Trailers posts

The story on it here. I apologize for The Guardian's video ads that start playing after 30 seconds or so. Recommendation: mute before reading. 

Or has aspects of each anyway: the director who's lost his way, the journalist who's lost his soul.

“Knight of Cups” is apparently a Tarot card. From Wiki the wicked:

If the card is upright, it represents change and new excitements, particularly of a romantic nature. It can mean invitations, opportunities, and offers. The Knight of Cups is a person who is a bringer of ideas, opportunities and offers. He is constantly bored, and in constant need of stimulation, but also artistic and refined. He represents a person who is amiable, intelligent, and full of high principles, but a dreamer who can be easily persuaded or discouraged.

Reversed, the card represents unreliability and recklessness. It indicates fraud, false promises and trickery. It represents a person who has trouble discerning when and where the truth ends and lies begin. 

One assumes the creative one is Malick, easily persuaded, easily made unreliable and reckless, by Hollywood in the ... ‘70s? “Let me tell you about you” means “I’ll make you the you I think you are, while you lose you in the process.”

Of course, we all lose you in the process, don't we?

But thank God for the conflict. Otherwise it looks too much like “To the Wonder,” and that's Malick's weakest film. Bale is Affleck (Batman bros), and Portman, Poots and Blanchett are some combination of Kurylenko and McAdams.

Another concern: No script. It was all improvised. Malick is disappearing down the hole of his own creativity and he's either going to bring back something amazing, or drown.

Sheets again, too. They‘re replacing wheat. 

“All of those years ... living the life of someone ... I didn’t even know.” 

This thing, a Robert Zemeckis feature, based upon “Man on Wire”—about Philippe Petit's walk across the World Trade towers in 1974—made my legs turn to jelly. Not sure how I‘ll handle the movie. And in iMax no less? Oy. 

I’m a fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but as Petit I think I would've preferred someone a bit more ... French.

Out in October 2015.

I'm sure you‘ve already seen it by now, but here it is again:

Thoughts as I watched:

• 00:13: Ah, the sands of Tatooine. But then, “Phantom Menace” began that way, too. (See: this poster.) Doesn’t mean the movie will be any good. 
• 00:15: That's not Morgan Freeman's voice, is it? Please, no. 
• 00:22: Hey, aren't all stormtroopers clones of Jango Fett? And if this dude's a stormtrooper, and he's scared, well, isn't that good? Or is he a good guy undercover—like Luke and Han in the original?
• 00:29: A bowling-ball droid. I like the 1970s-era markings. Orange and blue were my high school colors.  
• 00:39 Cute girl. (Daisy Ridley, it turns out.) And, like Tatooine, playing on our “Star Wars” nostalgia: from what she's wearing, to what she's riding, to the camera movement in on her. It almost feels like a shot-for-shot remake of something in “Return of the Jedi.”
• 00:44: This plays even more to our “Star Wars” nostalgia: the close-up static shot of the rebel in the X-wing fighter. Slightly different-colored uni but same orange eyeshade. Hey, is that Oscar Isaac? 
• 00:59: The Dark Side ... has the light? Has delight? And while it looks cool to extend the crackly portion of the light sabre into the guard, creating a cross, does it make it more effective as a weapon? I mean, doesn't it defeat its own purpose? It's supposed to guard your hand, not cut it off.
• 1:00: The return of the Millennium Falcon and that triumphant “Star Wars” score from John Williams. OK, J.J. Abrams, you just won me over. 
• 1:20: December 2015? Since when were “Star Wars” movies released in December? (Answer: Never. They‘ve always been released in May. Actually, in a nine-day period in mid-May: May 16-25. So this is the biggest break from tradition in the movie: its release date.)
• 1:25: The Force Awakens? So ... was it asleep?

For all the corporate calculation in this, think how powerful the “Star Wars” myth is. Over a 40-year period, there have been six movies released in six-year clusters (1977-83 and 1999-2005), and yet only two of them have been good. In fact, we haven’t seen a good “Star Wars” movie since 1980. Yet we‘re still all chomping at the bit to see this one. It’s either the myth or the nostalgia, and the nostalgia's powerful with this one. 

Luke

Wedge

Llewyn Davis

This looks awful:

Jeff Wells is right: “Twilight Zone” ran a similar episode in 1960, “Long Live Walter Jameson,” that dealt with the darker aspects of immortality—how we keep making the same mistakes over and over; how we never learn. Basically, those who live through history are doomed to repeat it.

Adaline, played by Blake Lively, doesn't have the centuries of Walter Jameson but she does have a century—a rather monumental century. Born in 1908, she's rendered immortal during a magic-realism car accident in 1935. She's been on the run ever since. Apparently she runs into the arms of men and then away from them again; away from her kids, too. Then into the arms of men again. Modern day, it's a lanky, bearded Brit. I lost all interest in the movie at 1:48 when she drives off in a taxi, he cries, “Wait,” and then, worried, “How do we get in touch?” And this look from our 106-year-old:

It's the look of a fucking schoolgirl, not someone who's lived 100 years. There should be wisdom in her eyes. Sadness. Something.

Favorite moment? The actor playing the young Harrison Ford delivering his crooked smile:

How about Adaline as metaphor for the country? She stays perpetually young and learns nothing. She could help the world but it's all about her. 

Hope she's not a Cubs fan. That would be cruel. 

It's the laughter.

First, everyone laughs because Snoopy plugs Woodstock into a socket? And he keeps getting lit up? As if electrocuted?

Then everyone laughs because Charlie Brown dumps a bucket of popcorn on his head? In “Peanuts” of old, yes, everything went wrong for good ol' Charlie Brown; but when the other kids laughed at him, we didn't think it was funny; we didn't identify with the other kids; we identified with Charlie Brown.

Plus the titles are too spread apart. “NEVER STOP” comes at 0:19, “DREAMING BIG” at 0:30. By which point we‘re wondering, “Wait, what about dreaming big again?”

Christmas 2015, apparently. Directed by Steve Martino, who directed “Horton Hears a Who.”

Really, this just makes me sad. They’re obviously try to revive the series with the same sounds for Snoopy and Woodstock, and with the Sopwith Camel, but they miss out on the most essential element.

In an MSNBC piece on the actor Jeffrey Wright published nine years ago, I wrote the following about his performance of Dr. Martin Luther King in HBO's film “Boycott”:

When I finally saw the film what blew me away was not just the imitation — that he could do both versions (rousing and everyday) of the public Dr. King — but that he was able to articulate a private Dr. King that felt real. ... The theme of “Boycott” (a good film, if too flashily directed) is that history just doesn’t happen. History is a series of choices, and the filmmakers work hard to show you the choices that began the civil rights movement. To do this they need a human Dr. King who works things through — from simply asking for a more humane bus system to demanding the elimination of segregation itself. It’s not just a great performance; no one will ever do a better Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Let me repeat that: No one will ever do a better Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now we‘ll see. Now, nine years later, it’s David Oyelowo's turn:

Oyelowo impressed in a small part in “Lincoln” and had the thankless role as Forest Whitaker's son in “The Butler,” but he looks and sounds pretty good here. 

Other thoughts:

• Tom Wilkinson as LBJ and Tim Roth as George Wallace? Are there no Southerners to play Southerners? Do we always have to go across the Atlantic? 
• I love Wilkinson, but does his LBJ lack ... charm? LBJ oozed. He cajoled. Maybe he was different when dealing with King and Hoover but we need to see some of that. 
• The march (or marches) in Selma is an interesting choice. Was it the last truly successful moment of the traditional civil rights movement? Before cries of “Black Power!” were heard, and the white middle class began to drift away? Before Chicago and the poor people's campaign and Memphis? Before Nixon's triumph? My immediate thought is: Why not Birmingham? Why not start with Greensboro and end up in Birmingham? 

But I'm glad this is being made. Because if it feels like we get Martin Luther King movies all the time, well, we don‘t. In fact, this is the first major theatrical film in which King is the central character. Did you get that? It’s the first theatrical film in which King is the central character. Paul Winfield played him in a post-“Roots” TV miniseries in 1978, Wright in 2000 on HBO, but this is only the 43rd portayal of King ever, and most of those are bit parts in larger stories, usually on TV, about the Kennedys, or Hoover, or Hover vs. the Kennedys. Because liberal Hollywood. 

New Yorkers and Los Angelenos get “Selma” on Christmas Day. The rest of us, Jan. 9.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the sequel to the highest-grossing, non-James Cameron movie of all time, finally relased its trailer and ... what's the phrase? We‘ve seen this movie before. There’s the big baddie, a demand for subservience, crowds crying, our heroes in turmoil. Some of the inflection in James Spader's voice even reminds me of Heath Ledger's Joker: “You‘re all puppets. Tangled in ... strings.” Cf. “To them, you’re a freak. Like me.” 

But I liked one line. Here's the trailer:

And here's the line:

You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. 

I like it because it's the argument I wanted Bane to make in “The Dark Knight Rises”: Stupid Batman, maintaining the status quo for Wall Street bankers. Beating up the street-corner guys but letting the system remain the same. 

It's also a line that's true for most of us, I think. Most of us want something, something different, but we don't want things to change too much. Because who would we be in that new reality? 

The rest of it? Eh. Broken shield, fallen hammer. But it's Joss Whedon so I have hope. 

“Avengers 2” assembles on May 1, 2015.

I don't know who created this trailer for the “Women in Cinema” series from SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) but they know what they‘re doing. I saw it the other night at a showing of “Sagrada” at SIFF Uptown and was blown away. It made me wish I was around this weekend (the series is from Sept. 18-21), but I’ll be at the Port Townsend Film Festival with friends—one of whom, a woman in cinema, is showing her documentary “The Only Real Game,” about the popularity of baseball in Manipur, a border state in northeast India. 

Lynn Shelton's new movie, “Laggies,” is premiering tonight at the reborn Egyptian on Capitol Hill. Jeff Wells, who hasn't been a huge fan of Shelton's previous work (“Humpday,” etc.), thinks it's her breakout movie. 

I'm so there. I really hope it takes on all the crap it should take on—the obsessive, adolescent, wish-fulfillment fantasy of it all. Not just the sadness of his need but the sadness of our need. First trailer here. October 17. 

Here's the synopsis from IMDb:

A washed-up actor who once played an iconic superhero must overcome his ego and family trouble as he mounts a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim his past glory.

And here's the trailer:

Yeah, Michael Keaton. Yeah, Batman. 

I am so there. 

I say this as someone who isn't a huge fan of writer-director Alejandro González Iñárritu (“21 Grams,” “Babel”). I explain some of it in my review of “Biutiful.” I was probably too harsh there but I just remember being bored. Iñárritu often takes a depressing path to tell me what seems obvious. I'm probably still being too harsh. 

This, though? If it can get at our national and international superhero fixation? Our cultural regression into childhood? Or overwhelming need for the wish-fulfillment fantasy? The great, strong, father figure? Get at that shit.

In theaters in October. 

The trailer looks so-so, to be honest, but I've heard good things. Fingers crossed. 

I saw this trailer before seeing “The Other Woman” on Friday, so it was obviously the best thing I saw that night. (Well, other than Stephen Colbert's masterful takedown of Sean Hannity in the Cliven Bundy fiasco. That's one of the best things that's EVER been on television.)

Warning: There's an ad after the trailer. There may be an ad before the trailer. But the trailer itself (which is an ad) is really well done. It presents the central dilemma of the film without giving away too much.

Do I have to read the book before the movie opens on Oct. 3rd? Is it worth it? And who produced the trailer? Anyone know? Because good work. 

The song, by the way, is Richard Butler singing Elvis Costello's “She.” The director, of course, is David Fincher, who never seems to make a bad movie: “Se7en,” “Fight Club,” “Zodiac,” “The Social Network,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Well, he did do “Benjamin Button,” which was a bit of a waste. His first Academy Award nomination. So it goes.  

This is playing at the Seven Gables in Seattle. Might go see it this weekend if I get over to that side:

Hadn't even heard about it until this weekend. And you know me: I try to keep up.

I could do without the American trailer narration. It's just wrong for this documentary.

Anthony Lane's review here.

Anyone know when it might play Seattle?