An Explosion of Trailers in the past week or so

(yes, I had trouble coming up with a title for this blog entry)

"Fair Game" or "21 Grams 2"

I must say, I laughed out loud when I saw that Sean Penn was Naomi Watts' husband in this. For those of you who've seen Alejandro Inarritu's brilliant "21 Grams", you know what I mean. Anyway, does this trailer make sense to anyone? What exactly is she in trouble for? And why is she the CIA agent while her husband Harvey Milk is just some business guy who's opinion is somehow valuable to the freaking Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. of A? Shouldn't they know everything? Aside from that and people asking her if she had killed anyone as an agent (I would be like "hell yeah, 100's"), "Fair Game" looks mildly intriguing. Basically the only thing it has going for it is Penn and Watts' star power and the director of "The Bourne Identity". I'm a huge fan of both actors (even though Penn is a rumored a-hole in reality) and their work so I hope it turns out to be better than average.

"Black Swan"

I'm sure I'm not the only one who was constantly uttering "wtf?" at nearly every scene for this one. Although I'm a fan of all of Darren Aronofsky's work ("The Fountain", which should've been mentioned in this trailer since it's my favorite Aronofsky movie), I have to admit that he's always pushing uncomfortable boundaries of weirdness and intensity in movies. Just set "Pi" and "The Wrestler" side by side and you'll see what I mean. But these matters aside, what is happening to poor Natalie? Is she actually TURNING INTO a black swan in this? Maybe that's what happens to you when you become obsessed with competition and beating other people. You become what you compete for! There you go. I just solved the movies driving conflict, ending, and message. No need to even see it now. So while the notion of making a movie out of competing ballerinas who start making out randomly sounds BORING, I have faith that Aronofsky will create something quite disturbing, interesting, and visually astounding. We'll see. Plus Vincent Cassel is so good at looking awesome but really creepy at the same time.

(hit the jump for more unexciting movies!)

"The Next Three Days"

This trailer only succeeds in reinforcing the question that has plagued moviegoers and bloggers alike for years now: Where in the World is Russell Crowe? Seriously, how did the man who once won an Oscar for "Gladiator" and nominated two other times for "A Beautiful Mind" and "The Insider" become so......lazy? He doesn't seem to be the scrupulous actor before who carefully chose his parts which worked out quite well as you can see in the past with how many nominations his movies got. But now we have below mediocre, quickly forgotten flicks like "Robin Hood" (the decline of Ridley Scott is another matter) as Crowe's latest attempts. And I believe this one will be no different. For one, this trailer tells us the entire plot (simply HATE when trailers do that) which seems pretty silly. Really Liam Neeson? How many movies have you been in recently? Like 20? And how is some NORMAL, UNEXCITING guy like Crowe suppose to just suddenly come up with a full-proof plan to bust his wife out of prison. Please, Hollywood, can we do a bit better than this?

"How Do You Know"

Real title of film="How Do You Know when Paul Rudd or Owen Wilson are funnier?" Well seeing as Wilson's latest contribution to the world of cinema was "Marmaduke", I think Rudd wins. Sorry Owen, do something else with Wes Anderson and then maybe I'll forgive you. But hard feelings aside, this could, maybe, almost, might be good. Just maybe. Reese Witherspoon has done some decent stuff in the past and is definitely a decent actress, and I believe Rudd is really trying to become a good actor and trying to break free from Apatow productions to become something better which I think he can. On top of that director and writer James L. Brooks has won 3 Oscars in the past for writing, picture, and director ("Terms of Endearment") and been nominated 5 other times. That's a track record that's hard to ignore. Plus, Jack Nicholson stars as Rudd's dad! I think that alone deserves some attention. This may be a dramady worth watching out for, but we all know "Due Date" is the real comedy to be excited for this winter. Still, be curious for "How Do You Know". Cuz really, how do you?

"Skyline"

It's really quite obscene how many alien movies are coming out in the near future. We've got "Battle: Los Angeles" next year, "Monsters" late this year, and now "Skyline". It's funny cuz Colin and Greg Strause, the directors of "Skyline", also did the visual effects for "Battle: Los Angeles" and there's currently a  lawsuit against them for stealing ideas from that movie for "Skyline". Besides that, it's discouraging to note that their last work as a directing duo was "AVP: Requiem" which was pretty awful. However, if sheer scope and visual stimulation is what you look for from an alien invasion movie, this looks pretty cool. Who can deny that the shot of a behemoth vacuum sucking up 100's of people isn't enticing at all? On that note, it's a fairly well done trailer. Yeah, the words going across the screen like "maybe we should've listened" or whatever is cheesy but at the same time it didn't give hardly anything away about the overall plot of characters and all that. All we need to no is s**t is going down with these giant spaceships and it won't be pretty. Hopefully it's not terrible.

"I'm Still Here"

Yes, this is a documentary. A documentary about Joaquin Phoenix going crazy. And Casey Affleck's directorial debut nonetheless. I think this could be interesting,  and all the snippets of Phoenix just being a nut case look promising. However, it's hard to believe this film will be nothing more than a full length movie of what happened with Phoenix on the Letterman show. That kind of stuff may get old by the end and the audience will just end up getting annoyed with Phoenix completely losing his grip on reality and trying to become a rapper or whatever. Still, it could be good.

Well, I think that'll do it for trailers for the time being, but believe me, there's plenty more I haven't added here such as Wes Craven's attempt at a "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake with "My Soul to Take" and the spy-thriller "The Debt" starring Sam Worthington and Hellen Mirren that could be a decent spy movie even though the trailer gives away most of the plot. Maybe I'll post another round of trailers soon when I'm bored and feel like I'm falling behind on my blogging which is why this post is so ridiculously long. And I don't blame you at all for not reading any of my commentary and just watching the trailers. I probably would do the same thing.