Trailer Trash - Hercules; Maleficent; The Giver; The Maze Runner; The Signal

Welcome everyone to another installment of TRAILER TRASH!  I had to do this because ... well ... you'll see, best for last.  But first, lemme open up my Trailer Addict app and start check out the new stuff!

The Maze Runner

Holy crap, why haven't I heard of this before?  Apparently it is a best seller, and it looks flipping great.  Take the Cube, Hunger Games, Running Man, and big ole standard epic fantasy, and smash it all together, and that's what this movie looks like!  The visuals are so vibrant and green, and then so scary and dark, it just has me feeling really good ... except that I can't name a single actor I saw.  While that isn't necessarily a BAD thing, it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence on the acting.  But I'm super interested in what I saw, and fill hopefully give it a shot in theatres as soon as I can.

Verdict - TREASURE

Maleficent

Taken me awhile to get to this one.  Angelina Jolie gives the Sleeping Beauty story, and Disney's (current) most popular villain, another version of the Once Upon a Time or Wicked twist.  The effects are super CGI-y, and all actors seem to take third or fourth seat to Jolie's lead and the CGI.  This is not a film made for me, and I know that.  But it looks even worse to me than normally these kinds of things do.  I'm unwilling to completely through it under the bus, but for now, I'm hesitant ... at best.

Verdict - HESITANT

The Giver

Oh no.  I didn't like this book when I had to read it before.  But maybe the film version will be better.  Lemme watch it now before I start going to far in on my thoughts on it.

...

Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges, plus Katie Holmes.  That is enough for me to give up right now.  Take that, and then add in the ... ok, this'll sound weird, and perhaps this is unfair because of the way adaption works, but for this film to be so happy bright shiny in the early parts ... doesn't that defeat the purpose?  When I read it, and what I remember, it was a world of grey and black and white, and color was a big deal, wasn't it?  Am I not remembering that right?  Well, whatever.  I liked the music, didn't like anything else I saw, and know I don't like the source material.  I couldn't trash this faster.

Verdict - TRASH

The Signal

Intriguing.  A sci-fi thriller about inability to understand whats going on, aliens (maybe), monsters (maybe), big guns, Laurence Fishburne in a hazmat/space suit, and weird super obviously indy-styled memory sequences.  I dunno what to make of it, but the visuals are amazingly cool, and I'm very interested in seeing a second trailer.

Verdict - TREASURE


AND THE REASON FOR THE SEASON ...

Hercules

The Rock fighting a bunch of monsters.  Let me say that again, just in case you misunderstood me ... ahem ...

THE ROCK FIGHTING A BUNCH OF MONSTERS!  BIG OLE LIONS AND BOARS AND MULTI-HEADED SNAKES AND ZOMBIES AND SPARTAN ARMIES!  I wanna see this movie real bad.  Actually showing the 12 Labors (which is my guess, though I'm unsure) looks incredible.  This film is based on a pretty recent best selling graphic novel version of the 12 Labors, anyway, so whatever the real story here is, I'm stoked.

Not only for that, but it does a LOT of things the fantasy genre does real well, like setting scope.  And no, not stupid bird's-eye swooping around New Zealand scope.  I'm talking enormous temples to Athena, big ole swamps, huge armies, big ole caves!  A lot of this stuff is practical (you can very much tell, AND there are pictures of the practical sets all over the internet) which is mindboggling, in that Conan the Barbarian kind of way.  I'm super excited.

Verdict - TREASURE

Not a bad haul!  I love feeling excited for the summer films, because for the last year or so I haven't been excited at all.  This year is looking real real good.

The Trailer Park

The Maze Runner

Maleficent

The Giver

The Signal

Hercules

Trailer Trash: Sin City A Dame to Kill For; Annie; Oculus; Loveship Hateship; the Double

Welcome back to Trailer Trash!  In these articles, I use my Trailer Addict app to watch some new trailers (or at least new to me), and give my quick thoughts on the films, the trailers, and a gauge of excitement for them.  Let's get going!

The Double

I am a Darren Aronofsky fan.  And this film is very reminscent of an Aronofsky film from what I've seen.  It is directed and written by that guy from the IT Crowd that everyone likes.  The one with the glasses.  And this thing is weird and funny and dark and crazy and all sorts of neato bandito.  Really, my only complaint is that the films color palette looks really over-produced.  

The schtick from what I can discern is a meek and weak-willed dude is working at a job, but no one cares about him or listens to him.  Then an EXACT double gets hired, but this double is incredibly confidant and kind of a dick hole.  And from there ... gosh, I have no clue.  So many things and images and lines happen, but how they patch together I couldn't begin to tell you.  I like what I see though.

Verdict - TREASURE

Oculus

Karen Gillan horror film, wee ha!  Katee Sackoff horror movie, too!  Double wee ha!  And it is a WWE Studios film, too!  Gotta see this one in theatres!  PUMPED!

And what is it about?!  Time travel demon mirror crazy illusion makes-you-eat-a-light-bulb-instead-of-an-apple-by-"accident" awesome stuff!  I'm super stoked for this one, for a billion reasons, and the most important one being it looks like a crazy cool scary film.

Verdict - TREASURE

Annie

Oof.  I am not a fan of this musical.  And we get a brand new one for this Christmas.  Well, open mind, let's see ... 

Oh god.  Ok.  So it looks to be a modernized, race swapped, super-modernized, talking about stupid facebook jokes and naming Jamie Foxx Mr. Stacks (you know, because that is the modern cool version of Daddy Warbucks) and Cameron Diaz is the bad orphanage person except she's just a foster mom I think and ... wow.  This looks like a (potential) trainwreck.  Oh, and Jay-Z and Will Smith put it together.  That is a combination for some ... I dunno.  I bet this movie will do real well in theatres, but it makes me want to bang my head against a glass wall until my brain is exposed.

Verdict - TRASH

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Loved the first one (for the most part).  Love this particular story in the Sin City mythos.  And it includes two brand new stories, and another amazing Marv story.  I got nothing bad to say ... except that the Jessica Alba focused story will probably be the worst one.  I'm crazy excited for this film.

Verdict - TREASURE

Hateship Loveship

The title alone makes me wanna puke.  It is a shortened version of the original short story's title "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" which I don't hate nearly as much.  But let's give this one a fair shake too.

Ugh.  What saccrine rom-com-drama garbage.  Bait and switching from drama to comedy to whatever tired jumbled mess this thing actually is.  They do say the name of the short story in the trailer, which makes me wonder why they even bothered not calling it by its full original title.  Everyone already knows how a movie like this is going to go no matter if you put "marriage" in the title or not.  Here, you know what, this is the only piece of information from the trailer you need to know: Kristen Wiig makes out hardcore with a mirror.  That's it.  That's all you need to know.  I pray that I don't have to see this movie for real.

Verdict - TRASH

That's all for me this week!  Take a look at any of these trailers that interest you in the trailer park below.  Buh bye!

THE TRAILER PARK

The Double

Oculus

Annie

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Hateship Loveship

BONUS!  Jimmy Fallon's exclusive Transformers: Age of Extinction trailer

Trailer Trash: Sabatoge; Joe; Brick Mansions; The Two Faces of January; Think Like a Man, Too

Welcome back to Trailer Trash.  After a great first iteration, I got a little bit of feedback, and will not include links to the trailers I review at the bottom of the post.  

Sabatoge

This movie is like the Expendables with some real balls.  It is gory and violent and rated R without any of that cheese.  And I think it’ll serve this film well.  You got Schwarzengger leading a DEA task force filled with great (tv) actors and it just looks like a crazy wild ride about corruption in their team and not knowing who to trust and fighting the drug cartels.  I am super stoked for it, and it is the kind of film I’ll be seeing alone because my wife will absolutely never watch this movie with me.

Verdict – TREASURE

The Two Faces of January

A travel thriller starring Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst about … I dunno, a dude trying to kill another dude but also helping the same guy because if he doesn’t he’ll go to jail but no matter what they are both going to go to jail and they are on the run because of money and stuff.  I’m certainly very uninterested from just the two minutes I watched.  It already bothered me that within the trailer you see that even though these characters are being searched for, the most they do to hide their identity is wear a hat.  Not change their clothes, cut their hair, or even wear a long/large jacket.  Nope, just put on a hat.  I’m not excited for this one.  Not only that, it seems to me that most of the third act twists are revealed in this trailer.  So a film I'm already not too interested in showed me the plot points and culmination of the film in such a way that I feel pretty positively I know what is happening.  Yeah, ok, sure.  Good job.

Verdict – TRASH

Brick Mansions

Déjà vu?  Oh man.  Ok, this movie is an almost shot-for-shot American remake of an AMAZING French action film, Banlieue 13.  I recognized it from the very first shot of the trailer.  It even stars David Belle, one of the founders of parkour, who was one of the two leads in B-13.  I highly suggest watching B-13, one of the best action movies around.  Grade: A+.  This is … well, it looks perfectly fine and fine.  Add Paul Walker (no jokes here), put it in Detroit, do the exact same plot almost beat for beat, have all the same iconic moments with slightly different more “amped up” cinematography.

There are some apparent changes from the French ones, the interesting ones being: 1) American-ized jokes and actions, 2) the casting is more Americanized, with RZA being the worst choice for a truly fun villain character, but he is probably a producer, so we can let it slide I suppose, and 3) they changed the girl’s relation to the David Belle character from sister to girlfriend and then added a girl villain for a girl fight, which are positive things. 

I’m not sure if I’m really willing to see this movie I’ve already seen and love again … or if I already know it is gonna be good because I’ve already seen this movie.  I know it’ll be good action.  I know the plot is actually really cool.  I know that David Belle is amazing to watch.  So yeah … I think I just convinced myself.

Verdict – TREASURE

Think Like a Man, Too

I did not watch this trailer.

Verdict – TRASH

Joe

Nicolas Cage stars as Joe, a man with a past and a lot of anger, who is trying to make a living and cause nobody no problems.  A boy and his family move to town, looking for a job.  And Joe becomes embroiled in a domestic abuse, doing the right thing the wrong way.  I don’t know the twists and turns, I don’t know where the thing leads, but I am excited about this movie.  

Cage loses himself in characters (sometimes) and when he does, he shows people just how amazing of an actor he is, like I reviewed in Adaptation.  This film looks like it could be an amazingly tense drama about domestic abuse and doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.  I’m very excited.

Verdict – TREASURE

That's all for this week, though expect a special Trailer Trash tomorrow for the Guardians of the Galaxy official trailer!

The Trailer Park:

Sabatoge

Two Faces of January

Brick Mansions

Think Like a Man, Too

Joe

Trailer Trash: Million Ways to Die in the West; Amazing Spider-Man 2; Captain America: Winter Soldier; Odd Thomas

Welcome to the first Trailer Trash!  I have a wonderful  app that I use that updates new trailers whenever they come out, and I thought it would be fun to after the box office weekend hits take a look at all the new trailers that my app shows me and rate them in a (somewhat arbitrary) fashion as TRASH or TREASURE.  So let’s get things going with the most interesting ones I saw to start this thing!

Million Ways to Die in the West

The new non-animated film from the guy who wrote, directed, and starred in Ted.  This time he writes, directs, and stars in a western.  Well, a western in title and setting.  But this trailer leaves a lot to be wanted based on tone and setting.  It is just a bunch of non sequitur jokes and characters who are incredibly out of place.  A dance sequence?  Terrible translation/fake language joke: “Milakunis, milakunis.” Ugh.  I mean, would it kill the voice actor turned actor actor director writer actor to do a damned western accent? 

There are some interesting quirks in the trailer, like a dream sequence with a hot air balloon in the redwoods.  And McFarlane’s non-westernness COULD potentially be time-travel or some other thing, which would make it more interesting.  But none of that is apparent.  What is apparent are just a bunch of stupid jokes and pretty bad looking CGI.

Verdict: Trash – This is not a movie I am even entertaining going to see in theatres.

Odd Thomas

This Dean Koontz supernatural action movie looks perfectly enjoyable.  Great lead casting, with an immediately likable Anton Yelchin (Chekov from the Star Trek new films), and a super competent creation team with Stephen Sommers behind the helm as director and writer.  You know, the guy from the Mummy, the first GI Joe film, and the awesome live action pulpy Jungle Book starring Liu Kang. 

The CGI looks good, the story seems interesting, and it comes out to theatres soon.  It was apparently made last year and has done well and gotten a release or something?  I am not sure the history, but I’m very excited about what this could be.

Verdict: Treasure – I will hopefully be seeing this in theatres when it comes out.

Amazing Spider-Man 2

This looks like a big CGI bash superhero film with … nothing I like.  Ok, that’s not completely fair, pre-powers Jamie Foxx I liked a whole bunch.  And the new suit looks good.  Gwen Stacy is nowhere to be seen in this trailer.  But everyone else is, and I don’t really like any of them.  And I hate the rhino update.  I don’t like adaptations of superheroes where they feel ashamed of the superhero.  Rhino is a hulking brute thief in a rhino suit.  Not a dude in a barely rhino-esque Iron Man suit.  But hey, that could just be me.

Verdict: HesiTant (gimme a break, not a good t-word for “meh”) – Meh, I’m not interested, wasn’t interested in the last one, but they could turn me around.

Captain America: Winter Soldier

Captain America was my favorite of the Pre-Avengers films … and the post-Avengers films … and I liked it more than the Avengers just barely.  It is a movie I thought did everything just right.  And this sequel has me foaming at the mouth.  I’m super excited for everything I see, for all the fan theories rolling around, and for all the action.  Comparing this with Amazing Spider-Man 2 above, the action here looks amazing, with the CGI to a minimum, and even when necessary like with Falcon, it still looks like he is there and interacting with things.

The stakes are amped up and this just has me crazy excited.  I absolutely cannot wait.

Verdict: Treasure – Midnight viewing probably!

And that’s the first Trailer Trash!  Lemme know how this works for you, the viewing audience, and I’ll see you with more trailers next Monday!