Thursday, November 25, 2010

Tim's Trailer Talk, Vol. 13


13



Chances of me seeing it: 12%. If I were to tell you there was a movie coming out starring Jason Statham, Ray Winstone, and Mickey Rourke, you'd be understood and forgiven for being like "sounds badass!" (Assuming you'd forgotten The Expendables, which co-starred two of those three men and was retarded.) However, if you watched this bizarre and nonsensical trailer and proceeded to express the same sentiment, I'd haul you to the loony bin. I'll grant the slightest possibility of seeing it on account of the cool actors present, but this a horrible, horrible trailer.

Chances of me liking it: 4%. A little wiggle room because anything's possible. I could like 13. I could also win the fucking lottery.

Beyond the jump: Two right-wing propaganda films and Mean Girls 2. I'll let you decide which is worse.

Applause



Chances of me seeing it: 0%. Giving all credits where it's due, there may be no chance of Applause being a good movie, but it looks like a truly superb cure for insomnia. I mean, to watch this brave woman deal with her divorce and growing older, in Danish, no less... I can imagine no better way to fall into a death-like slumber for fourteen or more consecutive hours. Putting the trailer alone on loop is a foolproof way to keep your baby sound asleep all night.

Chances of me liking it: 0%. I like how the trailer brings up a blurb from Variety declaring the lead actress's performance "fearless" over a clip of her shouting at a dude. Truly, no actress has ever had the immutable courage to shout on screen before. We're in brave new performing territory here, people — shouting. Why hasn't any actor thought of this before.

Brighton Rock



Chances of me seeing it: 30%. It looks soaked in a certain amount of melodrama, but as far as British murder mystery romantic dramas go I can't deny it's the best trailer I've seen in hours, maybe even days.

Chances of me liking it: 15%. The cinematography looks a hell of a lot better than the first two movies this Tim's Trailer Talk, I'll give it that much.

Cowboys & Aliens



Chances of me seeing it: 100%. Daniel Craig. Harrison Ford. Sci-fi action.

Chances of me liking it: 55%. Despite being very disappointed by Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2, I'm willing to give this one better-than-half odds for a couple reasons. One, I could already see Iron Man 2 cracking apart at the seams to reveal a giant, convoluted mess even in the trailers. I get no such sense from Cowboys & Aliens. A little goofy, absolutely; perhaps even overly simplistic. But a mess? No way. And two, as I mentioned a few lines up, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in one goddamn movie. Two of the most casually badass men alive all up in each other's business. Last time Harrison Ford acted across from James Bond we wound up with a little movie you may have heard of called Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so.

Dead Awake



Chances of me seeing it: 0%. *fartz*

Chances of me liking it: 0%.

Every Day



Chances of me seeing it: 25%. To some extent this looks like a fairly typical indie dramedy, but I'll ponder seeing it if it gets respectable reviews on account of enjoying movies about filmmaking / screenwriting and Carla Gugino being the hottest woman on the planet earth. And I don't mean hottest woman less than a year away from turning 40 (although it goes without saying that upon August 29th, 2011 Carla Gugino will be the hottest woman over 40 to have ever lived in the history of the world), but hottest, period. Go away, nubile twentysomethings! Wait, no, I didn't mean it!

Chances of me liking it: 10%. Liev Schreiber's okay too. When he's not playing the role of Sabretooth.

Five Minarets in New York



Chances of me seeing it: 0%. If I wanted to see anti-Islam propaganda dressed up as an action thriller I'd just rewatch the fourth season of 24. At least it has Jack Bauer.

Chances of me liking it: 0%. To clarify, I have no love for Islam. I think it's horseshit the same way I think all religions are horseshit. But the "Ground Zero mosque" lunacy of a few months back (followed by a rash of threats and vandalism against mosques all over the country) did a pretty good job souring me to anti-Islamism for, I dunno, a few years at least. This is the part where some Tea Party douchebag is supposed to accuse me of having forgotten 9/11, despite the fact that I lived two minutes up the street from Ground Zero for a year.

The Grace Card



Chances of me seeing it: 0%. Hm, lemme see. Will I or won't I watch a Christian propaganda film funded by the Baptist church. Man, that is a TOUGH one. I'll have to think about it and get back to you.

Chances of me liking it: 0%.

The Green Hornet



Chances of me seeing it: 99%. Because it's a superhero movie, because it's got Seth Rogen, because none other than Hans fucking Landa is the villain, or just because it's coming out in the dead of January when I'll be hurting for something to watch. Any of these reasons, all of these reasons, whatever. I ain't gotta explain myself to no one!

Chances of me liking it: 35%. The extremely broad comedy and Jay Chou's flat line delivery make it pretty clear we're not looking at a great movie here. But if the action is creative (and director Michel Gondry, previously of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is nothing if not creative) it could be a watchably amusing one. I gleaned from skimming movie message boards that this is an abomination to the Green Hornet comics for some reason, but I don't give a shit about that and if I did I'd probably kill myself.

Hop



Chances of me seeing it: 0%. Whoa now. An animal doing something animals don't normally do?? Truly, a bold new course has been charted for animation on this day.

Chances of me liking it: 0%. Only if the rabbit dies at the end. I'm gonna guess that doesn't happen.

The Lincoln Lawyer



Chances of me seeing it: 15%. Other than an immoral hotshot attorney this trailer doesn't give much of an impression what the movie's about, only the actors in it. But just when you're like "there's absolutely no way in hell I could watch an entire feature starring Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Phillipe," the trailer's like "just kidding, Marisa Tomei and William H. Macy and John Leguizamo are here too," and you let out an enormous sigh of relief. It's like seeing there's meatloaf for dinner, but at least there's mashed potatoes on the side.

Chances of me liking it: 5%. Still, Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Phillippe. Ouch.

Mars Needs Mom



Chances of me seeing it: 4%. Most weeks I'd just give this a flat zero and get on with my life, but after the trailers for Hop, Applause, Dead Awake, The Grace Card, and Five Minarets in New York I don't see how I can with a clean conscience do such a thing. Yes, this looks like pandering kiddy crap; action sci-fi in its most cotton candy form. But I've seen how much worse it can get. If those other films are zeroes this ain't. To give this a zero I'd have to go back and make those negative.

Chances of me liking it: 2%. Pretty ballsy of them to try for photorealistic animation. And by ballsy I mean causing you to ask why they didn't just shoot live action.

Mean Girls 2



Chances of me seeing it: 100%. You watched the trailer, right? I mean, holy shit. I'd sooner miss the birth of my first child than this spectacle of cinematic feces. A movie this awful comes along once in a lifetime (and by once in a lifetime, I mean once every year or two, and the words American Pie Presents can usually be found at the top of the DVD). Writing a sequel to a Tina Fey movie without Tina Fey is like chasing down a cheeseburger with a veggie burger. It's kind of the same thing, but horrible in every imaginable way. Also, in retrospect, it's interesting how two of the biggest contemporary female stars came from Mean Girls, neither of them named Lindsay Lohan.

Chances of me liking it: Negative 1,000,000%. "We called ourselves the anti-Plastics!"

Prom



Chances of me seeing it: 0.5%. Prom is easily the week's most heartbreaking trailer if you're a fan of good television, because this is Aimee Teegarden's first post-Friday Night Lights gig and it sucks fucking whale dick. Sure, she's also in Scream 4, but I understand that's a tiny role, maybe even a cameo, and the fact that more people will soon associate her with some stupid Disney tween comedy than with playing Julie Taylor for five years really makes the bile rise up.

Chances of me liking it: 0%. I do however absolutely love the one horror movie-esque shot of a burning building near the end of the trailer. Maybe I've underestimated this film and it's actually a sneak remake of Carrie.

Source Code



Chances of me seeing it: 100%. Duncan Jones directed Moon. Duncan Jones directed Source Code. Ergo, I will watch Source Code.

Chances of me liking it: 50%. The trailer looks like it has more mainstream gloss and spectacle than Moon (not to mention a much bigger cast), but a nugget of similarly brainy hard sci-fi joy may lurk within. Or maybe Jones will reveal himself to be a one-hit wonder. Who knows. All I know is that if Michelle Monaghan turns out to be the bomber I'm gonna lose it, shit in my own hands right there in the theater, and fling it at the screen.

And the week's winner is: In terms of what I suspect may actually be an enjoyable movie, it's gotta be Cowboys & Aliens, with Source Code as a reasonably close runner-up. But in terms of what I absolutely must see right now, it's easily Mean Girls 2. "We called ourselves the anti-Plastics!" No, shitty character in a shittier movie, you called yourself my trailer of the week. Congratulations.

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