Movie Trailers

A new The Ugly Truth movie trailer debuted today, and I have to admit: this is one romantic comedy I actually want to see. Sure, it looks pretty routine in general (who bets that Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler don’t hook up in the end), but the fact that Butler plays a chauvinistic talk show host who teaches Heigl’s character how to flirt and be “slutty without being too slutty” looks like it could evoke some laughs.

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Sam Rockwell is a good, underrated actor, and he’s going to have a chance to flex his acting muscles in Moon, where he effectively plays the only real character in the entire movie. Rockwell plays an astronaut who has been living alone on the moon for three years. Only weeks from returning home, however, he is forced to rescue a man from a crashed aircraft – and that man turns out to be himself.

Is he going crazy, or is something more dangerous at work?

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Columbia Pictures has released a new movie trailer for the upcoming Tony Scott film, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, which stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta. The movie doesn’t really feel like an event film, but this new movie trailer makes large gains. The first trailer was OK but a little cluttered; this new one emphasizes the action and the basic premise with improved focus.

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Battlestar Galactica may be over, but Caprica is just beginning. The Sci-Fi Channel, soon to be called SyFy (who the hell thought of that stupid idea?), is releasing the pilot on April 21, 2009 – the show will officially premiere in 2010.

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Ah, the good old B-grade horror movie. Sort of. In Sorority Row, a boyfriend cheats on a sorority girl. To get back at him, the sorority pulls a major prank on him – by tricking him into thinking that he’s killed one of the girls. Unfortunately, when they go to dispose of “the body,” he decides to take his aggression out by stabbing her – this time killing her for real. The sorority girls, realizing that they are complicit to murder, have to deal with the guilt… and a cloaked figure who runs around killing them one by one.

The movie looks like fun, but it also looks pretty stupid. The trailer doesn’t make it clear why the boyfriend decides to stab the girl after he thinks she’s already dead – that’s not usual behavior. Basically, if Sorority Row goes for an R-rating, it will work (sorority girls + R-rating + murderer = good movie); if not, it may be more like Prom Night, and no one wants that.

Watch the Sorority Row movie trailer and let me know what you think:

Check out these new video clips from the upcoming thriller Sin Nombre, which comes to select theaters this Friday, March 20, 2009. Watch them now:

Sin Nombre Clip: I’m Going With You

Sin Nombre Clip: Ever Been On One Of Those

A movie trailer for the new Michael Keaton movie,The Merry Gentleman, is now online, and it looks… meh. It’s good to see Keaton back at it, but the trailer reveals little as to what kind of movie this is going to be. A hit man film? I doubt it. A drama? Maybe, but not a very dramatic one. A comedy? I didn’t laugh.

See for yourself:

The Merry Gentleman tells the story of Kate Frazier, a young woman running away from a troubled marriage in the hopes to find anonymity with a new home and a new job in Chicago. When Kate meets Frank Logan, the two discover unexpected satisfaction in their mutual shared silence.  Haunted by the troubling choices he has made, Frank finds a kindred spirit in the younger Kate, and, for a moment, the two seem destined to redeem and remake each other.  As the holidays and New Year pass against an urban landscape that seems both breathtakingly beautiful and starkly quiet, Kate and Frank’s friendship becomes one of necessity and survival. But, neither lonely soul can escape the lives they have left behind. As events unfold and the painful truth slowly emerges, Frank is forced to face the man he truly is, while Kate struggles to become the woman she needs to be.

Watch the funny new movie trailer for Away We Go, from director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road). The film is a notable change from Mendes’ other bodies of work as it is, in fact, a comedy and presumably doesn’t include one of the main characters dying at the end.

Watch the Away We Go movie trailer now:

For more information, go to the Away We Go details page.

Check out these video clips from I Love You, Man, the upcoming comedy starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel about a soon-to-be-married man who must start man-dating to find a best man:

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Okay, to compare Battle for Terra to Delgo, the biggest box office flop of all time, is unfair. Unlike Delgo, Battle for Terra has a major distributor (Lionsgate), has pretty good special effects and, most importantly, a marketing campaign. I just received my first marketing pitch today.

Unfortunately, the Battle for Terra movie trailer leaves little to be desired. You can watch it here:

The movie is about an alien race that finds themselves the target of another race that wants to inhabit their planet: humans. The humans, who have been reduced to Battlestar Galactica-type numbers, are running out of options and, being the technologically advanced civilization, decide to invade. However, their invasion will amount to genocide – and not all of the humans are on board with the plan.

Battle for Terra does not look like a very good movie. The trailer is boring and lacks the life and enthusiasm that one would expect from a film like this. It’s an animated film, which it’s problematic: the movie seems way too serious to have the look and feel of a cartoon. If this had the visual effects of Final Fantasy, it would make more sense, but instead it appears to have family friendly graphics with a serious, adult plot. What parent would want to take their kid to this when they could wait until November to see Planet 51, a movie with a similar but much lighter premise (humans land on an alien planet).

Furthermore, it isn’t clear who the good guys here. The humans are on the verge of committing genocide, and from the trailer it looks like they carry through with their attack. While the aliens appear to be the protagonists, there are also humans that question the invasion. Basically, who do we root for?

On a basic level, the Battle for Terra movie trailer lacks the entertainment value that animated movies need to draw audiences into theaters. On a deeper level, the premise itself is problematic. Lionsgate doesn’t have any experience distributing a movie such as this, and one wonders why the film is being released wide on May 1st. Just wait a week for Star Trek, people.

I just watched the two-and-a-half-minute movie trailer for The Great Buck Howard, which stars Colin Hanks and John Malkovich, with a guest appearance by Colin’s father, the little-known actor named Tom Hanks. The movie is about a washed-up performer who is still living in his glory years until his new, youthful manager helps get him back on the fast track.

The movie looks entertaining enough, and Malkovich appears to be in his element here as the overly enthusiastic and seemingly fake title character. Unfortunately, the movie trailer itself is not that good. It’s about 45 seconds too long, not very well structured and altogether just a little bland. Worse is that it establishes no sense of conflict – things just seem to get better and better for Howard – so now that I’ve seen this trailer, what’s the point of seeing the movie?

Watch The Great Buck Howard movie trailer yourself:

The long-delayed Fanboys finally comes to theaters next Friday, and here are a few video clips recently provided by the studio. The first one features Kristin Bell taking her shirt off… sort of.

Take Your Shirt Off

I just watched The Mutant Chronicles movie trailer, and all I can say is wow. And by “wow,” I mean… meh.

The Thomas Jane/Ron Perlman sci-fi action flick looks a lot like the Vin Diesel film The Chronicles of Riddick, and we all know how that worked out. I wonder how many people are going to make the same comparison, given the similar plots and titles.

The Mutant Chronicles looks like it could be fun… if you can get past the B-grade visuals, acting and actors. Neither Jane nor Perlman scream great casting, and while John Malkovich is a great actor, he does have a tendency to show up in some pretty bad movies when playing characters like this. In other words, you can tell which movies he’s chosen simply to finance that fifth house.

As far as movie trailers go, the Red Band movie trailer leaves little to be desired. For one, I didn’t see anything “restricted” about this trailer – studios, having already abused the marketing pretenses of “unrated” DVDs, are now starting to take advantage of “Red Band” trailers, tricking people into thinking that they’re going to get to see something naughty or off-limits. Don’t expect a ton of gore or nudity. Beyond those issues, though, the movie trailer doesn’t try to make us want to see this film. The setup to the action is terrible, and it creates no sense of dread or suspense. I’m actually not quite sure what the movie is about or who the mutants are.

Let me know what you think – here’s the Mutant Chronicles movie trailer:

You can learn more about the movie by going to the Mutant Chronicles movie details page.

I just watched the movie trailer for the new John Cena movie 12 Rounds, and at least it looks a little better than his last one. The movie is going to be a brainless, B-grade action film, but it does look like an action film that could make for a good rental. Cena stars as a cop who is accidentally responsible for the death of a criminal’s girlfriend – a year later, that same criminal kidnaps Cena’s girlfriend (the sexy Ashley Scott, from Jericho) and forces to Cena to survive 12 rounds of death traps in order to get her back.

It’s nice to see that Cena will actually talk once or twice in this picture, and there seems to be more than enough action to overcome the film’s shortcomings. Still, the marketing troubles me. The first couple lines in the movie trailer are poorly edited, and the trailer proceeds to give away way too many details of the plot.

What do you think of 12 Rounds?

What happens when you put Jesus, Vikings and a dragon together? You get Outlander, the new sci-fi action flick that opens this coming Friday in limited theaters. Its limited release, combined with its January date and not-so-big distributor (doesn’t Third Rail Releasing sound like Third Rate?) does not bode well for the picture, but it looks like given the right marketing and distribution, Outlander could make a bit of money.

Sure, it looks like it could end up being rather cheesy, put the special effects don’t look awful, it stars Jim Caviezel and the thought of Vikings battling a dragon sounds like a lot of fun. The new movie trailer does nothing that screams “horrible” – had this same trailer been advertising a June release date, I’d potentially think it was a blockbuster film. Alas, it is not, and it most likely will suck, but Outlander looks fun.

Here’s the Outlander movie trailer: