Movie Trailer Review: Awake (2007)

The movie trailer for Awake is now online, and I must say I'm intrigued. The movie stars Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba (oh, and Terrence Howard), and is a psychological thriller about a guy who is put under anesthesia for a dangerous operation, but who doesn't quite fall asleep. While he is in his nearly comatose state, he hears the doctors, including one of his friends, plotting to just kill him to save themselves the trouble. What happens next appears to be a surreal adventure, as he isn't sure what is true and what isn't. All I know is that includes scenes of Jessica Alba about as nude as you've seen her.

The movie looks interesting, and the concept is a good one. Other than in Star Wars, I've liked Christensen quite a bit - he was great in Shattered Glass, and his performance in Life as a House was also top notch. This one looks a little more mainstream, but could be a good vehicle for him if done right.

Sadly, Awake is one of those films that could end up being lame, especially if the ending is pretty stupid (I give it a 50/50 chance). Still, I'll be heading to theaters, if not just to see Ms. Alba.

Watch the Awake movie trailer.

Meet the Spartans Teaser Trailer

Watch the God-awful teaser trailer for the next spoof comedy Meet the Spartans, which, as one might guess, is a spoof of 300. Honestly, how and why do they keep making this pictures? They get horrible reviews, don't make much money and just plain suck. Why not spend $100,000 more on a better writer and make double the profit?

Anyway, here's the Meet the Spartans teaser trailer:

Watch Jessica Alba in The Eye teaser trailer

The Eye, a new horror movie (or an old one if you consider that it is a remake) starring Jessica Alba, is coming to theaters in February 2008, and the teaser trailer for this long awaited project is now online.

The movie looks pretty good. Of course, since it's a teaser, there's not much plot revealed, but the marketing department has done a good job of piecing together a taught-looking thrill ride that doesn't include a single word of dialogue. Alba looks as good as ever, even when her eyes are grayed out, and the teaser builds tension incredibly well.

Watch the teaser trailer for The Eye.

A new Martin Lawrence movie: Oh no.

I have to admit it. I'm not a fan of Martin Lawrence. He's not that funny, especially when he's doing stand up. He's good in Bad Boys, but that's only because there are enough explosions and hot women to distract us. And without further ado, here's the trailer for his next movie, the grammatically incorrect Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins...

Movie trailer review: Control (2007)

The movie trailer for Control is now online... What can I say?

It looks good enough, like an independent version of Ray or something along those lines. We've seen these "musicians becoming victims of their own success" tales a hundred times, but continue to go see them. Control, of course, won't get the release, promotion or respect that other films have garnered in recent years (again, Ray and Walk the Line), but it has a chance of being good.

Samantha Morton is the most recognizable cast member in the film, but it looks like she will play a relatively small (but perhaps pivotal) part in the film. Sam Riley stars as Ian Curtis (of Joy Division - sorry for my lack of music knowledge, but who? What?), but not much of his acting is shown on screen. Is that a worrisome sign? Probably not, but you never know.

Overall, Control looks decent enough, but there's nothing here to set it apart from even its mainstream "competitors". This is probably the last I'll ever talk about the film.

Iron Man Teaser Trailer

Here's the official Iron Man teaser trailer... watch it now!

R-Rated John Rambo Trailer

Watch the new R-Rated John Rambo trailer, which is full of bloody, bloody violence. I still think the title's stupid, but I definitely can't wait to see Sylvester Stallone try for another comeback...


http://view.break.com/362761 - Watch more free videos

Red band trailer review: 30 Days of Night

Wow, has anyone watched the previews for the upcoming movie 30 Days of Night? The red band trailer for the vampire movie is online over at the official site, http://www.30daysofnight.com/, and all I can say is this movie looks pretty damn freaky.

Josh Hartnett and Melissa George star in the movie about a sheriff and some other people who live in a northern town where night spans for thirty days. Unfortunately for them, there happens to be vampires in the area, and those vampires have decided to feast.

The movie looks bloody, gory and exciting, and provides a slightly new slant to vampire mythology. Who knows - maybe 30 Days of Night will end up just like any other slasher/monster flick - but the marketing team has definitely assembled a very violent and intense trailer which will have me heading to theaters when this film arrives on October 19th.

For more information, visit my 30 Days of Night preview page.

The Comebacks movie looks God-awful

Has anyone seen the movie trailer for The Comebacks? If not, you can watch the movie trailer here. Then again, stop that mouse click right now and save yourself some brain cells, as The Comebacks, a cheesy spoof of sports movies, looks like it has studied every bad spoof in recent years (Epic Movie and Date Movie come to mind).

David Koechner stars as the coach, and this guy seems to be in just about every bad movie there is. The guy isn't funny, and I can hardly stand to listen to him most of the time. From the commercials for Comedy Central's "The Naked Trucker" to roles in Reno 911: The Movie, Let's Go to Prison and Balls of Fury, this guy is trying to scrape a career together without any talent or sense of a good film.

And again, the movie previews are just full of some of the dumbest jokes ever shown to man. Even the previews for Epic Movie and Date Movie had some "funny" moments (even though you knew they were going to suck), but The Comebacks can't even manage that.

Assassination of Jesse James Trailer

The full trailer for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is now online, and the film looks pretty good - especially one that has been delayed as long as it has been. Starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck as the title characters, the movie is one of several good western flicks coming out this fall.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets Trailer!

The full trailer for Nicolas Cage's National Treasure: Book of Secrets, the sequel to the unfortunately successful action-adventure movie National Treasure, is now online. Personally, I found the first movie to be rather boring and stupid, but a lot of people seemed to like it (including my mother, who scolded me for disagreeing with her).

This sequel really looks God-awful. The movie has the same colorful look, and the plot sounds even more ridiculous (Cage decides to kidnap the President of the United States to get a book of secrets). The action looks pretty minimal, and the best punch lines are used in the trailer (and they aren't even that good... the highlight is Cage doing that "something has grabbed my hand in the hole" trick).

Not only is the trailer dull, but it shows way too much. It reveals what the book of secrets is, what the plot of the movie is, and more. How could so many good actors (Harvey Keitel, Ed Harris, Jon Voight and even Helen Mirren) get involved with a picture like this?

Also, wasn't Jon Voight's father in Tomb Raider? Isn't National Treasure just a male rip-off of Tomb Raider? Why does he do so many bad movies?

New The Dark Knight photo, plus a teaser trailer

Thanks to Comic-Con (I really have to go next year, don't I?), all kinds of goodies are unleashing themselves, and the latest is some new stuff from The Dark Knight camp. The teaser trailer is nothing to scream about, but it does set the stage for what's to come. There's no footage involved... just a slowly emerging Batman logo with blue rays of light behind it. The highlight of the teaser, though, is the dialogue, which is quite impressive... and you get to hear Heath Ledger as The Joker, and he sounds surprisingly like Jack Nicholson, only creepier and more psychotic.

All in all, it's a good teaser, though it would have been cool to have a brief shot of The Joker in action. In the mean time, though, we get another picture, this time of The Joker taking on Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

Drillbit Taylor: Owen Wilson + comedy of Knocked Up = success

I just watched the movie trailer for Drillbit Taylor, the new Owen Wilson comedy where he plays a bodyguard who goes undercover at a school to protect three nerdy kids who have employed his services from a group of bullies. He, of course, falls in love with a hot female teacher, the kids have to learn how to fend for themselves, but nothing comes easy.

Owen Wilson is usually a pretty funny guy, even in God-awful movies, and so it's nice to see him in a film that has some potential. Better yet, the movie is from writers Kristofer Brown and Seth Rogen, the ones responsible for such items as Knocked Up and Undeclared, and you can definitely see their matter-of-fact, slightly crude brand of comedy injected into this otherwise pretty standard flick. The scene where the fat kid's mom pulls off his covers to find that he is sleeping naked (because he doesn't like how the elastic squeezes certain articles of the body) says it all.

Drillbit Taylor has enough laughs to warrant some hype, though the movie may need to show off a bit more to make it stand out from the crowd.

You can watch the trailer from my Drillbit Taylor details page.

Beowulf trailer review

OK, I just watched the trailer (or teaser trailer?) for Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf, and man, what a let down. The story has so much promise, so why bog it down with silly special effects? I've complained about his fascination with the live-action CGI capture technology he uses (The Polar Express was like a horror movie in disguise), but it has really got to stop.

The dialogue sounds great, and the marketing department has done a good job creating an effective trailer from what they have to work with. Everything about the trailer works, except, for the fact, that movie looks completely fake. Beowulf should be a gritty action-drama, not a colorful film full of CGI effect. The graphics take away the entire dramatic effect - I wonder if the screenwriter, when he was penning the script, knew that the movie was going to be whored to the computers like this.

You can watch the trailer by visiting my Beowfulf details page.

New movie trailers: 10,000 B.C., Get Smart

A bunch of new movie trailers have come up in the last day, conveniently just in time for the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. You may want to check them out, as some of them are pretty good (and some I haven't watched yet):

10,000 B.C.
Roland Emmerich's "epic" set a long time ago, the trailer premieres Wednesday but Warner Brothers smartly posted the first 30-seconds to get us to thirst for more. The first 30 seconds are pretty good, but you don't see much...

Get Smart
Steve Carell looks to rebound from his disastrous comedy Evan Almighty with Get Smart, a movie adaptation of the old television show. The teaser trailer that's online now is pretty funny, highlighted by Carell being stupid. He sure has range.

Bee Movie
I haven't watch the new trailer, but there is a second full movie trailer for the Jerry Seinfeld comedy about bees.

The 11th Hour
Leonardo DiCaprio narrates this documentary.

In the Valley of Elah
This one's about a war veteran searching for his son, who disappeared after returning from Iraq. It's written and directed by Paul Haggis, so you may want to pay attention to this one.

Sleuth
Haven't watched the movie trailer for this one, but the title is simple goodness.

The Spiderwick Chronicles Theatrical Trailer

The theatrical movie trailer for The Spiderwick Chronicles is now online, and somehow I'm guessing we'll be seeing it playing at Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix later this week. You can watch The Spiderwick Chronicles teaser trailer here.

I've never read the book (books?) before, but this movie looks really cool. It starts off looking just like Bridge to Terabithia, and then turns into a much more serious affair. There are ogres and all kinds of monsters, and clearly a central villain who looks like something straight out of an R-rated horror movie. Little kids are going to being their pants at the sight of this trailer.

I love how the music fades near the end of the trailer to give us one final shot of Freddie Highmore hiding from something, and then a quick pan to the villain's face. Whoever put this marketing piece together has made a nearly perfect trailer - it starts off innocent, looking like a kid's movie (the Nickelodeon intro at the beginning probably will have adults groaning at first), and then progresses into a dark thrill ride. Perfect!

Shoot 'Em Up movie marketing review - Clive Owen got bored waiting for Sin City 2

Sin City 2 is still in the works as far as I know, but every once in a while it gets pushed back just a little farther. Will it come out in 2007? Unlikely. 2008? Hopefully. Does anyone really know? Maybe Robert Rodriguez, but that's about it.

That being said, it appears that Clive Owen decided not to wait, so he joined the cast of Shoot 'Em Up, the poorly titled action movie from writer/director Michael Davis, who hasn't written or directed anything worth noting thus far. The movie does star the very good looking Monica Belluci (though she doesn't look as good here as she has in the past) and almost-no-longer-underrated actor Paul Giamatti, but even the cast doesn't have me squirming to go see this one.

Two pieces of marketing material have come out in recent weeks - three movie posters and a movie trailer. The posters are good enough. The Clive Owen one looks especially like something you would expect from Sin City, only not as creative. The Giamatti one is nothing to scream about, and the Belluci one tries to be sexy but really fails. Her pose isn't anything great, and what's that she's holding?

As for the movie trailer, Shoot 'Em Up looks like it could have potential as a mindless action film, but the trailer just isn't cohesive enough to get me excited. There's plenty of action, but the marketing department didn't a very good job of making the action look exciting or original. There's too much talking in the trailer, actually - since the movie's an action flick, focus on the frikkin' action!

All in all, I'm not holding my breath for Shoot 'Em Up, but with the cast alone it's worth paying attention to. The marketing department will need to up their game, though. You can check out the other Shoot 'Em Up movie posters and trailer here.

Cloverfield movie trailer review

If you've seen Transformers, you may have seen the movie preview for Cloverfield, the new mysterious monster movie from producer J.J. Abrams (no, not directing). The preview starts off looking like a teen drama, as we see a party unfold through a handheld camera held by one of the party's participants. There are plenty of hot girls and good-looking guys.

Then an earthquake, or something. Everyone goes running to the roof of the building just in time to see the center of downtown New York go up in a huge fire ball. Fire starts raining down even where they are, and they go running back down the building and outside. The head of the Statue of Liberty goes rolling by.

Oh, and you hear monster sounds, but no monster is seen. Hell, the title of the movie isn't even shown. Either way, it had me pissing in my pants and as soon as I got home from the movie, I was looking it up. Cloverfield hits theaters in January 2008, and that's about all that is known about this picture.

Of course, plenty of mystery still revolves around the movie. Cloverfield, apparently, is not the final title of the movie. Some have speculated that it will be called The Parasite, while others think it is a new Godzilla movie. Since a lot of the Lost crew is involved, some have even thought that the movie is some kind of companion piece to the hit ABC television show (though I highly doubt that).

Movie trailer review: I Am Legend

A movie that has flown under the radar until its spectacular teaser trailer release a few days ago, I Am Legend stars Will Smith as the last man alive on Earth. He lives in New York with his dog, but after some kind of disease wipes out the rest of humanity, New York isn't quite the prestigious address it once was. As the trailer indicates, though, he may not be alone - is there an alien on the loose?

The movie trailer for I Am Legend is excellent. It's short, to-the-point and eye-catching. The movie starts out looking like some standard futuristic adventure film, and then quickly turns one on you to show a desolate New York stripped of human life. The commentary by Smith is great, and the final scene, where we see Smith realizing that there may be other intelligent life not too far from him, is great. Will it turn into a standard alien film? I hope not, but I Am Legend certainly has potential.

Watch the I Am Legend movie trailer

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee Trailer

Okay, I am trying to avoid just pasting up every random news clipping a studio or advertising agency sends me, but it's just so easy to do (I don't have to put much brain power into it or anything). So, without further ado, here is the press release...

Starring Adam Beach, Anna Paquin and Aidan Quinn Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, based on the best-selling novel by Dee Brown, premieres Sunday, May 27 at 9:00p.m., exclusively on HBO.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee tells the tragic and powerful story of the subjugation and cultural extermination of the American Indians. Told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young white-educated, Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull, the proud Lakota Sioux Chief whose tribe won the Indian’s last major victory at Little Big Horn, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee powerfully explores the economic, political and social pressures that underpinned the opening of the American West and the tragic impact this expansion had on American Indian culture.

And here's a link to the trailer: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2854320