Who Killed the Electric Car?

Who cares.

View the trailer here.

A technological dream deferred, nay forgotten. Shame on us. Automobiles spew smog? Oh, the shame! The right wing, corporate-driven government doesn’t want cheaper cars for the world’s population? No way! All of these blatantly obvious things spell “total shock” to a “total fucking retard.” This trailer sucks.

In the 1990s, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) began to require automakers to make more eco-friendly automobiles. This request was quickly rolled back. Is anyone really surprised? These are cars that require us - the buyers and drivers of automobiles, the purchasers of gasoline - to spend less, give less and require less. As great as it all sounds to us to spend little and live healthier, it’s the same thing as cigarettes, trans fats (whatever that means), junk food, cancer, etc. – the answers are out there, the problem is the people with money and greed (everyone) doesn’t want to stop making money and satiating greed. We destroy the world and each other, it's bloody addictive. I respect the motive of this genre of documentary film: the ones where they show fast food is bad, cigarettes kill, we’re destroying the earth, penguins don’t need to be raped, etc. But honestly, WE ALL KNOW IT, and we’re gonna keep fucking up – we’re human, we’re selfish. That doesn't mean stop making informative, warning films - just do it differently. Spurlock is an idiot, but Supersize Me was so stupid, so weird, that it actually worked for a lot of people and has taken a sliver of McDonald's profits. Spurlock is still a hillbilly idiot.

“People who control the marketplace today – THE OIL COMPANIES – have a strong incentive to discourage alternatives.” Gee, is that news? “Hi, I’m from planet earth. Have we met?” Yes, it's official: I just quoted David Spade, that's how bad this trailer is. “$100 trillion dollars is left to be made in the oil industry.” Actually, more is left to be made if we go into more wars and overcharge morons. The Western World profits off of strife. Duh.

I’m no Republican, but when they target the government that ruined the future of the electric car, why do they show a Republican president who was elected four years after the car was ditched and his secretary of state? Where’s Clinton? Where’s Albright? This ain't simply con-da-sleeza. Can we have a unanimous blame, please?

I don’t have much more to say about this trailer, except as I sit and watch it over and over, I can’t help but think there will be ten angry, jobless New Yorkers at the movie, on their way to a Ralph Nader tofu party at some hippy’s Upper East Side apartment that also serves as an “Artist studio” where they all read Daniel Quinn and forget how they got there. That's a run-on sentence of hate, peeps. These are the same people who follow Michale Moore around and regulary suck off Ralph Nader in the name of communism.

The world sucks, it’s selfish. Just ride a bike; stop whining about a stupid electric car. Take the money you spent on this obvious movie, Sony Pictures, and send it to Darfur. Christ.

This post was written by Mert Menglemeir, and posted for him by Accidentally Disastrous.

The Namesake

I'm probably going to be fired from this blog soon for writing positive reviews about movies I plan on seeing, but hey, I found another one.

The thing I love about trailers is how easy it is to discover something with a huge potential to entertain. Today I saw The Namesake at the top of the trailers list and gave it a click. A whole bunch of foreign names and Romance/Comedy nearly deterred me, but I figured what the hell. It's only a couple minutes.

So a coming of age story about a traditional Indian family living in New York, the son who wants to be with new people, a tragedy in the past, tearful moments in the rain - sounds boring as hell, and yet it works. Not only is the trailer quite good, but it really looks like the movie will be good too. I can't put my finger on why. It's got a nice hook at the beginning, the music is good throughout, and the humor is sharp - I wouldn't call it sophisticated, but it's quiet and somewhat subtle, and the timing is right. I like seeing a movie full of faces I don't know, and I like that it takes place in New York. I've watched it four or five times now, and I still can't figure out exactly why it is that this trailer works so well, and why over the ending montage of images that are not particularly breathtaking or amazing, I get goosebumps. Someone with a lot of skill cut this trailer, and in doing so reminded me why I like watching trailers so much.

High-Def Trailer (Apple)

Ghost Rider

The trailer looks dumb. So does Ghost Rider. Sorry to ruin it.

While a skeleton engulfed in flames look marvelous on the printed page, it does not translate well to live action. Especially not when that action is a skeleton hand is zipping up a zipper.

Furthermore, would it have killed them to play "Bad to the Bone"? Logic dictates that if there is a motorcycle anywhere on screen at any time, Bad to the Bone should be playing. As you watch the trailer, imagine the song kicking in right as the hand zips up the zipper. Actually, cue the song to about 8 seconds and start it during the black out before the zipper, and let it play through the rest of the trailer. There. Much better.

Two Cool Things

- Jumping a motorcycle over six Blackhawks on a football field? Awesome. That is the only word for it. I love the fact that Cage's friend tells him he is lucky to be alive after falling off his bike (see above). If I was Nick Cage I would be all: "I think I am lucky to be alive because I didn't fall on top of a fucking helicopter!"

- Sam Elliot. I wish this man lived in my head and narrated my life. I would smoke 8 packs a day if I thought I could get a voice like his. You get a little more of him in the International Teaser than in the domestic if you decide to watch one or the other. If he is the narrator of the film, it may actually be watchable.

Oh, and nice hairpiece, Nick. You look like a twat.

The Lake House

View trailer here.

A tagline for this movie is “How do you hold on to somebody you never met?” It should be, “Walk away - seriously, we've let you down before, we'll let you down again - go see Brick.” You'll notice early in the over-sentimental and mundane trailer, the dog sitting next to Bullock (who laughably plays a doctor – Bullock, not the dog; the dog plays a Sapphic poet). This is innovative by director Alejandro Agresti: that dog is you, the viewer, bored out of your mind, wondering if you left the iron on or why you’re skipping work for the tenth day in a row. “Who do you know who could be a dildo model?" you ask. "Is it boring for dildo model’s girlfriends when they see the model’s real penis?” These are some of the thoughts in your, or that dog’s, mind as you sit through the trailer. Another thought is: What the hell furnishes this lake house? It literally looks like Cameron’s house from Ferris Bueller, sans furniture, beds and good actors. Suspension of disbelief…again, Bullock plays a FUCKING DOCTOR.

The disarming amount of voice-overs is probably just a sliver of the mind-numbing voice-overs that will occur during the movie – these aren’t creative thinkers, people, this isn’t Colombo or Lansbury, it’s Bullock and Reeves. Like seeing the thoughts of a stupored catatonic at a Bergman film. Notice the dog. It travels with both Reeves and Bullock in different scenes. Let me guess: the dog comes out of the woods and befriends the star-crossed lovers? Yeah, that’s “beautiful, seductive even.” If this were reality, that dog would get mauled by a grizzly bear or struck by lighting or cast in a very stupid movie…oh wait, it did. Next stop, Speed V, the dog that couldn’t stop licking it’s own testicles…sort of like Keanu Reaves' career. (Snap? Snap.)



Perhaps the worst thing for this movie is its utter lack of Humor. How could they not have humor? Are all these letters totally serious? Is there never a time at the lonely lake house when Keanu writes, “How’s your day? FYI - I wanna postal fuck! LOL!” I’m just saying, the lake house must get lonely….


Christopher Plummer wondering why he can't just play another evil puritan asshole.

In closing, I’m so happy they took the Keane song, “Somewhere Only We Know,” and used it in the trailer (not-so-subliminal message). Keanu Reeves was probably at Starbucks starring at a bland muffin when he heard the song. Way to ruin one of my favorite albums of 2005, you pricks. On the down-low, this movie does have something going for it that you probably didn’t see coming – the world record for longest on-screen act of bestiality – this, dear reader, will set The Lake House apart as not just a movie, but a tragic love story with two heroes and a small fur-trulescent dog.

The Devil Wears Prada

Wow, it's been a good few days for trailers. The Devil Wears Prada, World Trade Center, The King - three genuinely surprising and excellent trailers. I'll stick with the one that I expected the least to like. I had heard about the book; fashiony chick-lit, written by a woman who worked at vogue for a while. It sounded like a book about a bunch of nasty girls writing about expensive clothes, saying nasty things about each other, and one nice girl getting picked on, and at the end she probably tells everyone off and makes them feel bad before storming out onto the street and hailing a cab with a big smile on her face, ready to conquer the world. A song starts, the camera cranes up, and the credits roll. I'll put a five spot on that.

It's the ultimate movie to make a bad trailer for too - some snappy pop soundtrack, the same narrator as every other chick flick trailer, a quick montage of pretty faces, a hot boy, maybe two seconds where they cut the music and make a joke about bodily functions, cut to title which is enthusiastically read by the announcer, the end.

Instead, we've got something different. The trailer is coherent. It has a narrative. The entire first minute is entirely without music, the entire trailer is without snappy text or jumpy cuts. The music comes on, not pop, not some new alt-country-metal-jazz that the kids like these days, but a simple plucked double bass and some percussion. The story (gasp!) continues over the music, still no narrator, still no montage - and over some snazzy guitars, Meryl Streep arrives. 40 seconds after the music started, it stops, and that's it for the trailer. The makers of this trailer decide to rely on the strength of their material to make this a good trailer - and holy moses it is.

Everyone is great in this trailer, but special honors go to Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep. Stanley Tucci is playing the same gay fashionista who appears in every single movie or TV show about fashion, but something about his giant black collar, round glasses, creased and expressive face and the way he hides and says "who is this?" is just excellent. I want to see more of him.
Meryl Streep - well, they are lucky she is as good as she is. This whole movie will turn on whether or not she embodies that utter bitch of a boss she's supposed to play, and my god does she do it. She is perfect and wonderful to watch - ever line, every look, every gesture. A couple weeks ago I wrote about the Superman trailer and how much I liked Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor - he was magnetic and charismatic and the fact that he was evil was a big part of his appeal. Meryl Streep's character is the same way. She's cold and mean and unforgiving, and I just want to see more. I want to see a spin-off TV show where she just sits at her desk and tells various people why they suck for half an hour. I want to see this movie.

I love the downer ending this trailer has. It's just great to see the hopeful young girl get shut out and turned away after all that buildup. Stanley Tucci makes a snide remark, and that's that. Brilliant.

One pet peve. Anne Hathaway has the "stand up in your seat and cheer, girls" line: "Um, you're right. I don't fit in here. I'm not skinny, or glamorous, but I'm smart. I learn fast, and I will work very hard." It's probably right from the book, but it just doesn't work here. While she may not be playing a glamorous character, Ann Hathaway is not only a strikingly beautiful woman, she has the most glamorous name I think I've ever heard. Not skinny? Look at this picture.

Beware, boys and girls - this is the new face of fat.

Why does the main character of a chick flick always have to pretend like she's ugly when clearly she's a gorgeous movie star?

The Proposition

At first glance, The Proposition looks another tale of the hard-scrabble men who kill to live and live to kill. But to the trained eye, the eye that has LEARNED to SEE, it is so much more. What is that name under “written by”? Well, bless my soul its NICK fucking CAVE.

CAVE’s heady style of Americana Gothic Rock and Roll has blessed this earth for nigh on five and twenty years. If you haven’t heard it, I pity you. All he does is so gloriously violent and frighteningly over the top that it almost seems as if he jests. But don’t you DARE laugh, by god, for CAVE speaks WORDS that you MUST hear.

For when that day of rapture comes, Those Who Follow CAVE will be taken in the right hand of THE MASTER, while those who do not shall be cast DOWN, DOWN past the fires of hell to a place where all is screaming wind and wet, ever-grasping darkness. I can offer only a poor attempt to ape CAVE’s words, here is the real thing.

From CAVE’s novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel

“It was his brother who tore the caul on that, the morning of their birth, as if that sole act of assertion was to set an inverted precedent for inertia of his life to come, Euchrid, then unnamed, clutched ahold of his brother’s heels and slopped into the world with all the glory or an uninvited guest.

The noon-day sun spun in the sky like a molten bolt that hammered down upon the tin roof and tarred plank sides of the shack. Inside sat Pa, at this table, surrounded by his ingenious contraptions of springs and steel, sweating midst the bleeding heat while greasing his traps and trying, in vain, to closet his ears from the drunken ravings of his wife, who lay sprawled and caterwauling in the back seat of the old burnt-out Chevy. Pride of the junk-pile, that car, sitting of bricks out back of the shack, like a great shell shed in disgust by some outsized crawler.

There, in the squirms of labour, his bibulous spouse shrieked against the miracle that swelled and kicked inside her as she sucked on a bottle of her own White Jesus, rocking the Chevy on its stilts and moaning and screaming, screaming and a-moaning, 'Pa! Pa-a! Pa-a-a!,' until she heard the shack door open and then the shack door shut, whereupon she took leave of the morning and passed into unconsciousness.

‘Too pissed to push,’ Pa would tell Euchrid later.”

Get excited.

Down in the Valley

Mert is at AD’s casa and so they’ve decided to write up the Down in the Valley trailer as a joint effort. We hope this little experiment is as exciting for you as it is for us.

Check out the trailer here.

AccidentallyDisastrous: If the filmmaker’s goal was to make a movie that would be totally unattractive to me, they have succeeded with flying colors. There are many EdNorton’s and the “insecure crazy loner EdNorton who seems kind at first, but is seriously fucked”™ is my least favorite one.

MertMenglemier: Dude, I know. In late 2006, Norton will star in “The Illusionist,” where he plays a cowboy-magician-Nazi who has a homosexual crush on a guy named Ennis – I know, sounds “totes awesome” right? But get this, he’s a paraplegic cowboy and Wolf Blitzer directs it – it’s new territory, but it should be “totes good.” What do you think the impetus is for Norton leaving the loveable ranch to come to the city?

AccidentallyDisastrous: I have to assume that his career as the lead singer of the Stray Cats forced him to move from his mountain homestead into the city where he hooks up with the daughter of the guy from The Rock. But its all gonna go bad, as anyone who has seen the preview can attest.

MertMengelmier: It’s weird to think that a cowboy fucking your thirteen-year-old daughter would piss someone like David Morse off – he always plays such calm, gentle guys (The Rock, Twelve Monkeys, Indian Murderer David Morse: Killer in White Haired Body) but then again, the movie is called, “Down in the Valley,” which clearly is an allusion to the Ishiguro short story “Cowboy come from Valley, make like dragon and steal a Culkin.” What do you think, AD, have you read that?

AccidentallyDisastrous: There are not a lot of actors I like less than Keiran Culkin. It doesn’t matter that he isn’t in this movie. Just seeing one of the Culkin’s makes me relive that half-hour I spent watching The Secret Lives of Altar Boys. Seriously though, doesn’t this movie come out six times a year?

MertMengelmier: Actually, yes, it’s like Hard Candy meets Brokeback Mountain meets Fear meets Varsity Blues. It’s Indie tripe with a big name actor. The only reason I’d go with you to this if you asked me is if they were handing out Nerf baseball bats in the theater. That way, I could beat you with it and then myself for having seen another filmic abortion at your urging. I’m hungry; you know the time is coming for the final verdict on Down in the Valley of Boredom – we need to get drunk at dinner and hit on bland Thai waitresses.

AccidentallyDisastrous: Lets agree to agree. Some days we all just want to step out of our own heart, and go walking under sky full of stars.

MertMengelmier: Touche – and on this journey, lets shoot a cowboy and make him sing Train songs – just because that’s how we roll. Peace.

Lady In The Water - Trailer 2

I'm no friend of M. Night Shiyamaland's. I find his movies plodding, his twist endings juvenile and ill-considered, and his stories contrived. Despite sucking big time, Mr. Shymalaman's films are often beautiful, they get stellar casts and always have good moments to them. On top of that, their trailers are often quite excellent as they rely on some nice music, austere images, and they don't have a weak twist ending. The trailers are good, but that doesn't mean I can get down with the man. The worst thing about M. Night. Shamalamadingdong is that he seems so full of himself. He hit his first one out of the park with The Sixth Sense, yes - but since then it has seemed like he is too sure of himself. I hear he writes a script in one shot. I've articles claiming that Shaymalanmalan writes a shitty first draft and then starts shooting, relying on other people to fix his dumb mistakes and bad ideas. On top of that, he puts himself in all of his movies for a little cameo. M. Night - Hitchcock did it first, and he did it better. M. Night just seems to be the guy who thinks he can do no wrong, and let me tell you: He has wronged, and he will wrong again.

That said, I have to say, this trailer seems to indicate that The Lady in the Water could be better than the previous efforts. I like the back-story behind it (It was a story he made up to tell his daughter before she went to bed, and it kept expanding and he decided there was a movie there), it apparently has no twist ending, and it stars Paul Giamatti - who I'm sure at least one of the writers of this blog hates, but I like. It's definitely floating in on this latest magical realism fad, but hey, I'll bite. The trailer is pretty, the story is vaguely set up, and I'm interested - which is, in a nutshell, what the trailer set out to do.

There's one moment, where the Lady in question shouts something while Paul carries her, and no matter how many times I watch it to see what she's trying to say, it sounds like "Cleveland to run!" which might make sense in some sort of road race, but doesn't make much sense in context.

Also, M. Night, get the fuck out of your trailer:
Trailer Here (apple.com)

Drawing Restraint 9

First:
Go watch this trailer.
Watch it with the sound very loud.
Watch it full screen and sit very close.
That is probably as much of Drawing Restraint 9 as you will ever watch.
That is probably as much of Drawing Restraint 9 as you will ever need to watch.
Also, that is as much of the film’s soundtrack you will ever need to hear.

I love everything about this trailer. From the kid vomiting the giant prawn, to Barney’s logo rendered from whale blubber; from the garbage bag full of grubs to the insane title screen. It is an undeniably beautiful preview, for what is almost certainly an interminably boring film. I love watching the trailers for Mr. Barney’s films because they speak of such wonderful promise that the films themselves can never live up to.

But through it all, did you notice how perfectly calm and comfortable Björk looks? This film is clearly not one of Barney’s impenetrable metaphors for the cycles of creation and destruction inherent in our lives; he just followed Björk around for a day and filmed the kind of shit she gets up to! She is wearing that huge fur hood with her shaved eyebrows like it is a damn baseball cap!

It’s an art film. Why go to any trouble to see it? You have all you need from it right here.

I say again:
Watch this trailer.
Watch it loud.
Watch it close.
Consider yourself enriched.

Confetti

Watch the trailer here.

Well, it’s Christopher Guest meets the Full Monty, I suppose. A British "mockumentary" about people who want to win the title of “The Most Original Wedding of the Year.” Like all decent and recent films of this, erm, ilk, this one seems to be right on in its joke targets – the hilarity and sometimes absurdity of a wedding. I’m going to a wedding later this month where the first day everyone has to wear white as they play croquet and whip slaves. I mean, c’mon! I have no issues with weddings per se, but I can see how the buildup can get way out of hand and quickly veer the whole thing onto the wrong path with less-than-graceful guidance. (I once saw a flower girl eat half a table cloth after a dare).

The actors in this film improvised everything within their laid out scenes (a la "Curb Your Enthusiasm")– so when the naturalist fiancé (Robert Webb, no relation to Robert McNamara – just in case you were thinking that, dumbass) comes out naked in front of his soon-to-be mother-in-law and she cannot speak at the sight of his dong and he says, “Mrs. Roberts? I suppose now I should call you “Mum.” Pleasantry?” That is all improvised, and amazing – a great trailer moment and a nice break from the practiced lines of many blockbuster trailers.



Many people will know Martin Freeman’s improv talent from the British Golden Globe-winning series “The Office.” Also very much in line with “The Office” is the British talent of embarrassment, and this film seems to hit embarrassing humor right on the button. The only thing I worry about in a film like this – improv in set out scenes – is the danger for dialogue. I know a lot of people who like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" – I hate it – but that show fails (barely) when Larry David and the characters around him cannot supply the best dialogue to keep the scenes funny. Hence the awkward silences, hence the sometimes too-angry situations that occur and hence feeling like shit every time I watch the show.

Confetti, however, will be different. If David Blaine can mesmerize millions by making an ass out of himself, then surely this movie will be quite entertaining.

Superman Returns - Trailer 2

What Trailer 1 promised, Trailer 2 hath delivered. Yeah yeah, Superman, newspapers, fighting evil - looks fine. What blew me away was Kevin Spacey and his Lex Luthor.

I haven't seen Kevin Spacey really act in a long time. Pay it Forward? K-Pax? Beyond the Sea? What is Kevin thinking? This is Keiser Soze, this is the kiler from Se7en, the detective slash socialite from L.A. Confidential. Kevin Spacey can be unbelievably charismatic and chameleon-like in his transformation into character, finally, after a dry spell to make most of us forget - he's back.

Lex Luthor steals the trailer, and my guess is he'll steal the movie too. Superman is by necessity bland, quiet, forever repressed in his stupid secret identity - but here, Lex Luthor is the opposite of that, the foil who ends up outshining his protagonist. I could just watch him shout into Lois Lane's face all day. Sure, the guy who plays superman looks fine, and the rest is fine, but Lex Luthor! Let me have your babies.

Two things.

1. That plane is a) a ridiculous combination of a 1930s era Boeing Constellation and a modern passenger jet, and b) flying in outer space.

2. Lex Luthor's plan seems to involve blowing up most of the US and making some new starburst shaped landmass. He has also already divided it up into states. If I were him, I would wait until the nefarious plan has worked before deciding where New Florida should go.

Check it out (apple.com)

Ask The Dust

Watch the abysmal trailer here.

I know what you're thinking: a pinch of Selma Hayek, a sprinkle of Colin Farrell, and a touch of the Academy Award winning writer of "Chinatown" and chemistry explosivo - wait, Hayek, Farrell and "Chinatown"? One of the greatest movies of all time and an Irish actor who actually said in a sex tape, as he was about to go down on a girl, "Ohhhh, this is my breakfast, lunch and dinner right here"????? Yeah, well, sometimes I forget that I live in Hell and people like Colin Farrell are running Hell and apparently eating there too.



The most positively arresting thing about the trailer is the scenery. It really does feel like a Depression Era story (looks a lot like "Chinatown," actually, but why no Roman Polanski? Why no Jack Nicholson?), but all the bigtime Hollywood actors seem so, so, so out of place and not up to the caliber of this type of story. Selma Hayek, who I thought was pretty stellar as Frida "Crazy Patterns" Kahlo, seems like something of a joke here. You can't have someone so beautiful play the over-looked, waitress girl who's down on her luck, even in a time when everyone hates Mexicans. Even Spiffae, a writer on this blog, still admits to hating Mexicans. A lot. But let's be honest - she's one of the best looking women in Hollywood. And Colin Farrell. Well, Colin Farrell is a fuckhead, but plenty of fuckheads are writers, so I can't really comment on him.



The trailer fizzles out to nothing. It starts with a joke - Colin Farrell as an intelligent writer and leads towards something maybe interesting actually happening. But there is no real explanation of the central conflict of the movie. If I were going to see it and needed $10 bucks from my mom, my only reason for seeing the movie would sound something like this, "I really want to see 'Ask The Dust.' There seems to be a sex scene in the ocean that could rival my wildest dreams. Of course, Mom, it could just fade out when you're about to see boobies, but hey, at least I got to have popcorn."
"What are boobies?" Mom asks.
"Nay nays, Mom."
"Oh, hooters."
"This," I reply, "is way awkward."

Just a quick note. We also would have accepted:
Frida "Unibrow" Kahlo
-AD