The Truth Is Out There: Ramblings and Comments From A Hollywood Outsider – February 2011.

Super Bowl Trailers

So every year, the trailers for the years biggest blockbusters debut during the annual final of the NFL which relates to something you Americans call ‘football’. This year contained some promising looking films as well as adverts for cars which somehow incorporated Transformers. At this point this years crop of summer madness looks infinitely more promising than last year, its still early days though and this weeks Men In Black is next weeks Pearl Harbor.

Super 8: This for me is the one after Captain America that I am most looking forward to. From what we know its a monster movie, set in the early eighties, gives a lead role to Kyle Chandler from King Kong and the old series Early Edition and is heavily influenced by Steven Spielberg’s early work because he is also a producer. Thats all we know and JJ Abrams is a master of keeping things secret until the last possible moment which I love. The trailer shown during the super bowl showed us more footage, mainly of carnage and character reactions to some unspeakable horror. Love it, but goodamn in the UK we have to wait until August.

Transformers – Dark of the Moon: I hated Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen, in fact its one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Michael Bay’s first effort was damn entertaining and visually stunning and I will stand by my love for that film from a visual spectacle point of view if not much else. With this 30 second clip (Damn You) Michael Bay has got me all over again. Footage of some kind of invasion and destroyed cities along with what looks like fluid coherent action scenes with Optimus Prime twirling about with a sword and in 3D too. I’m so there…

Captain America: Its been a while and we have only now gotten our first glimpse at footage from Joe Johnston’s upcoming Captain America movie which comes out this summer. With the minute long clip we got, everything seems to be in place. Chris Evans looks the part and the tone seems to be just perfect with the story set predominantly in world war 2. Wisely they have avoided some of the more goofy aspects of the costume and gone with the more recent incarnation of the costume which makes sense from a war point of view. This is now the last of the marvel comics I bought as a kid to make it to the screen. Now I'm almost 33 I feel like something has come to an end,I can finally grow up, my dreams have been fulfilled…. basically I care okay?

Fast Five: The fast and the furious series could have been something of a joke by now, it is basically junk food cinema best watched with beer and nachos and there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that, it has its place and chavs are a necessary and sometimes large portion of the audience. This is director Justin Lin’s third effort in the FF franchise and looks to be true to the formula of babes, explosions and cars flipping about. Plus you have Dwayne Johnson, the artist formerly known as the Rock on their trail and he has it all to play for. I’ll probably catch this if I’m at a loose end one afternoon this summer.

Cowboys and Aliens: This is one I am very curious about, the first trailer for this revealed a somewhat more serious tone than I was expecting. Daniel Craig seems like a strong choice for a leading man in a western and Harrison Ford hopefully won’t mumble his way through a role that calls on him to play a bad guy. Seems to be the year of alien invasion flicks at the movies and this one blends that with the western. This seems like it could be the summer’s biggest gamble. Could surprise everyone and be awesome or could be this years The Last Airbender.

Thor: I’ll see this film but I don’t know if I am bothered really. Nothing about the footage so far gets me terribly excited as it doesn't  look much above a sci fi channel TV movie so far. Thor belongs to a whole sub section of the marvel universe that has never really interested me too much, the realm of gods and cosmic beings. Kenneth Branagh has done some good work with mythical beings before but he can also descend into camp (Dead Again, Frankenstein) so the jury is out. This is the one I really see as a stop gap before The Avengers next year.

Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides: Another film I’m not really that excited by. I love the first two movies in the series but the third was so overblown that unless they go back to basics with the blend of action and humor that the first movie had, I think I’ll just be bored. Looks like it could be a cracking adventure but there is no Davey Jones or a Kraken. Is there something they are not showing us in the trailer?

Rango: Looks interesting but I’ll wait for DVD unless it gets stellar reviews (which it didn't)

Limitless: I’m sort of intrigued by this film, its Bradley Cooper’s first big leading role along with Robert De Niro. Cooper plays a man who takes a medication that unleashes the potential in his brain that humans do not typically use. Cue much success and some kind of conspiracy. If this brings the darkness and avoids the schmaltz then it could be worth a look.

Battle Los Angeles: As of time of writing this comes out next Friday and I am stoked. Its Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day and apparently the first chapter in a larger story. Jonathan Liebesman has made some shockingly bad movies previously like Darkness Falls, but this looks like its thrilling and visually stunning. I really hope I’m not disappointed by this but I’ll keep you informed.

Priest: I’m really looking forward to checking out this CG vampire schlockfest on DVD in October.

The Eagle: Hmmmm not sure I’m a fan of Channing Tatum and him trying to do a Russell Crowe does not inspire me. Still Kevin Macdonald is a very good director so this could still wind up being decent.

Kung Fu Panda 2: I liked the first one, it surprised me quite a bit. This looks like more of the same, non-offensive above average entertainment for the kiddies this summer.

The rest of the trailers at the superbowl were for stuff that has already come out or things like the Justin Bieber movie which I will not even dignify by acknowledging its existence. 

X-Men First Class

Something that did not debut during the super bowl but instead some days later was the first trailer for Matthew Vaughan’s X-Men prequel, First Class. I’d pretty much written off this franchise after Brett Ratner’s lackluster third film in the series. This is a prequel set back when Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr (Magneto) were friends and founders of the school for gifted youngsters. Set during the 1960’s and somehow involving the Cuban missile crisis, the teaser was brilliant. It has all the snazzy sixties style outfits and lots of spectacle, plus a new team of pre-x-men are introduced including Beast and Havoc. Matthew Vaughan previously did great work on Kick-Ass and is teamed with screenwriter Jane Goldman for a third time for this movie. This summer is shaping up to be one of the best on record.

Oscars

So to nobodies surprise The Kings Speech went and won all the awards it could during tinseltown’s annual patting of itself on the back. Despite my gut feeling that The Fighter would surprise everyone and come out a big winner, it did win the two supporting performance categories. Christian Bale was very deserving of that award in a performance that was a huge transformation and a massive part of the film. Melissa Leo was also really good in the role of the awful mother of Mickey Ward in the movie and after having lost for Frozen River, it was her time. Natalie Portman deserved her big win for Black Swan, because although I think the film is slightly overrated, her performance is mesmerizing. Now I haven’t seen The Kings Speech, and its nice that everyone in Britain over 70 had a film to go and see in January and almost ruin my trip to go see The Green Hornet, but is it really a better film than The Fighter, 127 Hours, Toy Story 3 or Inception? I would like to think no, but it is the kind of film that is the safe bet for the academy voters. Unbelievably last year, District 9 was nominated for best picture. Who are we kidding that a film like that will ever win the best picture Oscar? We can dream I suppose, Return of The King was a fantasy film after all.

Die Hard 5

For the record I actually quite like the fourth Die Hard movie, So Die Hard 5 has been announced and I really don’t give a shit. Is it just me or is Bruce Willis just entering the not caring phase of his career now? Y’know the point that Harrison Ford got to after What Lies Beneath, where he just sleep walks through every role and is happy to collect the big paycheck, Ala Ford with Indiana Jones. Willis seems content to flog a dead horse to the masses because somebody under 21 has seen the first Die Hard movie and remembers how good it was and how vulnerable and human John McClane was for an action hero at the time. Someone called Noam Murro who has only made the little seen indie Smart People, will be directing this one, aka the nobody that Bruce Willis can order around. Unless something miraculous happens and this turns out to be actually good then I am skipping this. LET IT DIE MR WILLIS…

by Chris Holt

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