If only I were clever enough to come up with a punchline to that title. Sadly, I’m not. Hopefully, this selection of previews will make up for my lack of comedic skills. One of them features possibly the coolest scene I’ve ever seen in a trailer, which will tempt audiences to forget that it’s part of a franchise. The others are also visually arresting and fantastically quirky.
‘The Last Circus’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8CSDDqSmnk&has_verified=1
I’ll just come out and say it: I want this movie, and I want this movie NOW! Unfortunately, this doesn’t release in the States until mid-August – on a limited run, mind you. With my luck, it won’t be anywhere near my area. The Spanish film looks utterly insane and hilariously out of this world. It seems like a great mix of surreal horror in the tradition of Jodorowsky and super-black comedy in the style of the Coen brothers, with a pinch of Kubrick-like highbrow drama. This is my kind of drive-in flick. Hopefully, Magnet will make it available on VOD like many of the studio’s other movies.
‘Detective Dee’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COzre7r31SM
Here’s another visually stunning feature that has me salivating like a rabid dog. While many parts of Asia and Europe have already had the pleasure of enjoying this, we are left in the cold with no plans as of yet to release it in the U.S. And like many other martial arts flicks, the story will not likely be anything special. It’s all about the fight choreography, which this film seems destined to deliver in the most imaginative and outlandish manner possible. Based on this very-awesome preview alone, I feel fairly positive that it won’t disappoint. Heck, I can’t wait much longer. I’ve just ordered my Blu-ray copy from the UK.
‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfBSTCeHvtc
While I’m not a big fan of Guy Ritchie’s vision of Sherlock Holmes, I admit to enjoying it as an entertainingly fun escapade with one of the most famous iconic figures of literature. The sequel appears to promise much of the same with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s super sleuth finally chasing after his great nemesis, Dr. Moriarty, as portrayed by Jared Harris. Noomi Rapace of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘ fame joins Robert Downey, Jr. on his crime-solving adventure, along with Jude Law and Rachel McAdams. Like its predecessor, the movie looks heavy on the action and comedy while tiptoeing around a light mystery. Nevertheless, I’m sure it will be just as fun and entertaining. However, I’m holding out for the Blu-ray this time around.
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’
I love Sam Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man‘ trilogy. As such, I’m of the camp that the franchise doesn’t need a reboot. It would survive just fine with another good sequel. But studio heads obviously think otherwise and have given the series the reboot treatment. Tobey Maguire’s role has been recast with Andrew Garfield from ‘The Social Network’. The teaser looks promising, as if the movie might actually be a first-rate actioner, but I’m still quite weary and skeptical. The real clincher, however, is towards the end when the camera suddenly goes first-person perspective. Now, that is way freaking cool and looks even better on a really big screen. Yet videogame fans are claiming that the final part of the Spidey trailer is a knock-off of the game ‘Mirror’s Edge’, as compared below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=653OdfJXOWA
You be the judge of that.
For more of the latest movie trailers, check out our trailers page.
Josh Zyber
That Detective Dee trailer certainly looks visually interesting, but I’ve been burned by Tsui Hark enough times in the past to have learned my lesson by now. I was at the Toronto Film Festival when it played, but didn’t see it myself. As I recall, the buzz there was mixed-to-negative.
Jane Morgan
‘Detective Dee and the Awful Title’ spanked a lot of ass at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
13 nominations and 6 wins, including best director.
It’s hard to believe it was made on a $20M budget.
I hope HDD will review the UK blu-ray.
Luke Hickman
I, too, enjoyed the Raimi ‘Spider-Man’ films, but with ‘(500) Days of Summer’ director Mark Webb at the helm of the reboot, I’m quite excited. I walked into a theater Saturday night in the middle of the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ trailer and had to stop in the middle of the aisle to watch that final sequence of jumping and swinging from rooftop to rooftop. I hope that ends up being Webb’s trademark effect. It looked brilliant on the huge screen. Being a 3D hater, I look forward to seeing it in 3D – IMAX 3D even.
PaulB
Disagree on that shot a lot. It looked (and was) very fake. The whole thing was CG, they didn’t put a camera throught there.
Can’t get drawn into the excitment of a shot when you are brought out due to it looking like a video game vs a real shot.
Brian H
I’m definitely a fan of Mirror’s Edge, even though it is a flawed game. If a film can mimic some of the awesome in Mirror’s Edge, please go for it.
There is an excellent first person sequence in Kick Ass, and the first person sequence in the Amazing Spiderman trailer was the point where I became interested in the movie.
On the one hand, it seems like a few more years could have gone by before movie goers needed to see Spiderman again. On the other hand, these are our stories. The Japanese way of openly retelling the same stories seems to be almost Shakespearean. At least I find it preferably to something like Avatar, or even Robin Hood.
So while we wish that characters from the comics and other adaptable material would get the specific adaptation that we feel they deserve(and then having that one perfect adaptation, be left alone), there is something to be said for introducing and renewing interest in these shared stories.
Luke Hickman
A several year break definitely would have helped ‘Spider-Man,’ but had Sony waited any longer, the rights would have reverted back to Marvel and Sony never would have touched the franchise again. There’s no way Sony will ever give up that giant.
Julian
Could you sum up in a nutshell how the Spider-Man rights work? Spider-Man is a Marvel franchise (we all know that), we all see the Marvel logo on the three first Spidey-pictures … I’m guessing it was a co-production? And now Marvel is a part of Disney, but Sony still has the right to make a Spider-Man movie? Will Disney not co-produce? Will the name Marvel appear at all during the credits of this fourth film? Does Sony have the right to make 15 more Spider-Man movies?
Luke Hickman
Before Marvel had “Marvel Studios,” they simply sold the movie rights off to other studios. Fox owns the ‘X-Men’ movie rights. Sony owns ‘Spider-Man.’ They do not own the characters, just the rights to making them into movies. Just like rights to any piece of filmic property, they expire if not done every (blank) amount of years. If they expire, the rights return to Marvel.
Now that Marvel has their own studio (now under the Buena Vista giant), they want their rights back so they can take their old property and make it good and new like the recent string of Marvel Studios flicks.
But Fox and Sony want to keep their money trees for themselves, so they are going to keep pumping out those movies as often as their contract of rights requires them to.
If you remember, after ‘X-Men’ 3, Fox talked about doing origins flicks of both Wolverine and Magneto. When the Wolverine pic failed to please, they canceled the Magneto flick – but still had to do something – ANYTHING – with the property or there were going to lose it. So they decided to make an origins of the entire X-Men team – ‘First Class.’
When Sony canceled Raimi’s fourth and fifth ‘Spider-Man’ movies just before principal photography was to begin, they had to quickly find a way to use the property before it reverted back to Marvel, so now they are rebooting it.
Julian
OK! Thanks for this compact and transparant explanation. My confusion has disappeared. I just wonder … since Marvel owns the X-Men/Spider-Man character rights, can’t they ALSO make an X-Men/Spider-man movie? Let’s say they want to confuse audiences … could we see two Spider-Man films made by different studios/crews?
EM
Almost certainly the rights Marvel sold/leased were exclusive; so, no.
Jane Morgan
Since ‘First Class’ was such a failure, I bet Fox will let their X-Men rights expire.
Luke Hickman
I don’t think Fox nor Sony will ever let those rights expire.
Sony can make as many ‘Spider-Man’ movies as they want as long as they abide by their contract. Same goes for Fox and ‘X-Men.’
As long as Fox and Sony have those rights, Marvel and Disney have no say – but at some point they very well could work together on those films.
One interesting thing in ‘First Class’ is that the secret military organization that Rose Byrne and Oliver Platt worked for was never named. The reason? Because they work for S.H.I.E.L.D. – which is not part of those contracts. Marvel Studios and Disney own those rights, so S.H.I.E.L.D. will never appear outside of Marvel Studios – unless the studios begin working together.
EM
A radioactive spider, a circus freak, and two detectives walk into a bar. The detectives sit at a table together, and the spider and the freak sit at another table.
After a while, one of the detectives says to his partner, “Did you get a load of what’s sitting at that other table over there?”
The second detective replies, “Yeah, that guy is strange, all right. He must be with the circus in town. I’ve seen a lot of circus freaks, but that’s the freakiest freak I’ve ever seen.”
So, the first detective says, “True, but I was actually referring to the glowing bug next to him. That’s a radioactive spider if I ever saw one.”
And so the second detective says, “Yeah, what of it?”
And the first detective replies, “Don’t you know what a radioactive spider can do? Its bite can give a guy super powers. Imagine if we had super powers. We’d be the top detectives on the force—hell, the best detectives in the tri-state area, at least!”
But the second detective says, “Well, maybe—if it works. Sounds pretty risky to me.”
But the first detective is already heading to the other table, where he strikes up a conversation with the spider and its freakish companion. Pretty soon the detective is asking the spider for a bite to give him super powers.
But the spider says, ”Look, man, it don’t always work that way. You might get powers, sure. But sometimes there are other results. Some people die, and some people mutate in other ways. Look at my friend here.”
And the detective says to the freak, “Is that true? Did you become a freak due to a radioactive-spider bite?”
And the freak replies, “I used to be an utterly ordinary nobody until this little spider bit me. Then I became this. At first I was miserable. I considered killing myself. But then the circus found me. Now they call me the King of Freaks. I make good money, and—confidentially—some of the she-freaks like to visit the castle, if you know what I mean. What I thought was my misery turned out to be a miracle.”
Impressed, the detective repeats his request to the spider; but the spider says, “Look, results can really vary. This may not turn out as well for you as for my pal here. As they say on TV, his results are not typical.”
So, the detective replies, “I’ll take that chance. My career is going nowhere. The chance to become a super-detective or a super-freak is worth the risk.”
So, the spider sighs and bites the detective. Seconds later, the detective drops dead.
At that point, the second detective comes running up, gun in hand. He tells the spider it’s under arrest for murder.
But the spider says, “I didn’t murder him. It was his own fault. What did he expect, another Freak-King miracle?”
Shannon Nutt
I wasn’t thrilled about rebooting Spider-man this quickly, either – but (500) Days of Summer is one of my favorite romantic comedies, and when I heard that they were using as little CGI as possible in place of traditional stunts/effects, I have to admit I’m now extremely excited to see what the final product looks like.