DISNEY TRAILERS

Two new ones up this evening, courtesy Coming Soon: Home on the Range and Teacher's Pet. Wake me when Pixar puts out something.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

Finally, blessed Quicktime. I've been looking forward to this one ever since I read the script; I did see the (crappy streaming) Windows version of the teaser, and what I could make out looked exactly like what I'd imagined in my head. So that's nice. The music is trying a little too hard to be wacky for my taste, but overall the trailer does a good job of very simply getting across the idea that crazy shit is happening in Jim Carrey's head, he wants it to stop, and he is in Truman Show mode rather than Ace Ventura.

(A quick note about the cast, which includes Carrey, Kate Winslet [in underwear], Kirsten Dunst [in underwear], Mark Ruffalo [also in... underwear], Tom Wilkinson, and Elijah Wood: seriously, there is something here for everyone. Also, it's nice to see Ruffalo bounce back with a movie where he doesn't have to to unspeakable things to Meg Ryan.)

PETER PAN (TRAILER 2)

"Imagine a world..." Uh, wait a minute. Who said Creepy Boy could take over the announcer's gig? Anyway. The bottom line on this one is, you get to see much more movie and, more importantly, much more Jason Isaacs, but really, this trailer isn't cut half as well as the first one was. That first trailer was a thing of beauty, man. This one? Not so much. Oh, and thanks for giving the crocodile scene away. Asshats.

THE MISSING (FULL TRAILER)

Dammit, I hate streaming video. Hate it hate it hate it. I say, go Quicktime or go home. So, once again, I didn't see much. Everyone looks dirty and tired. Tommy Lee Jones is craggy. You know, stop the presses.

I'm not sure what accent Her Cateness is doing, but it sounds reasonably authentic (see: "Cold Mountain, much better than the accents in"). Also, readers more musically inclined than me: is the trailer music a subtle reorchestration of a Last of the Mohicans theme, or what? I would check, but I lost custody of the soundtrack in my parents' divorce. It would be fitting, anyway, since Her Cateness' younger child gets her Daniel Day-Lewis on with the line, "I'm not gonna stay behind! I'll follow you, YOU KNOW I WILL!"

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR - TEASER AND FEATURETTE

This is a pretty standard teaser; there's no actual footage, just a lot of icky close-ups of alien grossness. I can't believe they're actually making this movie. I don't know why I have so much trouble taking the idea of a "Franchise vs. Franchise" movie seriously. All I know is that I saw "The Laugh Olympics" when I was a kid and it seriously disturbed me.

The featurette is surprisingly not terrible. Especially considering that the film is being helmed by Paul Anderson (NOT Paul Thomas Anderson!), the man who brought us Resident Evil, which they trumpet in the opening as if that was something to brag about. But anyhoo, apparently our planet used to serve as a training ground for "teenage" predators, who had to kill them some Aliens before they can become a "man." Now a bunch of scientists in Antarctica accidentally defrost an old spaceship and rekindle the old family feud. Carnage ensues. Carnage, replete with plenty of slime and ick and grossness.

Seeing as I have this weird urge to squick myself out with this kind of stuff, I'm intrigued. The only sketchy part of the featurette was when the director was trying to emphasize that there would be human violence as well as alien violence in the film. He was all, "It's very important that there are a lot of guys with big machine guns in there." Yes, Paul. Very important.

BAD SANTA

I hate Christmas movies. (Hi, I'm Eric. I hate everything. Not really, though!) This is just a disclaimer because from what I can gather from the trailer, this one ain't gonna suck any less. Billy Bob Thornton plays a professional Santa who drinks a lot and is rude to kids, one of whom follows him home one day and won't leave him alone. Cue instant "hilarity" of someone completely inappropriate looking after a child. It looks like some sort of mutant relative of About a Boy, in that "a hopeless kid and a Santa nobody liked are teaching each other something about being nice!" kind of way, except without the smart and the funny. I mean, the biggest joke in the trailer is a midget getting kicked in the crotch. When a movie thinks that midgets equal instant comedy, you know you're in trouble.

The one part of the trailer that actually made me laugh was after the kid sits on Billy Bob's lap and pulls off his beard:

Kid: It's not real?

BBT: It was real until I got sick and all the hair fell out.

Kid: How did you get sick?

BBT: I loved a woman that wasn't clean.

Kid: Mrs. Santa?

BBT: No, it was her sister.

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Oh, NO. Ashton Kutcher is trying to Act. He's got the facial hair and everything. For the last time, people, "beards" are not the same thing as "acting skills"! They don't even rhyme! Get it together!

Kutcher plays a guy whose girlfriend gets hit by a car, so he, um, learns to travel back in time (!) in order to prevent her death. But of course nothing is that simple, because of the Butterfly Effect, which is of course a reference to the last album Mariah Carey made that anyone cared about. No, that's not right. The Butterfly Effect is that theory about how a butterfly landing somewhere can cause a chain reaction that results in a plane crashing on the other side of the planet or something. Anyway, the point is that actions have unforseen consequences. Ooh, so deep for the man who starred in a movie called Dude, Where's My Car?

Oh yeah, the trailer. Well, it looks bad. Real bad. Um...there's nothing else to say about it.

50 FIRST DATES

Oh God, is that Sean Astin in the thumbnail picture? In the blue mesh? That's... that's really sort of terrifying. Really.

Anyway, the trailer looks very much like the script looked in my head as I read it--I don't know if this is a testament to the fact that the script used generic (read: stereotypical) Hawaiian locales, or if it was just vividly written. I liked the script, by the way--it was unusually sweet and thoughtful for an Adam Sandler movie. Although of course it had its share of crude humor as usual (which this trailer plays up, rather than the sweetness, mostly). Let me put it this way: this and Punch Drunk Love are probably the only Adam Sandler movies I will ever see in the theater.

TOGA BOYS AHOY!

Heads up: the Troy trailer will run in front of Matrix Revolutions next week; I can only assume it will hit the net shortly thereafter. It is a Warner Bros. property, and WB (The Matrices) knows (Harry Potter) how to (LOTR via New Line) treat you netizens right.

FRESH MEAT!

In order to better serve you trailer lovers, not only have I dragged Correspondent Vladimir and his new cable connection onto the Park staff (see entries below), but Eric from ...of charm and strange (see entry immediately below) has been persuaded to become a Park ranger as well. So keep an eye out for them.

THE CAT IN THE HAT

... of charm and strange seems to have been up for less than two months, but already it's doing a better job than we are ranking on the Cat/Hat trailer ("Who's going to pay $9 to see a big creepy furry hanging out with children for an hour and a half?").

(Thanks to Pamie's blog for the link.)

ALONG CAME POLLY

I know what this is! This is that damn movie I kept having to call "Ben Stiller Risk Aversion Movie" on the Digest because they would never give it a damn title!

Man, is that a bad title.

Why is it that all quirky comedies start with that chipper chimey music? And what the hell kind of accent is Alec Baldwin doing? And why, at the end of the trailer, am I left with the darkening suspicion that this movie is a blatant attempt to recapture There's Something About Mary?

THE EVENT

"What happened the night [AIDS patient] Matthew died?"

"He had a blast."

Okay, that's interesting. Unfortunately, the rest of the trailer is drowned in Inspiring Music and Significant Soundbites. I hate Inspiring Music.

DAWN OF THE DEAD

Dude, why are Sarah Polley and a woman cavorting in black lingerie in this movie? That's so odd. Nice musical choice at the beginning though (something about "It's a wonderful life"). I'm not particularly into zombie movies, but it's a very well-done trailer, and Polley might be enough to make me pony up.


Vladimir: wanna see Sarah Polley cavorting with another woman :D

Cleolinda: well, I may have not been clear about that
Cleolinda: Sarah Polley is nowhere near Cavorting Lingerie Woman. They're really two separate scenes

Vladimir: ah
Vladimir: MISLEADING THE WITNESS, YOUR HONOR!

Cleolinda: heee

Vladimir: ("I'm going to allow it.")

IN THE CUT

Meg Ryan goes mousy. Mark Ruffalo rocks a villainous porn 'stache. This trailer gives away almost everything you could possibly want to know about the movie, or--more importantly--at least makes the viewer feel like it has. ("I saw you! It was you!" Thanks for saving me $8, right there.) In fact, five bucks says that sister Jennifer Jason Leigh gets killed and Meg Ryan ends up in an emotionally charged shootout at the end of the movie. The only thing not given away are the sex scenes themselves, and--ew, Meg Ryan. Thanks, but no thanks.

TIMELINE (FULL TRAILER)

I want it on the record that I have read advance reviews of this movie that are not very good. That said, I really liked the first trailer. I'm not so sure about the choral techno towards the end of this one, and the first one may have been cut together a bit better, but--I'm a sucker for medieval action. Swords and arrows and catapults and stuff. More skill involved than just shooting folks. Also, the unfortunate lines about "faxing" oneself to the past are not in this trailer, which is good.

THE LAST SAMURAI (FULL TRAILER)

Oh, Tiny Tommy Tooth, surely this will win you an Oscar. Also: you think Cruise's character, a former Union commander, fought Jude Law's Cold Mountain character in the Wah of Nawthun Aggression? Because that would be kinda cool.

On a more technical note: this is basically the wordless teaser trailer with a few bits of dialogue added in, expanded, etc. So if you liked the style of the teaser--and admittedly, it was nice, the ludicrous I Am A White Man Come to Save Japan element aside--you might want to catch this one as well.

THE SINGING DETECTIVE

Good concept. Kind of scary in execution (the fantasy/dance numbers look like cheap Chicago ripoffs). Mel Gibson has some fearsome makeup/prosthetics goin' on. Katie Holmes cracks me up, for some reason. But give it a whirl, sure.

RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE

Hee! Okay, I have to give them points for the "Regenerate" commercial-as-trailer. That's pretty funny.

COLD MOUNTAIN

Oh, I wanted to like this, and then Nicole Kidman's Southern accent appeared in the first 1.5 seconds, and... I'm an Alabamiam, I can't help it, I have high standards for my Southern accents. (Jude Law's is a little better.) And you know, unlike a lot of snarkers, I actually like Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger. And I like Jude Law and particularly Anthony Minghella (but who doesn't?). But something about this trailer... leaves me cold. It's not epic enough, somehow. At least it does a good job of setting up the relationships and doesn't give away the whole damn story, though.