TV Trailer Thoughts

I feel like I should issue some kind of advance warning to everyone I know, as I suspect come September I am going to be talking about Jeffrey Wright all the time to anyone who will listen.

Trailer Thoughts

So portentous and actorly! I want to give it a nineteenth-century-style name. Lincoln; or, Totally Rad Actors in Slightly Suspect Wigs.

I was going to give this one a few days, after dealing with other posts that have been in the pipeline forever, but this one thought is nagging at me and I just wanted to get it down. I know it's a case of art imitating life from two different points, but it's really weirding me out how much Tommy Lee Jones' wig and pallor make him look like Stoneman from Birth of a Nation. And I feel like Spielberg being Spielberg, that can't possibly be unintentional, right? Like maybe there's this whole side project of challenging Thaddeus Stevens' cinematic legacy? Mind you, this is based on about five seconds of trailer. But now I'm curious to see whether that's borne out at all in the movie.

Trailer Thoughts

Season 3 Invitation to the Set

Boardwalk Empire and Treme together on the same night seems a bit tonally wonky, but probably in an awesome way? I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Trailer Thoughts

Speaking of which...



Spoiler Alert! That highly motivated running may in fact be the most action that occurs in this entire story. (Part of me really hopes they kept Stephenie Meyer's weird allusion to The Merchant of Venice, re: the minimal-action conclusion to this story's central conflict.)

So, I didn't really realize it until Entertainment Weekly posted their gallery of stills last week, but I kind of forgot how totally insane this book is. Something feels leaps-and-bounds more insane about actually seeing the "It's a Small World"-esque cavalcade of international vampires and Taylor Lautner-as-Jacob interacting with his child soulmate. So weird. Too weird? Awesomely weird?

I also totally forgot that Wendell Pierce had been cast in this until the appearance of his hand in this trailer. (His hand feels distinctive to me - I guess between Bunk's cigars on The Wire and Antoine's trombone playing on Treme, David Simon's made it at least cult-TV-prominent.) People always say such super-rational stuff about Twilight, The Wire and respective fans of each, so I'm curious to see how that plays out.

OMG You Guys: Part V*

Needs more Lee Pace. And telepathic wolf communication.

*There was no post for Part IV, but I felt like it would be weird to say Part IV for the fifth movie. 

Trailer Thoughts

Well, this looks appealingly nuts. I think there's a lot of potential for interesting stories to be told that take place in the nineteenth and acknowledge the complicated history of race therein.* And a take this extreme practically demands attention and debate. I hope there will be a rich critical discussion around this movie this coming winter.

*This seems like as good a place as any to observe that I'm crazy excited about Twelve Years a Slave, not only because of the increasingly awesome casting news but because it's a true story and Chiwetel Ejiofor has long deserved a meaty starring role and I love that Steve McQueen's throwing his new bigger profile behind it.

I'm interested in some of the questions Ta-Nehisi Coates raised in his reaction post regarding the trailer. (For one thing, I think the question of whether we've hashed out the Soul on Ice deal enough varies depending on whether "we" is "people engaged in academic and critical discussions about race" or "America.") While the issue of women's function in liberating themselves is a critical one to keep in mind, I don't know that we'll fully know how that's going to shake out until we see the whole movie. Certainly, if you look at the first trailer for Inglourious Basterds, I don't think you get any real sense of how much of the movie is devoted to Shoshanna rather than the titular group. And I hope (and, to some extent, expect) that the man who gave Pam Grier such a showcase in Jackie Brown isn't employing Kerry Washington as just a pretty face. 

OMG You Guys: Volume II, Part I

I'm slightly obsessed with this trailer.

- I love how the trailer touches on important moments from the book without feeling like it's giving everything away. Watching this made me dive back through a quick re-read of all three books, and I was particularly struck to see how some of the same moments that get highlighted here also get mentioned in Mockingjay when they're discussing how to make Katniss an effective symbol for the revolution:

"'I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle, or her dress went up in flames or she made a halfway decent shot with an arrow. Not where Peeta was making you like her. I want to hear one moment where she made you feel something real.'

Quiet stretches out and I'm beginning to think it will never end, when Leevy speaks up. 'When she volunteered to take Prim's place at the reaping. Because I'm sure she thought she was going to die.'" - Mockingjay, p. 74

- The actress playing Rue looks so teeny-tiny! Ugh, I'm already envisioning unsightly public crying.

- I'm really interested to see more of how spectatorship functions in this movie, since this trailer makes it look like some of what we'll be seeing is how people in the districts watch the games as opposed to just staying inside the stadium. Adaptations from first-person books often suffer in translation, but here, for once, I can see potential benefits to getting out of the protagonist's head. It could be really vital to shaping the series going forward.


- Needs more Peeta. And Haymitch.

Trailer Thoughts

You know how sometimes you watch a trailer, and your primary reaction is something like, "Oh, dear."?

Oh, dear.


Some other thoughts, in no particular order:


- That reaction is not to say that I'm assuming that this is bad, necessarily. Adam Shankman is a good choreographer and a solid director, and Hairspray ended up being a lot more charming than I thought it would be. 


- There's an interesting task at hand here, and part of me is sort of curious to see how it plays out: unlike, say, Mamma Mia, this is a jukebox musical pulling its songs predominantly (if not exclusively) from the music video's heyday. How do you stage numbers that already have established visuals attached to them? I can't say I'm not intrigued.


- That being said, I'm skeptical about the use of "Sister Christian," if only because the song's already attached to an amazing film scene. 


- I'm not sure the filmgoing world can handle the excess of terrible wigs entailed in both this movie and the second part of Breaking Dawn coming out in the same year.

Trailer Thoughts

I was excited about this movie anyway, but this trailer just kicked that excitement up tenfold. A significant part of that initial excitement came from my own pre-existing affection for Juno, but I like that the trailer doesn't oversell any commonalities this might have with any of Reitman or Cody's prior work. The use of "Queen Bitch" is just perfection. And there's something I absolutely love about that Diet Coke she's holding in the scene in the Macy's - like, that's the little touch that really says "full-tilt public breakdown."

Trailer Thoughts Shrieks of Dismay Regarding Delayed Transatlantic Transmission

WHY DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOUR MORE MONTHS FOR THIS OMG?!?

Ahem.

As I mentioned in my big books post, one of my summer reads was Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars, which focused on Britain's involvement in World War I - and, indeed, a major factor in my wanting to read it was prompted by the announcement of the declaration of war at the end of Downton Abbey's first series. I read and liked Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost back during my brief high school obsession with the history of the Congo (you know, like all kids have), and after I read a complimentary review of To End All Wars, I couldn't quite keep my curiosity under wraps. I've never been particularly engaged by military histories, but Hochschild managed his scope well and utilized a variety of perspectives that made it more interesting than a strict accounting of battles, especially in his focus on radical politics, labor unrest and Britain's conscientious objectors. Looks like the show is going to dive in to a good deal of that history, and I obviously can't wait to see it. Normally I don't have any problems finding enough patience to resist the urge to hunt down "alternative" means of watching shows that take a while to make the trip over here, but right now I feel like I'm going to have to sit on my hands once September 18 rolls around.

Trailer Thoughts

If you'd asked me at 8:45 last night, "Liz, are you excited about the upcoming season of Boardwalk Empire?", my response would've probably been measured. The first season wasn't perfect, but the actors gave great performances and the finale made me feel like I was looking forward to seeing what the writers would do in a second season, particularly with the alliance between Jimmy, the Commodore and Eli.

Imagine my shock, then, at seeing this preview before the True Blood premiere and finding myself erupting into paroxysms of delight. I'm serious - by the time Jack Huston showed up in that mask, I was jumping up and down and clapping my hands with glee. Maybe I really love all those reprobates. Maybe everything else just seems ten times better in a post-The Killing world.

Trailer Thoughts

I'm so curious to see how this show shakes out - nineteenth-century America is so underrepresented in television once you get away from the standard Western template and tropes, and the construction of the railroad seems like a rich vein to tap. I'm particularly intrigued by Common's character - it seems like popular media has been reluctant to tackle the emancipation generation of black Americans in all their complexity, and there's definitely a wealth of stories to be told there. There's so much potential here - I hope the show's writers capitalize on as much of it as possible.

Trailer Thoughts

Chick-lit nitpick ahoy!

As I said back in my observations about Heart of the Matter, I like Emily Giffin's books because her characters act like adults. Not that you would necessarily glean that from this specific trailer. I like Something Borrowed enough, and think that it offers something so qualitatively and substantively different from other recent "chick flicks," that I'm willing to withhold judgement until the whole movie comes out. And, ultimately, while I have quibbles, it doesn't look bad based on this trailer. All that being said, there are a few things that jump out to me based on this snippet.

- As with any first-person work, I'm curious/concerned to see whether the emotional depth of the book will translate to the screen. The voiceover in the trailer works, but too much of that in a movie starts to feel like telling instead of showing. So much of how the reader comes to understand Rachel's relationships with both Darcy and Dex comes through in her communication of the story (and then creates such a striking contrast with Something Blue), and it seems like the plot particulars of Something Borrowed could seem much shallower without that grounding.

- From the scenes chosen here it seems like Movie Ethan is functioning as sort of a hybrid of Book Ethan and Hilary which a) is too bad, because I really like Hilary as a character and b) concerns me a bit. Not that I don't want more Ethan - I really like Ethan (and think Dex is kind of boring) - but I think that the physical distance that Giffin establishes in Something Borrowed is important to his function in the story as someone who advises Rachel without seeming to have a horse in the race, so to speak, as to who ends up with Dex.

- I will say that Kate Hudson seems perfectly cast as Darcy, and I hope that the movie does enough to make it clear why Rachel is friends with her even with all the shallow image-consciousness. In fact, I think my strongest feeling after watching this was, "I hope this does well enough that they make Something Blue." Because if Hudson's as tapped in to the character as she seems based on this bit, (and if she and John Kransinski have solid chemistry) then the take on Darcy's point of view could really be excellent.

Trailer Thoughts

1) The first time I saw this, I was really excited because I thought that Mindy Kaling was the lead. And then, disappointment. Doesn't it seem like, given the opportunity, she could totally rock a romcom lead?

2) Joining Michael Ealy, Natalie Portman wins the 2010 "Best Performance that was So Unnerving that I Feel Uneasy About Watching the Actor in Other Roles" award. Truly, after seeing Black Swan, my initial gut reaction to this trailer was, "Look out, Ashton! She's crazy!"

Trailer Thoughts

That Scala/Kolacny Brothers cover of "Creep" is so haunting, it was bound to show up in a trailer one of these days, and it's used to pretty great effect here. I'm really intrigued by this movie - Fincher is one of those weird holes in my film viewing (I'm pretty sure that they'll take my Millenial card away if I don't see Fight Club before I turn 25.) I'd like to think that I have enough perspective to acknowledge the appeal of generational navel-gazing; I was a freshman in college in 2004, which means this fall will mark six(!) years of being a Facebook member. I think the rapid pace of change on the Internet and the relative novelty of social networking there means that it makes sense to dramatize the story while it still feels important, whether history bears out that reading or not. (In the interest of candor, I'll also say that I'm pretty sure I'm obligated to find an above-average degree of schadenfreude in a story about Harvard students being assholes to each other.)

Admittedly, I'm most curious about Aaron Sorkin's screenplay. He has a lot of strengths, but being Down with The Kids These Days is not really known to be one of them, and in the past he's seemed to take somewhat of a dim view of the culture spawned by the Internet (notoriously getting into it with commenters on Television Without Pity back in the day). It'll be interesting to see whether the stylistic touches that make his writing so distinctive translate to a story involving real people instead of characters of his own creation.

No. Just...No.

I'm officially beyond adjectives on this one. The mind boggles.

I was already staring in horror and then a cold chill went up my spine when Phantom Planet's "California" started. They had to drag The O.C. into this? Lee Pace and Judy Greer weren't enough? Good grief.

OMG You Guys, Part III

My enthusiasm for the series has waned a lot in recent months, but I can still get excited about the new movies. And Eclipse is my favorite of the books, so I was really looking forward to this. However...

...this trailer is super-bland, right? There's no big moment here like Twilight's "Edward saves Bella from the Van of DOOM" or New Moon's "Birthday Party of TRAGEDY," but there should be some interesting little scenes they could pull from the story. No Rosalie/Jasper flashbacks? No Vampires vs. Wolves Smackdown? (Okay, there's probably effects work that still needs to be done for that. But this movie is coming out in, like, three months. Get it together, people!) There are snippets there that look good - Bella reckoning with having to leave her parents behind, Jacob generally being all up in everyone's business - but I was hoping for a little more awesomeness all around.

Also, when they had the first full shot of Kristen Stewart (about 0:30 in), I was like, "Oh, right. That's a wig." I know they had to go that route after she got her Runaways mullet, but the shots here are not making it look good at all.

Coming Attractions

It seems that this coming winter, the forecast is blizzards - OF CHEESE.

Someday, Matthew Goode (winner of the Most Woefully Miscast in Watchmen Award) will get a romantic comedy worthy of his talents. This looks like a good "rainy weekend when I'm avoiding my schoolwork" movie, but even those two-and-a-half minutes were so cliche-riddled that I have my doubts about going to see it in the theaters.

I'm of two minds about this one: On the one hand, when Garry Marshall is on, he's on, and as an Alias fan, I cannot entirely reject the opportunity to see Jennifer Garner and Bradley Cooper in the same place at the same time, even if they don't share scenes. On the other hand, everything about this screams "clusterfuck," right?

If there's such a thing as film meth for me, it is truly film adaptations of Nicholas Sparks' tales of young love beset by tragedy. Even if I could count the number of times I've seen A Walk to Remember, I wouldn't want to because it would surely be a sad total. Add that legacy to the all-around excellence of Amanda Seyfried, and I think we've got a winner.

All that plus When in Rome? It's going to be an...interesting...winter.

Yikes

The When in Rome trailer is a prime example of the Goodwill Index being stretched to its limits:

Kristen Bell, Lee Pace, Will Arnett and Anjelica Huston? Good. Unbearably generic-looking rom-com tropes coupled with a January release that practically screams mediocrity? Not so good. Intellectually, I know that cult popularity never bought anyone a swimming pool, but there have to be better ways of making a paycheck than this, right?

Trailer Thoughts

LAME:

AWESOME: