Thursday, August 11, 2005
Movie Trailer Fun
Movie Trailers!
The teaser trailer for Domino didn't do much for me, and I thought the whole "fashion model girl turned bounty hunter" was a bit ridiculous, inspired by true events or not, but I have to admit that I really enjoyed this new full length one. It starts off slowly, with lots of annoying voice over by a very English-sounding Kiera Knightley, but once they get into the plot complications and show some action, it starts rocking in a very quirky sort of way. I'm usually one to criticize trailers for giving away far too much of the plot (See Island, The.) but this one strikes a nice balance; telling us enough to get us interested without spilling all the beans.
Elsewhere, there's allegedly a full Aeon Flux trailer online, at last, but it's on some godawful Mtv player thing that I can't get to work, even after I turn off my pop up blocker. I guess it's inevitable with corporate partnerships, but the overcomplcation of movie trailer delivery is an increasing scourge upon the Internet. About every month there's a new one on AOL's Moviefone that's simply unwatchable; you've got to DL some proprietory AOL software, you've got to allow invasive cookies, and even if you do all of that it plays in a tiny window and looks like shit. Eventually those show up on the official movie website in decent quality, but it sucks to wait; in fact I have a cable modem expressely so I do not have to wait.
That aside, I'd also like to recommend the Lord of War trailer, though I doubt I'll see the movie myself. It's about Nicholas Cage as an international gun dealer, but there's really no way to judge the tone of the film. The trailer plays it as a sort or screwball comedy, with him jetting into one dangerous tyrant's regime after another and selling lots of bullets and guns without a shred of morality about his actions. That's contrasted with a pleasant American suburban homelife with a wife who knows nothing of his real job. Yes, just like every spy movie made in the last decade. It's inevitable that Cage's worlds will collide, and I suppose it could be fun when they do, but I rather suspect there will be lots of faux sincerity as he's motivated by his wife to suddenly discover a conscience. Maybe he'll even give away a plane load of guns to some noble freedom fighters somewhere, to counter act his sales to the evil oppressor. But I sure hope not. (I must admit that I have no idea how I'd wrap up the script to this one either. It's a cute set up, but where do you go with it from there?)
I had some hopes for The Transporter II, since the early teaser was cute and lively, but it's looking more and more mediocre with every film clip and international trailer they release.
Nightwatch still looks interesting, and the image quality of the trailers has increased immeasurably since the first one that came streaming from some Russian site, but since I've been hearing about it for over a year I'm getting sort of sick of the concept, and I'm very sick of the endless delays US movie fans seem to suffer with every imported film. The damn thing came out last summer in Russia; how long does it take to thorw in some fricking subtitles anyway?
Lastly, I've got to rave a bit about the new Tony Jaa movie. Ong Bak was a cheesy film with colossal fight scenes (I gave it a 7.), and this one looks to be about the same. In fact the only sneak review I've seen online says as much, but whatever; the new trailer is the absolute shit if you enjoy martial arts. Sure, I can see holes in a lot of the moves, and it's frequently obvious (especially in slow motion) that the guy about to be hit is waiting for it; but it's still got a lot of fun stuff. And I'm sure that we'll all enjoy it, when some film studio gets around to releasing it in the US in fall 2007 or so.
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