Links of The Day: July 28th through July 30th Photo of The Day: Searching My Soul
Jul 31

A lot of trailers came out last week during Comic-Con, but almost none of them are available yet in a non-crappy-YouTube version. So don’t expect to find those here; I won’t link to that type of stuff. I mean: don’t you want to see a cool trailer as best as possible? Anyhow I’ve got a whole bunch of other trailers for you to enjoy:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This looks like an amazing movie. Adapted from a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, it stars Brad Pitt as a man who ages backwards, starting his life as an old man and slowly aging back becoming a child. It looks beautiful and weird and magnificent all at the same time. [Trailer]

Bottle Shock
I hadn’t heard about this Sundance movie before, but it’s got a great cast: Chris Pine, Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor, Eliza Dushku and Freddy Rodriguez. It’s about a small Californian vineyard who in the early seventies tries to compete with the snobby French wines. [Trailer

Transporter 3
I still haven’t seen the first two Transporters, but this looks like fun! Again it stars Jason Statham as Frank Martin, a guy specialized in moving “goods”. Expect a lot of fast paced action and bullet flying. [Trailer]

Death Race
Another Jason Statham movie. This time he plays a convict who is forced to compete in a deadly car race. I think the trailer gives too much away (although it was expected that it would be a predictable action movie). [Trailer]

Miracle at St. Anna
You know I’m not the war movie type; lots of drama, lots of dying, not my thing. But this movie looks unique enough to try out. Directed by Spike Lee, it’s about a group of black American soldiers who get trapped behind enemy lines in a Tuscan village during WWII. [Trailer]

Punisher: War Zone
Two trailers, two visions. The teaser is very mild; lots of people pointing and shooting guns at each other, but that’s it’s. The Red Band trailer is as gory as they come; heads exploding, impalement, lots and lots of blood. Question is: which vision will the movie take on? [Teaser] [Red Band Trailer]

RocknRolla
I don’t care that much for Guy Ritchie’s movies; even though I’ve never fully seen one of his movies, I just don’t have the patience to sit through something I know I won’t like anyway. RocknRolla seems more of the same. It’s about a couple of tough guys that get in a bad situation, who then have to find money to get out of that bad situation. Oh yeah, and there’s always some robbery of something valuable. [Trailer]

The Spirit
I want to like this movie, but this just didn’t look impressive at all. It’s written and directed by Frank Miller, who also wrote Sin City and 300, but I think he should have stuck to just the writing. At the moment it all seems a bit artsy and awkward and some of the characters seem off. I mean, I love Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, but here they both looked cheesy. And what’s with those sideburns?! [Trailer]

Mirrors
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch Kiefer Sutherland again and not think ‘Jack Bauer’. Here he plays a security guard who has to deal with a mysterious evil force that’s coming through mirrors. Ooh, spooky. I haven’t actually seen the Red Band trailer; Cristiano saw it and said it was revolting, so I haven’t had the nerve to watch it. [Teaser] [Red Band Trailer]

Bolt
This Disney animation looks okay, but it will never be the movie it was supposed to be. Chris Sanders (from the brilliant Lilo & Stitch) wrote and created the plot of this movie (a dog who stars as a superhero in a TV show and thinks it’s real), but got thrown off the project. His version would have had a one-eyed cat and a radio-active rabbit! The basis remains the same, but the two side characters have been replaced by a “standard” cat and a cute hamster. [Trailer]

The Tale of Despereaux
Despereaux is a mouse that’s brave instead of frightened of all the usual stuff: knives, mousetraps and even cats. This animation looks kind of sweet, but would it ever have been made if Ratatouille wasn’t a success? Plus it’s a clear case of “let’s cast famous people with recognizable voices that don’t fit the character whatsoever”: Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Christoper Lloyd, Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Emma Watson, the list goes on and on. [Trailer]

The Princess and The Frog
I love the old school Disney 2D musical animations and I applaud Disney for attempting to bring it back. But this trailer? I’m not really impressed by it yet. [Trailer]

Disaster Movie
Why oh why do they keep making these type of movie? And who keeps on going to the cinema to watch this crap? [Trailer]

Visioneers
I’m not sure what to make of this movie; I think it’s supposed to be a comedy, but it’s got a weird depressing vibe going on. The trailer goes on for more than 3 minutes and leaves you kind of uninterested. [Trailer]

Not Quite Hollywood
Not Quite What I Expected. This is a documentary about the Ozploitation movies, the weird violence-sex-horror exploitation movies that were made in Australia in the 70s and 80s. [Trailer]

Quantum of Solace
I loved Casino Royale and Daniel Craig as James Bond. This trailer promises more of the same type of action, grittiness and romance. I’m still not convinced by the title though; I keep imagining ‘James Bond and The Quantum of Solace’, feels very Harry Potterish or Indy-ish. [Trailer]

One Response to “Trailerrific: Mirrors, Buttons and Bolts”

Quantum of Solace is one of the last original Fleming titles (short stories) to put on a film, so the had to use it sooner or later. In the future, we should see Risico (which at one time was rumored to be the title Quantum), The Hildebrand Rarity, and The Property of a Lady. None of those are very Potterish.

I kind of like the way Frank Miller is stretching the boundaries of film style. Stylistic evolution in film has always seemed to artsy at first. The edgy realtime film Timecode led to TV’s 24, etc. Miller’s trying to merge the graphic with the filmic. While it may not always work for us, it’s strongly infuencing the next generation of filmakers. I’m looking forward to what they do with it, too.

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