Trailers of the Week — What Else Would It Be?

by Gabriel Valdez

First off, there were so many good trailers from Australia and New Zealand this past week that there will be a special edition of Trailers of the Week tomorrow, focusing exclusively on movies made Down Under.

Now, for the most obvious Trailer of the Week in our brief history:

INHERENT VICE
Debut Trailer

Where to even start on Paul Thomas Anderson’s 70s crime comedy? Joaquin Phoenix is unrecognizable, and we haven’t exactly ever seen him as a pratfalling comedian before this.

Last year’s American Hustle played up the East Coast glitz and glam of the 70s. Inherent Vice looks like it’s playing up the seedier, Hollywood habits of the decade. What astounds me about Anderson are those little touches that cheap 70s movies have – when Phoenix clambers to his feet in a stairwell, the sound is horrible. His shoes clap the floor with every step. And it’s not that Anderson lets this detail pass – it’s that this is a detail he consciously seeks out in the first place.

I can picture him in the editing bay, insisting, “No, Joaquin’s shoes need to be louder, louder even than the dialogue, louder even than the gunshot!” I assume that’s how PT Anderson talks. It’s the attention to detail Anderson’s taken to both drama and horror; I’m excited to see him tackle a period comedy from a period Hollywood has chosen to forget.

BLACKHAT
Debut Trailer

Michael Mann was unstoppable a decade ago. He’d added The Insider, Ali, Collateral, and the movie adaptation of Miami Vice to a resume that already boasted Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, and Heat.

And then he disappeared. Well, not really. He’s still been producing. But as a director, the only movie he’s helmed since 2006 is Public Enemies, the middling Johnny Depp-as-John Dillinger film you probably forgot about.

So it’s big news when Mann returns to directing, confident again in his grainy-yet-sumptuous digital video style that feels like a brand of hard-boiled, 80s crime television that never actually existed. The cast? Chris Hemsworth, who has yet to prove himself outside of Thor; Viola Davis, who has proven herself in so many roles I wouldn’t blink twice if she was recast as Thor; and Wei Tang, an Ang Lee alum who showed her dramatic chops in Lust, Caution.

THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA
U.S. Trailer #1

The style of this film still enchants me, and that soundtrack is so evocative it can send chills up your spine inside a few seconds flat, let alone two minutes.

If we hadn’t declared an earlier clip Trailer of the Week a month ago, this would probably be up top, but I like to vary it up.

JUPITER ASCENDING
U.S. Trailer #3

This was intended to come out last year, but the Wachowskis delayed it so they could perfect the effects work (or the studio got cold feet, depending on which reporter you believe).

Either way, it looks like those extra months payed off. When Jupiter Ascending trailered last summer, it had awe-inspiring vistas and moments of spectacle, but the person-to-person action (especially Channing Tatum’s anti-grav boots) just didn’t look right. That appears to have been fixed in this most recent-trailer.

There’s not enough good sci-fi out today, especially featuring women. Mila Kunis wouldn’t normally be my first choice to anchor an effects-heavy sci-fi epic, but that was once true of Keanu Reeves as well. The truth is, the Wachowskis need lead actors with comic ability and easygoing charm to make their occasionally too self-serious mix of anime and opera influences more palatable.

I just hope she’s not always the damsel in distress and, like Keanu, gets to kick a little ass by the end of the movie as well. Maybe she takes the place of Sean Bean when he inevitably buys it.

LAGGIES
U.K. Trailer #1

I’m just going to harp about the cast here: Keira Knightley, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Sam Rockwell. They could all read the phonebook together, and I’d pay to go see that. I’m actually not a huge fan of the premise, but you can’t buy the kind of comedic timing Knightley and Rockwell possess.

We sometimes lament the days when Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn would command the silver screen, or when Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks teamed together for a romantic comedy. We still have those kinds of talents, and this is a pair that can pull it off. My favorite comedic duo of the year already contains Rockwell (that’s Rockwell and Olivia Wilde in the one-less-cameo away from being perfect Better Living Through Chemistry), and if you’re looking for the reason Pirates worked so well, I hope you’re not thinking it’s Orlando Bloom’s timing with Johnny Depp that did it. It was Knightley’s, and any time you have two comedic powerhouses like these two joining together, it’s a must-watch.

I’ve now said that in approximately six different ways. I’m excited for Laggies.

THE GOOD LIE
Debut Trailer

This is the kind of heartwarming I’m wary of, but I also have a weird kind of faith in Reese Witherspoon. I don’t know why, since I’ve never actually liked her in any of her roles, but at the same time I trust her reputation as a cutthroat exec who only does projects she feels are worth her time.

So I have faith in her, but don’t get me wrong – if the two of us were trapped in the Andes after a plane crash, I wouldn’t willingly fall asleep for fear I’d never wake up again. I mean, I had to sit through Sweet Home, Alabama one whole time. How do you trust after that?

Anyway, this movie could be something honest and heartfelt, helping to educate and expand viewpoints, or it could be “watch the white person save the foreign people” feelgood schlock. There’s no way to tell at this point.

Worst Trailer of the Week:
THE SCAREHOUSE
Debut Trailer

“Slutcam games!” Girls in lingerie! Torturing naked women! Good job, Gavin Michael Booth, you’ve made Hostel for Dummies, and Hostel already was Hostel for Dummies.

This column has a rule – we’ll never rag on indie or amateur films for looking cheap or lacking the budget for effects or award-winning actors. Some of my favorite films are amateur, made for a nickel, and contain whatever friends and family the director could scrounge up.

That’s why Worst Trailer of the Week is never an indie film. But this week, in the words of Denzel, “I’ll make an exception.”

Look, I get exploitation, I like a lot of self-aware exploitation films that understand their genre – warts and all. I even like some exploitation films that don’t understand their genre at all, much for the same reason people slow down to look at car wrecks.

But The Scarehouse? This is one more bolt in the framework of posing women as victims and sluts and getting off on watching them helpless and tortured. We get enough of that in the damn real world; I hardly think we need this tripe to reinforce it.

The 10 Most Anticipated Movies of the Fall

As the summer ends and we begin shifting toward Autumn, we also change movie seasons. Gone are the glossy superhero blockbusters that ruled the hottest months. In their place will come art films, Oscar bait, and more than a few crime thrillers. There are still a few event films left. The next Hunger Games arrives November 21, and I’m sure it will dominate at the box office. It just barely misses my top 10, but this mix of films big and small captures my interest just that much more:

10. Foxcatcher

Nov. 14. While Jon Stewart’s directorial debut Rosewater is the movie that’s gotten all the press, fellow Daily Show alum Steve Carell is the one more likely to get an Oscar nomination. He portrays John du Pont, an unstable millionaire who invested considerable resources into America’s olympic wrestling program, only to kill his friend, olympic wrestler Dave Schultz (Channing Tatum). Director Bennett Miller (Moneyball, Capote) is known for getting singular performances out of his leads.

9. Men, Women & Children

Oct. 1. Director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) is known for using his comedic eye to plumb the dramatic depths of everyday life. His latest centers on the role technology plays in our modern romantic lives. Like Carell above, Adam Sandler has hinted at a dramatic core – most notably in Punch Drunk Love – that’s rarely been tested. Jennifer Garner is one of the most underutilized actresses of her generation.

8. Inherent Vice

Dec. 12. P.T. Anderson directed There Will Be Blood, arguably the greatest American film since the turn of the millennium. With Josh Brolin, Jena Malone, Joaquin Phoenix, Owen Wilson, and Reese Witherspoon, Inherent Vice has the pedigree of a captivating, off-beat mystery. This really should be higher, but the sheer lack of information about it makes it difficult to form any expectations.

7. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Dec. 17. Who hasn’t wanted to see Peter Jackson’s treatment of J.R.R. Tolkien’s defining moment – the battle between human, elf, dwarf, giant eagle, and goblin? There’s also that pesky dragon, the One Ring, and an evil necromancer left to deal with. If any movie has ever guaranteed three straight hours of high-fantasy swordplay and magic battles, this is the one.

6. The Guest

Unscheduled. You’re Next was one of the hidden gems of 2013, a smart horror movie that was intensely frightening and profoundly funny at the same time. Director Adam Wingard’s The Guest follows a young man who claims to be the friend of a family’s dead son. He moves in to “protect” them and takes the duty much too far. Wingard puts complex psychological storytelling into his horror movies, evoking humor and empathy. Being scared is so much more fun when it’s not the only emotion you’re feeling.

5. Fury

Oct. 17. Ever since I watched Clint Eastwood command his tank crew deep into German territory in Kelly’s Heroes, I’ve had a fond fascination for tank warfare in movies. It’s not tackled often, which is why the Brad Pitt vehicle looks so captivating. The tale of one surviving tank crew left to hold off a full company of German soldiers echoes the brilliant Sahara, and what they’ve shown of the tank warfare thus far looks frighteningly realistic.

4. Exodus: Gods and Kings

Dec. 12. If anyone can tackle the epic of Moses, it’s director Ridley Scott. Christian Bale remains an odd choice to play Moses, and trailers make this look like a fantasy-hued reboot of Gladiator. That’s a lot of flavors to chuck in one pot, and Scott’s storytelling can sometimes suffer at the hands of his art. I have hope, but even if it’s a disaster, it’s going to be one of the most fascinating disasters in movie history.

3. Nightcrawler

Oct. 31. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a freelance reporter who, in the name of ratings, dresses up the crimes he reports to make them appear more fantastic. In an age of networks reporting narratives instead of news, it’s a metaphor that hits close to home for all. At some point, we’ll have to recognize Gyllenhaal in the pantheon of great American actors. This role looks to get him one step closer.

2. Gone Girl

Oct. 3. Arguably the most important director since Alfred Hitchcock, no filmmaker has changed film in the last 25 years as much as David Fincher. From Madonna music videos to Fight Club and The Social Network, he’s consistently re-invented both himself and the technology and storytelling of film. Gone Girl investigates a husband (Ben Affleck) whose wife has gone missing. We’re left to figure out whether he’s guilty of her disappearance or not.

1. Interstellar

Nov. 7. The Dark Knight. Inception. Memento. Director Christopher Nolan needs no introduction. His tale of humanity reaching out to the stars as the Earth dies looks inspirational, chilling, thought-provoking. It sparks of Golden Era science-fiction, when ideas were bigger than the people who thought them. When a two-minute trailer can completely command your emotions and attention, you know you’re in for something truly special.

A Whole Lotta Christian Bale: The Films of 2014, #10-1

10. The Missing Picture

March 19 — Rithy Panh tells his memoir of the Khmer Rouge massacres in 1970s Cambodia, using clay figures to fill in for the archival footage that’s missing from one of the most forgotten genocides in 20th century history. It’s an idea that sounds like a student art project gone wrong, but it’s one that in its simplicity becomes overwhelming even in a 2-minute trailer. The Missing Picture is currently up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. You can watch that trailer here.

9. Gone Girl

October 3 — If Se7en, Zodiac, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have proven anything, it’s that David Fincher is the greatest modern director of the movie mystery. Gillian Flynn, who wrote the bestselling novel, is handling the screenplay solo, and it’s rare for a first-time screenwriter to be given that kind of carte blanche for a major release. Rosamund Pike joins Ben Affleck, Tyler Perry, and Neil Patrick Harris in what has got to be the strangest cast Fincher’s ever lined up. This last gives me pause enough to not rank this higher, but Fincher’s track record is just too strong to keep it out of the top 10.

8. Noah

March 28 — Darren Aronofsky makes dark, disturbing films like Black Swan. His Requiem for a Dream, about the drug addictions of four New Yorkers, requires emotional recovery time after viewing. Noah is out of left field for him, though he says it’s been his dream project since youth. No one knows how accurate to Judeo-Christian interpretation his adaptation of the Biblical Flood will or won’t be. Previews make it look like he’s playing it straight. Some test screenings for religious groups resulted in criticism, some didn’t. It was enough to cause the studio and Aronofsky to fight publicly over final cut, which any Aronofsky fan could’ve predicted miles off. Let’s hope Aronofsky kept his vision intact. Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, and Emma Watson star. You can watch the trailer in all its madcap visual glory here.

7. Inherent Vice

No date set — There Will Be Blood was a statement film that immediately took its place as one of the most important movies in America’s cinematic history. Director P.T. Anderson’s Inherent Vice, based on the Thomas Pynchon novel and starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jena Malone, earns a place based on the fact that Anderson has yet to misfire. Phoenix is already one of our best actors. Malone is overdue for recognition. They’re joined by Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, and Reese Witherspoon.

6. Exodus

December 12 — Starring Christian Bale as Moses. If that’s not event viewing, I don’t know what is. The last time director Ridley Scott ventured back in time in the Middle East, it was for the Crusade-era epic Kingdom of Heaven. The theatrical release was a gutted mess that cut out entire protagonists, and it was only in the director’s cut that the film evolved from a middling action movie into a profound contemplation on faith, moral obligations, and one’s place in the world. That director’s cut is Scott’s best film by far, and most will never see it. It’s exciting that he’s finally returning to his favorite subject matter, and with Bale, Ben Kingsley, Aaron Paul, and Sigourney Weaver on board to boot.

5. The Wind Rises

February 21 — I hit on this in my Godzilla preview, but the most important filmmaking in the post-World War 2 era was done in Japan. It was a country possessed by regret and a national shame for blindly following its fascist leaders into war, and traumatized by the dropping of two atomic bombs. Hayao Miyazaki is the director responsible for Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. His animated worlds are evocative and emotional, but in his swan song, he trades in the fantasy genre to tell the story of an idealistic dreamer, a Japanese airplane designer, whose creations are used for war. The Wind Rises is currently up for an Oscar as Best Animated Film. Watch the trailer here.

4. Lawless & Knight of Cups

No date set — Terrence Malick is one of the most enigmatic directors in history. He made only three films in 30 years, each more lauded than the last, and now he’s made four films in the last four years. Both Lawless and Knight of Cups star Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Natalie Portman. Knight of Cups is about a man’s celebrity and excess in Hollywood. Lawless, which will likely be retitled, is about two intersecting love triangles in the Austin, TX music scene. It’s the higher profile of the two and also stars Angela Bettis, Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Holly Hunter, Val Kilmer, and Rooney Mara. These aren’t to be confused with Voyage of Time, which is Malick’s upcoming film about…the universe?…and was filmed in Kenya, and may not arrive this year. Heck, it’s Malick, we might not see any of these films until 2029, but chances are we’ll get the Bale pairing this year.

3. Serena

No date set — Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007. Her In a Better World won it in 2011. Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are both nominated in acting categories this year for American Hustle. It’s Lawrence’s third nomination. She won Best Actress last year.

In Serena, Lawrence is Serena Pemberton, a depression-era Lady MacBeth to Cooper’s timber baron George. Serena is the single role I’m most excited to witness in the coming year. Based on its pedigree, if a man had directed this, it’d be on everyone’s top 10 lists. As is, it’s virtually nonexistent.

2. The Raid 2

March 28 — The usual answer to, “What is the best action movie ever made?” is Die Hard. This is wrong. The correct answer is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well, it was. In 2011, The Raid: Redemption complicated that answer. It was an Indonesian film by a Welsh director about an ill-fated police raid, and it combined the best of martial arts, gangster, horror, and Western action movies. The action was brutal, fast, emotional, and intelligent, but the tension that gave it its context was unparalleled. It wasn’t just a superb action movie, it was a superb movie, period. The sequel looks every bit as artful and intense while broadening the scope of its story. Watch the trailer here.

1. Interstellar

November 7 — Little is known about director Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to The Dark Knight trilogy. It’s about space travel and the discovery of a wormhole. A mysterious, heartbreaking, and inspirational trailer is our only clue, yet it doesn’t give a shred of plot away. The cast is a you-pick-’em of top flight actors – Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey, Casey Affleck, Wes Bentley, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, John Lithgow. Nolan’s last standalone film was Inception, and that was worth the wait. Interstellar is the movie event of the year. Watch the trailer here. It’s worth it.