Haunting the Web Since 1999
The new Fiennes-centric Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix teaser poster is now online. Look for new photos from the film here, for a very brief clip here, and for the teaser — if, like me, you’re not going to see Happy Feet — on Monday. Update: Here it is.
More trailers: Sly tries to go fifteen more rounds in the surprisingly effective second trailer for Rocky Balboa (It’s the music, for sure), and Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr., Chloe Sevigny, Donal Logue, Elias Koteas, and Brian Cox venture into Se7en territory in the preview for David Fincher’s Zodiac. (Panic Room was sorta dull and by-the-numbers, but Fincher still has a lot of goodwill in this corner for Fight Club.)
In the movie bin, Homer J. Simpson gets stuck between a rock (Iraq?) and a hard place in the trailer for The (long-awaited) Simpsons Movie; Edward Norton (brandishing a surprisingly lousy accent) and Naomi Watts struggle with a loveless marriage by way of W. Somerset Maugham in the trailer for The Painted Veil (also with Liev Schrieber, Toby Jones, and the always lovely Dame Diana Rigg); and Wilbur the pig picks up a “spin” doctor with a way with words in a new Internet-only teaser for Charlotte’s Web (Between Julia and Buscemi, it seems like the voice-work is going to be really distracting.)
“Who’d have thought that while Gangs of New York‘s Amsterdam Vallon was killing Butcher Bill, down the road Abraham Lincoln was being kidnapped by Bill & Ted?” Another great link by way of Ted at The Late Adopter: The Movie Timeline, a.k.a. the History of the World according to film (and they’re looking for submissions.)
“It’s a very funny movie. You have to laugh at it now. But at the time, we were just glad to get rid of him.” Also in Salon, a handy guide to what’s real and what’s not in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
The new Sandman-heavy trailer for Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3 is now online. To be honest, I think I preferred the teaser — this one doesn’t really grab me (and it seems to give away too many plot points.) Nevertheless, here it is.
To be honest, for some reason or another, I don’t really feel the inclination to write the usual three-paragraph review for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, so I’ll just leave it at this: It’s really funny. Yes, several of the best moments — the “war of terror” speech, the “Not” joke, etc. — are in the ads, but, really, those only scratch the surface of the madness here. (As an aside, why is it that people seem to laugh hardest at jokes they’ve already heard? Must be an inclusiveness thing. I saw the movie on Friday afternoon with a packed audience, so it’s not like these were folks who hadn’t caught the trailer 1000 times.) At any rate, unless you’re offended by ridiculously over-the-top anti-semitism or have a problem with truly grotesque displays of male nudity, you should find it verrry nice. (But leave the gypsys at home.)
Recent trailers: Jim Carrey goes bonkers for Joel Schumacher in the trailer for The Number 23 (Looks like MJ and LeBron have a lot to answer for), Steve Carell takes Carrey’s old job in the new teaser for Evan Almighty, and everybody — including Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Peter Berg, Ryan Reynolds, Common, Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, and Alicia Keys — wants to kill Jeremy Piven in this look at Joe Carnahan’s Smoking Aces (I feel that way sometimes too.)
While writing up his set visit of The Golden Compass on his official site, author Philip Pullman inadvertently leaks that Sam Elliot is playing Lee Scoresby. That works.