September 19, 2007

Trailing the movie scene
Rating the newest trailers

Jon Taylor l managing editor
jtaylor@smcvt.edu

Feast of Love (9/28/07) – Oh man.  A modern-day re-imagining of A Midsummer Night’s Dream starring Greg Kinnear and Morgan Freeman?  It simply doesn’t get better than this.  Judging from the trailer, director Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer) has done a number on Charles Baxter’s original and inventive book, culling the sexiest and most scintillating elements out for Kinnear, Freeman, and other assorted actors to sink their teeth into.  Although it’s no secret that Feast of Love is nothing more than an above average romantic dramedy, it shouldn’t be too hard to get men into the theater with Radha Mitchell and Selma Blair tempting audiences with their stunning good looks.  Listen up guys: go see Feast of Love with your significant other and she might just go arm-in-arm with you to the next Quentin Tarantino movie.
 
GPA: 3.6

Grace is Gone (10/5/07 - limited) – John Cusack is a seriously underrated dramatic actor.  Really.  His turns in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Identity were atypical roles for the king of angst-y romantic comedies and he nailed them all.  Cusack takes another stab at drama in Grace is Gone, in which he portrays a father struggling to connect with his daughters after his wife gets killed in the Iraq War.  With all of the films currently damning the war (In the Valley of Elah), Grace is Gone doesn’t seem to pass judgment, allowing the characters’ actions and words to determine the film’s message.  If all goes well, Cusack could potentially garner an Oscar nod for what looks to be one of the strongest and most moving performances in years.

GPA: 3.8

Sleuth (10/12/07) – What happens when the wonderful actor/director Kenneth Branagh and legendary thespian Michael Caine team up to make a thriller?  They ruin it – by hiring Jude Law to star opposite.  It’s not all bad though – when the material is this tight, you have to really try to bring a movie down.  Caine plays a bored multi-millionaire who hires Law to break into his mansion and steal a ridiculously expensive piece of jewelry.  The twist?  Caine gets to fight back once Law gets in.  This fiery premise makes for some nice exchanges between the two in the trailer, showcasing Branagh’s extraordinary talent for bringing the best out of actors, even when (in Law’s case) they consistently disappoint.  Let’s hope that Sleuth doesn’t leave the audience stranded among ridiculous plot points – keep it simple with one or two huge twists and we’ll be happy, Kenneth.  I promise.

GPA: 3.0

Beowulf (11/16/07) – When is Robert Zemeckis going to learn that realistically animating live-action film does not and will not succeed in theaters?  It didn’t work in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and it didn’t work in Zemeckis’ own The Polar Express, so why has anyone given him money to do it again?  Even more disconcerting is the squandering of a cast boasting big-name actors (Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie) using ridiculous CGI animation and pretentiously boring material like Beowulf, a story that no one has actually read outside of a Cliff Notes guide.  Based on this overblown trailer, Beowulf is the frontrunner for biggest money-wasting ($70 million plus) flop of 2007 since the flaccid Evan Almighty ($250 million plus).

GPA: 1.0

Drillbit Taylor (3/21/08) – Let’s take bets: how long will it take for the Frat Pack (i.e. Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, etc.) to stop making movies wherein they portray pseudo-masculine characters with no cohesive dialogue?  This one has Luke’s publicly troubled (and much funnier) brother Owen playing a man named Drillbit (huh?) who is hired by three kids who need protection from schoolyard bullies.  Things get silly when Drillbit finds himself pretending to be a teacher and blah blah blah.  We all know that Frat Packers don’t need an original or engrossing story to make a mediocre comedy.  Even though it’s written by comedy god Seth Rogen (Superbad) and 80s auteur John Hughes (The Breakfast Club), Drillbit Taylor is shaping up to be a lame retread of the same ole lukewarm material.

GPA: 2.5

Iron Man (5/2/08) – Robert Downey, Jr. is a stellar actor with an impressive resume of strong character work (Zodiac) and tight dramatic chops (Two Girls and a Guy and Wonder Boys), so why does he feel the need to enter the world of the now-overexposed comic book genre?  The trailer for the much-anticipated Iron Man is equal parts CGI flash and Downey sass, but it seems as if Iron Man and alter ego Tony Stark are cut-rate versions of Batman and Bruce Wayne, who are ultimately more charismatic and winning in cinematic form.  Director Jon Favreau (Zathura and Elf) does show off some fancy movie trickery, but he’ll need a lot of help to make Iron Man more than just another lifeless comic book adaptation.

GPA: 2.7