Nov 16 2006First Order of the Phoenix Poster
Behold, the first poster for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, featuring a looming image of Voldemort warning that "You will lose everything." A bit disappointing for a first poster, but we can surely expect a few more from such a big picture, continuing the "lose everything" theme with the taglines: "Specifically, your keys. You'll lose your keys. And you'll already be running really late for something," followed by "Did you check between the couch cushions? Really? Jeez-oh-peez. Oh, I got it. How about your jacket pockets?" And finally ending with, "You should keep a spot near the door where you always place them. I have a little hook thingy where I hang mine. I think it's from Ikea. I'll look it up when I get home and shoot ya over an email."
Nov 16 2006New Rocky Balboa Trailer
After a computer simulation shows that Rocky Balboa in his prime could defeat current champion Mason "The Line" Dixon, Rocky decides to see if the outcome also applies to an aging, disgusted version of himself. If he wins, he'll show that age can't stand in the way of the determination of a true champion. If he loses, he should fight the computer that said he could win.
Nov 16 2006Factory Girl Trailer
The trailer for Factory Girl is now up, starring Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick, Hayden Christensen as a poorly acted Bob Dylan-esque schlub and Guy Pearce as Kevin Spacey doing an impression of Andy Warhol. Hopefully seeing Edie Sedgwick on-screen again will remind another generation of girls how much prettier they'd be thinner and more drugged looking. Seriously, no one likes you "healthy."
If the YouTube link goes down, it's also here.
Nov 15 2006Inland Empire Shots
There are a bunch of high-res stills from the set of David Lynch's Inland Empire over at CinEmpire. I encourage viewing them now, before you see the film, because they'll probably make even less sense in-context.
Nov 15 2006Owen Wilson as Drillbit Taylor
From People comes the first shot of Owen Wilson as the titular character in Drillbit Taylor, the story of two students hiring the solider of fortune to protect them from a bully, written by Seth Rogen and Kristofer Brown from a John Hughes treatment. Who knew the homeless Crocodile Dundee look would every work in a movie? Certainly not Paul Hogan, or he would have been calling the last five years of homelessness "an audition."
That's right. Eat it, Hogan.
Nov 15 2006Ben Stiller Explains Madagascar 2 Plot
With only half of my office's gambling pool collected, Ben Stiller has killed our speculation by revealing what he believes to be the plot to the upcoming sequel to Madagascar:
"I think all the animals head back to New York on that plane that you know was up in the trees and then they crash in Africa and Alex gets reacquainted with his real family and it goes from there."
Genius! This movie is going to do for Madagascar what Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles did for Crocodile Dundee: move a fish-out-of-water story to a slightly different location! And yes, that's the second time today I've mentioned Crocodile Dundee.
Nov 14 2006Every Bond Intro and Trailer
In celebration of the release of Casino Royale this Friday, our fellow denizens of the Internet have provided both the trailers and introduction sequences of every Bond film to date. Watching them all gives you a real sense of how, no matter how much the film quality, effects or actors may have changed, one thing has remained constant: the exploitation of women as purely sexual objects. The series' consistent use of the female silhouette as a design form in the intros remains the quintessential method of reducing women to the importance of basic shapes--like sexy circles or a parallelograms.
Special kudos to the intro to The Living Daylights (above) for using the music of new wave band a-ha without implementing a rotoscoped pencil sketch of Bond.
Nov 14 2006Breach Trailer Breaches
Now on Yahoo! Movies, see the trailer for Breach, in which Ryan Phillippe plays a new FBI agent promoted to catch his partner (Chris Cooper) as a spy for the Russians; a particularly poignant subject now, since it's apparently the Cold War. Remember when you were a manager at Wendy's and had to catch the culprit stealing square patties by sleeping in the freezer overnight? It's just like that, with Ryan Phillippe as you and Chris Cooper as both Tim and Jose, who it turned out were also the ones shitting on the hood of your Taurus.
Nov 14 2006Beyonce and Eva Longoria Might Kiss!
Writer/director Sofia Coppola has plans to adapt the novel Tipping the Velvet, the story of a lesbian musician and her lover, into a feature film, and now Eva Longoria and Beyonce Knowles are in talks to star.
"We've had Brokeback Mountain so the time is right for this divine novel to get the same treatment," Beyonce said.Longoria added: "Yes it's true, we're talking about doing that. It's such a wonderful novel, a beautiful love story."
Eva Longoria and Beyonce as lesbian lovers? Aww, damn! Daaaaaaamn! Awwww, daaaaaaaaamn! Aw-damn! Aw-damn! Awwwwwww, daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn! Daaaaaaaaaaamn! Aww, daaaaaamn! Now high fives.
UPDATE: Eva Longoria has since denied the rumor, meaning that if we want to see the two kiss, we'll have to rely on the old college method: vodka shots and persistent verbal encouragement.
Nov 13 2006The Simpsons Movie Trailer
The trailer for The Simpsons Movie is now online, and most Simpsons fans already agree seconds 19-36 to be the best of the trailer. Early seconds were too primitive and hadn't yet found their rhythm, while later seconds are generally agreed to be kind of hackey and past their prime, written by fans of the earlier seconds who can't come up with any good original ideas. Countering these claims, a small following believes the later seconds of the trailer are just as good as earlier seconds but have taken a new style of humor.
Nov 13 2006Finally, Experience Making Out With Venom
An unfinished Spider-Man 3 trailer with incomplete effects has made its way online, of note because it finally reveals an actual shot of the ever-elusive villain Venom. The obnoxious animation to the right was posted by someone on the Ain't It Cool News talkback, which is where I'd suggest going for more links to the trailer as they're inevitably taken down. Watching it feels a lot like masturbating. The rough effects are like the terrible acting of the porno you're watching, sapping all reality from the event, the still present timecode like the ticking clock, reminding you exactly how much time you've been wasting, all leading up to the too-short finale you'd been building to for nearly three minutes, here a half-second shot of Venom (traditionally ejaculation), and then you're back to mind-numbing depression. Though I suppose if you perform the trailer viewing and masturbating in quick succession, hey, we're talking nearly six consecutive minutes free of weeping!*
Here's a YouTube link that will probably be down before I can click post.
*Some of us cry while masturbating.
Nov 13 2006New Stranger than Fiction Poster
Sometimes I'm bewildered at exactly how terrible a poster can be yet still get approved somehow. It's like they're hiring designers by looking at a stack of family newsletters and deciding who had the best use of WordArt. The latest terrible design comes from Stranger than Fiction, which offers up a star-laden poster with the tagline "Harold Crick isn't ready to go. Period." Problems:
1. What do they mean "go"? From the previews I've seen, I assume it means "die," though that's really unclear here. Has death become too risque for public display? If we're going to use dumbed-down euphemisms, let's go with the John Edward standard, "crossing over." At least that has an imaginary dramatic quality to it that makes you think your loved one might communicate with some jackass from Long Island.
2. It says "Period" and the period is falling on him. Get it? I don't.
3. The afformentioned period is as large as a letter, presumably just to make it look like it will hurt more when it hits Will Ferrell on the head. Traditionally periods are much smaller than a letter, making it them an ideal candidate for comparison to a deer tick.
4. Since the size of the period makes it completely unidentifiable as a period, how about adding some sort of imprint around where it was, like maybe it was spray painted on? And throw some shitty motion blur on it too.
