Gordon McAlpin's Blog: Updates from Multiplex: Deleted Scenes, page 21

Trailer Watch: Page One: Inside the New York Times

Andrew Rossi's documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times chronicles a year in the life of the New York Times in one of the most turbulent periods ever for the news industry. The film seems to track Times writers Brian Stelter, Tim Arango and David Carr in particular, and sets out to make a case for the continued relevance of more rigorous reporting the news industry offers in the age of the Internet.

You can also check out an interview with the filmmakers over at Take Part, and if you're really curious, check out a few reviews from its Sundance premiere.

Page One hits theaters on June 24, thanks to Magnolia Pictures and Participant Media.

Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show is now available from Diamond Comics!

As I mentioned a week ago, Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show (Book 1) is in Diamond Comics Distributors' PREVIEWS "movie comics"-themed June catalog, which is out NOW. (It's a Staff Pick, even!) Since I'm really excited about the potential to get the book out to my international readers who can't afford the high cost of shipping, and to introduce the book — and Multiplex, in the process — to many, many new readers, I wanted to share the solicitation with you guys.

Also as I mentioned before: if you want to convince your local comics retailer to pick up the book, point them to page 258 of the June PREVIEWS, download this sell sheet (PDF, 308kb) or just give them the Order Code (JUN110987). That's all the information they need to order the book from any comics shop in the world with a Diamond account. (Yes, that includes PREVIEWS UK shops!)

Orders through Diamond will hit shelves in August.

From p. 258 of the June PREVIEWS

Trailer Watch: Horrible Bosses

Seth Gordon first got Hollywood's attention with the incredibly true, hilarious documentary, King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. His next film, the Vince Vaughn/Reese Witherspoon stinker Four Christmases, did alright at the box office, but Gordon spent a few years of directing episodes for some of the best sitcoms on TV (Community, The Office, Parks & Recreation, and Modern Family) and a contribution to the documentary anthology Freakonomics before he could make another feature. (I guess he also co-created and directed a few episodes of Breaking In, the Christian Slater Leverage knock-off somewhere in there, too.)

Anyway, Horrible Bosses benefits from a great comedic cast (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, and Jamie Foxx) and a goofy premise (three dumbasses conspire to kill their three horrible bosses), to be sure, but the trailer packs enough laughs in that it might be worth checking out on July 8. Or maybe on DVD, at least.

Is it just me, or does Jennifer Aniston look like she's trying to channel Sandra Bullock in this? Or maybe it's her hair-and-make-up crew.

Trailer Watch: General Orders No. 9

/Film compared the trailer for Robert Persons' upcoming film General Orders No. 9 to Terrence Malick, and I think it's a pretty apt comparison. Ostensibly, it's a documentary "told entirely with images, poetry, and music" about "the signs of loss and change in the American South," and you can sort of see how that might reveal itself in the longer film, but just looking at it on its own, all I know is, it's hypnotically beautiful.

Some people — not here, necessarily — will say it looks pretentious, but there are ideas bigger than plain language can contain, sometimes.

The film is only slated to play in one theater for a week later this month, as of this writing, but hopefully we can all check it out sooner rather than later.

You can watch the trailer in HD over at Apple, or read more about the film at the official website. The full synopsis follows after the jump:

Awarded for its visionary cinematography, General Orders No. 9 breaks from the constraints of the documentary form as it contemplates the signs of loss and change in the American South. The stunning culmination of over eleven years' work from first time writer-director Bob Persons, General Orders No. 9 marries experimental filmmaking with an accessible, naturalist sensibility to tell the epic story of the clash between nature and man's progress, and reaches a bittersweet reconciliation all its own. Told entirely with images, poetry, and music, General Orders No. 9 is unlike any film you have ever seen. A story told in maps, dreams, and prayers, it is one last trip down the rabbit hole before it's paved over.

Trailer Watch: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (green band, updated)

Although a bootleg, hand-held camera-in-a-theater, red band version of the teaser trailer for David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo readaptation hit the internet a while ago, I don't post that crap here. But, whatever. Here's a slightly different, green band version that should give you a feel for what the movie looks like, if very little else. Not being familiar with the books or the original films — due to my near-total lack of interest in serial killer anything — I have no idea what it's about. But David Fincher directed it, so I'll see it.

The film stars Roonery Mara and Daniel Craig, and it hits theaters on December 21.

Fans of the book (or the original films, or neither of those): What do you think?

Trailer Watch: Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins

Prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Audition) is on a bit of a samurai kick lately. His Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai came out earlier this year in Japan, but in the States, his previous foray in to the genre, the big-budget 13 Assassins, is only just hitting theaters.

The film centers around "a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a wartorn future," and its 45-minute climactic battle has been hailed as "inventive and ingenious" and "just plain mind-blowing."

13 Assassins is playing in limited release now — and in Chicago at the Music Box Theatre. I'm planning on going to the 2pm showing on Friday. Anyone interested in joining me?

Trailer Watch: Crazy, Stupid, Love.

I'm not sure how Crazy, Stupid, Love. has slipped past my radar, despite all that punctuation. It's a romantic comedy starring Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling (Lars and the Real Girl, Half Nelson), Emma Stone, Kevin Bacon (Guiding Light), and Marisa Tomei; written by the Dan Fogelman (Tangled, Bolt, Cars); and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the writer-directors behind criminally-underseen I Love You, Phillip Morris (not to mention the writers of Bad Santa, which is one of my favorite comedies of the last twenty years).

I laughed out loud several times at the trailer, and the humor goes a little black more than once — and some early buzz seems to indicate that there's more than just laughs to the whole movie. You can read the synopsis (or see the trailer in HD) over at iTunes Movie Trailers, but you get everything you need just by watching this:

Trailer Watch: Take Shelter

Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Boardwalk Empire) top-lines the new Jeff Nichols drama Take Shelter, which centers around a man "plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself." The film co-stars Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life), Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, and Kathy Baker.

This is a really effective, haunting trailer; be sure to keep your eye out for the film in theaters around October 14 (or shortly thereafter).

Trailer Watch: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

One of Guillermo del Toro umpty-million producing credits is nearly out, and in case you didn't see it over the weekend, Yahoo! Movies has brought us the trailer for it.

Troy Nixey's remake of the 1973 TV movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark stars Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce and Bailee Madison as a family that movies into a house and finds that they are not alone. (Ooooooh.) It's creepy fun stuff, and apparently the MPAA even agrees, because gave it an R rating for "pervasive scariness."

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark hits theaters on August 26, 2011.

Check it out in HD over at Yahoo!

Trailer Watch: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 50/50

From Summit Entertainment (via Coming Soon), comes the trailer for 50/50 (formerly titled I'm with Cancer), a comedy-drama based on screenwriter Will Reiser's own experiences, about a young man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) diagnosed with cancer. Sounds like a laugh-riot, huh? Well, check out the trailer below; I laughed out loud a number of times. This movie looks great.

50/50 rounds out its incredibly impressive cast Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston and Philip Baker Hall, and hits theaters on September 30th.