The new movie trailer for The Incredible Hulk, starring Ed Norton and Liv Tyler, was released today, and, much like the last trailer, it doesn’t win me over. The first trailer’s action sequences and visual effects were questionable, to say the least, and I was really hoping that a new trailer would prove me wrong. But, no! The Incredible Hulk movie trailer just reaffirms my suspicions: it’s going to have to have one hell of a screenplay to be good.
The action just looks cheesy, the visuals questionable. The Hulk seems to be captured in slow motion half the time, and that’s not a good thing.
Only time will tell, but with a lot of really cool comic book movies coming to theaters this summer, The Incredible Hulk could easily wind up in the gutter. Here’s the movie trailer:
My bedroom says thank you! After exactly two months of hording DVDs, I’ve finally packaged them, stamped them and sent them off to all you lucky contest and giveaway winners. I try to send out a shipment each month, but going to the Post Office is just a pain in the ass - even though there is one in the building where I work. So, if you always wonder why it takes so long to get your free DVDs, the reason is, often enough, that I’m lazy.
Below is a list of DVDs that I’ve shipped out to the selected winners. Please note that if your contest has closed and winners have been selected, but it is not listed here, that simply means that I am not sending the prizes out myself and have forwarded on your information to the appropriate movie studio to send out on my behalf. I have no real way of tracking these in any realistic way, so I just hope and pray (well, I don’t pray) that the studios get the shipments out to you. Anyway, here are the prizes that I have just sent out personally:
It’s been a while since I did an InstantSurvey, and it’s about damn time. While I realize that Iron Man opens on Thursday, I figured it’s not too late to get your feedback on the best and worst of the movies coming to theaters this summer. Which summer movie will be the best? Which summer movie will be the worst? What do you think of Speed Racer? The X-Files movie? How many movies are you going to see this summer, in theaters? (more…)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull arrives in theaters shortly, which means that Lucasfilm and Paramount are back at it releasing everything Indy in anticipation. With re-release DVDs of the original three Indiana Jones movies coming soon, April 29th brings The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three: The Years of Change to DVD in a massive box set in vein with Volume One and Volume Two.
Like the previous two box sets, Volume 3 is packed with special features, movies and so on and so forth. George Lucas and the crew spared no expense making these box sets, even going as far as to re-edit the original television show, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, into feature-length films. Whether that’s a good thing, maybe not.
This final box set comes with 10 discs, seven Indiana Jones movies and, according to the box, over 15 hours of special features and over two dozen documentaries. Needless to say, I don’t have the time and willpower to watch everything before writing this review.
A fan of the show growing up, I always enjoyed the the stories involving teenage Indy (played by Sean Patrick Flannery) a lot more, for obvious reasons. The stories are more adventure-filled, a lot less sappy and generally more interesting. While the original TV show mixed together the stories of super-young Indy and teenage Indy on, generally, an episode-by-episode basis and earmarked those episodes to shots of a really old Indiana Jones, these box sets have recut the episodes, made them more chronological and removed the old Indy altogether. The result is several feature-length movies that, while able to focus a lot more on a specific plot line, aren’t nearly as cohesive as they should be.
To make hour-and-a-half-long movies, Lucas had to splice and dice two or three stories together to make one, and the result is often a meandering one. Take Tales of Innocence, for example (coincidentally the first movie I watched on this box set). The first half is about Indy trying to identify a traitor in his crew during World War I and his ultimately tragic love affair with a local woman. It’s pretty exciting and entertaining, aside from a few slow minutes. Then, suddenly, the story switches gear and Indy and several new characters travel to investigate the disappearance of a group of soldiers, only to find that one of the missing commanders has somehow turned into Lord Dracula. This story is fine, too - and also plays into the mystical element that is found in all of the theatrical releases more so than most of the World War I plots - but is clearly not a part of the same movie.
To save time, money and effort, and to appease fans, I would have just left the episodes as they originally were, but we’re stuck with these feature-length re-edits which are good enough. A lot of people had probably forgot that there were dozens of additional hours of Indiana Jones goodness available, and it’s nice to see this high quality show get some renewed attention.
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume III: The Years of Change is available to own on April 29th. Did I already say that?
Baby Mama earned $6.28 million on Friday compared to Harold and Kumar’s $5.7; while I’m no box office expert, given the kind of comedies each of those films are, that is probably enough of a gap to keep Baby Mama the winner through the weekend.
I’m not too surprised, as Baby Mama plays to a more general audience, whereas Harold and Kumar targets a younger crowd. Baby Mama didn’t look all too good to me, but, then again, Tina Fey pulled off Mean Girls so anything can happen. As for me, I went to a sold-out showing of Harold and Kumar last night - you can read my movie review here.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall came in third with $3.4 million, while newcomer Deception, which most people haven’t heard of despite starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman, earned a paltry $760,000.
Check out the funny new movie trailer for the movie Hancock, starring Will Smith. Smith plays a bitter superhero who causes about as much damage as he does help people. Hancock really does look like another winner for Smith, as it looks like it should offer the perfect blend of comedy and action. Surprisingly, this film has been flying under the radar, but the buzz is bound to catch up at some point.
The new movie trailer for the upcoming sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is online in all its glory. The trailer is pretty good, having great setup with its slowly intensifying drum roll and more ominous visuals. Overall, the movie looks darker than its predecessor - and in fact one of the characters even makes note of that - which is a good thing.
Unfortunately, I got pumped up about the last Chronicles of Narnia and it ended up being underwhelming. Ultimately, the movies are still more geared towards children, which means these previews that show savage battles and intense fighting will not be nearly what they appear to be. What also concerns me is the lack of attention the trailer gives to the acting, most notably that of Ben Barnes, who plays the title character. He only gets one credited line in the trailer, and it’s a rather painfully delivered, “I am Prince Caspian.” I hope the line is just taken out of context, but I am not impressed.
Eva Mendes is pretty scorching hot, I must say. She’s also starring in the 2009 Frank Miller film The Spirit. Thankfully, Lionsgate has recently released a picture of Eva Mendes in Frank Miller’s The Spirit. Wearing a tight, skin-kissing outfit. And cleavage. (more…)
I just watched the teaser trailer for the upcoming Frank Miller film The Spirit, which was released yesterday. The Spirit has the same visual style as Sin City, which means that all of the fans who have been waiting for a Sin City sequel will at least be somewhat satisfied with something from the same vein.
I have no clue what The Spirit is about, but the visuals look pretty neat. The question will be: can Frank Miller, on his own, do what was clearly done by Robert Rodriguez before? The teaser trailer isn’t amazing and certainly doesn’t captivate the way that long Sin City ComiCon teaser did for us a few years earlier. The visuals are there, but not much happens to make us really excited for the film. I’m sure the next teaser will be a little more action packed, but here, all we get to see is some dude jumping around. There’s no real sense of seediness or suspense, and that’s a problem.
Still, for something to whet people’s appetites, it’s good enough.
Charlie Wilson’s War is now on DVD (well, as of a few hours from now). The movie, which stars Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts, really didn’t do that great in theaters despite the cast, the writing talent (Aaron Sorkin of “The West Wing” fame) and timing. One can attribute its modest failure to many things, including the fact that it is one of many flops in 2007 having to deal with the Middle East, or that it just didn’t look that good in the previews.
Thankfully, Charlie Wilson’s War was one of the surprising delights of the holiday season, as the movie is hilarious most of the time and meaningful the rest. Hanks, about the last person you’d expect to play a cocaine-snorting, womanizing senator, does a pretty good job, though it’s Hoffman who steals the show as a bitter CIA agent. Roberts is disappointing, though she doesn’t have much to work with given her character.
You can read my full Charlie Wilson’s War movie review here.
As for the DVD, there’s not much here, and one wonders whether this is in anticipation of a 2-Disc Collector’s Edition sometime in the near future. There are only two notable special features: “The Making of Charlie Wilson’s War” and “Who is Charlie Wilson?”
The making-of is mildly interesting, though it has a lot of talking heads all complimenting one another. The most interesting aspect is the look at the real Charlie Wilson, who tells the filmmakers to do depict him as sleazy as they want to - he won’t deny using drugs or having sex with prostitutes. Nice. That’s the honesty we want to see from our politicians!
Unfortunately, by the time I got to watching “Who is Charlie Wilson?”, all of the interesting facts and interview pieces had been used up in the previous featurette. A lengthier, independent documentary would have been much more interesting than a quick summary made for the DVD.
Ultimately, the movie makes it worth the purchase, but if you are a bonus features kind of guy, the Charlie Wilson’s War DVD is not for you.
