Oldboy, and some old boys. Trailer Reviews for the week of September 27.

We've got some fun stuff this week for you guys.  De Niro and Stallone lace up the gloves, Will Arnett's delusional dad becomes a millionaire in the prairies, and Josh Brolin gets locked in a room for twenty years.  Plus, we've got a Samuel L Jackson weird hair alert!

Grudge Match (December 25)

Hmmmm, Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone in a boxing movie?  Why does this seem familiar? Seriously, these guys made their boxing debuts ages ago... Let's look at a quick tale of the tape.

Stallone:

Age: 67

Former Boxing Experience: Rocky Balboa

Years since first entering ring: 37

Years since last bout: Seven. (Yes, it's been seven years since this happened.)

Oscar Noms: 2

Years since last Oscar Nom: 36

Could he kick my ass?: Definitely

De Niro:

Age: 70

Former Boxing Experience: Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull)

Years since first entering ring: 33

Years since last bout: 33

Oscar Noms: 7 (Two wins, Raging Bull and Godfather II)

Years since last Oscar Nom: One

Could he kick my ass?:  No??

So, if they were boxing, the edge has to go to Sly here, but since this is apparently a legitimate film that's happening, De Niro has to be considered the champ, right?  In all seriousness, this movie should not be getting made.  Who wants to watch a couple of senior citizens wail on each other for 90 minutes with comic relief from Kevin Hart  and the heroin addicted grandpa from Little Miss Sunshine?  Oh, literally every man over the age of 35?  I guess that makes sense.

I really hate that this movie exists, but the trailer is absolutely great.  It's three minutes of "is this really happening?  Is this a real trailer or am I watching a 'Funny or Die' skit".  The throwback to the meat locker scene from Rocky is both painful and hilarious at the same time.  Great job, guys.  Cash those paycheques!

Trailer: 4 Stars

Skip it. Seriously guys, it's Christmas, go hang out with your family.  Wait, how did I get to the movie theatre.  Why is there a ticket for Grudge Match in my hand.  Dad, what are you doing here?

Nebraska (November 22)

I hit 'play' on this trailer without knowing too much about it, and almost turned it off as soon as I saw it come up in black and white.  Black and white in movies is usually pretty gimmicky, and if I'm going to shell out money to catch a movie, I want the whole, technocolourful experience.  That being said, this trailer grabbed my attention.

I'll always watch sad Will Forte.  Sad Will Forte always manages to make me feel better about myself, which probably says something about my psyche and how I'm a terrible person.  This movie seems to be about getting old -- not in the "hang on to your youth and you can do anything even though you're ancient" way we saw with Grudge Match, but in the "yeah getting old is really shitty and depressing" way that is much closer to reality.  Mix that in with the "Million Dollar American Dream" and some vast prairie shots, not to mention the ugliness of human greed and you've got a recipe for a quirky, depressing, insightful film that will probably leave you feeling existential and sad. 

If THAT doesn't sell you, then, hey, Better Call Saul! 

Trailer: 3.5 Stars

See It!

Oldboy (November 27)

This is a Spike Lee remake of a 2003 Korean film known for its insane violence scenes.  I haven't seen it, since I am neither Korean, nor enough of a hipster or cinephile to watch Korean movies, but it's really highly regarded by those types of people.  Fans of the original movie are calling this american remake "unnecessary" and a "bastardization" but to them I say "I want a big tub of popcorn and a 2 litre soda, how can I gorge myself and read subtitles at the same time, Korean hipster cinephiles??"

I'm super pumped for this movie.  Like I mentioned, the original is know for its violence, and in the trailer alone we see Josh Brolin putting the business end of an axe into somebodies skull, and then we see him hovering over Samuel L Jackson with a box cutter.  If you've seen Breaking Bad, you know box cutter's can do some serious damage.  This paragraph is 50% an excuse to show this video clip .

Gus Fring, man.  As Samuel Jackson would say "he's one badass muthafucka".

Anyway, Oldboy, right.  This trailer's really well done.  It opens strong, hooking the viewer into what's a really great premise, and manages to cover 20 years of Josh Brolin in a room by himself without ruining any of the plot or intrigue.  Plus, we get to see Samuel Jackson sporting some seriously weird hair.

Sweet blonde Mohawk, Sam.  If you've followed Jacksons career, you're probably aware of his history of weird 'dos.  Here's a nice little Nerve article counting down his top 18 styles.  My personal favourite?

Never change, Sam.  Never change.

Trailer: 4.5 Stars

See It!

A Double Shot of the Always Entertaining, Sometimes AIDS Riddled Matthew McConaughey, with Bonus Creepy Michael Cera! Trailer Reviews for the week of Sept 20

On this week's edition of Three Minutes or Less, we take a look at the often-shirtless Matthew McConaughey, who's clearly been busy with a couple of new films coming out.

Dallas Buyers Club (November 1)

I started watching this trailer not expecting too much.  Matthew McConaughey, who I think can be a terrific actor (I really enjoyed his work in Frailty, and Two for the Money), has also been known to make some pretty shitty chick flicks.  Such is the life of a talented, good looking man, I guess.  So as soon as I saw the cowboy hat wearing, gamblin, texas accent using McConaughey, my eyes started to glaze over.  Until I heard he was HIV positive.

AIDS is some pretty heavy material obviously, and has been well portrayed dramatically in movies in the past.  This movie puts a twist on that narrative, crossing the AIDS movie with a heist + Mexico drug smuggling + cowboy flair.  The cast is great, with Jennifer Garner in the female lead, and Jared Leto suiting up in drag.

The trailer itself is very well executed.  As I mentioned in the opening, there's a little bit of a bait and switch at the beginning, and the high pitched ringing that plays when Woodroof find out he's HIV positive gives a nice feel of what that would be like.

I would have liked the trailer to have been a little shorter, maybe not to have shown its hand all at once. The concept and the star power of the movie are enough to get people to shell out their money to see it, so I think the downward arc of the trailer, starting at about the 2:00 mark was unnecessary.  That being said, the use of The Alabama Shakes' excellent song You Ain't Alone definitely earned it some points with me.

This movie, on a limited release starting November 1st and having a wider release later in the winter, is pure Oscar bait, and I mean that in the best possible way.  This is McConaughey's best shot at a Leading Male golden statue so far in his career, and I'll be shocked if he isn't at least nominated for the harrowing change his body went through during the film.  I'm checking it out.

Trailer: 4 stars

See It!

The Wolf of Wall Street (November 14)

I always talk about the importance of music in movies, and movie trailers.  Martin Scorsese knows this better than anyone else.  The pounding drums from Kanye West's BLKKK SKKKN HEAD provide a great backdrop for the gross excess we see during the whole trailer, and really add an element of intensity to it.

I'll go see Leo in pretty much anything, I even went and saw him in a terrible adaptation of my favourite F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.  He's the only logical choice for this film, and putting him beside an all grown up Jonah Hill should make for a lot of fun.  (Sidebar, after Superbad, if you would've told me that Hill would be making serious flicks beside Brad Pitt and Leo I would've called you crazy.  Good for him.) 

And then BAM!  McConaughey comes in steals the show at the end with that awesome scene with Leo.  I didn't know it was possible to have that stick out in my head more than the midget throwing, but the dude can seriously act.

This movie promises to be terribly misogynistic, but we'll see whether or not Scorsese is condemning that mindset or merely having a blast with money, women, and yachts.  Either way, it should be a boat load of fun.

Hat tip to fellow CreCommer Cella Rousseau for the tip on the trailer!

Trailer: 5 Stars

See It!

Magic Magic (January 22)

"Oh hey, a new Michael Cera movie.  This could be cute and fun to review.  Wait.  Why are you so creepy Michael.  WHAT ARE YOU DOING MICHAEL. WHY ARE YOU TELLING THAT SWEET GIRL TO PUT HER FACE IN THE FIRE.  STOP IT!!!! YOU'RE RUINING MY CHILDHOOD!"

Trailer: Nightmares

Nope.  Not seeing it.  No way.

Remakes, Acid Trips and Moonwalks - Trailer Reviews for the Week of Sept 13

Quick disclaimer before we begin.  The trailer for "The Neighbours" features a little bit of colourful language and a mild sex scene.  It's marked as a Red Band trailer.

Some pretty cool trailers to look at this week, so get your ADD riddled attention spans ready!  I've embedded the trailers, but the videos tend to be pretty small, so I've also linked to them on Youtube.  If you're reading this on an iOS device that should help as well.

RoboCop (Feb 7 2014)

As soon as I heard that a RoboCop remake was coming out I was worried.  The 1987 version is a classic, and still holds up today.   Not only was it a great action film, but it worked as an allegory for the   technological advances that were starting to come up in the 1980's.  Plus, the dad from That 70's Show played the bad guy, which is always fun.

I was worried the 2014 version would be a straight forward action move in the vein of the new GI Joe franchise, 90 minutes of blowing shit up for the sake of blowing shit up.  But this trailer, featuring the sleazy cop from AMC's The Killing in his first starring role in a major movie, Jay Baruchel (with a beard!) and Samuel L Jackson (of course) gave me some hope for the movie.  Much of the trailer seems to focus on the battle for free will that goes on between Robo and Cop.  It'll be interesting to see if the moralistic view of the original has a counterpart in the remake.  Either way, things will go boom, and it will be sure to look great in IMAX.

Trailer: 3.5 Stars.

See It.   Tentative.  Future trailers very well may change this.

Under the Skin (No Release Date)

This is a great example of what's known as a teaser, as opposed to a full blown trailer.  It comes in at only 53 seconds, and gives little to no idea of what the film is actually about.  Bonus points for the creepy music in the background, and you'll always win me over with a shot of a scantily clad Scar Jo.  The trailer watches like an acid trip fever dream with Johansson as your tour guide, so if that's your kinda thing, then sweet.  I was annoyed at how it just abruptly ended in the middle of a shot, but I guess that's why they call it a 'Teaser'.

Trailer: 3 Stars

Too early to make a call on 'See it, Skip it', unless you're a huge Scarlett Johannson fan, in which case this headline already has you convinced.

Neighbors (May 9 2014)

The trailer opens up with a great concept (fraternity moves in beside young couple), shows some great footage (Seth Rogen getting blown up by an airbag chair) features a great cast (Rogen, McLovin, and Zac Efron -- who is turning into a talent since his Disney days.)  But still, warning bells are going off in my brain as I watch this.  While the movie features lots of branches from the Judd Apatow tree of comedy, Apatow himself isn't involved, which leaves me a little worried.  Despite the fact that the trailer was well put together, I only found myself laughing hard once -- in the aforementioned airbag scene.  I'm really rooting for this movie, I love Seth Rogen and will go see pretty much anything he's involved in, but the trailer left me wanting more.  Music selection could've done much better than Lil Jon as well.

Trailer: 3.5 Stars

See It   But temper expectations...

Gravity (October 4)

Gravity has been my most anticipated film of the year ever since I saw the first three trailers about a month ago.  The idea of floating aimlessly in space absolutely terrifies me, while also somehow seeming incredibly appealing.  This newest (and final trailer) touches on that feeling of existential dread, of the nothingness that's in space with the screen captions at the beginning.  It's wonderfully crafted, starting in silence, then throwing you into two minutes of chaos, before once again ending in silence.

The movie is full of stars (ha, see what I did there?) with Sandra Bullock as the lead, George Clooney helping her over the mic (really, who else would you rather have walk you through a crisis than Clooney?) and Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men) behind the camera making his signature long breathtaking shots.  I'm sold.

Trailer: 4.5 Stars

See It (In IMAX)

Everybody loves the previews!!

Movie trailers.  Quick little 30 second teasers, 2 and a half minute mini films where an entire plot gets ruined or all of the jokes told.  They're at the heart and soul of the film industry.  I love movie trailers, they're my favourite part of going to the theatre.  I'm going to risk any and all of my credibility right now and show some Dane Cook, since I think he said it best.

Everybody loves the previews!  I've done exactly that countless times, just without the douchey armband and terrible haircut.  Okay, maybe with the terrible haircut.

The movie industry uses trailers as a tool to get our money.  If they can sell you with the trailer, they can probably sell you on a $12 movie ticket (and $20 for popcorn and a drink).  But we, as a society are not paying enough attention to the works of art that are these movie trailers.  They can be epic in scope, or mysterious in just revealing enough information to pique your interest, or just the same old boring stock footage that Dane Cook was referring to above.

That's why I've decided to review movie trailers.  They'll be given a ranking out of five stars, and at the end I'll also let you know whether you should See It (the movie itself) or Skip It.

I'll be using a highly scientific module to rate these trailers.  That is to say, it will be incredibly subjective towards my personal taste, biases against actors/directors, my current mood and whether or not I've had my morning cup of coffee.  Disagree with an opinion of mine?  Leave a note in the comment section and we can have a spirited debate about the quality of movie trailers.  Have a trailer you'd like me to check out?  Send it to me on twitter @DPernitsky or email me at d.pernitsky@gmail.com .  New trailer or old, it doesn't matter at all!  

I'll be updating this blog generally once a week, featuring several trailers in each update, depending on the volume of content that's out there.  We're just about to dip in to Oscar season so we should probably be seeing the studios A game.

As a quick preview, let's look at one of my favourite trailers from the summer, for Ben Stiller's adaptation of

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  

(December 25)

 

At the risk of being hyperbolic HOLY SHIT THAT'S THE BEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.  This is an example of a great trailer that knows its target audience.  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is originally a short story by James Thurber published in 1939. The trailer shows Ben Stiller as the title character, but more importantly, features hipster favourites Kristen Wiig and Adam Scott.  

Music is always so, so, so important for a Movie Trailer, and the use of Of Monsters and Men's song  King and Lionheart  really captures the epic scope of the film, along with pandering to the same crowd that will get excited about "Ben from Parks and Rec" being in the movie.

And yeah, Ben Stiller, Walter Mitty, you'll take the red one.  You can have my $12 on release date (Christmas Day).

Rating: 5 Stars

See It!!!!