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Movie Trailers

Trailer Roundup: The Watch, Killer Joe, Fat Kid Rules The World & More!

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It’s time for my favorite part of the year. What time is that you might ask? Well, it’s the time of year when we get the previews for all the summer and fall movies coming out for the year. But why do you get excited just for summer and fall movies, you might ask? Well, simply put, they’re just better. Summer films are meant to entertain, while the fall fare is all Oscar bait and leftover blockbusters that didn’t make the cut so you’re either getting A-grade quality or C-grade cheesiness, both of which are very enjoyable.

In this edition of Trailer Roundup, trailers for what might win Best Picture at the Oscars or Worst Picture at the Razzies will share the stage to be consumed for your film-going pleasures.

The Watch (RedBand)

Formerly known as Neighborhood Watch, the film has gone through some major marketing changes due to some recent current events.  The film follows an ‘urbanite’ who moves to a new community and joins the Neighborhood Watch, who soon find out that they are in the midst of an alien invasion. It looked hilarious back before the marketing switch, and it looks even better now that they are focusing on the aliens. – SupaScoot

Stars: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade, Billy Crudup, Rosemarie DeWitt, Will Forte, and R. Lee Ermey

Release Date: July 27, 2012

Bait

In this R-rated gorefest from unknown director Kimble Rendall, Bait 3D follows a group of tsunami survivors who are trapped in a supermarket. And not because of the water. No, there’s a 12-foot killer shark lurking in the surrounding waters, and the only chance of survival they have is waiting for the water levels to die down. Does this sound stupid? Yes. Is the trailer stupid? Yes. But is it going to be a shark-filled, gore-filled, dead-person-filled, cheesy-dialouge-filled piece of awesome shit? Absolutely.

Stars: Phoebe Tonkin, Alex Russell, Xavier Samuel, Julian McMahon, Sharni Vinson, Cariba Heine, and Lincoln Lewis

Release Date: September 6th, 2012

Argo

I think we can all agree that Ben Affleck is a better director than he is an actor. So his newest film, which he directed I might add, looks pretty great. I love movies about movies, and that’s what Argo is… kind of. According to IMDb: As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA ‘exfiltration’ specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador. That risky plan you might ask? Make a fake movie. Argo looks to be the most entertaining war story of the year.

Stars: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Michael Parks, Chris Messina, Victor Garber, Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, Taylor Schilling, Michael Cassidy, and Clea DuVall

Release Date: October 12th, 2012

The Possession

It seems like we’ve just got the preview for this year’s biggest stinker. Produced by Sam Raimi of all people, The Possession follows a little girl who purchases a mysterious antique box at a local garage sale. Unbeknownst to her, the box is home to a malevolent spirit that possess her body, and it’s up to her parents to stop it. The problem isn’t that it looks poorly made, it just looks so derivative. It’s even “Based on a True Story”. I can’t wait until the day Hollywood runs out of true stories to tell.

Stars: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Madison Davenport, Natasha Calis, Grant Snow, Agam Darshi, Quinn Lord, and (not even joking around here) Matisyahu

Release Date: August 31st, 2012

Killer Joe

Alright, everyone. This is where shit gets serious. Matthew McConaghuey in an NC-17 movie directed by William Friedkin based on a play by Tracy Letts? Count me the hell in. Oh yeah, and the movie co-stars Emile Hirsch and Juno Temple, two of the best young actors working in Hollywood. After accumulating a hefty debt, a young man hires a hit man to kill his evil mother who has a $50,000 life insurance plan on her. Thing is, the hit man is a maniacal wacko who instead accepts the boy’s sister’s hand in marriage instead of monetary payment. Things get a little crazy, apparently.

Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon, and Thomas Haden Church

Release Date: June 29th, 2o12

Fat Kid Rules The World (RedBand)

In Fat Kid Rules The World, Troy is a morbidly obese and depressed teenager who, after attempting suicide, is saved by street performer and teenage drug addict Marcus. The two form a bond and start a punk band together, bringing Troy both confidence and fame as he realizes his impact on the world. But when Marcus’ drug addiction becomes a problem, it’s up to Troy to help him live to see another day. From the trailer, it seems like this will be a great quirky coming-of-age film that will appeal to all demographics.

Stars: Jacob Wysocki, Matt O’Leary, Billy Campbell, Sean Donovan, Jeffrey Doornbos, Vivan Dugre, Julian Gavilanes, Russell Hodgkinson, and Matthew Lillard

Release Date: TBD

The Host

Stephenie Meyer adaptations have a reputation for being… complete and total shit. Much like the adaptations of Nicholas Sparks, moviegoers appreciate none-too-much the sappiness and artificial fluff that comes with a love triangle between a human and a vampire and a werewolf. So, it’s rather surprising that the teaser trailer for Meyers’ most recent adaptation, The Host, looks halfway not shitty. Starring Saoirse Ronan, the film is about a dystopian future where there is no crime, no hate, and no conflict because of a parasitic alien soul that invades peoples’ bodies… I think.

Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger, William Hurt, Frances Fisher, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Chandler Canterbury, and Scott Lawrence

Release Date: March 29th, 2013

The We and the I

Michel Gondry understands the human condition better than a psychologist, so it’s fitting that he would make a film about a bunch of seniors during their last bus ride home from school. The premise is fascinating and seems to me like a film that would be adapted into a play or vice versa. From the trailer, it seems like the portrayal of these kids is extremely accurate, and I’m quite excited to see how their different personalities play against one another in a film that takes place in such a confined space.

Stars: Meghan Murphy, Alex Barrios, Brandon Diaz, Joe Mele, Lady Chen Carrasco, Patricia Jade Persaud, Jonathan Scott Worrell, and Raymond Rios

Release Date: TBD

Beasts of the Southern Wild

This trailer for the Sundance Film Festival favorite looks to be equal parts The Tree of Life and Where the Wild Things Are, except possibly even more magical than those two combined. The story follows a six-year-old named Hushpuppy who goes in search of her mother after learning of her father’s deteriorating health. Along the way, she meets a fascinating cast of characters who all teach her something about life. To be honest, this is possibly one of the most gorgeous trailers I’ve ever seen and I truly can’t wait to see this film.

Stars: Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Marilyn Barbarin, Jonshel Alexander, Kaliana Brower, Joseph Brown, and Nicholas Clark

Release Date: TBD

That does it for this edition of the Trailer Roundup!

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Movie Trailers

Trailer Roundup: Piranha 3DD, Neighborhood Watch, Frankenweenie and More!

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Piranha 3DD

Having awoken from their spring break extravaganza at Lake Victoria, the swarm heads upstream where they look to make a meal out of Big Wet, a local water park where when it comes to fun, nobody does it wetter! Thought they came to get wet, get loaded and get some, the staff and patrons get more than they bargained for when they must face the fiercest, most bloodthirsty piranhas yet.

Stars: 3D Boobs. Oh, and Danielle Panabaker, Chris Zylka, Katrina Bowden, Allison Mack, Ving Rhames, David Koechner, David Hasslehoff

Release Date: TBA 2012

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MOVIES

Grizzly Review: The Artist

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The silent era is one of the most important and one of the most sacred eras in film history. It marked the beginning of the motion picture, as well as the beginning of the future. No one had ever seen anything like a movie before, and, as bold of a statement as this may be, nobody ever will.

The late 20s marked the beginning of what was then known as the “talkie”. For years, people had been watching movies with no sound, backed only by live instrumentation to set the tone for every scene. People craved more, though. They figured that if people could talk in real life, why couldn’t they talk in the movies? The transition from silent to talkie left many actors jobless, with few able to maintain their status as a top silent actor or filmmaker, with Charlie Chaplin being one of the most recognizable names.

In The Artist, one of the world’s most famous silent actors, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), is facing a similar ultimatum. Either he retires as an actor, forgotten like the rest of silent film, or he adapts to his ever changing environment, embracing the talkie as the rest of the world has. Valentin also has a chance encounter with Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a young and beautiful dancer who decides to follow her dream of being an actress when a photo of her and Valentin is found on the cover of Variety.

Meanwhile, studio executive Al Zimmer (John Goodman), pushes the technological advancement on Valentin, which does nothing but push him away. Valentin swears that he’ll keep silent film alive, making films of his own that bomb quite drastically as Miller’s status as a leading woman rises quickly, going from extra to star in a mere two years. The two begin something of an unspoken romance that is constantly interrupted by the outside world. Eventually, Valentin finds himself poor and alone, save for his extremely loyal butler, Clifton (James Cromwell). With both talkies and Peppy Miller at the top of the entertainment industry, Valentin is lost, looking for a reason to live as happily as he once did.

The Artist has been named the best film of the year by many a critic, and is almost a shoe-in for best picture at the Oscars this year. The hype for this film, produced by The Weinstein Company, has been some of the biggest of the year, causing viewers to rush to the theater, fueled by the film’s numerous awards, as well as its 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So, does it live up to the expectations of being the best movie of the year?

Well, in short, no. In fact, it doesn’t really even earn a place in my top 20 and possibly even 50 of the year, but it does do something that I can’t quite put my finger on. It had a certain effect on me that I can’t quite vocalize. It wasn’t nostalgic, and it wasn’t authentic, so that can’t be it, but if not that then what?

For one, in aiming to resemble the silent films of the 1920s, it does a relatively decent job, but is also missing quite a bit. Screened in 14:2 ratio instead of the 16:4 that we’re used to was quite pleasing, as was actually making the film silent to really encompass the world that it was portraying. With all of the authenticity though, came quite a few mistakes. For one, the HD quality of the film angered me slightly, as if the filmmakers were going for clean, when in actuality, they should have taken a couple pages from the Death Proof handbook and physically scratched the film, giving it a look much more akin to a 1920s film.

Also, for a silent film, there’s a hell of a lot of talking, more than necessary for a film like this, and it kind of made me wish that they had just made the film a talkie, working harder on a select few scenes that were silent to give the movie a little more flair. The intertitles were unfortunately sparse, and considering the bloated running time, 100 minutes (about a 1/2 hour more than it should have been), intertitles would have been nice.

As I mentioned above, at 100 minutes, The Artist is also far too long, deciding to focus on mostly unnecessary and overly extended comedy sequences as opposed to creating a linear narrative that gets the viewer prepared for what was an excellent and heartbreaking third act. The last forty minutes of the film most definitely saved itself from the first 60, and I wished that the plotting in the first half had been as tight and focused as the second.

The Artist is advertised as a romance film, but for being marketed as such, the romance between the two leads seems to be second to the film’s themes of the future of silent actors and their movies, which is disappointing considering that I was hoping to see a beautiful, silent romance, similar to the one that viewers saw in 1931’s City Lights.

Personally, I spend the time that I’m not watching or reviewing movies researching film history, and as a huge fan of the silent era, the whole film’s plot becomes almost irrelevant once viewers learn that silent films were still being made well into the thirties, a well-known one being 1936’s Modern Times. Valentin is supposed to represent a star as big as Chaplin, so why could Charlie still make silent films successfully, and Valentin couldn’t? Seems odd considering the star status that he seems to hold.

In theory, I probably should have loved this movie. The acting is great, with Jean Dujardin giving one of the best performances of the year. The directing by French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius, who also wrote the scenario and intertitles, is fantastic, making reflection a metaphor for self-reflection through the sly turn of his camera. So what is it about The Artist that I don’t love? Well, besides its somewhat long first and second act, as a fan of the silent era, the film comes off as a love letter to cinema that got the address wrong. Its heart is in the right place, and its intentions are good, but the boring story never allowed things to take off like they should have, leaving the viewer at a standstill for almost 80 minutes, then gunning it for the last 20. Silent films are deliberate and artful, and require pacing that I found to be lacking here. Then again, if a silent film could win best picture in the the 1920s and the 2010s, that’d be pretty astounding.

3/5 Grizzly’s

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#6 – Countdown to Halloween: MONSTERS INC.

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I have two things to say before I delve into this article.  Number one, I love Halloween.  I love the spooky creatures, the crisp air, the jack-o-lanterns, the candy.  Number two, I hate horror films.  I really, really do.  I was one of those kids that had nightmares from anything scarier than a Goosebumps book.  Even in adulthood, the films are either too scary and the images haunt me for months, or too cheesy which just bores me.  I’m the weirdo watching the History Channel specials about werewolves or reading Dracula for the 254,235th time.  (A brief side note: if they ever decide to make a decent film adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel, I would most likely love it.)

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TV

NBC’s Thursday Review and Recap: Community, Parks and Recreation, The Office and Whitney

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Last week, we did a preview of NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup. Well the shows are in the books and we would love nothing more to give you a recap and review. Warning…Spoilers Ahead.

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