Movie Trailer: Alex Proyas’ Knowing
IGN has the first trailer for Alex Proyas’ Knowing. My first impression is that the film looks rather generic and boring, which is sad considering how much I am rooting for Proyas. The director gained critical acclaim for his 1998 sci-fi thriller Dark City, but his follow-up efforts (I, Robot and Garage Days) have been pretty uninspired. The concept of Knowing sounds interesting, but this trailer is less than exciting, especially compared to DJ Caruso’s Eagle Eye. Tell me what you think in the comments below.
Watch the trailer in High Definition on IGN. Knowing is set to hit theaters on March 20th 2009.
Official Plot Synopsis: In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one of the students, a mysterious girl who seems to hear whispered voices, fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead.
Fast forward 50 years to the present: A new generation of students examines the contents of the time capsule and the girl’s cryptic message ends up in the hands of young CALEB MYLES. But it is Caleb’s father, professor TED MYLES (Nicolas Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As Ted further unravels the document’s secrets, he realizes it foretells three additional events-the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve Ted and his son. When Ted’s attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.
This gripping supernatural thriller charts one man’s faltering steps towards belief in the ultimate order of the universe even as he finds himself surrounded by mounting chaos. With the reluctant help of DIANA WHELAN (Rose Byrne) and ABBY, the daughter and granddaughter of the now-deceased author of the cryptic prophecies, Ted’s increasingly desperate efforts take him on a heart-pounding race against time until he finds himself facing the ultimate disaster-and the ultimate sacrifice.
Alex Aja’s Mirrors Red Band Movie Trailer
When the first trailer for Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors premiered, with the exception of Slashfilm and a few horror sites, the Net issued a collective “meh, pass.” The trailer even purportedly received loud guffaws at a press screening, and we received four death threats just for suggesting that the film itself might actually be creepy. Scarier than email/gchat death threats from nerds, even. A friend and source close to the production tells me that the film will definitely deliver and give Alex Aja (Haute Tension) the industry cachet to keep kids up at night for many years. He compares what he’s seen of the film to Jacob’s Ladder meets Poltergeist III (and P3 was fucking scary, admit it), and says that even this trailer doesn’t do the film justice.
IGN received the red band and suddenly the Net consensus has pulled a uniform “maybe I was wrong.” The red band offers a nice round-up of the recurring psychotic optical “jaggies” and too-real throat slits that Aja is great at. We also see co-star Amy Smart, or a reflection thereof, removing her mandible. No big deal. The scenes with tykes are cliche, sure, but the tone is inherently spooky and a welcome return to the horror genre for Kiefer Sutherland. Summer ‘08 is offering a great mix of films, and I think we’ll include Mirrors as a fun contribution when all is said and done.
Mirrors opens August 15th.
The Wackness Red Band Movie Trailer
The Wackness is one of those movies which is almost impossible to market in a PG world. It’s about a teenager drug dealer’s last summer before he heads off to college. And while that’s the one sentence breakdown, I’m sure you can already tell, it’s much more than that. I’ve given this movie rave after rave, and have seen it four times on the festival circuit. So there is no point in telling you it’s one of my favorite films of the year.
Until today, the teaser trailers have been rather weak. Every time something new has been released, I’ve found myself defending the movie that can’t be represented in a green band movie trailer. Sony Pictures Classics have finally released a red band trailer on IGN, and you’ll immediately see the difference. No, it’s not filled with swears or nudity. It does what the best red band movie trailers do best, and sells the movie accurately. If you watch this trailer and tell me you’re still not interested then maybe The Wackness isn’t for you. But I assure you, if you grew up in the 90’s, then you’ll probably digg this film.
It’s the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana. The newly-inaugurated mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, is only beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against “crimes” like noisy portable radio, graffiti and public drunkenness.
Two people, however, are missing out on the excitement. Luke (Josh Peck) is a socially uncomfortable teenage pot dealer with no friends, issues with his parents, and a whopping lack of confidence with girls. He trades weed for sessions with his therapist, Dr. Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), whose much-younger wife (Famke Janssen) is slipping away from him. Squires, a drug-addled shrink with a hairline retreating to the back of his neck and a state of mind slouching back to adolescence, is an unlikely role model—but the two of them forge a friendship based on a mutual need: neither one is getting laid.
Propelled by an exuberant hip hop score, “The Wackness” captures the spell of 1994–a time of pagers, not cell phones; a time when Tupac and Biggie were alive but Kurt Cobain had just died. Funny and moving, “The Wackness” is an offbeat tale of two lost souls stumbling towards maturity.
The Wackness hits theaters on July 3rd 2008.
WALL-E: The Look and Sound of Space; Brazilian Vignettes and UK Posters
I can’t yet begin to tell you what II thought of Pixar’s WALL-E. Unfortunately I am embargoed against telling you exactly how much I loved the film. Disney is ramping up their marketing, and has released a bunch of videos that are worth checking out. First up is a featurette called “Pixar Goes Space Age” which takes a look at the design, tone and cinematography of space in the film. One thing revealed is that Oscar nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins actually worked on the film as a visual consultant. Deakins was responsible for the great cinematography in Assassination of Jesse James, No Country for Old Men, and In the Valley of Elah last year, for which he was nominated for two Academy Awards.
IGN has a featurette called “A Space Journey In Sound” which focuses on the incredible sound design of Academy Award winner Ben Burtt, best known for as the father of R2-D2 (as he did the sound design for the Star Wars films).
Three new WALL-E vinettes are being aired in Brazil: one focusing on baseball, another on dancing, and a third where WALL-E gets to close to the video camera. Check them out below (via: Pixar Blog).
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Meanwhile, Empire recently premiered four new British movie posters. I never thought I’d see an animated character playing with a Bra on a poster for a Disney animated release:
