“Paranormal Activity 3” Teaser: This Family Loves Filming Each Other

For two years, you’ve watched the adventures of Micah, Katie and those other ones in the Paranormal Activity franchise. Now, get ready to do it again with the release of Paranormal Activity 3. This time around, the movie promises to reveal the origin of all the creepy stuff that’s been happening. This one takes place when Katie and *searches Wikipedia* her sister Kristi were kids, so it’s a prequel.

That being said, I learn that Paranormal Activity 2 was also a prequel, so I’m calling 3 a prequel-prequel. A dual prequel. A du-reequel. A d’reequel. I could go on all night.

Anyway, I haven’t seen the first two movies, but this one actually looks pretty good. It’s directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, who also directed Catfish, and if you haven’t seen that movie, YOU SHOULD.

It’s only a teaser, so there’s no much else to say, but the one thing I really want to point out is the Bloody Mary sequence at the end, and I’ll just say that it’s a nice break from the jump scares in most horror movies.

Paranormal Activity 3 hits theaters in October.

“The Hunger Games” Teaser Trailer: Jennifer Lawrence Runs!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ve probably heard of the literary phenomenon known as The Hunger Games. If you haven’t, get out from under said rock and go buy yourself a real house.

*pause*

Good. Now, The Hunger Games is a series of books written by Suzanne Collins. (There will be a quiz on this when we’re finished.) They, along with the movie, tell the story of Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence in the movie), a young teenager living in a country called Panem–it’s what used to be North America. Every year, Panem’s government, called the Capitol, makes children fight to the death in a televised competition known as the Hunger Games.

When her younger sister, Prim, is selected to be a “tribute” in the Games, Katniss makes a daring move and decides to take her place. Along the way, she meets Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and the two team up to fight for their lives. Liam Hemsworth also stars as Gale, Peeta’s boyfriend outside of the Games. He’s giving the pep talk/voiceover we hear in the trailer.

It’s only a teaser trailer, so it doesn’t show much, but if you’re a Hunger Games fan like me it gets you pretty excited for the movie. Squee!

Oh, and what could a highly-anticipated blockbuster action flick be without a creepy viral marketing website? Lionsgate’s got that covered, too. Check out http://www.thecapitol.pn–you can connect with Twitter, but since I’m not on Twitter I don’t know what happens.

 

“Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” Trailer Answers A Question That Really Didn’t Need An Answer

…but more on that later.

I was pretty surprised when Columbia Pictures (another Sony Pictures Entertainment company!) announced that they would make a sequel to Ghost Rider, the 2007 Nic Cage action pic that got only mixed reviews. In any case, here’s the trailer for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

The movie was directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who go by Neveldine/Taylor. They directed Crank, Crank: High Voltage, and Gamer. Apparently, for Crank: High Voltage, they bought cheap handheld cameras so they could easily be destroyed during the action scenes (which I think is pretty cool.)

In this movie, Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze, this time trying to fight–uh, I mean, struggle–which is it again?–that’s it. Log line copy-and-paste time.

Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze in Columbia Pictures’ and Hyde Park Entertainment’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. In the successor to the worldwide hit Ghost Rider, Johnny – still struggling with his curse as the devil’s bounty hunter – is hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe when he is recruited by a secret sect of the church to save a young boy (Fergus Riordan) from the devil (Ciaran Hinds). At first, Johnny is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider, but it is the only way to protect the boy – and possibly rid himself of his curse forever.

Okay. He’s like a missionary, but with a flaming skull for a head. That’s the story? The trailer made it look like Cage is trying to fight the Ghost Rider, who has somehow become some sort of alter ego.  In fact, the preview is just a blur of action scenes featuring the Ghost Rider flipping cars, killing people and getting all flame-y. He even pukes bullets, which is a nice segue into the next talking point.

Remember when I said that the trailer covers a question that didn’t necessarily need an answer? Well, thanks to a young boy, we now know how the Ghost Rider…erm. Uhm.

He pees fire. It’s at the end of the trailer. It’s all very awkward, but it does make me wonder what happens if he has to take a crap. (Immature, I know, but it had to be done.)

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance hits theaters in February. I will never think of flame or Nicolas Cage the same way again.

 

“Underworld Awakening” Trailer: The Underworld Is Very, Very Blue

Screen Gems (a Sony Pictures Entertainment company, if you really wanted to know that) has two franchises about zombies and vampires/werewolves. The zombie one is called Resident Evil, and the series got the 3D treatment last year with Resident Evil: Afterlife. The vampire/werewolf series is called Underworld, and you can bet that the studio probably wanted a 3D movie in that franchise too.

Here it is! Underworld Awakening is the fourth movie in the series, and it stars Kate Beckinsale as a vampire named Selene who, in this movie, enters the human world. It’s like Muppets Take Manhattan, only really, really, violent. Here’s the log line from Screen Gems:

UNDERWORLD AWAKENING brings a stunning new dimension to the epic battle between Vampires and Lycans, as the first film in the franchise to shoot in 3D. 

Kate Beckinsale, star of the first two films, returns in her lead role as the vampire warrioress Selene, who escapes imprisonment to find herself in a world where humans have discovered the existence of both Vampire and Lycan clans, and are conducting an all-out war to eradicate both immortal species.

There ya go. Now, the trailer: Like I said, it’s pretty blue and pretty dark (the trailer is actually dark-colored). It’s also filled with a bunch of fighting scenes that make it look like a video game. There’s a scene where Selene kills a security guard, possibly by breaking his neck, and for some reason the studio feels the need to show this scene eight times, each time faster than the last.  I’m not an Underworld fan, or a Resident Evil fan for that matter, and I really don’t see this movie being exciting to anyone other than the Underworld-ers.

Underworld Awakening hits theaters on January 20th, 2012. You won’t need sunglasses.

“The Woman In Black” Trailer: Harry Potter and the Creepy Haunted House

Oh, if only Daniel Radcliffe had his magic wand in this movie. It’d be a lot shorter. Unfortunately, he doesn’t, so sooner or later he’ll have to face The Woman In Black. Fresh off the last boy wizard adventure, Radcliffe plays a young lawyer who learns that one of his clients has just passed away. He goes over to her creepy old manor, which is always a good idea, to take care of her estate and soon encounters a mysterious lady in black, among other spooky stuff. Fun!

Scary puppets and monotone poems are among the haunts that comprise the trailer, and it works well. I could care less about the woman in black. I want to know why she’s collected all the creepy dolls.

The Woman In Black hits theaters next February.

“The Vow” Trailer: Channing Tatum Says It With Pancakes

Sorry guys, no celebrity phone number on this cookery.

It seems every year we always get a touching romantic movie that seems to have come straight from the Nicholas Sparks Drama Factory. For those of you who like that sort of thing, good news! Sony reassures us that, yes, another one is coming in the form of next February’s The Vow.

The movie tells the story of a newlywed couple, played by Channing Tatum (of course) and Rachel McAdams, whose perfect marriage is rocked when they suddenly get into a car accident one night. Somehow, Tatum is fine, but McAdams goes into a coma and doesn’t remember him when she wakes up. It’s like 50 First Dates, only without Adam Sandler, so I guess The Vow scores some points there. Tatum must then fall in love with McAdams all over again.

The trailer is a cocktail of heartfelt lines, dramatic punches to other guys’ faces (in the name of love, of course), and touching piano songs. It’s the perfect romantic drama for those of us who somehow forgot all those other ones. Did they get into a coma, too?

The Vow hits theaters in February 2012.

Here’s the trailer for “Abduction”, or as I like to call it, “Jason Bourne, Jr.”

Sometimes, Taylor Lautner feels… (dramatic pause)…different. “I walk around like everybody else,” he says. Only we know the shocking truth…

HE’S A WEREWOLF!

Okay, I’m just kidding. He’s a werewolf in the Twilight movies, but this isn’t another one of those. This is Abudction, a new movie about a teen Jason Bourne uh, I mean, a teenager (Lautner) who discovers his photo on a website for missing kids.

John Singleton, who brought you the revolutionary Boyz ‘N The Hood, directs…this action thriller. Wait, what?

After Lautner makes the discovery, the rest of the trailer is basically him running around, dodging bullets, breathing through his mouth, and stopping only for a brief makeout session with Lily Collins. The villains act menacing and speak in nonsense phrases such as, “You wanna play with no rules? Then you better be careful whatcha let out of the box.” Um…oooohhhh? It doesn’t even hint at a reason why they want to capture him.

The movie also stars Collins, Alfred Molina, and Sigourney Weaver (who, if she randomly appears in any more movies, will become the “it’s that lady” of 2011).

So, basically it’s Jason Bourne for the Twilight fangirls and the tweens. Got it. This is the studio that’s going to bring us the much-anticipated (even by me) Hunger Games movie? I’m kinda worried…

Abduction hits theaters on September 23rd.

 

“The Odd Life of Timothy Green”: From this trailer, it looks…well, you know

*sigh* I really didn’t want to cover this trailer. Call it laziness, but since there haven’t really been any new trailers this week, I decided–what the heck, I’ll write about it.

If you’re in a Disney movie, never go to sleep on a rainy night, ’cause some pretty weird stuff is about to go down. That’s what happens to Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton in The Odd Life of Timothy Green. Writer-director Peter Hedges (of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and Dan in Real Life fame) tells the story of a young couple who desperately want a kid, but things haven’t worked out well.

One night, they make a list of the totally awesome things their totally awesome dream child would do, lock it in a box, and bury it outside. Sorry for the abruptness, but that seems kinda childish. I would imagine a youngster making a list of the attributes of his dream pet or house, but not a grown couple doing it for a kid. Anyway, they go to sleep, and when Edgerton wakes Garner up and goes outside, KABOOM; there’s their baby! Er, young boy. He somehow managed to skip the whole infant stage.

We never learn how he just appeared there and how he possesses all the things Garner and Edgerton wanted. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll get to that; it’s a Disney movie. I liked Dan in Real Life, also a Disney movie, but not as puzzling as this.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green comes to theaters, all covered in mud, next August.

“The Darkest Hour” Trailer: Aliens Invade During A Vacation (Don’t You Hate When That Happens?)

Isn’t Moscow amazing? Until, of course, it gets taken over by invisible aliens who want to kill everyone on the planet. Five friends must survive The Darkest Hour in Summit/Regency’s new sci-fi thriller starring Emile Hirsch.

Other than the invisible electricity aliens, the movie looks like every other sci-fi invasion movie. The “alien-vision” is terrible, and I’m still having a hard time believing how these kids are going to hide from the aliens and/or save the world, if that’s what they do.

The Darkest Hour invades theaters on December 23rd.

“In Time” Trailer: A World Where Time Is Money! Really! (No, Seriously. It’s Money.)

When you think “action hero”, does your mind say “Justin Timberlake”? For me it doesn’t, but maybe In Time it will. (see what I did there?) The movie stars Timberlake and massive-eyed Amanda Seyfried as two people in a world where time really is used as currency. Nobody lives past 25, and rich people can live forever. (Even in alternate realities, rich people always get it good.)

Timberlake plays Will Salas, and the production notes do a pretty good job of explaining the story, so I’ll just put them here. (Lazy. I know.)

When Will Salas is falsely accused of murder, he must figure out a way to bring down a system where time is money – literally – enabling the wealthy to live forever while the poor, like Will, have to beg, borrow, and steal enough minutes to make it through another day.

It’s a nice idea, one that we haven’t really seen. I also like the lighting used in the trailer; it gives the movie an especially foreboding look. Cillian Murphy (Inception, Red Eye) also stars in the movie, and I like him; he plays a good bad guy.

Some parts of the trailer reminded me of other movies, though, like the scene with T-Lake and Seyfried in the car reminded me of the Transporter movies. Most of Fox/Regency’s films haven’t really been hits, though, and like I said, I can’t really believe Justin Timberlake as an action hero.

This movie looks interesting enough to catch on DVD, but not for the theaters. In Time hits theaters on October 28th.