'Lone Survivor': Another gritty war movie like 'Zero Dark Thirty'?

After so many summer tentpoles flopped, there's already worry in Hollywood that a crowded fall of adult-leaning prestige releases, which includes Captain Philips, Rush, and The Fifth Estate, will mean at least one movie will end up completely being overrun by the competition. Additionally, all three of the above releases are biographical (Commercial ship captain, racecar driver, and Wikileaks creator, respectively), which is yet another story trend that appears to be picking up speed. Lone Survivor will release after the fall rush but in the midst of the holiday one, on December 27. The trailer for the movie released today, which makes the military procedural appear like Zero Dark Thirty, although with flourishes that render the movie more Heartland and military base-friendly, like a SEAL reciting his military credo, and an inspirational song that plays against the trailer's images of the firefight.

Like Best Picture Oscar nominee ZDT, Lone Survivor is based on a true story. It takes place in 2005, when a group of SEALs engages Al Qaeda in an epic firefight that, as the title suggests, does not have a good outcome for the group. Mark Wahlberg and Eric Bana star, and Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg, hopefully recovering from the poor showing of another Universal picture last year, Battleship, is at the helm. Check out the trailer below.

 

Check out the trailer for Cannes Grand Prix-winner 'Inside Llewyn Davis'

The trailer for the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis just released, months after the folk music drama was awarded the Grand Prix by the jury of the Cannes Film Festival this spring, so its release is by no means a first look at the '60s-set musical drama. If anything, the trailer is a bit lackluster compared to the more enthusiastic reviews that came out of the festival.

What's most striking about the trailer isn't how the Coens' lay out the struggles of the title character (Oscar Isaac), a young folkie breaking into the Greenwich Village musical scene, but the visual choices. The movie appears to have been color corrected to give it a washed-out, vintage feel, but the palette felt off to me. Normally I like movies more after the colors have been amped up beyond their natural look, but the feature also had a soft-focus look that bothered me. That said, Variety's review mentions the feature has "playful, evocatively subjective reality," which allows the filmmakers to "[avoid] the problems endemic to most period movies." Maybe that's where the soft, washed-out cinematography comes in.

The trailer gives a nod to the major actors: Carey Mulligan, almost unrecognizable, as a dark-haired woman impregnated by Davis; recurring Coen Brothers player John Goodman; and Justin Timberlake. About a minute into the trailer, Marcus Mumford (of Mumford & Sons) sings a cover version of Bob Dylan's "Fare Thee Well." The CBS Films release comes out Dec. 6, and if its Cannes reception holds, the Coen Brothers will be making another trip to the Academy Awards in early 2014.

DiCaprio plays another rich criminal in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’

Paramount has begun building hype for Leonardo DiCaprio’s
latest project, The Wolf of Wall Street,
directed by Martin Scorsese. The first trailer for the film, slated to hit
theaters November 15, released on Sunday. The
Wolf of Wall Street is based on Jordan Belfort’s 2007 memoir of the same
name. Belfort, a hedge fund manager, made hundreds of millions of dollars in
the 1980s and ’90s through his brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont, until it was
discovered that the firm was inflating stocks and committing fraud, as well as
perpetrating other financial crimes. Belfort was arrested and spent nearly two
years in prison.

The Wolf of Wall
Street trailer bears several striking similarities to DiCaprio’s most
recent movie, The Great Gatsby, both
thematically and in terms of promotional materials. It’s clear that, like Gatsby, Scorsese will devote much of Wolf’s screen time to the protagonist’s
startling displays of wealth. Girls, drugs, wads of cash, luxurious
settings—all are featured prominently in the two-minute-fifteen-second Wolf trailer. The promos for both films
are also carried by a DiCaprio voiceover, explaining his character’s meteoric
rise in wealth and reputation.

Most obviously, both trailers are ushered along by a Kanye
West song—or, in Gatsby’s case, a
West-Jay-Z collaboration. “No Church in the Wild” (Gatsby) and “Black
Skinhead” (Wolf) both feature wild
yells, pounding drum beats, and West’s emotive, angry rapping. The songs provide
a thrilling adrenaline rush, and breathlessly shuttle viewers from shots of
over-the-top parties and all the trappings of excessive wealth, to hints of
DiCaprio’s characters’ downfall and emotional collapse. In fact, Wolf could easily be seen as the latest
in a trilogy of DiCaprio films which explore the indulgence and devastation
created when men from humble beginnings turn to crime and gain incredible
wealth, starting with 2002’s Catch Me if
You Can and continuing with Gatsby.

Wolf looks like a
skillful and highly entertaining drama, far closer in quality to the excellent Catch Me if You Can than this year’s
disappointing Gatsby. Jonah Hill and Matthew
McConaughey (who has shown himself to be terrific in smaller comedic parts,
from Dazed and Confused through Magic Mike) also promise to deliver memorable
performances in supporting roles.

Wolf screenwriter Terence
Winter already has plenty of practice creating devious, charismatic crooks, as
a writer and executive producer on “Boardwalk Empire,” which like Gatsby, is set in the 1920s. Scorsese, of course,
built his career on depicting such characters in award-winning films like Goodfellas, The Departed, and Gangs of New York. It will be quite interesting to
see what parallels the pair draws between the white-collar criminals of the
Roaring Twenties and those of the 1990s.

Trailer for 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug' offers peek at Tauriel character

Warner Bros.' Man of Steel is coming out on Friday, so it only makes sense that the distributor would release a trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to play before showings of the tentpole. The trailer for the next Hobbit released on the web today, and it promises more of the same pleasures as the first film, while also suggesting a slight darkening in tone, as the team led by Bilbo Baggins takes on Smaug, the dragon voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch (who's also the villain in this year's Star Trek Into Darkness)

The biggest surprise in the trailer is the presence of another female character, the elf warrior Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly. J.R.R. Tolkien was a man of his times, and his books are completely devoid of female characters. The absence of an entire gender feels particularly stark when you compare it to the fantasies of a modern generation--J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. Turns out that Tauriel is actually an invention by Peter Jackson and his wife and producing partner Fran Walsh, who take liberties with Tolkien's non-gendered reference to an "elven guard."

One of the things I liked about The Hobbit was the fact that it wasn't as dark as the Lord of the Rings
series. If anything, the lightness and child-friendly feel helped
contextualize the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy by expanding the scope of Middle-earth. But that also seemed to be part of what left some viewers
cold--that and the dragged-out scenes that helped expand a single book
into three movies. The first Hobbit earned over $1 billion worldwide. The question for Smaug, which will come out this December, is if this middle child of a film can sustain the curiosity of viewers.

Rachel McAdams falls in love with a time traveler (again) in 'About Time'

If About Time is as sweet as it looks in the trailer, it might just redeem Rachel McAdams from appearing in the horrible time travel romance The Time Traveler's Wife. The two-minute preview sets up a plot that has just enough twists on existing time travel movies to make it interesting. Domhnall Gleeson plays a man who learns from his father (Bill Nighy) that everyone in his family has the gift of time travel. There's both Groundhog Day elements, where he uses his ability to time travel to redo moments with women where he messes up the first time, and larger thoughts about fate--in one scene, it's implied that the effects of a car crash can't be reversed, and in another, he meets the woman he's married in an earlier scene (Rachel McAdams), only to discover she doesn't recognize him. The above-average level of intricacy makes this sound intriguing.

 

There hasn't been a lot of Internet chatter about this release, which will come out November 8 through Universal. That's a strong time slot, which indicates that the trailer may be able to deliver on its promise. McAdams is already a proven romantic lead, with two big hits, The Notebook and The Vow, under her belt. But those movies co-starred Ryan Gosling and Channing Tatum, respectively, who are male romantic stars in their own right. In this feature, the story is told from the man's perspective, and Gleeson isn't as well-known. The redhead actor first rose to fame with his role as the gawky Bill Weasely in the Harry Potter series. He's since appeared in the well-regarded Never Let Me Go and last year as Levin in Anna Karenina. In the movie, he plays down his looks in the Bill Weasley direction, making him appear like the guy who can never get the girl--at least until he has time travel on his side.

The screenwriter and sometimes director Richard Curtis is helming the project, which seems like a bonus. He both wrote and directed Love Actually, which is part of the romantic comedy canon for those who love the genre. He's also written the scripts for Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and both the Bridget Jones series and all the Mr. Bean movies. The combination of McAdams, Gleeson, and Curtis may add up to an end-of-year romantic comedy that actually delivers.

Trailer: Tom Hanks is all action in 'Captain Philips'

When the project Captain Philips was announced, it sounded like a hostage story, where the leading characters would spend most of their time tied up. Tom Hanks signed on to play Captain Philips, whose ship was attacked by Somali pirates and then eventually rescued by Navy SEALs. To disabuse anyone of that notion, the just-released trailer for Captain Philips is action, suspense, and then more and more action. It appears that director Paul Greengrass is drawing heavily on the action directing experience he honed in The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremacy, United 93, and The Green Zone.

Just from seeing the two-and-a-half minutes of Hanks, I'm convinced the casting is perfect. This kind of role matches well with both with his chronological age and his stature as an actor. He's likeable, authoritative, and has a pilot's ability to be cool under pressure. It's also clear he cares deeply about his crew, which only adds to his likeability.

Personally, I've been captivated by the life of cargo ships after reading this New Yorker article about a cargo ship voyaging through the Arctic Ocean. I hope that Greengrass also includes authentic details that immerse the viewer in what it means to spend months at a time on a ship--even without being held hostage--and how people cope with this lonely, dangerous existence.

Here's the trailer for the Columbia release. Although the action has summer release all over it, the Oct. 11 release date indicates that studio may also making a quality play for the feature. Who knows, maybe a Best Actor nomination is in the cards for Tom Hanks. After all, Denzel Washington received one as a pilot for last year's Flight.

 

'Elysium' footage sneak peek: 5 things to know about the follow-up from 'District 9' director Neill Blomkamp

Yesterday, Sony previewed several minutes of footage from Elysium, the Matt Damon-led sci-fi movie that's coming out on August 9. The imaginative project looks like it's on track to be a huge hit like Inception. In a market saturated by derivative content, Elysium is a rare beast: a big-budget
movie derived from a completely original concept. Previously, all that was known about the movie was that Matt Damon and countless other poor people live on a ravaged Earth, while the rich live in a space station free of violence, poverty, and disease. The preview gave some more savory details about the feature, which comes courtesy of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp.

1. On Elysium, they can cure cancer. The clip showed a woman sunbathing, then going into what looks a cross between a tanning bed and the robot surgery machine in Prometheus. "Detecting trace amounts of cancer," the machine chirps. "Cancer cells--cleared!" This comes in handy later, because Damon's character gets exposed to radiation in a workplace accident and has just five days to live unless he can get into one of those cure-all machines.

2. Elysium is about a dystopia, with strong parallels to current social issues. Back to that "workplace accident." Damon is told by his boss that he will lose his job unless he goes into some dangeous machinery to fix a jammed door. He's on parole, making him already barely employable, and received a warning from his boss after his arm was broken by a robot roughing him up. He goes in to fix the problem, but it ends up nearly killing him. Surely, nothing like that ever happens in America...

3. Data can be downloaded from the brain. Hacking into someone's brain appears to be a very of-the-moment sci-fi concept. The first time I recall it happening was in The Matrix, and Inception explored the same concept in a more ethereal way. In Elysium, the plot hinges on Damon's crew downloading brain data from an important official from the space station. The information gives them details about how to break down their system and gain access to the fortress-like utopia.

4. Damon turns into a cyborg to get to Elysium. If you want to fight robots, you have to be part robot, right? Since he only has days to live anyway, Damon consents to having his body robot-ized so he can take on the robots that protect Elysium's residents and keep the Earthlings in place. POV shots show that it turns his vision into a video game, locking him into targets and flashing "reload" in the corner of his vision.

5. Paradise looks like a terrarium. Earth looks like--Detroit? The shots of the space station Elysium show a lush, verdant area with amazing views. Some opening shots of Earth show skyscrapers with crapshoot appendages sticking out the sides (I wouldn't want to live in one of those) that recall skyscraper cities in any number of sci-fi films, including Blade Runner. What's more interesting are flat, rundown warehouse-y areas that are similar to the slums in Blomkamp's District 9. The preview didn't connect the urban and suburban places together, but that will likely be clarified in the film itself.

Despite the sneak peeks, the preview left some of the biggest questions unanswered. How exactly does Damon gain access to the space station? How do the people in Elysium and Earth react to the insurrection? And how did things get so unequal to begin with?

Get your Ryan Gosling fix with the red-band trailer for 'Only God Forgives'

It's safe to say that if you didn't like Drive, you won't like Only God Forgives. Director Nicolas Winding Refn reteams with Ryan Gosling for the crime thriller, and from the looks of the red-band trailer, there will be plenty of violence. This time, though, Gosling doesn't play a sympathetic figure, but a psychopath whose abnormalities were apparent in the womb. In a voiceover, his mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) says doctors "told me to terminate," but I'm pretty sure there's no test for gun-toting psychopaths yet.

Drive had look-at-me cinematography and thrilling car chases. The color saturation in Only God Forgives looks even more over the top, with entire scenes shown in shades of bright red or deep neon blue. Refn set the feature in Bangkok, Thailand, and he's clearly drawing from the aesthetics of East Asian films. That's just one reason the movie will be a must-see among cinephiles.

What's unclear is whether Gosling's followers will appreciate the star in a movie that's not Crazy, Stupid, Love. Gosling is clearly wary of being a matinee idol, taking dark roles in films like Half Nelson, Lars and the Real Girl, Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines, Drive, and now Only God Forgives. But that doesn't mean his diehard fans wish he'd just cave and star in another movie like The Notebook. In fact, the closest they're likely to get to that is the auteur project from Terence Malick that features a love triangle set in Austin, Texas. I imagine that romance will be far less accessible than the one in The Notebook.

The Weinsten Co. is releasing Only God Forgives through their Radius banner, which emphasizes VOD and simultaneous theatrical/alternative releases. It's likely they'll roll out the feature later in 2013.

 

Director Chris Wedge teases clips of this summer's 'Epic'

The mystery behind Epic's Leaf Men has partially been solved. Yesterday in a movie theatre in Manhattan's Times Square, Ice Age director Chris Wedge previewed clips from the latest Blue Sky Animation feature, Epic. The May 24 release from 20th Century Fox melds comedy with action-adventure in a way that appears to please children (judging by the giggles I heard afterward) and maybe even adults too, though I didn't see enough of the movie in the preview to tell if the story

would coalesce. The premise is that in the forest, there live tiny fairy-like creatures called Leaf Men, which are just one species in a whole range of tiny creatures invisible to the human eye. One scientist (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) has spent his whole life trying to identify these creatures, but it's his college-age daughter (Amanda Seyfried), who he has neglected for most of his years, who's shrunk down to Leaf Men-size and embroiled in a race-against-time that will preserve their existence. That's because the gross, fungi-like Boggans want to destroy the forest and the Leaf Men who protect it.

Epic has such intricately designed characters inhabiting a unique, parallel world, it feels almost literary. At the same time, with so much going on, the clips Wedge showed often followed completely different characters. I didn't even know that the daughter was the main character until Wedge finally said so midway through the talk.

The 3D trailer at the end of the presentation, which will be shown in front of The Croods this Friday, was the only finished, polished piece of animation shown. Wedge described giving reporters "a peek behind the green curtain," and that couldn't be more true. While it was easy to observe what was missing during scenes that skipped frames or used production artwork, the coloring and resolution were off, as was the sound mix, which includes a Danny Elfman music score, which Wedge noted had just been added. The visuals made me feel like I was like watching a later '90s or early aughts CG-animated feature. The type of lighting sparkle and crisp resolution that I've observed in Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon was only there in the trailer.

Watching Epic made me slightly nostalgic for another forest-set animated tale that was popular during my childhood (although not a hit at the box office), FernGully: The Last Rainforest. That film also feature tiny creatures struggling against evil in the forest, and at the time the idea was simply magical. I think it's safe to say that however Epic plays among adults, the world it presents will enchant kids. And did I mention there are two very goofy slugs (voiced by Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd) who do funny things with their eyeballs? Their antics made adults and kids in the audience laugh out loud.

 

New Pixar trailer offers campus tour of 'Monsters University'

Drumroll, please. Pixar has released the first full-length trailer for Monsters University in the U.K., but thanks to YouTube, people in the U.S. can get a peek at Mike and Sully back when they were in college. This trailer gives the full rundown on the prequel. Back in the day, Mike and Sully were roommates. Who didn't like each other. But then, by working together, did. Disney had already released a teaser trailer in the U.S., and it's likely the full trailer will show up in front of an animated release soon since the film comes out June 21.

Because this is a follow-up feature, it's not so surprising that so much of the story is given away in the trailer. I still admire Pixar's famously nebulous campaign for Up, which Brave and non-Pixar release Wreck-It Ralph have also used, leaving major twists under wraps to surprise audiences. The trailer makes the movie seem
like a cut-and-dry story of rivals turned friends, but I wouldn't be
surprised if Pixar has a few tricks up their sleeve. One clip shows the young monsters on what appears to be a break-in mission, and there's also a genuinely scary monster we briefly glimpse. Perhaps those scenes will feature unexpected reversals and unusual characters?

Like Wreck-It Ralph, Monsters University will offer a strong nostalgia component to the parents accompanying their children to the theatre, which should also continue the animation house's trend of drawing in
non-family and date night audiences. Since Disney's acquisition of Pixar, it appears that both brands have changed. Disney movies have become more Pixar-like, especially Wreck-It Ralph, which seemed like an idea hatched in a Pixar think tank. Pixar went into Disney Princess territory with Brave, which had a similar feel to Disney's princess installment from just a couple of years ago, Tangled. Then there's been Cars 2, the financially successful Pixar franchise that fell flat among critics. Monsters University promises to have more heart than Cars 2, and many will welcome the chance to spend another 90 minutes in the charming world where monsters are just friendly creatures in search of scared humans.

 

'Star Trek Into Darkness' trailer offers little to set the sci-fi sequel apart

Ok, maybe I'm just jaded, but the teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness was a total yawn-fest for me. A big part of the problem is the trailer itself. It uses the low horn blasts first used to such great effect in the trailer for Inception, but have since been copied in other trailers, like the one for Prometheus. In this one, the editing of the footage to the horn blasts doesn't even feel like it's timed right. Plus, where's the story? It's all just random explosions and moments of terror. Oh, and a voiceover from a villain (Benedict Cumberbatch) who vows to destroy all that is good in the world. What's new? This trailer gets a big thumbs down. The 2009 Star Trek was so great because it brought in people who weren't Trekkies. This trailer seems like it's just trying to appeal to a fanbase that will see the movie anyway. I hope the poor quality of this teaser trailer is just the marketing department or the fact that effects-laden footage just wasn't ready. Because it makes me not want to see the movie.

 

 

Compare that teaser trailer to this one for the 2009 Star Trek. By using radio-transmitted announcements and news footage, it evokes the feeling of the 1960s space race. Instead of focusing on the high-tech flight deck, they open with footage of a welder creating the Enterprise. That's the kind of trailer that made people want to see the movie. The second trailer focused on a young Kirk driving a vintage red convertible, and the third showed a grown-up Chris Pine in the desert on a motorcycle and then in a bar with a jukebox. These were images that seemed far outside of a typical sci-fi film (though the desert was a wee familiar for any Star Wars aficionados). Maybe Paramount doesn't have the luxury of including the footage of the origin story this time around, but if they plan to sell this movie on action sequences alone, they're in trouble.

 

Disney does 'Toy Story' with video games in 'Wreck-it Ralph'

Wreck-it Ralph is a Disney film, but it isn't a Pixar film. However, the mark of Pixar is all over the November 2, 2012, release, which has its sights set on being an early holiday hit. The trailer for the family feature just hit the Internet, offering us a glimpse into what Pixar movies the film is borrowing from.

Toy Story. John C. Reilly plays Wreck-It Ralph, a villain in a video game. He's just one of many video game characters that live an alternate life when they're not being played, true to Toy Story form.

Monsters, Inc. Ralph gets sick of playing the bad guy and goes on the run, "game jumping" into other character's video games. This feels quite familiar to the "closet" concept in Monsters Inc. The monster duo in that film were able to access closets in a central, factory-like area. Here, "Game Central Station" is modeled after Grand Central Station.

The Incredibles. Ralph isn't just normal, he's super-strong, easily able to wreck entire buildings. He also takes to first-person shooter games the way a superhero does. The Incredibles also continues the Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. idea of creating everyday lives for figures the public knows as superheroes, toys, scary monsters--or video game characters.

The Pixar "all-ages" appeal.  The trailer opens with a monologue from Ralph that sounds like a ploy to reel in working parents everywhere. Ralph is framed as a corporate slave who just wants to escape and find himself. The use of the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime" clinches the trailer's dad appeal. Also, as the participants in the "bad-anon" section suggest, Wreck-It Ralph includes characters from '70s arcade games onwards. Older gamers will get a nostalgia kick out of seeing their favorites in the movie.

2012 just keeps getting more interesting. Here's the trailer for Wreck-It Ralph:

 

Anne Hathaway dreams a dream in 'Les Misérables'

Universal has high hopes for Les Misérables, which they've set for a December release. The studio just released a trailer for the musical, which will likely play before the distributor's release of Snow White and the Huntsman this Friday. Perhaps trying to reel in female fans who wanted to see Snow White for Kristen Stewart, the trailer focuses on Anne Hathaway as Fantine, a downtrodden single mother.

At my first pass on the trailer, Hathaway's voice sounded raw, with audible breathes between phrases, which is usually a no-no for singers. However, Hathaway has a history of nailing live performances, including on the Oscars and in this tribute to Meryl Streep. She also sang (a cover of Queen's "Somebody to Love," why?)in Ella Enchanted, which had a full soundtrack. She's not a bad singer. So why does she sound this way? Director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) reportedly had his actors sing live on set, which produces the less polished feel. Given how over-autotuned most songs are, especially ones sung by actors who aren't the greatest singers, I appreciate that Hooper went for live-style singing. Oddly, having more authentic, oh-so slightly flawed singing will make the experience feel more like one is part of an audience watching a live performance.

 

Hathaway's singing is the star of the trailer, but there are a few other glimpses of the impoverished sections of early 19th-century Paris that serves as the backdrop to the epic tale. The comically evil Thénardier couple, which will be played by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, are nowhere to be found, but I kind of hope they remain out of the trailers and serve as a surprise for ticket-buyers.  Les Misérables is an ensemble piece, with Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Amanda Seyfried in the leading roles, but this first trailer makes it seem like Hathaway is the film's true star.

 

First look at Baz Luhrmann's 'The Great Gatsby'

The most important thing about a Baz Luhrmann movie is seeing it. Although a few cast photos circulated of Carey Mulligan in '20s gear, that's nothing compared to the visual feast that's present in the trailer for The Great Gatsby. Warner Bros. has high hopes for the adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, giving it a prime Dec. 25 release date. As a big fan of Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, it looks like there will be plenty more sumptuous costumes, extravagant party scenes, and emotionally charged moments. Though the online trailer is in 2D, the film itself will release in both 2D and 3D. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, and Carey Mulligan as Daisy.

I love how Luhrmann's vision of the '20s isn't real, but hyperreal. Times Square is covered with more neon than the actual Times Square, an achievement in itself. It's also worth noting that, in a historical nod to the Harlem jazz clubs that were so popular during Prohibition, he includes black faces in his tale--too often historical pictures are lily-white.

The Australian-born Luhrmann is coming off a flop, Australia, but that film didn't have the supercharged visuals of his previous hits, Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet. I have a feeling that this film will be a megahit--and become a popular shortcut for high school students ducking their sophomore reading list.

Here's the trailer:

Charting the similarities between 'Hyde Park on Hudson' and 'The King's Speech

Even the indie world can have copycats. The critical and, more importantly, box-office success of The King's Speech in 2010 has spawned at least one imitator: Hyde Park on Hudson. Keeping with the light, uplifting tone of The King's Speech, the project stars Bill Murray as FDR. The historical movie focuses on one weekend, during which the King of England made his first visit to America and stopped by FDR's country home, Hyde Park on Hudson.

The picture won't come out until December 7, but the trailer for the Focus release debuted yesterday. I took a look at the trailer and documented some of the similarities between the two films.

They both have King George. Americans will certainly love that in this picture, the King takes a back seat to FDR.

An outsider.  THe King's Speech had Geoffrey Rush as a speech teacher who treated the royals more casually than one might expect. Hyde Park has Laura Linney as FDR's distant cousin (and lover), who appears to do the opposite, giving a sense of reverence to the proceedings.

Gentle humor. Gentle romance. FDR tells the press not to take pictures of him and the King in their bathing suits. People think FDR and his cousin are having an affair and get caught spying out a window.

Candid moments with royals. "Can I call you Elizabeth?" A character says to the Queen, in what appears to be an uncomfortable breech of protocol.

War in the background. Same World War II, and right at the beginning of it too.

Rulers with disabilities. King George had a stutter. FDR can't walk.

Oscar bait.  The King's Speech won the four biggies: picture, director, actor, and screenplay. Bill Murray definitely wants a Best Actor statuette.

 

For all their similarities, and even because of them, I have Hyde Park on Hudson on my to-see list. Biopics are often sweeping, long, and drab, but The King's Speech showed that focusing on light-hearted historical snippets can create humanizing portraits of staid historical figures. The tourism industry in the Hudson Valley is already preparing for an upswing in visitors interested in checking out the area. I'll raise their bet.

Woody Allen moves in front of the camera for 'To Rome with Love'

Woody Allen has done well on the European continent. Last year's Midnight in Paris was Allen's most successful film in years, the indie hit of the summer. 2008 brought Vicky Cristina Barcelona, another highlight in the past decade or so of his work, at least in my opinion. Allen's never had two back-to-back hits in a row, but perhaps he could start with To Rome with Love, which is coming out June 22.

 

The movie features one of Allen's trademark ensemble casts. I took a few looks at the trailer to lay out the friendships and relationships.

• Woody Allen and Judy Davis are a couple.


• Allison Pill is Allen's daughter, who is dating an Italian boy (Flavio Parenti) Allen finds very inappropriate.


• Alec Baldwin is father to Jesse Eisenberg.


• Eisenberg is dating Greta Gerwig, whose friend Ellen Page is staying with them--and has the hots for Eisenberg.


• Penelope Cruz is a prostitute.


• Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful) plays a man who is suddenly, inexplicably famous.

The odds are against To Rome with Love being as good as Midnight in Paris, but the picture looks charming and has an age-diverse cast (without any accompanying May-December romances!) designed to bring in viewers young and old. Plus, his "postcard" films benefit from his treatment of cities as an character, making these movies appealing solely as a travelogue. With Allen, though, you can never tell about a film until you see it from start to finish.

Check out the trailer for 'People Like Us'

The trailer for this summer's People Like Us (formerly known by the odd title Welcome to People) just hit screens, and I'm optimistic. The subject of the script came up during THR's 2010 Actress Roundtable, where Hilary Swank talked about this movie she really fought to be in. It turned out to be Welcome to the People, and Amy Adams was forced to admit that, actually, she had been offered the part, but turned it down because she thought the role was too intense to play as a new mother. A part that actresses are fighting over? The movie has to be good, right? Elizabeth Banks ended up playing this much-fought-over role, of a woman, now a single mother with a kid who's acting out. Her whole life, she was kept a secret from her father's family.

The trailer's tone reminds me of a Jerry Maguire-type film, actually. There's a blend of comedy and drama, and it's all seemingly well-acted and scripted for great character revelations.

As THR points out, if you watched the trailer with the sound off you may think it's a movie about a budding relationship. That's complicated even further by the fact that Chris Pine plays the woman's brother, who is supposed to give her money bequeathed by their father in his will. Except that he doesn't want to tell her that he's her brother--yet. Given the fact that long-lost relations sometimes feel a powerful sexual attraction when they haven't been around each other their whole lives (It's science!), I'm a little weirded out by the lack of disclosure. Is it possible that this will factor into the plot of a major Hollywood movie, even though the trailer has a line of Pine's character saying "I swear on my life I will never, ever hit on you"? Is that why the actresses were fighting over the meaty role? Realistically, though, distributor Paramount is probably letting Lifetime or an indie tackle that kind of plot twist.

The drama will also be the directing debut of Alex Kurtzman, based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Transformers and Star Trek co-writer Roberto Orci. While I can't determine if People Like Us will succeed in being a heartfelt drama, it already has one point in its favor. It's sold me on its plot contrivance--the inheritance that's bringing these long-lost siblings together.

Could 'Prometheus' be this summer's biggest adult popcorn movie?

I'm not going to discount The Dark Knight Rises, but Prometheus looks like it could be this summer's best adult-oriented popcorn movie. Directed by Ridley Scott, the June 8th release is a kind of prequel to Alien, sharing some of the DNA from the series while not alluding directly to anything in Alien. As I understand it, the originality and strength of the script made those involved decide not to taint the project by giving it an Alien title, given the poor quality of some of the franchise's sequels.

In a superb bit of marketing, 20th Century Fox released a three-minute video of Guy Pearce hamming it up as overconfident businessman Peter Weyland. His character gives a TED (technology, entertainment, design) talk in 2023 (thirty years before the film itself is set). Weyland appears to rule over a Terminator-esque Skynet corporation that's creating artificial life forms. I'm a big proponent of studios using materials like this to develop awareness and knowledge without giving away more and more of the footage. After seeing The Hunger Games last night, which had no footage of the actual games in the promotional material, I can vouch for the success of this method. When you have fans who are going to obsessively pore over all the advance media released, it's nice to save them a few surprises for the actual feature.

 

The trailer for Prometheus itself is adrenaline-filled and looks like a nice mix of sci-fi, action, and horror. In the vein of Stargate or Jurassic Park, it pairs up old knowledge, via an archaeologist, with cutting-edge scientific advancements. Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) plays an archaeologist who discovers multiple civilizations share the same "map," which she and others use to explore another planet. There they discover alien life forms. Surprise surprise, they aren't so friendly and welcoming after all. Idris Elba of "The Wire," Michael Fassbender (Shame) and Oscar winner Charlize Theron add considerable talent to the cast.

The "ancient text leads to modern quest" backstory that underpins the whole project has been used dozens of times before. In fact, using an ancient, mystical object for futuristic, sci-fi purposes is an iteration itself of adventure serials that focused more on discovering and battling for special objects rather than putting them to use. If what I've seen so far is half as good as the actual movie, I'm betting that Prometheus will be the strongest film in the franchise since Alien and Aliens.

'That's My Boy' trailer teams up Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg as father and son

Right below The Hollywood Reporter's posting about the trailer for the most recent Adam Sandler picture, That's My Boy, is a link to the "Teflon Actor Awards," with Sandler in the top spot as the "critic-proof comic." His movies have been rated just 29% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, yet they have grossed $1.3 billion. Based on that information, who cares what I think of the trailer ?

The R-rated comedy comes out on June 15th, and it appears to be aiming for the Bad Teacher and The Hangover crowd. After looking at both the green-band and red-band trailer, I'd say it definitely deserves its R rating. So much so, that the filmmakers appear to have hedged on their racy content by filming a number of scenes with an actress in both revealing clothing and marginally less revealing clothing. I guess when key plot points take place in a strip club, that's what you have to do.

That's My Boy appears to be a little bit like Meet the Parents in reverse. Adam Sandler plays a young dad (as in the mother was a teacher who went to prison) who raised his son (Andy Samberg) with some pretty laissez-faire methods. Just as the tax man comes calling, he discovers his son is wealthy and about to marry--a perfect time for him to drop in and reconnect. I like that the story seems to be taking place from Sandler's perspective rather than the designated uptight person's perspective (Samberg). That's one thing I found trying about Ben Stiller's performance in Meet the Parents. Sandler always plays juvenile characters, so it's a nice riff on his star persona to have him play an immature father. Samberg, who really does look incredibly like Sandler, gets to be the one calling Sandler out on all his crazy antics--and maybe lightening up a bit.

Although I laughed along with Sandler's childish humor in Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and The Wedding Singer, I'm still recovering from the 2010 monstrosity that was Grown Ups. That's My Boy doesn't look great even in the trailer, but it has some novelty and infusion of fresh comic talent with the addition of Samberg. If tradition holds, the more this comedy bombs with critics the better it will do with audiences. Still, I hope that That's My Boy gives some of Sandler's old fans just a little bit of that humor that we used to enjoy so much.

 

 

'Bourne Legacy' trailer shows a Jeremy Renner you don't want to mess with

Although $1 billion proves me otherwise, I never warmed to the Bourne series. It felt so--sanitized--with none of the swagger of a Bond spy thriller or the gritty realism of a French Connection. It's true that Jason Bourne was an amnesiac, which could make someone a bit bland. That's pretty much how Matt Damon, who I like in almost any other context, played him. Jeremy Renner, the star of The Bourne Legacy, takes his character, who is a product of the same program, in an entirely new direction. He's angry.

The opening scene of the trailer, released today, shows him beat up and looking not downtrodden, but pissed off. It's in this moment that he agrees to become part of the "program." In later scenes, his foes appear to be sincerely frightened of him. It's like he's an animal who's been let loose from his cage.  The trailer, which uses some of that moody brass that became so popular with Inception, showcases Renner's flashiest spy skills. He runs down a corridor, pursued by security, then halts in his tracks and whacks the guy behind him. It's like he decided running wasn't worth the effort. He also uses a fire extinguisher to create some kind of air pellet, and appears to have his hand in blowing up a cabin and possibly using a sniper bullet to fell a small plane. I like that there's some weapons creativity along with a more emotive hero.

 

It's great to see Renner, who proved himself in The Hurt Locker, land himself a starring role in one of the most profitable action-spy franchises out there. I'll also give a brief nod to Edward Norton, who plays the enemy so, so well. The Bourne Legacy looks like it will inject the franchise with some real spunk. Count me in when it releases on August 3, 2012.