Most of these require Quicktime or something, so that might be a problem.
Here is the site where I got most of these from.
Marie Antoinette
Kirsten Dunst plays the title role as apparently a bubbly teenage girl in a powder wig. It's like a Knight's Tale, complete with 80's music set to what were actually pretty gruesome times in history. Kirsten Dunst being naked for a few scenes will probably sell tickets and unfortunately send studios the message that this sort of movie is a good idea. Also, people who are insane might think it's a neat and interesting take on history.
A Scanner Darkly
Cel-Shading worked for Link (sort of), so maybe it will work for Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. A Scanner Darkly is based off a novel I've never read and apparently is about a police state in the near future and head trauma. The movie looks so-so, but maybe Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson will be funny together. I have no idea how fans of the book will react, but I know some people were excited.
Three Times
A very neat idea. Three different couples, in three different times (1911, 1966, 2005), played by the same two actors. Beware though, it has subtitles. At the very least, it looks like a very interesting idea. If the movie does poorly, someone should take the concept and make a better movie using it. If the movie even makes it here. It seems very nice, so I hope it does make it's way to release here.
District B13
From the director who brought you The Transporter 2 comes a movie a lot like The Transporter 2. It's like The Fast and the Furious meets Ong Bak (he did that one too) with nuclear weapons. In France. Apparently some Parisian street gang gets nuclear weapons and... does something, who knows. The plot is guranteed to be retarded, but if you're into action or something, maybe it will be for you. The trailer has matrixy stunts and some catchy little techno thing. Turn off brain.
The Proposition
Some film critics say Tombstone was the last good Western movie. This looks like a pretty good Western movie. But it's actually in 1880s Australia. Still, it's dusty and gritty and has old guns and funny mustaches. And Guy Pearce is there too! Also, Emily Watson and John Hurt. It actually looks pretty decent, but I hope it has more drama than action. It's difficult to tell from the trailer.
The Promise (Wu Ji)
Another epic martial arts movie from the Far East. It looks like Memoirs of a Geisha meets the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Epic battles, big armies, pretty people, funny costumes. It looks pretty good actually, but a few scenes look like they'd actually be done better as an anime of some sort. I really like the bold, unnatural, solid colors that these sorts of films use. It makes everything more dramatic. The score sounds very good in the trailer.
Lady in the Water
It has peaceful music and seems happy, but it's by M. Night Shyamalan, so I'm betting it's about interdimensional mermaids who wish to invade our world. Also, the main character is probably actually dreaming.
Apocalypto
Mel Gibson may be crazy but he'd like to point out to us that the Mayans were atleast twice as crazy as he is. It's apparently about Mayans and their lack of dental hygience and primitive nasal piercings. Also, the movie may or may not be political commentary about America destroying itself with it's own greatness. And cannibalism.
La Mujer de Mi Hermano
A beautiful woman is married to this rich guy she loves but he's a bit cold and insensitive so she sleeps with his warm and charming hippy brother instead. Conflict ensues. I have no idea if this movie is good or not, but I like the song in the trailer. It seems to emphasize sexuality over emotional distress so critics will probably call it 'Sexy!' and 'Erotically-charged!'
An Inconvenient Truth
It has a really neat looking movie poster and a suspenseful trailer. But the only actor in the film is Al Gore. I felt very misled. Cheesy taglines abound.
Miami Vice
Most of the remakes of shows from the 80s and early 90s are done as parody and mock the original. Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral, one of the Bourne movies, I forgot which) decided to take the movie very seriously, but it's hard to take a movie about grown men and women seriously when the trailer's song is Linkin Park's 'Numb'. It has Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as the leads, so at the very least, we'll have Colin Farrell in Miami. Take a drink every time someone is referred to as a loose cannon or gets kicked off the force.
Little Miss Sunshine
Steve Carrell, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin. Black humor movie, I suppose. Steve Carrell is living with his brother's family, recovering from a suicide attempt I gather after his affections for a male (college) student of his were not returned. The trailer looks funny and offbeat. Guranteed to be atleast 'pretty funny'.
Wah Wah
Ha! British People! Gabriel Byrne and Emily Watson. Dysfunctional family drinks and cheats on eachother (sometimes with black people, oh my) in plain sight but nobody talks about it because they're British. Actually looks sort of funny.
Down in the Valley
Romantic movie about an urban cowboy who is Edward Norton instead of John Travolta. He meets a girl who is a bit angsty and has conflicts with her father. Edward Norton apparently wants to shoot her father and carry her off on a white horse (it all sounds a lot more romantic in the trailer than it did right there). Norton might be a bit too old for this part, and the female lead is sort of jailbait young so the movie looks a bit awkward in ways I don't think the director intended. See if you can spot Macaulay Culkin's sibling.
Alpha Dog
Apparently based off a true story, this movie makes growing up rich and white in the suburbs seem a lot cooler and grittier than it really is. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but the main character looks a lot like Justin Timberlake. And 'Johnny Truelove' is a terrible name for the main character. You shouldn't be able to get away with that sort of thing in modern, high budget cinema.
The Lost City
Andy Garcia directs and stars in this movie set in Havana, 1958. It shows the transformation of Cuba from the perspective of the music and club scenes in Havana at the time. This is a subject not often covered in film to my knowledge, and the movie looks very interesting and well done. Andy Garcia is also a gorgeous man. Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray are also there, inexplicably. Andy Garcia is Cuban himself (and actually, a large portion of Hollywood calls him 'The Cuban'), so this seems like it's probably a story he wanted to tell in film. If the trailer is a good indicator, he's done a good job.
[Edit]: This apparently came out in April and I didn't notice.
Lashanna fucked around with this message on 05-12-2006 at 03:53 AM.
Add a trailer and a blurb about a movie you're either looking forward to or you think is bad enough to deserve special attention. Or just give your own thoughts on one of these. Or I don't know.
I picked a good summer for Europe then!
good good.
BRICKKKKKKKK
"Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I am with you. I'll buy it for sure, it's just a matter of for how long I will be playing it..."
- Silvast, Battle.net forums
As for Scanner Darkly, it's based off a Phillip K Dick novel. The loose idea is that Reeves' character is a cop who suffered head trauma, pursuing this master druglord/criminal mastermind who is in fact his own alter ego/second personality. I like the futuristic tone of things, common in PKD stories, but I think the cel shading thing has been overstated; it reminds me of some of those 80's music videos where they tried to cartoon over real people.
Let's see... "The Promise" is, according to an interview with the director, something of a parable about China as a country. This girl is met by a goddess as a child and offered a promise of great beauty, but all of her lovers will go away, be killed, etc. Fast forward to adulthood and her country is riven with conflict, in which she plays a central part. It definitely has arthouse values (think "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Hero"), and Chinese sensibilities. Interestingly enough, the director of this film has done a lot of serious films in the past and only added the over-the-top wire-fu fight sequences because it was getting hard to sell movie concepts in China without the gratuitous wire-fu fight (sort of like trying to get a 70's Japanese movie without a guy in a giant rubber suit, I guess).
"Apocalypto" isn't going to do well. In THEORY it's supposed to recount how the natives of North and South America existed as the Europeans came over and started messing around. In theory. Unfortunately, all Gibson can really offer is a huge-scale production to a topic that's been covered by everything from "1492: Conquest of Paradise" to the (vastly superior) "The Mission". I'm all for opening up discussion about that sort of period in history, but even if you assume he doesn't try to slip in some form of political message, it just won't draw the same sort of crowds as something like "Passion of the Christ" and all these critics who seem be deluded into thinking otherwise are just plain wrong.
I'm seeing "Miami Vice" though. I've been getting the seasons on DVD. I used to watch it when I could con my parents to let me stay up late as a kid. And keep in mind that Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues are almost directly responsible for pretty much all later cop dramas. So don't diss the old stuff too seriously. When I first saw the trailers a while back, I was wary, but the buzz around it is actually pretty promising. Production values will be cut very well; lots of long takes and so forth to give things a genuine feel (a la "Heat"). I'm looking forward to seeing how the new Crockett and Tubbs work out.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
As a result, it got a very limited release and apparently Andy Garcia is now 'tainted goods' in Hollywood because he's supposedly a right wing Batista-lover.
quote:
The logic train ran off the tracks when TheOriginalZane said:
that movie brick looks good.good good.
BRICKKKKKKKK
It was fucking awesome.
A favorite of mine. Go see it. Now.
My review... eh. I mean, I WANT to write something. I really do.
It had almost no story until the very end. And then, the story there, was rather weak and felt like it was slapped together at the last moment.
I dont get out to watch new movies anymore. There's probably a reason somewhere.
quote:
Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Lashanna absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
I'm pretty interested in The Lost City. Most critics and reviewers say it does a good job of not taking sides in the whole fiasco that was Cuba and simply said it was a terrible thing for everyone involved with no real good outcome. However, in the movie, Che Guevara kills people and is not a nice guy so Steven Spielberg, Jack Nicholson, commie teenagers, and most of South America boycotted it.As a result, it got a very limited release and apparently Andy Garcia is now 'tainted goods' in Hollywood because he's supposedly a right wing Batista-lover.
Wut?
Che Guevara wasn't a nice guy and did kill people.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
Although I do believe that was the point.
quote:
Verily, Bloodsage doth proclaim:
Wut?Che Guevara wasn't a nice guy and did kill people.
You're such a capitalist, deranged nimrod.
Communism was obviously the purest form of socialism, which is obviously the purest form of equality. Can you really compare a few senseless murders and bloody outbursts to equality? EQUALITY.
This particular strain of discussion ends here. The next person to talk about communism or capitalism or whatever in this thread gets raped with a spoon. Mr. Parcelan fucked around with this message on 05-13-2006 at 11:45 AM.
quote:
So quoth Bloodsage:
Wut?Che Guevara wasn't a nice guy and did kill people.
Exactly! Some people apparently think he was some peaceful revolutionary communist philosopher.
quote:
Kinanik wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
Actually, A Scanner Darkly is filmed live action, for the most part, and then painted over.
That's what they used to do with old music videos. Tape it, then use Video Toaster or whatever to draw cartoony stuff over everyone.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Lashanna got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Exactly! Some people apparently think he was some peaceful revolutionary communist philosopher.
But he was!!! All that stuff about him killing people was just a bunch of anti-communist propaganda on the part of the CIA (whose agents were responsible for the very killings they pinned on Che).
quote:
This insanity brought to you by Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael:
That's what they used to do with old music videos. Tape it, then use Video Toaster or whatever to draw cartoony stuff over everyone.
Though, to be fair... A Scanner Darkly almost looks like it is entirely animated, I wouldn't have guessed it was painted over unless I had read it. It seems better to me than regular animation, to me, because the actions seem more realistic.
quote:
Kinanik's fortune cookie read:
Though, to be fair... A Scanner Darkly almost looks like it is entirely animated, I wouldn't have guessed it was painted over unless I had read it. It seems better to me than regular animation, to me, because the actions seem more realistic.
Okay...it's a bit tighter in the animation, and probably cleaner with cel shading techniques, and they ARE doing a full length movie out of it, but eh...
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
"Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I am with you. I'll buy it for sure, it's just a matter of for how long I will be playing it..."
- Silvast, Battle.net forums