“Country Strong” Trailer: Gwyneth Paltrow Sings!

Patsy Cline.
Willie Nelson.
The Eagles.
Merle Haggard.

Okay, just wanted to make sure that all those hipster teenagers with their funky hiphop are out of the room. Now we can safely enjoy the trailer for Country Strong without any interruptions. In the movie, Paltrow makes her country-music debut as Kelly Canter, a singer just out of rehab who must contend with another rising country star (Garrett Hedlund), her husband/manager (Tim McGraw), and (what I suppose to be) a rival singer, played by Leighton Meester, although it seems that that specific conflict will soon be resolved due to the final scene in the trailer, which has Leighton looking on as Gwyneth walks backstage to cheers and applause. Take that, Meester!

It’s not often that we get to see a movie about country music, let alone music itself, and it actually looks watchable even if it does have a bit of a contrived plot.

I mentioned that, in the movie, Paltrow makes her debut as a country music star with the appropriately titled song “Country Strong”. The movie’s website, which is listed in the billing at the end of the trailer, features the song in its entirety. Like most movie songs, it features inspirational lyrics about fighting back, standing up for yourself and picking yourself up when you’ve fallen down. While it was often repetitive, Gwyneth does do a good job with the tune, and (I’ve heard) she got a standing ovation at the CMAs.

(Also, in weird movie billing news, this one’s produced by {the?} Tobey Maguire and awesome-name-haver Jenno Topping.)

 

Aliens Love Us: The Teaser for “Battle: Los Angeles”

If you thought the aliens from Skyline were menacing, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The trailer

for Battle: Los Angeles doesn’t really give us much in the way of story, but shows off lotsa

action sequences involving aliens, soldiers, explosions, and LA getting pretty much torn to

pieces. The song used is “Sun’s Gone Dim” by Johann Johannsson. Battle: Los Angeles comes out

on March 11th.

“Source Code” Has A Plot That Stephen King Would Love

If you’ve read Stephen King‘s short story “That Word, You Can Only Say What It Is In French” (in his book Everything’s Eventual), then you might be reminded of it when you read the plot of Source Code. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Capt. Colter Stevens, a soldier who wakes up in the body of another man on a train. He discovers that he has eight-minute intervals (at the eight-minute mark, he “dies” and is sent back to “the source code”) to discover a bomber who destroys the train, killing everyone. Because dying every eight minutes gets repetitive after a while, he tries to rescue a woman (Michelle Monaghan, or as my dad calls her, “that girl from Eagle Eye“) that he converses with while on the train. It’s like a mixture of “Unstoppable” and “Groundhog Day”. Sounds kinda cool.

In the beginning of the trailer, Monaghan refers to Gyllenhaal’s character as “Shawn”, although we know he isn’t Shawn. This raises some questions.

• What does Monaghan see when “Shawn” dies? She doesn’t know that he’s not Shawn, so what happens?
• If everyone dies after the bomb goes off, how can Gyllenhaal rescue her?

The only other thing that worries me is that the movie could get repetitive. It almost seems like it’s going to go something like, “he’s on the train for eight minutes, then we die, get sent to the source code, then we’re back on the train for another eight minutes”. Endless loop.

Enough babble. Watch the trailer for “Source Code” below.

“Hop” Teaser: The Easter Bunny Is Rockin’ Out

The Easter Bunny likes to rock, apparently, and once he starts, he can’t stop, according to this trailer for the live-action/CGI hybrid (shudder) Hop, which is from the same animation studio that made Despicable Me. The main character is hit by a car and the slacker driver (James Marsden) must take care of him while he heals. We don’t get much of that storyline in this trailer, just the bunny drummin’ along to Blur’s “Song 2”, and if you don’t recognize it from the title, you’ll definitely recognize it from the opening beats. Who knows, maybe he and all the other holiday legends will join together for the sequel (’cause y’know there’s gonna be a sequel) and start a rock and roll band.

Hop comes out on April 1st.

 

 

 

 

This New Trailer for “The Green Hornet” is More Promising Than The Last

You shouldn’t confuse The Green Hornet with Green Lantern, because this movie looks better. It tells the story of Britt (Seth Rogen), whose father has just died, which leaves him in control of his massive media empire. (So, of course, he hosts tons of parties and has a huge mansion, which we visit in the opening shots.) Britt befriends Kato (Jay Chou), who has a few tricks up his sleeve. The two team up to fight crime with their retro car (that Kato built), and Britt takes on the vigilante persona “The Green Hornet”. So it’s NOT the car! Like the last trailer, it seems to focus more on Kato than Britt, but it’s changed my mind about what I thought then. This movie actually looks okay.

“Red Riding Hood” (Trailer) Is “From The Director of Twilight”. Sigh.

The trailer for Red Riding Hood fails in a couple ways, and they’re the only things keeping me from being interested:

1. The first few seconds of this trailer lead me to believe that Catherine Hardwicke is a fan of swoopy helicopter shots; such a fan, in fact, that we even get a fly-over of the Warner Brothers logo, which almost seems like a parody of these oft-used flights.
2. Amanda Seyfried’s HUGE DOE EYES.
3. Love Triangles: The movie, which tells the story of a girl caught up in a love triangle amidst dozens of wolf attacks, is essentially all about da triangle. It’s almost like they filmed the romantic scenes and went “Oh yeah, right–we have to include the part about the wolf!”

Visually, the movie looks good. When you focus on the storyline, though…not.

(Twilight haterz and people who love good grammar, check out Reasoning With Vampires. My new favorite website.)

Also: Leonardo DiCaprio’s producing…this?

“Cowboys and Aliens” Trailer: Admit It. It Sounds Cool.

Here’s the trailer for Cowboys and Aliens, which has some pretty big names attached to it. Jon Favreau (Iron Man) directs the film, while Steven Spielberg, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are all producers on the film, executive or otherwise. All we’d need is J.J. Abrams, and it’s even more of a hit!

The movie obviously tells the story of a town in the Old West that must defend itself from oncoming aliens. It stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, back after doing a less-than-perfect stint as a morning show co-anchor. The title makes it sound like a comedy, but it really isn’t. Looks cool!

Cowboys & Aliens comes out next summer. The quality of this YouTube embed is just okay, so head over to Yahoo! Movies for a trailer that’s better-looking.

“Green Lantern” Trailer: Ryan Reynolds…Superhero??

Turns out he is a superhero in this disappointing trailer for Green Lantern. I haven’t read the comic book, but I have heard that it’s a highly anticipated movie. The trailer sets Reynolds up as a test pilot who, just as he’s talking about feeling free when he’s flying, crashes to Earth (of course) (which might make you think of another superhero film). Then there’s something about hopes for something new on the horizon.

After that, an onslaught of bad CGI, for example, Reynolds’ Green Lantern suit above. (*cringe*)

Seriously, the computer generation is pretty bad. We get more shots of Reynolds saving the world, characters in the film, and shots of Earth and space, which kinda look like video game cutscenes.

I really wanted to like the Green Lantern trailer; I even went back and watched it again to see if my feelings had changed. They didn’t.

Green Lantern flies into theaters, crappy CGI suit and all, in June.

“Winnie The Pooh” Trailer is Nostalgia Galore

If you grew up with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and the rest of them like I did, then you’ll really love this new trailer for Disney’s…well, it’s not really a “reboot”, but we haven’t seen WTP for more than 15 years. The trailer for Winnie the Pooh doesn’t really give us any plot, but who cares about that when it’s a hand-drawn, 2D Pooh movie?! It’s just like how children’s movies were when I was younger: better than they are now!

The song used in this trailer is Keane‘s “Somewhere Only We Know“, and while it does seem a bit dated (it was popular back in 2004), it sets the mood for an almost somberly whimsical revival of the classic series. Something tells me I’m going to have to get out my old book of Pooh stories…

Winnie the Pooh hits theaters in July, 2011.

“The Roommate” Trailer: BONG!!

The Roommate tells the story of Sara, an ordinary college freshman who soon discovers that her seemingly ordinary roommate, Rebecca, isn’t. BONG!!

This trailer makes it seem that being attacked by your totally psycho roommate is just part of a regular college girl’s life. It could happen to anyone! You get your room keys, adopt a kitty, go to dance parties and dance around to generic-sounding party music. Then, you get attacked by your psychotic roommate who doesn’t take her “medicine” and lights boys on fire with her handy lighter. Oh, and she’s always watching.

Have fun at college!