Skyfall

I don’t know what’s going on in most James Bond movies until the end, so it doesn’t bother me that this trailer makes little effort to reference the plot. The tenor is excellent, and it has just the right combination of intrigue and action. The polygraph test at the beginning is the only part that really matters, and Daniel Craig’s reaction to the word, “Skyfall” speaks volumes. The only hint about what that means comes from a flashback in which Bond kills someone, which does not differentiate this film from any of the others. Obviously it’s important though, because it immediately gets under the skin of a trained assassin. Even though Craig’s darker portrayal of Bond has led to mixed reviews, there is something very intriguing about a James Bond who has morals. The movies are fun because they are so obviously ludicrous and extravagant, and it will be interesting to delve deeper into a more realistic James Bond.

Anchorman 2

After lambasting the leaked trailer last week, the shiny and clean trailer came out this week, and it is immaculate. Everything is better, and there’s still no script. It’s essentially a new trailer, which is a reminder of how much content this group can produce and how funny they are together. They’ve already fully inhabited the characters and have the right timing as a group. It’s like they never left, and Ferrell’s assurance at the end that it will be a fun movie is all I need to hear. If they could throw everything together so quickly, imagine what the movie will be like when they have time. I am excited.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Red Band trailers are always fun, and this one is especially gory. It is set against the backdrop of the Civil War, but the actual story is not clear. Is vampirism an allegory for slavery? How would that work? The impression the trailers give is that they’re some sort of hidden menace, which doesn’t work in relation to slavery. Everyone was aware of slavery. Is it instead some sort of counterfactual story, in which the Civil War is against vampires and slavery was never a problem? Does Abraham Lincoln have to fight two wars?  Did he gain the presidency because of his vampire-killing prowess? Most of this probably doesn’t matter, because the movie is about killing vampires, which is awesome. Still, I’d like to know that there is some sort of structure behind the killing.

The Great Gatsby

I only read this book once, six years ago, so I’m not the best person to comment on how much this trailer resembles the book. That may not matter though, because very little of the plot is revealed. Sure, Carey Mulligan loves Leonardo DiCaprio, but that’s not really enough for a movie. (What’s that you say about Titanic? Shhhh). Instead, the trailer spends most of its time revealing the setting, which appears to be Willy Wonka’s Coruscant. I had no idea the Roaring ‘20s were more modern than present day. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio is once again playing Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire looks perplexed (doesn’t he always?), and Joel Edgerton is wary of everything. If that’s not enough for you (it shouldn’t be), there is also the needless inclusion of dubstep and some vaguely Australian accents. I’m sure Baz Luhrmann is to blame for that, but surely that can’t be how they’ll sound all movie. What kind of weird, jingoistic move would that be to have characters from one of the greatest American novels sound Australian for two hours? I hope it is just an issue that arose with sound mixing.*

* I don’t know what sound mixing is.

Dan Spritz / Cherry On Top / @DanSpritz

Anchorman 2

On the surface, this trailer is actually a little disappointing. It feels like a parody of the first movie, and none of the jokes are particularly funny. Brick being an idiot who’s incapable of his own thoughts is a good one-off joke, but they stay with it too long. Having said that, they barely had any time to write this teaser. Ferrell and McKay don’t know what the movie is going to look like yet, and the only reason they wrote this trailer was to sate the public’s desire for something to with this movie. It’s awesome to see all of the characters again, and I’m excited to see where they will go from here. So, enjoy this trailer, and know that whatever they come up with when there is time to write the movie will be much better. That’s enough to tease me.

The We And The I

This is a movie about the longest bus ride ever. It’s the last day of school, and everyone who has taken this bus all year suddenly has to face some sort of reckoning. Instead of being excited about summer beginning, everyone is freaking out because their relationships haven’t gone the way they’d like. No one is happy with their friends or their romantic interests. Luckily, they have a five-hour bus ride to work through all of these problems. Seriously, they got on the bus right after school, and some of them don’t get off until sunset. What massive fictional Bronx do they live in? This is a Michel Gondry film, and despite the setting it seems like a fairly standard day-in-the-life coming of age story. Also, there’s a stereotypical racist lady. Pass on this one.

The Words

This is a movie where Bradley Cooper is a struggling writer. Sadly, he can’t get over his lack of talent by taking NZT-48. Instead, he gets over his lack of talent by plagiarizing the work Ben Barnes did in a post-war Paris. Barnes’ magical manuscript gets him past his crisis of confidence and turns him into a very successful writer. BUT AT WHAT COST!?!

Probably not that much cost. He lied, but how much is that going to bother him? I understand plagiarism is bad, but he’ll still keep the money and the notoriety, and that will give him the freedom to do the kind of writing he wants to. At worst, he can write under a pseudonym. I don’t see this as a terrible conflict.

Dan Spritz / Cherry On Top / @DanSpritz

Gangster Squad

Intrigue! Hollywoodland! Noir! Dirty cops! Gosling! This trailer talks around what this movie is about without really saying anything. As best I can tell, Sean Penn plays a crime lord who has sway over a number of dirty cops. Josh Brolin is tasked with bringing him in, while Ryan Gosling is somewhere in the middle romancing Emma Stone. While the trailer doesn’t give much away plotwise, it does an excellent job of conveying the tone of the movie and the world it will exist in. The movie feels substantial, which is more than I can say for most films. I don’t have any reason to expect more than that, but it’s a good start.

Argo

Going in, I was hoping this movie was about the CFL. Instead, it’s about important things. After my initial disappointment subsided and the trailer moved past showing how depressing the Iran Hostage Crisis was, it quickly became apparent that this could be an exceedingly interesting movie. With an eclectic cast (Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman) and a premise packed with potential, I have high hopes for the film. The contrast between Hollywood and revolutionary Tehran will be stark and I am curious to see how the rescue strategy will be implemented. This is a very meaty idea, and so far the trailer has done a great job teasing it.

The Watch

It is rare for a trailer to be allowed to breathe as much as this trailer does. Even though it clocks in at the normal two and a half minutes, much of the trailer lingers on three scenes. It immediately revels that there are aliens among us before allowing the four leads (Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, Vince Vaughn, and… Richard Ayoade?) to have fun with that idea while people watching. That’s really the only scene this trailer needs to show. People watching with smart friends is a timeless pastime, and it wonderful watching these four comedy pros (well, Ayoade certainly seems funny) comment on how normal behavior can very easily look alien. I don’t think this movie is going to be a commentary on human nature, but based on that clip it could be. The scene with R. Lee Ermey is great too, and the extended discussion of alien blood as green cum is fantastic. If that’s not enough, this movie will be a union of three comedy dynasties. Along with the Vaughn-Stiller backbone that represents that older generation, this movie is directed by the Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer (Jorma Taccone is in it as well, while Andy Samberg surprisingly is not), and written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad, etc…) It’s like having Daenerys dragon’s and the Kingslayer fight for Robb Stark’s army (I just started watching Game of Thrones. Ignore me.)

The Campaign

Structurally, this trailer makes a lot of sense. It’s about a campaign and shows one campaign ad from each candidate. It doesn’t work though, because both Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis play politicians who are too aggressively buffoonish. Even though Ferrell has experience lampooning President Bush, that worked because it was based on actual events and was thus believable. Even though the stupid comments in this trailer could have been uttered by politicians, they sound more like an attempt to sound stupid than like a believable political satire. It’s a fine line to walk, obviously, but so far I don’t have much confidence in their ability to pull it off. As it is, both candidates appear to be too ridiculous to satirize anyone but Rick Santorum. I’m fine with that, but it’s not a particularly difficult feat to make him look like a fool. I’m willing to wait and see on this movie because the two leads have such great comedic chops, but I’m not optimistic.

Dan Spritz / Cherry On Top / @DanSpritz

The Dark Knight Rises

This is the final trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, and it is more subdued than the previous two. It favors crippling citywide depression to action, even though two bridges blow up and a football field implodes. It is dark, and drives home how much danger Bruce Wayne is actually in while focusing on Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s characters. He appears to be an everyman member of Gotham PD, and she appears to be a sumptuous member of the Gotham elite. While previous trailers have painted her as being in favor of Gotham’s populist uprising, her fear of Bane hints at something else. Speaking of Bane, he’s seen a voice coach! (Or a sound mixer). He claims to be, “Gotham’s Reckoning,” and feels Bruce Wayne deserves a punishment more severe than death. He is also involved in some sort of insane mid-air hijacking of one plane by another. Even that awesome action sequence is downplayed considerably. In all, it perfectly sets up a world that falling apart and has no hope.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

I know nothing about this movie. I’ve watched the trailer twice and I don’t even have a passing understanding of what the movie is about. Here’s the list of things I think this movie focuses on:

• The interconnectedness of everything in the world.
• The fragility of that interconnectedness.
• A special boy
• Fatherhood
• Community
• An Orox, whatever that is
• An Orox’s escape from under the ice
• A flood
• Crabs
• Past, present, & future
• More Oroxes
• Wonderment

The Expendables 2

This trailer is exactly what you would imagine it would be. It’s basically a parody trailer, except it’s real. Sylvester Stallone introduces it in his characteristically hard to understand tone. He makes a point of enunciating here, but imagine if he played Bane. Moving forward, there are absurd explosions, absurd fight sequences, absurd set pieces, and a couple absurd lines. The plot doesn’t matter, but it revolves around the wrong people acquiring some absurd amount of plutonium. Liam Hemsworth gives the cast some youth, and he does not appear to be hungry . Also, Chuck Norris is back, apparently. I didn’t realize he had been gone. You’ll know if you’ll like this trailer before you watch it.

Dan Spritz / Cherry On Top / @DanSpritz