Hitchcock
Hmmm. The rare biopic I have some small amount of interest in.
I have to be honest: I’m not sure how I feel about Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock. I have a lot less confidence in him than I used to, and the makeup seems . . . off to me. But I’m already a little in love with Helen Mirren as Alma, and the rest of the cast is fairly strong. I like Psycho, and I like film history, so I could potentially see this. Probably as a rental, though.
A Good Day to Die Hard
I probably wouldn’t bother posting this teaser . . . it tells you virtually nothing except that there will be explosions . . . but it’s Die Hard, you know? I just had to.
I have very little interest in meeting McClane’s son, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead surprised me by being awesome, so maybe John McClane Jr. will also turn out cool. Also, hopefully, McClane will get to say THE LINE. Because dammit. It’s THE LINE.
Regardless, I’ll see this movie. Because I have to.
Movie 43
Um. Well. First, this is a red-band trailer, so proably NSFW. And on one hand, this whole trailer seems like it’s just made to be as outrageous and offensive as possible, which means it’s sometimes funny and sometimes trying way too hard. But I’ve been interested in this movie since before I knew what it was about, simply because of the cast. Apparently, everyone in Hollywood is in this movie.
In case you’re curious, everyone in Hollywood includes Emma Stone, Kieran Culkin, Halle Berry, Kate Winslet, Chloe Grace Moretz, Elizabeth Banks, Richard Gere, Hugh Jackman, Gerard Butler, Kristen Bell, Sean William Scott, Chris Pratt, Anna Faris, Liev Schreiber, Leslie Bibb, Justin Long, Uma Thurman, Patrick Warburton, Josh Duhamel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jason Sudeikis, Tony Shalhoub, and Aasif Mandvi.
This is one of those ensemble movies comprised of ten different stories and made by ten different directors. The trailer doesn’t exactly inspire me to rush to the theaters, but I’ll probably rent this at some point or another, to watch the Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone stuff, if nothing else.
Lone Ranger
And then there’s this.
I just . . . I just find this cringeworthy, mostly (or entirely) because of Johnny Depp. When did this happen to me? When did Johnny Depp starring in a movie make me less interested in it? I’m so saddened by this, and yet . . . I watch this trailer, and I actually feel mildly offended. Not like frothing at the mouth offended, but I look at Tonto and . . . I don’t know; I just shudder a little.
Instead of watching this, I think I’ll just put on the first Pirates of the Caribbean again, and watch it over and over and over until I have no more tears left for the movies that came after.
And finally . . . The Human Race
This is a teaser trailer my sister found that I thought looked pretty cool. The basic plot reminds me a little of Stephen King’s The Long Walk, and that’s not a bad thing at all.
I don’t know if this is going to get a theater run, and even if it does, it won’t come anywhere near where I live. Nevertheless, I’m intrigued by this one, and I look forward to trying it out when I get the chance.
My Geek Blasphemy 
The Lone Ranger movie does look pretty bad. Partly what offends me is what I find offensive about a lot of action movies these days – the slo-mo effect. Once, the kid would have just thrown the bullet, but we have to see it slowed down. Remember that bit from the Costner Robin Hood movie where he does the famous splitting of the arrow by another arrow trick? Today that would have been slowed down about a thousand times more and we would have had all the time in the world to admire the detail of the CGI and the people who did it.
I’m wondering if this will be another one, like the fairly recent Lone Ranger comic book from – Dynamite, I think? – where for some reason he refrains from killing bad guys whenever possible (a holdover from the pulp days when guys like Doc Savage didn’t kill, and possibly Comics Code days when Superman and Batman could no longer kill), even though a lawman at that time would have.
Tonto bothers me a bit. Does he go around all the time in full war paint? It’s always hard to know what to do with these sidekick types. They’ve tried to give Robin something to do, but improvements to the costume and greater ass kicking abilities didn’t make him any less irrelevant, any less of a complete joke. Same with Tonto. Anytime he’s on screen I would be thinking of that Bill Cosby Lone Ranger routine about how Tonto, time after time, gets sent to town for information and the bandits beat the snot out of him, requiring the Lone Ranger to rescue him. It also has a bit of Jackie Chan/Owen Wilson about it.
The Human Race does sound intriguing. The obvious problem would be to keep a footrace interesting for 90 minutes, but if they can get past that obstacle it could be quite good. If they’re not actually running the whole time, I think that’d help, because then they’d at least be able to talk amongst themselves like in The Long Walk.
Hopefully, they can. If Buried could put Ryan Reynolds in a box for ninety-five minutes and keep the story interesting, I’m pretty sure The Human Race is doable . . . but you’re right, the characters will definitely need to be able to talk. Maybe they can all slow down and agree not to lap each other while they chat about their plan to beat the game?
Is it me, or does the “Lone Ranger” trailer remind you of “John Carter” in its style? I’d always wondered how Andrew Stanton managed to forget how to do sci-fi since getting it pretty much perfect in “Wall-E”, so part of me is wondering whether the issue is overly controlling producers for Disney (non-Marvel) live action films…? (I suppose when we see the trailer for Raimi’s “Oz” movie we’ll be in a better position to judge.)
If so, it doesn’t bode well for Disney’s Star Wars.