09 August 2006

Trailers...

I'm kinda bored, so I've been watching movie trailers on the apple website.
Is it just me or have movie companies decided to complete fuck up beloved children's stories? Case in point: Flicka, Charlotte's Web, but the ones that piss me off the most are Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Firstly, the Transformers movie is directed by Michael Bay. What else has Michael Bay directed that has been any good?..... think now....(and if you say Bad Boys and/or Armageddon, I can no longer respect you)... that's right, Michael Bay has directed nothing good. Ever. And the movie's premise is something retarded (or as much as I can tell from the trailer) like the "robots in disguise" (awesome theme song) smash a Mars rover and then travel to earth to... what? destroy it? I'm confused. Plus Josh Duhamel is in it, which is pointless. Unless he dies. Although I have to give the producers props for getting the original voice of Optimus Prime.
Secondly, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is animated. And it's the fourth Ninja Turtles movie. Enough is enough. Maggie brought up a good point for both movies: Does anyone from their target market remember these tv shows? The reason why I sound so fanatic about the fuck-up-age of this stuff is because I watched both shows, avidly. Hell, I even watched the animal version of Transformers... called... er.... Beast Wars (I swear, I love imdb), where the main character was a gorilla called Optimus Primal (do NOT ask me how I remember that). Anyway, Maggie's point is valid. People who remember the tv shows will go see the movie for the nostalgia aspect... and I suspect they'll be severely disappointed.
Some other cool-looking movies coming out within the next year are The U.S. vs John Lennon, which is a documentary about Lennon's struggle for peace while Nixon tried to win the war in Vietnam. It looks fucking awesome. The Departed looks kind of interesting, even though it has Jack Nicholson in it (and I'm getting rather sick of him). Children of Men looks kind of interesting in an end-of-the-world-so-we're-all-fucked kind of way, and it has Chiwetel Ejiofor in it (who, in my opinion, is freaking brilliant and completely awesome). But the movie that looks the most interesting, and the one that I want to see the most is The Last King Of Scotland. If you don't bother to watch any of the other trailers I'm putting here, watch this one at least. It looks amazing. Actually Borat looks hilarious in a completely offensive way.
And then there are the stinkers: Jon Heder is stuck forever as Napoleon Dynamite, Trying to be Sin City, only it's UNORIGINAL, Crash set in Africa, Old dude mentor + new cocky jackass = been done before, thank you, let's move on, Title's too long, you suck.
I also think it's kind of weird that there are two different movies about magicians coming out within a few months of each other: The Illusionist (in August, starring Ed Norton, Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti) and The Prestige (in October, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson). Personally, I hate affected British accents. If the actor isn't British, they usually can't pull it off. So why on earth would they choose to have the all-American cast of The Illusionist affect British accents? It sounds awful in the trailer. But maybe I'm picky. Anyway, The Prestige looks better. I don't like Scarlett Johansson (because she's a brainless twit), but she can act... though apparently not British (sigh). Christian Bale is actually a Welshman, so his cockney accent is believable. Plus, him and Michael Caine together again so soon after the kickass Batman Begins? Sweet. And yes, that IS David Bowie in the trailer... heh.
Okay, clearly I'm a movie geek, but check some of these out.