Trailers, 3/12

It's raining out and my piece of shit car is in the shop. That means today I'm going to sit around, drink burnt coffee, and watch movie trailers.

1. GET SMART, directed by Peter Segal
Usually I hate when some near bankrupt studio decides to farm old TV shows for modern gold, and I'm sure Pete Segal's "Get Smart" will be no exception.

In fact, lets take a look at the industries' track record thus far on similar projects; The Coneheads, McHale's Navy, Dennis The Menace, SWAT, The Mod Squad, Sargent Bilko.... Thats all I can think of at the moment and all of those flicks sucked two dog dicks. Moving on.

Here we have Alan Arkin, The Rock, Anne Hathaway, and Steve Carell running around in hilarious spy fashion while getting into all sorts of spy-like-hilarity.

"Get Smart" looks like a typical action/comedy, but I've got to give points to the casting of Carell and Arkin. They may save this one from being just another forgettable ATM machine for the midsummer down season.

Also, points to whoever did the casting for putting the fat guy from Borat in the movie. Whenever he is on screen I feel special because I've seen his entire nut sack AND because said nut sack put a nation full of frat boys in a wonderfully awkward position where they had to reassure their friends, loved ones, and children that "just because I saw that guy's balls doesn't mean I'm gay, dude."

watch it here.

2. THE HAMMER, directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfield
Adam Carolla seems like a really cool guy. In fact, he's made a hell of a career selling that down-to-earth-fun-to-drink-a-beer-with-dude-sort-of-dude thing to Americans. Sure, he was responsible for that piece of shit The Man Show, but we can't hold that against him forever.

Wait a minute? Remember the man show? Man did that thing suck. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be ironic or what, but I couldn't stand that fucking piece of garbage. Maxim Magazine, Spike TV , The Man Show... This is why women around the world think American men are meat heads who don't care about anything that isn't shiny and doesn't have big big titties. Oh wait... Thats pretty dead on. Shit. Man did I hate high school.

Anyway, "The Hammer" looks like something you'd see at a film festival. A small "nice" character driven indie film that doesn't really break any ground or challenge anything, but has its moments. Adam Carolla, like Norm McDonald, seems to have a problem playing anyone but himself, but maybe that's all we need him to be.

watch it here.

3. INDIANA JONES and the KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL,
directed by Steven Spielberg
Incredibly long titles are back in vogue, and now so is Indiana Jones. Apparently Harrison Ford decided to take a break from acting in some of this century's worst pieces of shit (Firewall, Hollywood Homicide, K-19) and from being completely insane in order to once again work alongside Spielberg and Lucas.

Let me be very frank, I love Indiana Jones movies and I really hope this one doesn't suck. The Last Crusade came out when I was in third grade, and I've probably seen it more times than any other movie. If this thing ends up being lame I'm going to be pissed.

Here's what the movie has going for it; SPIELBERG, this guy is still cooking. Munich was a fucking masterpiece. If you don't think so you are completely insane. He still prefers lo-fi effects ESPECIALLY for IJ movies in order to maintain a visual style. This is incredibly important because a fully rendered scene a la' Yoda Vs. Christopher Lee in Attack of The Clones would completely ruin the film, no exceptions. Sure, Spielberg has made some bad films, but for the most part I'll see any movie he makes, and find something worth liking within. He makes his editor cut the old fashioned way for fucks' sake. You've got to respect that.

watch it here.

4. IRON MAN, directed by Jon Favreau
I hate nu-metal. What a worthless genre of music. Also, thank fuck Audioslave broke up. What an awful band. This brings me to my only fear for this movie. I don't want it to turn out to be a nu-metal-comic-book-guy-fest like the horrendous mess that was "Ghost Rider". Holy shit, now that was a bad movie. If they taught classes on how to make a miserable fuckmess of a film "Ghost Rider" would be at the heart of all study and review.

Now I'm a comic book guy, so I'm predisposed to enjoy these things. Hell, I even kind of liked X3. Yes, I recognize that giving any support to anything Brett Ratner touches is blasphemy and for that I apologize. I even enjoyed the Ghost Rider trailer, because I'm an idiot, and I enjoy this one too, because marketing works on me.

There are a lot of things working against this trailer; nu-metal, fully artificial actors (think Spider-Man and the previously mentioned Star Wars prequels), some dialog thats a bit too clever/cute, and the WAY TOO OBVIOUS inclusion of the Black Sabbath classic jam "Iron Man".

But there's a lot of positives too; the competent direction of Jon Favreau, an awesome cast including Robert Downey Jr., and (one of my personal favorites) Terrance Howard, and of course the fact that the movie has anything to do with comic books.

The PC guy in me sincerely hopes they didn't make the bad guy an Islamic terrorist in an effort to modernize the story. This country doesn't need any more propaganda than it already gets on a daily basis through every other medium. Stay away from my comic books you pigs.

watch it here.

5. WALL-E, directed by Andrew Stanton
WALL-E is here to remind us that Disney is "so over" hand drawn 2-D animation.

Thats my snob moment, I promise.

WALL-E looks pretty great honestly. Yes, Pixar is a money machine, yes Disney is evil, hates our troops, and supports the Republican party, but when they want to they can make some pretty great family films.

This one in particular interests the hell out of me because there is almost NO dialog in the trailer and its still entertaining as hell. Also, the story seems to be sort of Lorax in nature, and I'm always into children's films with strong social messages. It's important to spoon feed your children the correct propaganda nice and early so they grow up to start crust bands. Crust bands that you will love and profit from by hocking their limited colored vinyl releases.

Remember. Your children are an investment and a tool. Use them wisely and you will come out on top.

watch it here.