Aug 26 2009 '2012' Trailer Japanese Style
Think the American 2012 trailer looked good? Wait until you see the Japanese trailer! It's still mostly shots of Earth crumbling to pieces--along with John Cusack expressing, "Ut-ohs, the Earth!"--but this time there are Japanese subtitles! But if you're really into watching ground caving in, you will love this:
Jun 18 2009 '2012' Trailer: The Day All This Random, Terrible Stuff Happens
Roland Emmerich, director of such regular-people-and-a-few-government-people-coping-with-apocalyptic-events films as Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day after Tomorrow, has a new regular-people-and-a-few-government-people-coping-with-apocalyptic-events film coming out this November, and this time the danger is more real, and more vague than ever. It's not monsters, aliens, nor global warming or cooling--this time it's just crazy shit happening, dudes!:
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Nov 13 2008 '2012' Teaser Trailer is a Documentary from the Future
Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow, has made another movie on his favorite subject: some kind of disaster destroying Earth. The trailer suggests doing a "Google search" on "2012" (the trailer's main goal is confusing grandparents with terms they don't understand), so I did that. Results reveal that Sarah Palin is stoking speculation she'll run again in 2012 (that's a real apocalypse, ya know!?), AND THAT THE MAYAN CALENDAR WILL END ITS 13th CYCLE, which many crazies interpret as meaning humans will die, be elevated to a higher level, or "that Biaviian aliens will allow passage aboard their Great Mother Ship." Ancient civilizations and crazy people have never been wrong about anything before, so we should probably just take this movie a fact. However John Cusack survives is how we will survive as a people.
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Aug 5 2008 'Igor' Poster Begins New Fear-Based Marketing Tactic
Hey, kids, did you ever realize that, at any point, one of your dolls might grow to an obscene size, have its delicate eyelashes replaced by spider legs, and scare the shit out of you? That a common gumball machine could gain sentience, sprout a mechanical arm, and force your juvenile body through its narrow dispenser? Have you known the fear of a rabbit/Olsen Twin chimera? Or how scarring it is to see a shrugging, computer-generated David Gest? YOU WILL.
Why not just put, "Kids are constantly getting raped and murdered. Also: Igor!" That would be slightly less disturbing.
'Igor' Final Poster Premiere [Cinematical]
May 8 2008 'Igor' Trailer Proves Resistant to Cusack's Charms
Usually it's easy to root for underdog John Cusack. But will it be so easy if his voice is hidden behind the image of a hunchbacked David Gest? Not so much; particularly when the film's decent premise (a stock mad scientist sidekick--an "igor"--tries to make it on his own) is hidden by just as grotesque a facade: archetypical Disney-esque jokes and characters. Sidekicks are just so wacky, ya know?
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Apr 23 2008 'Igor' Poster: You've Got the Wrong Guy, Buddy
What the hey--John Cusack is Igor? I don't think so. Look at that awkward grin, those sunken, soulless eyes, the perfectly smooth features, the unfortunate status of being relevant only through someone else's accomplishments. Clearly David Gest is Igor.
Igor Poster [IMPA]
Apr 4 2008 New 'War, Inc.' Trailer for 'Grosse Pointe Blank'
Do you ever see a movie, then years later see it again and you realize a lot of your memory of it was wrong? I ask not because a reassessment of Short Circuit revealing that a remake isn't really that tragic, but because that's how it just was for me, watching this trailer to War Inc. I swear to you, when I saw this a decade ago, it was set in Michigan, and was called Grosse Pointe Blank! Where did all this political stuff come from?! And I would have sworn Minnie Driver was the love interest, not Marisa Tomei--and that Hilary Duff was far too young to play a legal lust object. But since everything else is the same, I'll have to just attribute this one to bad memory. Weird!
Aw, who am I kidding. Cusack, you old dog, you've charmed me again with your lovable everyman of a hitman. When can I get my ticket?
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Mar 25 2008 'War, Inc.' Poster/Quotes Page
How often I've watched CNN--during the hypothetical times between celebrity gossip and Nancy Grace when they have relevant news--and thought, man, if only we could somehow insert John Cusack's character from Gross Pointe Blank into this Iraq situation, along with Hilary Duff doing a horrible accent. Who would have thought my dream could become movie reality, with a poster with multiple taglines and more quoting than some frat boys remembering an Old School scene?
Despite making some pretty blatant political points (such as the eye-rolling money/bullet comparison above), the film looks kind of charming in a typically Cusackian way, and has a solid cast. So if you haven't seen the trailer, check it out under the cut.
Oct 8 2007 AM Poster Post: 'Martian Child' Poster
Like K-Pax for pedophiles, Martian Child tells the story of John Cusack trying to raise a boy who, appropriately for the film's title, claims he's a Martian child. Judging by the poster alone, here's evidence I see that he is, in fact, a Martian child:
1. He's smaller than an adult, indicating likely childhood.
2. He's wearing sunglasses and carrying an umbrella to shield himself from the sun. K-Pax also wore sunglasses, meaning light sensitivity could be a common alien trait. Or that the Martian Child writers have seen K-Pax, and stole both the plot and the alien's quirks.
3. He has some kind of weird belt on, with what may be miniature cans of soda holstered inside. These are probably small promotional cans for Martian regions where Pepsi is just being introduced.
Evidence that John Cusack may actually be Richard Lewis:
1. Everything else.
'Martian Child' Poster [Cinematical]
Aug 29 2007 Grace is Gone Trailer
My open letter to John Cusack, following viewing of Grace is Gone trailer:
Dear John,
I've just watched the trailer to your new drama, Grace is Gone, in which you play a father faced with dealing with the loss of a wife and delivering the news of her death to your daughters. Your intimate portrayal has already won you the accolades of critics, and I wouldn't be surprised if you see an Oscar nomination.
Please never take this kind of role again.
Since the mid-'80s, through films such as Better Off Dead..., Say Anything..., and the non-ellipsised High Fidelity, you have shown how the everyday, somewhat geeky man can still get the girl. When referring to the kind of guy one would like to be, the words "like a John Cusack role" have often been uttered by myself and others. You found the gray area between cool and geeky that we thrive for. This depressed dad role is really detracting from that ideal.
Don't get me wrong; I know you've taken many varied and challenging roles before, weaving delicately between genres, but they've never been such a convincing distraction from the John Cusack archetype until now. Seeing you in something like Con Air, I was still able to convince myself that it was not really John Cusack I was seeing, it's just John Cusack--or maybe even Lloyd Dobler himself--playing a role. Once the cameras were off, I was certain you were back to holding boomboxes over your head.
But with Grace is Gone, it appears you've created such a believable and depressing character that I'm forced, for once, to think maybe I don't want to be John Cusack. Maybe being John Cusack is a horribly morbid experience where your wife has died in Iraq. I hate that John Cusack.
In the future, please take exclusively romantic comedy roles, or at least portray your depressing characters less believably. Even if you have to break character, give us a wink to let us all know, "Hey, don't worry. It's just me, Lloyd Dobler, and I'll be right over with my Peter Gabriel tape."
Grace is Gone Trailer [Yahoo!]
Aug 14 2007 Grace is Gone Poster
The vanishing balloon is symbolic of the expendability of wives.
Here's the poster to Grace is Gone, in which John Cusack gives a touching performance as a father whose wife has just been killed in the Iraq war. Unsure of how to tell his children, he takes them on a road-trip to an amusement park.
I have a feeling I won't be able to really relate to this one; none of my family has ever died. Instead, I have a system where every few years my dad will take me to Disney World and I'll never see a grandparent again, an exchange that keeps them living eternally happy yet strangely quiet.
First and Final One-Sheet for 'Grace is Gone' [Cinematical]
