVIL and even The Rock who was a part of an experiment gone awry, both cinematically and literally, have proven that movies which are first video games only have so much steam when you try and make an hour and a half of entertainment.

That said, then, this trailer looks like it’ll rise above, if only by a little bit, the common expectations which a flick like this engenders by its very nature of what it is: a not quite horror movie.

I will say, though, I was a bit bored by the initial offering of this trailer. It starts out all soft with a mother and daughter talking about the nature of sleep and dreams while walking down some pussy willow populated country hilltop. I know we’re going to get to the spooky real quick as these trailers only last so long but, come on, I see that we’re already a quarter of a way through this when the conceit that there’s something in the road in the middle of the night that causes mom and daughter to spin out of control. If there are any video geeks among us here today I ask of whether this is the way things begin in the game because I can’t see this being a real “explosive” beginning to things.

I get some jolly enjoyment, though, after we move through this little portion of the movie as when ma wakes up and discovers a) it’s now daylight b) her daughter is gone and c) the snow flakes that are falling aren’t snow flakes at all, and thus bringing back one of the most terrifying moments in SCHINDLER’S LIST, it is all about the errie. I don’t know how you would start out with this being the beginning of the trailer but now I’m engaged with things and this is what I should’ve been feeling about 30 seconds ago.

Now that we’ve established that this woman has a missing kid and is all alone in this desolate town called Silent Hill the interesting stuff is supposed to start, right? No, it doesn’t and I can’t imagine why a lot of people on the Internets are gushing over a trailer that takes me from mildly boring, to heightened delight and then plunges me into confusing cock-tease territory with a montage of clips that renders my man, Sean Bean, into one of those movie guys who are all sorts of bombastic in his quest to find this lost wife, neverminding the fact that if Silent Hill is supposed to be this podunk town which is essentially wiped out for some reason why do they still have functioning cell towers, and makes Radha Mitchell into one of those movie heroines who seem hysterical, not empowered.

Adding to this frustration is the false sense of horror this movie is trying to build to. I get that there is a girl who is slithering around this condemned town who looks exactly like the protagonist’s little lady but the effusiveness with which we keep this doppelganger’s visage out of view, almost like a GODZILLA-like shell game, doesn’t entice me as a viewer.

“To find your daughter you must face the darkness of Hell.”

The above quote just makes my eyes roll in the back of my zombiefied head. EVERYTHING in a horror movie is people talking about Hell this, Hell that and, to me, it’s just lazy storytelling. Yes, if you’ve got to work hard at something it feels like Hell but unless you’re making a movie adaptation of Dante’s “Inferno” you’ve got to come back to me later with something better than that as I would sooner give you a C- on your ability to create tension rather than relying on poor metaphors like this.

Director: Peter John Ross, John Whitney
Cast: Jon Osbeck, Joe Lorenzo, Daniel Alan Kiely, David Carroll, Chip Kocel, Kim Carey
Release: May 5, 2006
Synopsis: Feeling the pressure from Allied advance, Hitler unleashes his secret weapons. Throughout the European theatre of WWII, Lieutenant John Schmidt comes face to face with these “weapons” which terrorize U.S. soldiers fighting the Third Reich. The Office of Strategic Services (The O.S.S., precursor to the C.I.A.) initiates missions behind enemy lines to find the source of these weapons, a mysterious scientist by the name of Dr. Schaltur. Schmidt is joined by Captain Joe Russo and his group of war-hardened GIs who have experienced for themselves the all-too-real horrors of war in battle. Together, they must find the Dr. Schaltur and stop him before Hitler’s horrific vision can be fully realized.

Prognosis: Positive. Now, one of the best things about finally being able to enjoy Kevin Smith’s Spiderman and Black Cat mini-series is that Dr. Josef Mengele is dropped in seamlessly in order to move the plot along to where it needs to go which brings me to this trailer: nothing says “wicked awesome” better than paring a WWII movie and Nazi zombies together in one film. Usually it’s one of the three which get my motor runnin’ but all three together is like a mutated pairing in heaven.

Also, what’s important to note, is that there’s no messing around here. We get right into things tout de suite without any background bull crap that usually hampers indie trailers.

Yeah, the exchange between two Allied soldiers who want to talk about “what they’ve seen” seems a little stiff but the quick cut to the all red screen with the visage of a zombified Nazi doesn’t even begin to explain the delight I felt when I see the white eyes of the undead cutting in and out of the screen as some other soldiers walk a night patrol. I don’t have any context to where we are or when this verbal exchange is happening but it’s just enough that we’re somewhere in the battle of WWII.

I also appreciate the effects work that is on display here. The shot of a plane with its wing on fire, the battle scenes of guns going off with bombs of smoke trying to create the realism of war, the cutaways of the mad scientist’s lab where these zombies are being created should impress even the most ardent stickler of details.

Sometimes the most tragic thing that a movie can do is to have its characters loaded with one-liners and dialogue so stiff it feels like a corpse but intermingled with the scenes of action, which should also be testament to the amount of work which was put into trying to mimic some kind of battlefield realism, but this is the exact kind of lot which should be delivering these kinds of lines. This is WWII, the era of pulp fiction, of Mickey Spillane and these army guys’ grandiose delivery is easily glossed over in order to try and understand why there is this Master Zombie which doesn’t look like he is so easily put down by ordinary machine gun fire.

As we come close to the end we should be pleasantly surprised that the trailer doesn’t follow the current trend in trailer construction which states that you blow your wad in explaining, and showing, everything that’s going to happen. The cards aren’t all on the table, as our narrative stops just as our men in green are going to after the last zombie in the line, “daddy” they call him, and it’s much appreciated as it leaves the audience with just enough questions about what is going on in this movie.

Kudos.

Director: Hal Haberman, Jeremy Passmore
Cast: Alexandra Holden, Jack Kehler, Andrew Leeds, Ian McConnel, Josh Peck, Michael Rapaport
Release: January 30, 2006 (Sundance)
Synopsis: LES FRANKEN (Michael Rapaport) leads a painfully unremarkable life as a metermaid until he enrolls in a drug study for an experimental anti-depressant. An unexpected side effect of the drug convinces Les he is developing special powers and must quit his job to answer his new calling in life… Superhero. A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.

Prognosis: I Have No Idea. Like to spark up a little? Having a hard time trying to use your “high time” effectively? I’d like to suggest you watch this trailer to truly put psychotropic drugs to good use.

I don’t know how to really put into words what we’ve got cooking here but it’s something I’ve never really tasted before and I like the way it hits the tongue, so to speak.

When we open up the trailer we see Michael Rapaport, really a likeable loser or annoying Brooklyn-ite who ought to learn how speak good, I choose the former, sitting in a stark doctor’s office as he holds a bottle of pills. He asks if they work, the doctor say they do and the next thing you know, and we see, he’s hovering in his family room as his bong load buddy looks on.

Now, the pills he took could possibly be inducing a state of insanity on our protagonist but the early 80’s synth music, popping and crunching in the background, and the static camera shot of Michael just floating as he tries to explain his condition to his roommates glazes everything with a funky craziness.

Not to be undone in his own apartment, Michael returns to his doctor’s office only to leap off his desk and hover above the ground on his chest. The doctor is confused, I’m confused but when he announces that being a superhero takes some adjustment time I am all on board.

Michael then appears at the local police station to tell the officer on duty that he stops crime and then takes off, like Batman fleeing the scene, only to run himself into the nearest brick wall. At first I don’t know what to even say about this but as Michael gets hit by a car, has his buddies shuttling him around town to ostensibly fight wrong do-ers and espouses a credo about not doing good being tantamount to doing evil I can’t help but feel either very impressed at the level of insanity or completely freaked out by where this story is going.

It doesn’t help matters any more that as this trailer progresses, Michael’s condition worsens and looks more and more beat-up.

There is a definite slide Michael’s character takes, as we get the idea that it DOES have something and everything to do with the medication he begins to take, and there is a certain amount of sadness to seeing him slowly burn out in a tailspin of psychosis and paranoia.

I can’t help but sit in awe and amazement as I try and get a handle with where exactly this movie’s story really is going but it’s too much fun to see Michael’s delusion of his own abilities get the best of him as he’s repeatedly thrashed and ass-kicked.

I promise you, though, once you watch this trailer you will have the musical bed that these visuals rest on popping for a very long time afterward.

Director:David Slade
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh
Release: April 14, 2006
Synopsis: A smart, charming teenage girl, Hayley probably shouldn’t be going to a local coffee shop to meet Jeff, a 30-something fashion photographer she met on the Internet. But Hayley’s ready to have fun, and soon she’s mixing screwdrivers at Jeff’s place and stripping for an impromptu photo shoot. It’s Jeff’s lucky night ““ until his vision blurs and he passes out. Turns out Hayley isn’t as innocent as she looks after all. In fact, she has a lot on her mind. Like getting Jeff to confess to his penchant for teenage girls ““ and to what he did to Donna Mauer, the girl who disappeared from Jeff’s favorite coffee shop. When Jeff awakens, he’s tied to a chair. If he doesn’t cooperate, Hayley has something to help him along–a little surgical procedure she picked up on the Internet. All she needs is an ice pack. And a knife.

Prognosis: Negative. Okay, right out of the gate, I’m not sure if the material isn’t so much provocative as it is derivative.

I know that pedophilia is a subject that has been touched on as of late in the really well made WOODSMAN and has been so creepily depicted in HAPPINESS that you feel like washing your eyes out with bleach after having seen it. The notion of adults, namely males, who seduce young’uns is nearly a genre all in itself and, my opinion is, that instead of every person making this kind of film having to field questions about the controversial nature of their movies there should be a dialogue in the press about how this informs the genre in a new or fresh kind of way. I am bored to tears, and I assume the filmmakers are as well, when the focus is on public sentiment than it is focused on how a new angle is explored that others have not.

What I don’t like, then, about this trailer is that I frustratingly sit through this thing in hopes I’ll be treated with that very same freshness. What I get, though, is an opening that is reminiscent of CRY_WOLF when an IM exchange goes by blisteringly fast. I realize realism isn’t on the list for a slasher-type movie but this is a movie about some adult diddling a child. Save that, there is a real good sense of creepiness that is pasted all on this thing. You get the feeling all is not bubbles and gum.

Heuristically, the exchange between these two should be a cautionary tale about kids using the Internets whilst unsupervised but this is material for the 10 o’clock news team with Ric Romero telling us something we already know. Nothing really earth shattering about this flimsy set up but it does get going when the young girl and dude hook up. Again, I expect something, anything, but these two talk to each other in a Saturday Morning Special cadence and has be rapping the counter with my fingers.

Hopefully trying to get something new out of this trailer I play this on and then am treated to a moment where creepy guy wipes off a hunk of chocolate cake off the lips of his young prey with his fingers. Please. Does anyone ever have that much schmootz on their face that they leave some honking piece of food left on their lips without quickly reaching for a napkin?

The cinematography, though, is really engaging and that is what is saving this trailer from just being a waste of everyone’s time. The screen time shifts in an elapsed sort of way as the lo-fi music beneath everything makes it all seem more and more desperate.

You get the obligatory Sundance props, which ought to be earlier on in this presentation, while getting the feeling that there is more to this guy than just his predilection for sweet meat. I don’t know if the angle here is that the prey becomes the predator but that’s what the quick clips would have you believe.

If this is the case, then, what’s here is more of a man bites dog kind of a story and, if it is, will that be original enough to have people see this movie? I don’t think it is for me.

Director:Gregory Dark
Cast: Glen Jacobs, Joseph Cappellitti, Craig Horner, Tiffany Lamb, Penny McNamee, Samantha Noble, Matthew Okine, Michael J. Pagan, Luke Pegler, Cecily Polson, Rachael Taylor, Christina Vidal, Steven Vidler, Michael Wilder
Release: May 19th, 2006
Synopsis: A group of youths from a juvenile corrections facility are assigned to renovate an old hotel over the weekend and end up being terrorized by a crazed serial killer who dwells on the upper floors.

Prognosis: Negative. I appreciate the chance to ogle some woman taking a shower all by herself, never minding that no woman who looks as good as her would themselves to take one in a shower stall so covered in muck and crap without making a man clean it first, but I don’t think there is an appropriate amount of time for me to feel she is in any danger. The camera shifts so much that it feels blocky, forced and too rapidly gone through. By the time her scream echoes away and I am greeted with the WWE Films logo I am wondering what just happened.

I love that instead of getting some basic information about what led a pack of good-looking teenagers into one of the most dank looking movie set ever created we are instantly greeted by the WWE wrassler Kane being all mean and ugly.

I don’t mean to dismiss this obvious teensploitation flick ever so quickly but even for the awful HOUSE OF WAX and the recent, better than it should’ve been, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE had the supposition in its trailers that people might want to know what happened to these kids which have led them to this moment; I would’ve liked to have seen that but what I get after the initial ugliness of Kane splashes across the trailer is a lot of girls screaming.

How is this supposed to get me to part with my money?

It doesn’t and that’s the problem. If you want guys to come out to see chicks get brutalized and objectified in their shower stalls then I think you’ve got something in this trailer. If your aim is to capitalize on the success of a wrestler whose prowess on the screen seems to be a whole lot of non-talking and walking menacingly with an axe then I think you’ve got something in this trailer. But I don’t think this is all there is. At least I hope there isn’t.

One of the best things about horror movies, good horror movies, is the wafer thin plot upon which they’re built on. No matter how miniscule the situation you’ve got to explain how these people arrived at the point at which everything goes south for them. Even if it’s because one of the chicks really needed to take a dump in the middle of a long road trip through a small New England town which, gasp, doesn’t show up on any map whatsoever then at least it’s something.

A trailer based on nothing but money shots which don’t buy you any currency with me isn’t just lazy trailer making it’s bad business sense which presupposes an audience who you seriously misunderstand and misjudge. Give the kids a little more credit than this trailer.

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Sergi López, Ariadna Gil, Maribel Verdú, Álex Angulo
Release: October, 2006 (Mexico)
Synopsis: “Pan’s Labyrinth” is the story of a young girl that travels with her mother and adoptive father to a rural area up North in Spain, 1944. After Franco´s victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Post-war Fascist repression is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own.

Prognosis: Lost in transition. One of the worst things I had to endure in college English classes, as I reached higher levels of completion, was having to be tested on being given whole passages without any context and having to attribute the author of the work and the work it was taken from. It was brutal, yes, but one of the things it taught me was that authors have fingerprints. There are, stylistically, ways you can tell where something came from. This is why, yes, I admit, I was going to goof a little on the plasticity of the set/location used to create the world in which these characters live.

It kind of feels like it’s a Little Red Riding Hood/Beauty and The Beast, don’t even get me started on the ironic Ron Pearlman connection, and the cinematography hearkens back to HELLBOY’s dark and gloomy atmosphere. There is no question that this is a Del Toro movie but the question is whether there is more substance than there is style.

So, as the trailer opens and you have some galloping girl walking down some steps that lead down into a pit, which no girl would ever go alone, I half expect the B.P.R.D. to come out with a red looking demon leading the charge. It’s creepy in a way, and that’s testament to Del Toro’s ability as a filmmaker, and it only gets a little more weird when one of the pieces of flora in the underground lair of the odd and strange comes alive.

Before you can say “Wha? Huh”¦” the screen snaps quickly away to a faceless mutant, I don’t know how else to say it, who is sitting at a wooden table with a pair of albino pink eyes sitting on a plate as its claws(?) extend slowly from its hands. I can’t account for why this is inserted like a bon mot but the subsequent scene of the same stupid girl who went down below into a dark cave walking through a fairy dusted opening of a cave of some sort.

My head hurts from the reliance of showcasing the oddness of this movie and I can’t for the life of me understand why you would want to be so clever as to offer nothing as to where any of this is coming from.

We revisit the mutant from before who now has eyes in the palm of his hands, embedded in his hands, and this finally (for whatever reason) seems to put a little fear into the chick’s heart as she looks ready to soil her Underoos.

I love it, and I am giving genuine props, that we get a little bit of EXORCIST type of breathing underneath the wordless, musicless quick clips we’re offered. The one problem with this is that the clips barely, barely, come into focus before jaunting off to another clip that wholly has no bearing for the one that preceded it. I’m not trying to complain but this is already a weird kind of movie and this isn’t helping.

I like Del Toro. I loved DEVIL’S BACKBONE back when no one else knew who he was. I’m not touting my ability to recognize any kind of talent out of anyone but even that movie was able to establish a linear pattern of events that leads up to the creepy. I don’t get that here and that frustrates me. I want to know more about this movie without having to consult the IMDB and I want the trailer to tell me what it’s all about.

Director: Kevin Smith
Cast: Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran, Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Marty Kudelka, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, Wanda Sykes
Release: August, 2006 (Tenative)
Synopsis: The sequel picks up 10 years later. “It’s about what happens when that lazy, 20-something malaise lasts into your 30s. Those dudes are kind of still mired, not in that same exact situation, but in a place where it’s time to actually grow up and do something more than just sit around and dissect pop culture and talk about sex,” Smith said during an interview at his Hollywood office. “It’s: What happened to these dudes?”

Prognosis: Positive. August 30, 2004.

This was when WheelieBlog.org was officially taken away from the public as an available web site where people could champion and meet other like-minded individuals to talk about what is, ostensibly, the greatest stunt one can perform with a their Huffy. When Randal uses his official Mooby kiosk to inevitably conduct non-business related surfing it is this site, whose logo is a wheelchair, which looks to be used for whatever nefarious purpose it will serve him. What this site and the date referenced above have to do with the movie, then, is that you begin to see that this wasn’t a movie that was slap dashed together with the only aim of milking these characters for one more go around on a whim. Fanboys may have raged about the working title for the film, PASSION OF THE CLERKS, which doesn’t appear anywhere for good reason, logical reasons if you have half a cell in your brain that’s firing, but there’s no other way to put it than this trailer gives the devotees of Smith’s movies enough to make this more than a teaser and defies convention with the choices made in its ultimate construction and delivery.

Primarily, the trailer doesn’t adhere to traditional notions of what the teaser should be. Instead of just giving a whiff of a story and going the tease route, most egregiously executed by the makers of the X-MEN 3 trailer, this is actually a mix of teasing yet satisfying nuggets of possibilities and innuendoes. We may not know how things are going to begin, peak and then crescendo but it does start at the most logical point of reference and then uses this moment to take point for the rest of the tease.

As a point of fact that you can put down in your Rolodex or Etch-A-Sketch I don’t think Anthrax’s “Among the Living” has ever been used for a teaser, and I don’t think it will again anytime soon, but it’s utilized appropriately not only in capturing the frenetic nature of what is surely a movie that has to balance multiple characters all at once like some That’s Incredible! dinner plate spinning maestro.

So, when it’s Dante who says, “Oh..my..God” after opening the lock to the nefarious and infamous Quick Stop (which should’ve been his demise had the ending not been changed) you don’t know, and not shown, what is causing him to react thusly. But, we’re not left to be teased too long as the aberration of a seemingly-still-unemployed Jay and Silent Bob in the Mooby parking lot causes the kind of geek joy which seemed all but snuffed out at the end of JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK. Say what you will about Jay and Bob but if you’re any kind of fan of CHASING AMY who could deny the righteousness of Bob explaining his desire to be a dancer in Vegas? It’s nice to see the duo back again like some Riggs and Murtaugh team-up.

It’s then on to the introductions of our players as we get a little bit of movement from the likes of Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith and the rest of the old crew. It’s also about here when we get Randal doing his best not to do any work while working, a true hallmark of his character’s ethos from the first film, as he applies a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it penis, in full explosion mode, next to Trevor’s face on an Employee Of The Month plaque; one hopes that there is a young liege/master relationship here where Randal passes on his encyclopedic knowledge of all things slack to a younger generation.

I must give my whole one sentence paragraph props to a Village People looking Ben Affleck who rocks a handlebar moustache with as much aplomb as any 70’s era pornographic movie star who has come, and come again, before him. Well done and he didn’t even have to say a word.

I don’t know how to correctly categorize the number of quick clips, my Adult Attention Deficit Disorder pleasure center was delighted if not overwhelmed, which assaults us with images and sights that have nothing and everything to do with one another. I am at a true loss as to why it seems everyone at the end winds up at what appears to be a club for either a concert of some kind (my only indication is the Morris Day & The Time ending to JASBSB which worked well as a punctuation mark on the whole movie) or night of disco dancing and would thus explain Affleck’s appearance but this is a teaser trailer that teases well.

Sp, what happens when characters are allowed to grow up, to get into their thirties and hopefully realize that the world doesn’t revolve around their own problems and then be revisited years after their first ending was so satisfying? Only months from now will tell.

Director:Paul Greengrass
Cast: Khalid Abdalla, Opal Alladin, Louis Alsamari, David Alan Basche, Richard Bekins, Starla Benford, Omar Berdouni, Susan Blommaert
Release: April 28, 2006
Synopsis: A real time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.

Prognosis: Positive with a dash of doubt. True story: there was a Muslim mosque that just built and opened last year in my neighborhood. Now, if you are accustomed to this then it ain’t nothin’ but a thang but a chicken wing. For me, though, it’s a little different. This is only the second one I’ve ever consciously seen in my life. Every time I drive by it and see those praying inside, on their knees, I can’t help but think about Iraq and 9/11 without fail, every time I do it. I just can’t shake this mental trigger and I’d like to take a temperature check of people out there: Who thinks that this movie reaaaallly needed to be made?

I understand that Oliver Stone and Co. are making their own World Trade Center movie and I am sure that will be a controversy all unto itself but this movie strikes me first as a little unsettling before I even see a frame of the trailer and then, second, as something that doesn’t really seem ready to be put through the machinations of a Hollywood production. Maybe that’s the point of art, to start a discussion over its merits as an interpretation. As such, then, it’s important to see what this movie actually triggers as you watch the trailer unfold.

“8:42 A.M.”

First, I already get a little sweaty in the recesses of my palms when I hear the voice of air traffic control giving flight 93 clearance to take off. If you already have phobias about taking off in these metal fishes and have some clue about what is about to strike these people’s world then you can already assume that the tension this trailer musters is full boar right from the beginning.

The graphics, the illusion that you’re looking at what an air traffic controller sees, of all those planes crisscrossing, their flight plans right on the mark, is simple, minimalist and free from any false hype from Voiceover Guy.

The moment when the sensationalism begins is when those in the towers start asking for a sit rep (I cannot say for sure if this was done in post-production or pulled from the actual tape) and get nothing back. The sonar blips, the white ghost trail triggering more emotion, is really effective as a narrative device as you know the plane’s course will soon make a U-turn back towards the east coast and, thus, where the drama will start rushing in.

I’m not too far off the mark as the air traffic controller chatter steps aside in the trailer’s presentation and we get the passengers themselves. If you listen carefully before that, though, you hear one of the hijackers say they have a bomb.

Next sound is of a phone ringing, the LED plane still turning in the background, and of a woman’s voice. She tells her sweetness that her plane has been hijacked. The sound field comes alive as we hear things about 2 planes, World Trade Center and all sorts of mumbles among those who are now on the flight. The talk from the shock of the whole event turns to mob mentality as the passengers start plotting their overthrow.

The plane’s LED symbol makes its way to the right of the screen as we get closer and closer to the image.

“09.11.2001”

The chatter reaches a fever pitch when, at the end, one of the women on board tells a loved one on the other end that they are about to storm the cockpit. The echo used at the end of her “I love you” was wholly unnecessary, in my opinion; very gauche and uncalled for. The parting shot, the only picture, of those on the plane all in their seats? I don’t know but it did make me feel uncomfortable.

I did love director Paul Greengrass’ BLOODY SUNDAY quite a bit and I hope that he’s able to do some of that very same thing here; showing respect for the event and trying to be as faithful as one can be to what really happened.

Director:Kate Montgomery
Cast: M. Emmet Walsh, Timothy Vahle, Mariana Tosca, Sam Vlahos, Sheila Tousey
Release: December 2, 2005
Synopsis: A classic comedy of mistaken identity and romance set during the holiday season at a ski resort that is owned and operated by a Native American Nation. Shot on location at The Sundance Resort in Utah, this is the first contemporary romantic comedy to feature an almost entirely American Indian cast.

Prognosis: Sheepishly in love with this trailer. Yes, it’s almost February. Yes, this film came out almost a month ago. Yes, this may seem like I missed the boat while sleeping on the dock but I am a fan of this trailer.

I cannot control these things. I understand if you want me to turn in my sidearm and badge after reading this.

Really, when something strikes me in a way that makes me feel something good (I do try and keep the negativity around here to a low din) I want to see if I can’t find a way to let others know about it. Thus, this is what brings my gift to you in the form of this trailer for a film about mistaken identity.

I know, this storytelling technique has been used so much you might as well call it Hollywood’s Whore but I petition the court to let me try and explain how this one is different.

First of all, movies about the Native American experience have been limited. Sure, you have Sherman Alexie’s SMOKE SIGNALS which was not only an engaging story but it was poignant. You’ve got Rick Schroder’s movie that came out last year about an Indian boxer called BLACK CLOUD. You’ve also got THE NEW WORLD with Colin Farrell. However, all of these flicks had a kind of a serious undertone. Not that it’s bad but, damn, sometimes I want to pop the cranium into neutral and let you do all the work. This is where this movie comes in.

The trailer is good, in its own way, of getting right down to business with what’s going on. In the matter of 20 seconds you get that some old coot was pen pals (Who the hell are really pen pals anymore, anyway? Was this screenplay written in the 50s?) with this great looking woman. Ray is this codger’s son who looks more like the Love Connection match than he does and who runs an Indian resort for a living. Now, some representative from a prestigious travel guide is coming to the resort, played by none other than Coach Turnbull from BACK TO SCHOOL (Has anyone else slowed down that footage in that part of the movie to see that it was cold enough to see his breath? You can fool some of the people some of the time”¦), and is being expected by the staff from the resort.

Now, things get sticky when we’re told everyone is mistaking everyone for everyone else but normally here I roll my eyes and move on to something else worthy to talk about but I don’t. I find myself enjoying the comedy of errors.

Quickly following this we get a glance of some lovely ladies admiring the hired help, here played by a guy desperately trying to cut some wood with an ax, and when he takes off his shirt in hopes of impressing the women his ax doesn’t quite”¦perform. It’s so juvenile but I laugh. It amused me.

Popping in from out of nowhere is the label that this movie was selected for the Sundance Film Festival. Impressive but, come on, be proud. This needed to be one of the first things out of the gate, especially when there isn’t really anyone famous to hang your hat on. Just a suggestion”¦

“They have dreams, you know. Just like us”¦”

What’s more is this movie’s chef. Now I have always been partial to funny chefs, the first inspiration to me being the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show, and this guy is no different. When a customer compliments said chef on the taste of a cooked bird the guy doesn’t miss a beat by not only giving the animal’s name but that he was also a pet. This, too, amused me.

It’s not going to change film, it’s not out to break serious ground, it’s just looks like something you could take your mom to see and judging by the fare that’s been bursting out of the cineplex in these winter months it’s nice to have this kind of option.

Director: Michael Haneke
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Maurice Bnichou
Release: January 11, 2006 (Limited)
Synopsis: Georges, who hosts a TV literary review, receives packages containing videos of himself with his family – shot secretly from the street – and alarming drawings whose meaning is obscure. He has no idea who may be sending them. Gradually, the footage on the tapes becomes more personal.

Prognosis: French has never read so good. I like Juliette Binoche.

Sometimes having an international interest in the restorative powers of an actress who could handle herself no matter what part of the world she’s in makes me feel like the world isn’t nearly as complex as I think it is.

Case in point is here in this trailer. When and if you’ve seen CHOCOLAT, first of all I apologize, you know how much of a sensation that flick caused among women of a certain advanced age, the way that film did as well as it did was because it connected with people. This movie seems to do the same thing, made thousands of miles away, but with an entirely different premise.

The opening shot of the trailer is unique because we’re not looking at the pre-fabricated shot of a director who wants to establish their own vision but we are looking at an actual bit of the storyline; everything that it’s predicated on rests with this seemingly static shot of a an apartment.

However, one of the more distracting things about this trailer is that even before we’re given that shot we have to endure a few seconds worth of establishing, as slow as possible against a black background, what pedigree this film has. What festivals this movie has played at, how awesome it is, how many people thought this was the best, etc, is only as effective as the person who made the trailer. When you draw too much attention to it then it becomes a distraction and, unfortunately, this movie is riddled with slow moving and slow written hand jobs to this flick.

But, when the screen comes up and you see the apartment and you don’t know what is going on, you are at first confused but intrigued because there is nothing going on. The next shot is of a family having dinner with one another, ostensibly the ones living in the apartment itself. Screen fades to black and everything gets quiet as we sit through a mini-review, like it or not, from the New York Times.

Things get freaky when we find out that the guy who owns the place gets a video that runs 2 hours of the same footage we saw at the beginning. The husband and wife can’t explain or account for who sent it to them. Screen fades to black and everything gets quiet for yet another mini-review.

What seems to start out quite slow and exacting at first starts to speed up as this anonymous stalker begins to interfere with the husband and wife’s life. Whoever it is starts to send tapes to colleagues of this guy and thus begins a slow destruction of his life. Paranoia, pain and anger start to feed all into these people’s life and it is sharply captured in the last part of this trailer.

So what that it’s in French? As long as there is a good story afoot I am always in the mood for a little light reading.

Director: Eugene Jarecki
Cast: Ken Adelman, Joseph Cirincione, Anh Duong, Gwynne Dyer, John SD Eisenhower, Susan Eisenhower, Donna Ellington, Chalmers Johnson, William Kristol, Karen Kwiatkowski, Charles Lewis, John McCain
Release: January 20, 2006 (Limited)
Synopsis: He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning “military industrial complex,” foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.

Prognosis: Yesssss. If John McCain ran for president I am almost positive I would vote for that dude.

To hear him talk about issues that matter you can readily come to the conclusion that he really knows not only of what he speaks but that he has the scars, physically and emotionally, to take down any half-cocked panty waste like Rick Santorum in a steel cage match.

When this trailer opens up and you see Eisenhower saying that the people of America need to protect itself against the military industrial complex nearly 45 years ago you come to same conclusions I do: homeboy was right.

And, I have to give it up, the flash to a black screen, violins providing their manufactured tension all on their own, and the quick display that this is was a Sundance selection is perfectly timed. Get in, get out and get on with it.

Next we’ve got my boy McClain telling people what they already know about how the ideal America is supposed to work: our job isn’t to start fights but we have the power to spread democracy (not that anyone has ever sent us letters in bottles begging us to shoot over some of that good old fashioned De-Moc-Ro-Cey but that’s neither here nor there) all over the globe.

Big ups to the shots of the stealth bomber, ready to spread some of that democracy all over the glass parking lot it just created 5 fully armed fighters ago, and the quick display of the three quarters of a trillion dollar figure; there were a lot of zeroes on the screen.

The next part of this movie’s propaganda, and it is propaganda, don’t you let anyone tell you different or otherwise, talks about how lucrative war is to those who are able to get a piece of the spending pie. Frontline, my warm teddy of news programs which will always get dropped in this column like an atom bomb when it’s necessary, did a serious eye-opening expose on how Halliburton has profited from this “skirmish” in the mid-east. Profits indeed.

Now, among the cherry-picked sound bites from those who have seen this movie you have got some of the most interesting imagery which contrasts nicely the images from the first part of this trailer. You see modern day troops carrying each other out of vile battle conditions in Iraq as you’ve got voiceovers telling us all about that this is not about Bush or Clinton, it’s an all-of-us kind of problem.

One of the most poignant messages of this trailer is that war is increasingly becoming more privatized and codified. It’s one thing to have an organization like the Army controlling the all stages of integration but when outsourcing becomes a buzzword and then becomes how they do business on a day-to-day business this documentary becomes ever more relevant to public discourse regarding how and why we conduct our affairs as a nation.

Director:Aaron Seltzer
Cast: Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Eddie Griffin, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Sophie Monk
Release: February 10, 2006
Synopsis: From the writers of “Scary Movie” and “Spy Hard” comes this spoof on romantic comedies. Hannigan plays the lead, while Campbell plays her romantic interest. Griffin is Hannigan’s father, while Coolidge and Willard are Campbell’s parents.

Prognosis: Negative. I guess there is a market for this kind of thing. I know it’s not anywhere near my market but I am sure there is one.

What I don’t understand about this trailer, and I’ll entertain anyone else’s thoughts on this, is that we begin this spoof-laden flick with Kelis’ “Milkshake” and we don’t seem able to let go of this one joke. For the life of me I can’t see how whipping this dead horse with a cat-o-nine-tails does any good.

Oh, I did leave out the part that Alyson Hannigan plays a woman who is morbidly obese, a la Bridget Jones’s Diary, who is on the lookout for love. Now, fat suits aside, we have this hip hop track being played over scenes of Alyson cavorting and writhing for the un-delight of construction workers, one of which shoots himself in the head with an air powered nail gun. She does the same for a gaggle of firemen who subsequently hose her down.

There is one moment when she thinks she has found her mate, a rotund looking man who looks back at her longingly. Now, even though there isn’t a single word spoken between these two, the dude doesn’t acknowledge her but does return the gaydar ping to an equally plump guy who quickly turns his bitch around and does that ass-smacking dance move which I believe lost its cultural significance during an episode of Must-See-TV sometime last year when it was appropriated for white consumption.

Alyson next offers her mammary goods to Ackbar the taxi driver but, like every sight gag here, her loosely contained breasts manage to wrap themselves around her back much to the horrific shock of our Middle Eastern friend.

Does this have anything to do with the plot, loose as it is already going to be, or give me any reason why I should spend many dollars to see this latest production from 2 of the six writers of SCARY MOVIE? No, it’s admission that we’re only getting a fraction of the writing team is a bold reveal but I can see where two heads aren’t as good as six.

Oh, but at the half-way point we are finally treated to a real scene of the movie, here spoofing MEET THE FOCKERS, and we are treated to another homosexual innuendo when we discover that Alyson’s current man lost his virginity to the housekeeper who happens to be a guy. I am glad that we have evolved as a species that we can still delight in giggles like this. But, whatever, right? This is a comedy!

We are then blasted with spoofs of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, which is pathetically awful, some jabbing at HITCH, a fairly weak attack considering the flimsiness of the source material, and a bitch slap of Pimp My Ride that feels as fresh as a week old banana that’s been left to rot in the Sahara.

The remaining bits of this trailer shove as many references to past films as possible and, as I try and search inward for what I’m feeling, I have an epiphany of what this feels like: a bad Weird Al album. At least with Al I could count on there being a sweet accordion solo.

And I can’t help but make a comment that any trailer which incorporates jokes about Michael Jackson or the size of J-Lo’s ass are not funny, they’re just stale and lazy.

Director:Alexandre Aja
Cast: Aaron Stanford, Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie de Ravin, Dan Byrd, Robert Joy, Ezra Buzzington
Release: March 10, 2006
Synopsis: A new take on Wes Craven’s 1977 film of the same name, “The Hills Have Eyes” is the story of a family road trip that goes terrifyingly awry when the travelers become stranded in a government atomic zone. Miles from nowhere, the Carters soon realize the seemingly uninhabited wasteland is actually the breeding ground of a blood-thirsty mutant family…and they are the prey.

Prognosis: Wicked. I listened to this wicked awesome radio documentary about the history of Las Vegas on NPR. One of the things that was brought up about the evolution of that fine city was the hydrogen bomb program the government was running and which had a fondness for dropping things. Specifically, the bombs were dropped in the early morning hours and lit the sky as if it were daytime; hotels had bomb parties to promote these odd occurrences. Well, as is a lot of things the government did without thinking, the flakes which dripped fallout all across that great land resulted in many a person falling prey to physical maladies, usually fatal.

One of the best things about this trailer is that it sets things up fairly interesting. It posits that one of the other “ranges” where bomb testing started in the late 40’s and continued though the 90’s resulted in mutations. Now, mutations, instead of the reality being cancer or other less sensational occurrences, that’s groovy. I can get behind mutations. STRANGE BREW? When Doug turned into that fleshy-headed mutant? That I could believe and I believe it here.

True, the footage used is fairly stock in nature and there isn’t anything from the actual film yet I am intrigued by the premise.

“July 17, 2005″

I am also giving this trailer some credit in taking what should be a torrent of slash and burn quick cut footage, de regur for many a horror film, and going in the other direction. We get some soundtrack by the Mamas and the Papas, an unusual choice, but it’s daring and it wants to establish a sense of place. The sheer scope of the New Mexico desert, which in all reality really is a wasteland of suck, shown here makes one feel awfully alone.

There is some treading on hackneyed territory with this family coming upon a gas station that I think no decent person would stop at just because of the crazies that have been shown in movies like this.

It’s all forgiven quickly as the beat of the trailer starts to get into that area when you’ve either achieved the ability to get scary or you have the skills to ramp up the scariness to an 11. This trailer is the latter and it’s good.

The sound mix, the delicate balance of quick cuts and the payoff of seeing who our mutant attackers are is just beautifully executed here.

One of the best things about watching things just getting crazy is that you get a whole lot of things to try and focus on. Now, while I usually eschew this technique there is an excitement about the events that lead up to this moment. These people’s lives are going to be terrorized by mutants and you can feel the palpitations through the screen.

The technique here at the end is closely related to that which I appreciated at the end of the trailer for DAWN OF THE DEAD with the sensation that the film is about to break or stop at any moment. It’s effectiveness cannot be better expressed than by watching this trailer just try and get some kind of reaction that usually takes a while to achieve in the eventual picture itself.

Not a coherent word is spoken in the last half of this trailer but it’s all understood by the end.

Director: Dennis Dugan
Cast: Rob Schneider, David Spade, Jon Heder, Jon Lovitz, Tim Meadows, Craig Kilborn, Adam Sandler
Release: April 7, 2006
Synopsis: THE BENCHWARMERS tells the story of three guys who try to make up for their lack of athleticism when they were younger by forming a three-man baseball team to challenge a full squad of elementary school baseballers. They develop a large following of left-out kids as they head for a high-stakes, winner-take-all game with the best team of kids in the state.

Prognosis: Just stab my eyes. For real. Are dudes getting shot in the nuts with various items still funny in this post-modern, post-America’s Funniest Home Set-Ups still viable comedic devices?

No, they’re not, and this trailer’s use of it is not only lame but the fact that this trailer cribs the visage of the holy Wrigley Field, dragging it in the suck along with everything else, is blasphemous.

This trailer takes the opening tack that baseball is this sport of history and greatness. Any time that a piece of movie advertising begins by being overly dramatic, utilizing slo-mo shots, while pumping in the cheesy timpani drums you know that you’re going to get the moment when all that ends and you get The Punchline. The Punchline, heretofore known as such, is that bit when the “gotcha” moment happens and you get one of the lead characters tossing out a bon mot, totally revealing this was all a joke. That moment happens here when one of the peeps in the movie gets knocked in the skull with a fly ball with Napoleon Dynamite, rocking a sweet bike helmet, adding his own distain.

Now, as we get introduced to everyone in this merry band of idiots, of course each one has an odd personality and really embodies the outsider/underdog vibe, we get that these dudes are going to go up against some little kids in order to control the playing rights of a baseball field.

The setup reeks of a BAD NEWS BEARS wannabe mixed in with a healthy dollop of shit. Even Dynamite drops the word poo and I am not sure if this is a carryover from his psychic character from that romantic comedy FAR FROM HEAVEN with his abiltiy to see what this flick really is or if it’s just an innate ability to portend the obvious. Either way, the movie just devolves from here.

The kids they’re playing are a lot better than the three dudes who comprise their team and I am amazed that there isn’t anything spliced in here to at least create the illusion of funniness; although, I did a lift out seeing Rob Schneider taking out a kid with a line drive to the chest.

I’m surprised to find out that this isn’t the end of the movie but just one part of this densely layered comedic masterpiece. Jon Lovitz enters the picture and somehow has something to do with telling these guys that if they beat all the teams in the league”¦something happens. I apologize but I didn’t really pay attention to what’s at stake here in this fake story.

The training these dudes get before their “big game” against Craig Kilborn’s team, as it’s broken down in this trailer, give up enough slapstick to make those who have kept Adam Sandler’s production company well satisfied. The hot potato extended scene is about all you need to know about what is going on in this movie. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, good thing or a portent about the decline of Western Civilization but its execution is just by-the-numbers.

Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, Adam Brody, Sam Elliott, Katie Holmes, David Koechner, Rob Lowe, William H. Macy, JK Simmons, Robert Duvall
Release: March 17, 2006
Synopsis: The hero of THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), chief spokesman for Big Tobacco, who makes his living defending the rights of smokers and cigarette makers in today’s neo-puritanical culture. Confronted by health zealots out to ban tobacco and an opportunistic senator (William H. Macy) who wants to put poison labels on cigarette packs, Nick goes on a PR offensive, spinning away the dangers of cigarettes on TV talk shows and enlisting a Hollywood super-agent (Rob Lowe) to promote smoking in movies. Nick’s newfound notoriety attracts the attention of both tobacco’s head honcho (Robert Duvall) and an investigative reporter for an influential Washington daily (Katie Holmes). Nick says he is just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage, but he begins to think about how his work makes him look in the eyes of his young son Joey (Cameron Bright).

Prognosis: First movie I’m looking forward to in ’06. Aaron Eckhart is a demon. Pure and simple, Aaron exudes the kind of sinister evilness that makes him irresistible on the one hand and wickedly dangerous on the other.

This trailer plays up both facets of Aaron’s natural abilities as an actor and the subject matter couldn’t have been more apropos.

One of the very first things that you notice about the presentation here is that Aaron takes over the role of Voiceover Guy. What could’ve been a fairly straightforward narrative piece takes on a first person angle that, while it takes a little bit of time to find out who Aaron is, works well. His prosaic statement that he’s not an M.D. or that he doesn’t possess a law degree, while admitting to possessing a bachelor’s in “kicking butt,” is a bit juvenile but I think that’s the point.

The visuals of how this film is a selected flick at this year’s Sundance Film Festival gives us a quick inclination that we are talking about tobacco. Now, once we figure this out as a collective whole, Aaron pipes in by telling us he’s paid to talk; and looking like the devil in his three piece suit and beguiling smile which I am sure many women, or dudes, have fallen prey to.

I will give the comedic advantage, just barely, to Aaron for taking down a schoolgirl when he says what he does for a living, which is to say, a shill for the tobacco company.

Things heat up for me when we next see Aaron sharing a dinner with the rest of the MOD squad, or Merchants of Death, being his cohorts for Alcohol and Firearms inside the federal government. The visuals of the liquor bottle and pistol over their heads are a nice compliment to the framed shot.

One of the things that this trailer also does well, besides playing to Aaron’s character, is moving from one thing to the other without getting bogged down in extended moments. True, absolutely true, that sometimes it works really well but, inversely, if done right, those of us who like our ADD moments are warmly served a nice treat with the slickness of how well we are escorted from one moment to another.

Aaron’s proclamation to a room full of executives that Hollywood needs to send out messages that smoking is cool makes you wonder how far his character has fallen down the rabbit hole. Pretty damn far if he’s debating and deflecting the issue of death by cholesterol with William H. Macy who’s the representative from Vermont, a state that ostensibly kills more people with their cheese than Aaron’s cigarettes.

It’s nice to see that even a movie, which really feels like a satire that’s got its angles all worked out, also incorporates animations in its trailer. This is such a small thing, I know, but life is all about the little things and to see this kind of film treated with a flashy flair.

“That’s the beauty of arguing”¦if you argue correctly you’re never wrong.”

Props, as well, for the trailer makers co-opting The Kids In The Hall’s use of the absurd character of Cancer Boy when Aaron is on a talk show defending cigarette smoking and brushing aside a dying boy’s health condition.

It’s almost too much when Aaron draws similarities between Michael Jordan’s ability to play basketball, Charles Manson’s predilection for killing people and his ability to talk; I can see how the two former go together but I am floored by how straight this movie is going to be played.

And, to really leave a healthy shine, Aaron and media mogul Rob Lowe have a discussion about how to have cigarette smoking look cool in a sci-fi picture. Aaron, to his credit, mentions the issue of smoking in all oxygen environment and that they would all blow up. It doesn’t phase Rob in the least as he says all he’ll need to do is add a line of dialogue that says, “Thank God we invented the”¦” and the two of them are deliciously satiated with their quick thinking.

Nice.

Director: Paul Weitz
Cast: Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Klein, Jennifer Coolidge, Seth Meyers, John Cho, Judy Greer, Sam Golzari and Willem Dafoe
Release: April 14, 2006
Synopsis: On the morning of his re-election, the President (Quaid) decides to read the newspaper for the first time in four years. This starts him down a slippery slope. He begins reading obsessively, reexamining his black and white view of the world, holing up in his bedroom in his pajamas. Frightened by the President’s apparent nervous breakdown, his Chief of Staff (Dafoe) pushes him back into the spotlight, booking him as a guest judge on the television ratings juggernaut (and the President’s personal fave), the weekly talent show American Dreamz.

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Prognosis: Negative. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that anyone who takes liberty with their spelling, as is the case with this movie’s title, it just comes off as juvenile no matter how clever it is.

American Dreamz? It’s just plain lazy titling. It’s sounds like a failed hip-hop act from the early 90’s.

The card in the opening sequence is milquetoast. It feels like when they state this movie is coming from the same guy who directed ABOUT A BOY, AMERICAN PIE and IN GOOD COMPANY it’s done with a shrug of the shoulders as if to say, “Yeah, he’s done these. They’re good.” Odd.

We’re introduced to Dennis Quaid, Randy’s less retarded brother, who appears to be the president of the United States. We’re given a moment with the prez, see how clever that s dropping can be, where we establish he’s an idiot. I don’t know whether to wonder what in the hell is happening with this picture or just assume that people must love caricatures of the president, even though it’s true, being a bumbling town idiot.

Swiftly, we’re whisked away to a Hollywood back lot where Hugh Grant, seems like we’re getting all of Paul’s past players, is playing Simon Cowell. American Dreamz is a singing show like American Idol and he’s the host of this program but the twist here, get this, he DOESN’T REALLY want to do it. That’s Hollywood, people. You take an already retched example of how American culture sucks ass and you put a cork in that ass and sell it as an original idea. As the Guinness dudes would say: Brilliant. Utterly crap brilliant.

I am entertained, though, by Mandy Moore’s display of fake intensity when a camera crew comes to her door and tells her that she’s a contestant on the show. For all the mediocre fluff she’s been in I seem to really have a soft spot for hand of female aloofness. She’s got a bubbly spirit and energy that just can’t be contained but like a sky that parts to let the sunshine in I am greeted by a twister of badness as soon as we leave her.

What happens next is perplexing: Dennis is a president who hasn’t made a public appearance in over three weeks, some people saying he’s lost his mind (imagine that”¦). Willem is 2nd in charge and mentions that he go on Dreamz (it hurts to even write that) and be a guest judge while an Arab-American who is the show is asked to be a terrorist suicide bomber by his father for when the president actually shows up.

I can’t make this up. I just can’t understand who is allowed to try and sell this to the public. Even the musical montage at the end of this thing, which is really just an excuse to put some music behind unrelated images to try and sex up a trailer, just leaves me limp.

I’m just disappointed that this is coming from the mind of the guy who brought us AMERICAN PIE, ABOUT A BOY and IN GOOD COMPANY. I can’t say I’m surprised but I am disappointed.

Director:Ron Howard
Cast: Tom Hanks, Jean Reno, Audrey Tatou
Release: May 19, 2006
Synopsis: While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci – clues visible for all to see, and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu (Tautou), and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion – an actual secret society. In a breathless race through Paris, London and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who appears to work for Opus Dei – a clandestine, Vatican-sanctioned Catholic organization believed to have long plotted to seize the Priory’s secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory’s secret – and a stunning historical truth – will be lost forever.

Prognosis: Bestseller Positivity. Is it rude of me to say that I am not a fan of bestseller fiction? It it snooty?

I do likes me some books which have entered popular culture but my interests never seem to veer into what mass culture deems as teh awesome.

Dan Brown is a good example why I just can’t get into these kinds of stories. Sure, it’s packed full of Indiana Jones like explosiveness but it doesn’t inform the human condition in ways I like my stories to do. This trailer, though, piques the very thing inside of me of why I AM a healthy consumer of mainstream film.

I may not like my books to be superfluous but I do likes me my movies to be that way.

And what a way to start things off than with a smoky woodwind instrument in the back as you’ve got some Latin chanting nabob who’s into self-mutilation. I don’t know what’s up with that but this religio who likes whipping his own backside is quickly replaced by a wandering, meandering display of some English gardens.

These gardens are populated with the academic speak of some dude who is trying to explain something about mankind, secrets and how everything will unravel if people catch wind of blah blah blah.

Who cares about any of that, right? We want our NATIONAL TREASURE of 2006. People loved the sight of balding older dudes with torches going on scavenger hunts but this trailer only teases us with the goods.

We get some long, rectangular box that seems mysterious and spooky, we get the Last Supper shown to us for reasons which the more learned of you (those who have read the book) can tell me but the show stopper here is the visage of a very pensive looking Tom Hanks with a hairdo that borders on MacGyver-esque. Color me intrigued, people.

I also really like the moment here when we see Old Man River running though a darkened art museum in the middle of the night. He’s hoofing it as hard as he can, his click-clacking feet on the hardwood floor building up the intensity of the faceless assailant, and then, as the screen goes black, a gunshot. What makes this moment even better, other than seeing all these European po-po’s in their cars with the singular blue lights, is taking in the greatness that is Jean Reno. I’m hoping he’s on the bad side of the law but one can only hope.

And, woah!, we get a dead naked guy on the floor who’s in the middle of what looks like a devil’s sacrifice. He’s all sorts of cut up and dripping with blood but before I squeal like a little girl there is the always filmicly delicious Audrey Tautou.

The final moments of this trailer are chock full of tidbits which only pique my interest in what could be one of the best adult oriented films to come out in a while. Yes, the book it was based on is not going to change the way American literature is going to evolve and Ron Howard’s name is not equitable to those of Scorsese, Coppola or Roger Corman but this does, honestly, look like another solid outing from little Opie.

Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum, Mike Vogel, Josh Lucas, Mia Maestro, Freddy Rodriguez, Kevin Dillon, Jacinda Barrett, Jimmy Bennett, Andre Braugher
Release: May 12, 2006
Synopsis: When a rogue wave capsizes a luxury cruise ship in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, a small group of survivors find themselves unlikely allies in a battle for their lives. As the unstable vessel rapidly floods with water, they face unimaginable odds and life-altering decisions in their desperate fight to the surface.

Prognosis: No. I know this is a remake.

I also know that this movie feels like TITANIC but without the obligatory tit shot of Kate Winslet. What we do get, though, is a shot of Fergie from Kids Incorporated, now the Black Eyed Peas, shaking her groove thing on the stage.

I don’t really have great expectations for a movie like this. I think it all stems from the need that many execs have of just rehashing old material and whatever you read with people who are in this production, who the hell hasn’t felt the power of the Poseidon Diaries and all their on-set glory from the Internet noobs who were allowed to talk to people from the film, that this was done because it was such an amazing script. Like Sick Boy from TRAINSPOTTING would say, “Shite.”

But, let’s take the ride knowing full well we’re riding over old territory. It’s a fun trailer. I’ll give it that. There’s a certain sense of tension when DUETS impresario Andre Braugher (Chicago’s own as well”¦wOOt”¦) starts talking about the history of Poseidon. The mood is good, the music choice is appropriate and even the sight of Richard Dreyfus is enough to rattle my notion that this is a wholesale raping of an old classic.

The countdown by everyone on board, ratcheting up the danger level of things, in a slo-mo display of all the major players of this thing is a little odd to me. I don’t know why I care but this seems to be a Love Boat of all things beautiful. I mean, really, there isn’t an ugly person on this ship. Even the dudes behind the scenes in the sonar room look like they were yanked from THE FIFTH ELEMENT (Quite possibly one of the worst and useless movies in history. It actually makes the case as to why originality might be seen as overrated).

So, all these pretty people are in danger; from what I haven’t a clue but I’m sure it’s going to be made out to be twice as big from the original. Oh, and I really love that there is a card that reads that this is coming to us from “the acclaimed director of TROY and THE PERFECT STORM.” Please. Who are you bullshit? That’s right, the brainless motards who you’re hoping didn’t see either movie.

Even though I couldn’t stop laughing after the “acclaimed” comment I stopped enough to admire the same computer program that creates the fake wave that’s capsizing the fake ship. It’s really impressive the way the tsunami sized CGI wave rocks the fake Poseidon. The moment is honestly done pretty well and the way people are tossed around as the ship goes down is rendered quite nicely.

The actual snippets of people getting all sorts of heroic as they’re trying to save one another is cute; they all have their dramatic personae faces on and ready to show the world what thousands of dollars spent at Earl Shatftsby House of Performance Arts can do. There’s a lot of screaming, a lot of posturing, a lot of “I’m not going to lose you!” happening and it’s all well and good. I even like the moment when the power goes out on the whole ship and everything fades to black, silence.

I don’t know if I’m going to allow myself to be duped into actually going but this is not a good way to start trying to convince me this isn’t just about cashing in.

Director: J. J. Abrams
Cast: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q
Release: May 5, 2006
Synopsis: Tom Cruise returns as Special Agent Ethan Hunt, who faces the mission of his life in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III. Director J. J. Abrams (“Lost,” “Alias”) brings his unique blend of action and drama to the billion-dollar franchise.

Prognosis: Hilarious. Bill Hicks.

What a guy.

I think he would take a look at Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of an evil antagonist, symbolically twisting his moustache in a “Mu-ha-ha” fashion, in this obvious empty, vapid and culturally insignificant movie after his ploy for critical recognition in CAPOTE and demand a debate about whether Phillip deserves to be on the artist roll-call list. For my money, I would consider this grounds for his membership to be revoked and sent to Xenu for immediate attitudinal destruction. No, I don’t think I’m so cool or deserving to be so critical but please, after looking at this trailer, you can’t tell me for one moment that all of Phillip’s choices are made on the quality of the screenplay based on this flick. And, if it is, and this happens to be the LOGAN’S RUN of the 2000’s then I will happily eat each and every word.

But, let’s take this one from the P.O.V. of your average action bumpkin who’s looking for a good time out at the talkies.

I’m not sure what it means that Phillip is handcuffed with Hefty twist-ties. His over-acting of his “dangerous” role here doesn’t really have the kind of spooky impact it was searching for. I think that he was more of a danger in a movie like SCENT OF A WOMAN when he was lording his social status over the here-today-gone-tomorrow-after-an-obnoxious-Robin-costume-outing Chris O’Donnell. But, whatever, he’s our nemesis and he’s trying to get it done.

Next, we’re entertained with this movie’s love interest as she slo-mos in and out of pretty person poses. I think at first she’s modeling for some feminine hygiene commercial, her smile unnaturally lingers on the screen for far too long, but then Tom comes in, rocking his super Timex timepiece, all smooth like he’s some player.

Somehow, and I don’t know how this happens, but we go from black night to an almost bawling Cruise as Hoffman escapes in the middle of the day. I’m sure this will be explained later but I’m all out of sorts with what’s happening.

We get a lot of Tom running around like a monkey on the loose, as a car blows up in a flourish of flames, Cruise taking the initiative to take a gun and point it at something. I don’t why it’s so hard to just slow things down a little, just a little bit, to give me bearing. Otherwise, what you have here is just an orgy of action. I love things like this, and I may be a little too harsh in my need for less of an ADD type of teaser and just a smidgen of context but that’s just me.

I do like Tom plunging upside down to his death, his bat-belt no doubt stocked for moments like this, and the pictures of him enjoying his speed boating in some undisclosed European locale. He’s having a good time, the orange Lamborghini which is no doubt being used to transport his female beard, er, girlfriend, but there is one image, in particular, I love so much.

If you slow things down, for a split second, you see Cruise decked out in a priest’s frock. It is no doubt a disguise but it makes me laugh on the inside as I know, for a fact, that Cruise is right; no one would believe he would have anything to do with an organized religion like Catholicism. Too right, my friend, and so subversive.

And in the end, after Tom is blasted into the side of a car after an explosion rocks him into a car (nice effect”¦) and Ving Rhames slaps Cruise’s hand saying, “Welcome back, bra”¦.”? Come on, we all know Tom is never coming back, ever.