Gordon McAlpin's Blog: Updates from Multiplex: Deleted Scenes, page 17

Trailer Watch: Absolutely brutal red band trailer for The Raid

Courtesy the MTV Movies Blog, here's an impressively action-packed, very red band trailer for Welsh director Gareth Huw Evans' The Raid, starring "Indonesian martial arts sensation" Iko Uwais, Doni Alamsyah, Joe Taslim, Yayan Ruhian and Ray Sahetapy.

Here's the official synopsis (via Coming Soon):

Deep in the heart of Jakarta's slums lies an impenetrable safe house for the world's most dangerous killers and gangsters. Until now, the run-down apartment block has been considered untouchable to even the bravest of police. Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness and silence, an elite swat team is tasked with raiding the safe house in order to take down the notorious drug lord that runs it. But when a chance encounter with a spotter blows their cover and news of their assault reaches the drug lord, the building's lights are cut and all the exits blocked. Stranded on the sixth floor with no way out, the unit must fight their way through the city's worst to survive their mission.

This is maaaaybe not safe for work, because of its awesomeness, so keep that in mind.

Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

The film debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday and unfortunately doesn't have a release date yet anywhere outside of Indonesia (where it's out in January), but Sony does have the US distribution rights. Also, if your interest has been piqued, check out the trailer for Evans and Uwais' previous film, Merantau, over at YouTube.

Trailer Watch: The Hunger Games teaser trailer (updated)

Lionsgate debuted the first teaser "sneak peek" for The Hunger Games on the 2011 Video Music Awards, and now you can watch it using the player below thanks to MTV (via ComingSoon.net).

Anyway, the movie's out (in the US, at least) on March 23rd, and here's the official synopsis:

The Hunger Games chronicles a dystopic Capitol which requires its twelve subjugated districts to pay tribute in the form of a teenage boy and girl, forced to participate in the annual "Hunger Games," a fight-to-the-death live televised event. Katniss Everdeen's (Jennifer Lawrence) little sister is chosen in the lottery to participate and Katniss volunteers to take her place. Although persevering through hardship is commonplace for Katniss, she must start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love in order to win the games and return home.

The Hunger Games was directed by Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Wes Bentley, Elizabeth Banks, Dayo Okeniyi, Amandla Stenberg, Jack Quaid, Leven Rambin, Willow Shields, Paula Malcomson, Ian Nelson, Kalia Prescott, Ethan Jamieson, Tara Macken, Chris Mark, Jacqueline Emerson, Ashton Moio, Kara Petersen, Sam Ly, Leigha Hancock, Samuel Tan, Mackenzie Lintz, Imanol Yepez-Frias, Annie Thurman, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Latarsha Rose, Brooke Bundy, Lenny Kravitz (that Lenny Kravitz), Toby Jones, Amber Chaney, Kimiko Gelman, Nelson Ascencio, and Donald Sutherland. Did you seriously just read all that?

EDIT: Replaced embed with official code from Lionsgate. Also, apparently they're calling this a "sneak peek," not a teaser.

"Scrapbooking Big-Screen Memories" by Amanda Petrusich (link)

I gave a lot of interview for the two-sentence quote used in a New York Times article by Amanda Petrusich about Cinema Treasures, but it's one of my favorite websites on the interwebs — and an invaluable resource when I do the strips where Devi and Jason visit old movie theaters — and it was for the New York freakin' Times, so I was thrilled to do it all the same. Go check out the article over at the Times' website.

Did I mention the part about getting quoted in the New York Times, talking about movie theaters? Being a pundit is cool.

 

 

 

 

 

Trailer Watch: Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson are together again in The Rum Diary

On October 28, 2011, Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson are back together in Withnail & I director Bruce Robinson's adaptation of The Rum Diary. Fantastic choice of director (particularly if Terry Gilliam weren't an option), and this trailer looks like a lot of fun.

Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart, Giovani Ribisi and Richard Jenkins round out the cast.

Watch the trailer below (courtesy the film's YouTube channel) or read the synopsis after the cut:

Based on the debut novel by Hunter S. Thompson, "The Rum Diary" tells the increasingly unhinged story of itinerant journalist Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp). Tiring of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local newspaper, The San Juan Star, run by downtrodden editor Lotterman (Richard Jenkins). Adopting the rum-soaked life of the island, Paul soon becomes obsessed with Chenault (Amber Heard), the wildly attractive Connecticut-born fiancée of Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). Sanderson, a businessman involved in shady property development deals, is one of a growing number of American entrepreneurs who are determined to convert Puerto Rico into a capitalist paradise in service of the wealthy. When Kemp is recruited by Sanderson to write favorably about his latest unsavory scheme, the journalist is presented with a choice: to use his words for the corrupt businessmen's financial benefit, or use them to take the bastards down.

Trailer Watch: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark red band trailer (plus clip)

Check out the new red band trailer for producer Guillermo del Toro and director Troy Nixey's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark below. I might just be a big baby about teeth trauma, but this one creeps me out waaay more than the earlier trailer. (Don't ever bring up American History X with me.)

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark opens tomorrow, August 26, 2011, in the US.

The synopsis and a link to a clip from the film can be found after the jump:

Blackwood Manor has new tenants. While architect Alex Hurst (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) restore their Gothic mansion's period interiors, Alex's young daughter Sally (Bailee Madison)—neglected by her real mother and brushed aside by the careerist father—can investigate the macabre history and dark corners of the estate. Spurring Sally's investigation are the voices—rasping whispers who call out to her from the basement, who promise her understanding and friendship, who are so very hungry and would like to be set free. When Sally gives in to her curiosity, she opens a gateway into a hellish underworld from which an army of beady-eyed, sharp-clawed monsters emerge, small in size but endless in number: the homunculi. Confronted with the horror that now threatens to taker her life and destroy her family, Sally desperately tries to warn the whole house, but there's just one problem: no one believes her. Will she make them understand in time, or will they become another chapter in the centuries-long horror story of Blackwood Manor?

Based on the 1973 telefilm that Guillermo del Toro believes to be the scariest TV production ever made, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK was co-written and co-produced by del Toro and directed by Troy Nixey. Akin to PAN'S LABYRINTH, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK focuses on a young girl's struggle against menacing and terrifying forces.

You can also check out a new clip from the film over at my YouTube channel, courtesy Film District.

Watch the Black Dynamite animated series pilot

As a huge fan of the 2009 blaxploitation parody Black Dynamite, I've been looking forward to the upcoming animated series, coming soon to Adult Swim. AS has kindly posted the unaired pilot to the series, which will

Titmouse, Inc., produced the 11-minute pilot below, which features much of the original film's voice cast, including Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Kym Whitley and Tommy Davidson. The animated series is aiming for a Spring 2012 premiere.

(Thanks to Twitch for the heads up.)

Trailer Watch: A new Tinker, Tailer, Soldier Spy trailer

Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson's follow-up, an adaptation of the 1974 John Le Carré spy novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Gary Oldman stars as a man pulled out of retirement to lead a hunt for a Soviet mole in the top ranks of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service. Between this and the first trailer, this has shot to the top of my must-see list this winter — largely due to the incredible cast, which also includes Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, Ciarán Hinds, John Hurt, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

It's out in the UK on September 16, 2011, and in US theaters on November 18, with late fall and winter releases for most of the rest of the world.

Trailer Watch: Jonah Hill in The Sitter (red band)

From IGN comes the trailer for the new David Gordon Green comedy, The Sitter, starring Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell, Max Records, Kevin Hernandez, Landry Bender, J.B. Smoove and Method Man. I didn't see Your Highness, but this R-rated riff on the Adventures in Babysitting mold is another head-scratcher for the former director of ponderous, Terrence Malick-esque films like All the Real Girls and George Washington… but at least it's kind of funny.

The Sitter hits theaters on December 9, 2011, where it probably hopes to bring in the people (like me) who get sick to death of all the rampant consumerism and saccharine "Christmas" shit going on that time of year.

Trailer Watch: George Lucas's Red Tails

It's been over two years since Red Tails started filming, and finally, we have a trailer. If you're fine with all the CGI dogfighting (and I am), I think you'll agree it's a strong trailer, and it should make for a fun flick.

This fictionalized story of the Tuskegee Airmen is directed by Anthony Hemingway, from a screenplay by John Ridley (based on a story by executive producer George Lucas), and stars Bryan Cranston, Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Daniela Rush, and Michael B. Jordan.

Here's the official synopsis (via Twitch):

1944. As the war in Europe continues to take its toll on Allied forces, the Pentagon brass has no recourse but to consider unorthodox options – including the untried and untested African-American pilots of the experimental Tuskegee training program. Just as the young Tuskegee men are on the brink of being shut down and shipped back home, they are given the ultimate chance to show their courage. Against all the odds, with something to prove and everything to lose, these intrepid young airmen take to the skies to fight for their country – and the fate of the free world.

The film is currently targetting a January 2012 release.

Trailer Watch: George Clooney's The Ides of March

Via Yahoo! Movies comes the trailer for writer, director and star George Clooney's The Ides of March, an adaptation of the Beau Willimon play Farragut North. Set in "the last days before a heavily contested Ohio presidential primary, an up-and-coming campaign press secretary (Ryan Gosling) finds himself involved in a political scandal that threatens to upend his candidate's shot at the presidency." (Clooney plays the candidate, naturally.)

Not only do we have two of the best leading men in Hollywood together for (I think) the first time, but what a supporting cast! Marisa Tomei, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, and Jeffrey Wright?! I'd like to buy that casting director a drink.

The last time Clooney got political, we got the fantastic Good Night, and Good Luck. And while the trailer doesn't necessarily hint at a whole lot of political substance in the film, I'd be surprised if there wasn't more than the usual toothless, Hollywood fluff on the subject. (Wag the Dog, I'm looking at you. Bad dog.) In any case, Clooney is a solid director and writes terrific dialogue. This should be good.

Watch for it this October 7th.