“Margin Call” Trailer: Zachary Quinto Discovers Something Mysterious and Financial!

There’s been a ton of movies made about the 2008 financial crisis. Inside Job, Capitalism: A Love Story, and the HBO movie Too Big to Fail. Now, in 2011, we can add to that list Margin Call, which takes a “thriller” angle to the infamous meltdown.

The movie stars (among others and in no particular order) Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Jeremy Irons and Paul Bettany, who seems to be cinematically following me everywhere. What’s it about? I don’t really know.

Basically, Stanley Tucci gives Zachary Quinto this USB stick containing something he couldn’t finish. Quinto takes a look at it, discovers something wrong (some equation that Demi Moore created), and then BOOM! FINANCIAL MELTDOWN! Thanks a lot, Zach.

I wanted to like this trailer. A thriller about the economic catastrophe could be cool, right? Well, not really. The two main things that irk me are:

1. The title cards seem like something that would come out of some direct-to-DVD movie. Blue, stock charts, and that standard “thriller” font. Not very creative.
2. The acting. It’s just so monotone and emotionless, even from the main cast. “Well we were wrong.” “How long would it take to clear that from our books.” “Remember this day boys.” (No comma.)

Well, that’s pretty much it. Who knew that a movie about the financial disaster could seem so…disastrous?

“Dream House” Trailer: Uh-Oh, Daniel Craig Might Have Killed His Own Family and Somehow Not Remembered It At All!

After Daniel Craig saves the Old West (I’m assuming) in Cowboys and Aliens next Friday, he’ll ultimately cancel that heroism out with a bit of villainy in Dream House. The movie, which is directed by Academy Award-nominated Jim Sheridan, tells the story of Will (Craig) who moves into his dream house with his wife (Rachel Weisz) and his two young girls.

Once there, he receives word that their perfect home was the site of a gruesome murder of a mother and her children, and the neighborhood considers the father–the only survivor–the prime suspect. After learning that the killer might come back to take his family. Deciding to investigate, Will makes a shocking discovery about a man named Peter Ward who was put into an insane asylum.

The discovery? Peter Ward looks just like him! Sweet dreams, Will!

I’m not sure if Daniel Craig is the murderer or if he has a split personality case or something, but doesn’t this seem kinda Shining-ish? It certainly does to me. I like Craig, but this movie just seems…okay. Nothing too special. I like the way the main title card crumbles, but that’s pretty much it.

Dream House hits theaters in September.

“The Amazing Spider-Man” Tells Story of A Certain Astonishing Superhero

Everyone knows that Hollywood loves superhero movies, but with the release of June’s un-super Green Lantern, I’m betting that Sony decided to step in now and remind everyone that there’s better stuff on the horizon. Enter the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of the series.

There’s no Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst or even James Franco here. This movie is a totally new side to the classic story. This time around, Andrew Garfield (Never Let Me Go) stars as Peter Parker, who has a Rear Window poster in his room! He’s amazing even without having to be Spider-Man. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Parker’s love interest, and Rhys Ifans as The Lizard, the main villain.

This trailer re-introduces us to the Peter Parker/Spider-Man story: parents died, moves in with his aunt and uncle, meets Gwen at her job at a science laboratory. He promises not to touch anything (although not even soon-to-be Spider-Man can keep that promise), gets bitten by a radioactive spider and turns into the titular superhero. There will be a quiz on this tomorrow, so I hope you took notes.

Garfield seems to be a capable Spider-Man, but Stone seems a bit too young for the role of Gwen Stacy. (I don’t know how young she is in the comics, but here…meh.) Maybe it’s just the lab coat. We also get a pretty cool sequence that puts us behind Spidey’s mask: we fly over traffic, jump across buildings, and eventually scale a skyscraper.

Overall, it looks like a good movie, and it’s going to be interesting to see how Sony does the first movie over again without making it seem like a carbon copy of the original.

The Amazing Spider-Man slings his way into theaters next July.

 

 

 

Six New Trailers: A Movie Made for Germaphobes, Sherlock Holmes Returns, and More!

Turns out while I was gone on vacation, a bumper crop of new trailers appeared. I decided to quickly run them down in one giant post rather than giving each one its own post; the second reason would take too much time.

First up: Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s thriller about a virus that consumes the world, not by zombies or monsters, but by humans. “The average person touches their face three to five times every minute,” a character says in the trailer. This movie could be sponsored by Clorox: “Wanna know what happens if you don’t use the disinfecting power of our product? Watch this movie!”

I always like virus-gets-out-of-control movies, and this one is no exception. Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law and many other celebs star. Damon’s yell when his wife dies is a bit much, but other than that, this movie looks fine. The empty airport shots are especially eerie. Maybe not worth the theater, but definitely on DVD.

We’ll keep riding the Warner Bros. train for now with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Surprise: they made a sequel to the original! Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law return as Holmes and Watson, respectively, ready to take down the evil Professor Moriarty. Guy Ritchie certainly has a stylish way of directing, and I’m looking forward to see what he does in this movie. Also: Robert Downey Jr. in drag. I think we’re done here.

Third, we have John Carter, Disney’s epic adventure about a man who is transported to Mars and must save the planet from evil forces. It looks promising, but I just hope it won’t be “Prince of Persia on Mars”.

Almost done. Our fourth trailer is for The Thing, a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic about a group of scientists in Antarctica who find a…thing that can take the form of any human. Bad stuff starts happening and the team doesn’t know who’s real and who’s…the thing. (Dun dun DUUUUNNN!)

It looks pretty much like every other horror movie ever made, right down to the jump scare at the end of the trailer, and director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. isn’t really trying anything new here. The movie stars, among others, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko from Lost) and Joel Edgerton, but that doesn’t matter ’cause they probably all die in the end anyway.

Next we have Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s first 3D movie. It tells the story of young Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), who, along with an also-young girl (Chloe Grace-Moretz), goes on a miraculous adventure involving letters, mischief, and Polar Express-style giant slides. Sacha Baron Cohen also stars as a bumbling train station inspector. Yep, we finally get to see him as a normal person. I was prepared to not like this movie, but it looks charming and rather pretty. It will be nice to see how Martin Scorsese handles a kids film.

Let’s end on a high note with The Pirates! Band of Misfits, an animated comedy about (and I’m just spitballin’ here) a group of pirates who are a band of misfits. It’s from the same animation studio that made Wallace & Gromit, and it actually made me laugh. I love claymation, and this looks to be a cute, fun kids movie.

“Jack and Jill” Stars Two Adam Sandlers, Making It Twice As Worse

This is Al Pacino’s phone number. Supposedly.

I’ve always loved it when movies star an actor in a double role. The Social Network and The Devil’s Double are two examples of this craft. Now we can add Jack and Jill, an Adam Sandler comedy. Two movies that look good, one movie that looks terrible. If this was a game of “which one doesn’t belong”, the odd one out would be pretty easy to spot.

The plot: Our main character, Jack, is played by Adam Sandler, fresh off of Zookeeper (and I mean fresh; the movie and this trailer came out today.) Jack is a successful advertising executive livin’ the high life in Los Angeles with his wife (Katie Holmes, fresh off of…wait, what was she in again?)

Jack’s life is perfect, but he’s dreading this Thanksgiving when his twin sister, Jill, comes to visit, and in the words of infoMania‘s Bryan Safi, “You’ll NEVER guess where this is heading.” Okay, you ready? Jill–a woman–is played by–okay, get ready for this–ADAM SANDLER! IN DRAG! SPORTING A LISP!

Oh, Adam Sandler. With this male/female role, you have truly broke new cinematic ground–oh, wait, you haven’t. How to describe Jill? The Voiceover Guy sums her up perfectly. “She isn’t subtle…She isn’t shy…And she isn’t leaving!” Y’know, I think I could use those exact words to describe Adam Sandler himself.

I really don’t know what to say about this trailer–the movie looks too bad for words, and c’mon, Al Pacino. You should know better. Oh, but there’s a producer credit in the trailer. We’ve already seen Sandler’s face; I’m pretty sure we know what we’re in for.

I’d tell this trailer to “don’t bring me down”, but a) it already has, and b) I think that pun is lamer than even one than I would allow.

Jack and Jill hits theaters on November 11th.

 

 

“War Horse” Is World War I…With HORSIES!

If you like movies about wars and horses, War Horse is the movie for you. The movie tells the story of the First World War experienced through the eyes of a horse. It’s “a tale of loyalty, hope and tenacity” according to the liner notes, which might sound Hallmark Channel-y, but, when you see the trailer, really isn’t.

War Horse is definitely Oscar bait. It’s directed by Steven Spielberg, who hasn’t made a movie since 2008, when he did Indiana Jones and the Something I Can’t Remember. Plus, the movie looks beautiful, especially the battle scenes and the last shot of the horse against the sunset. I just hope it’s not going to be a horse running around all the time.