One sentence synopsis: the Black Plague has struck, and the result is zombies across the land; cue insane badassery.
One sentence trailer thoughts: I'm still on board.
Expanded thoughts: the teaser was good enough to make me interested, and happily the first official trailer hasn't done anything to change that. Sure, some of the sequences look a little over the top, but overall it does seem interesting to see a society changed by the appearance of zombies due to the Black Plague, and how they adapt to such a bizarre world.
One sentence synopsis: Jane's husband is in bad shape and persecuted, and there's only one way she can help him: with a gun.
One sentence trailer thoughts: Ok, I'm listening.
Expanded thoughts: as I mentioned before in my Bone Tomahawk review, I'm a fan of Westerns; but the name of this particular one sounded so stupid I was avoiding watching the trailer out of disinterest. Well, I finally gave in, and turns out it looks pretty good. Not a "holy shit, I must see this!" kind of good, but an "Ok, I'm listening" sort of good that makes you willing to devote a slow afternoon to go to the movies and have a swell time.
This film is NRA approved.
The cast seems pretty cool too, besides Natalie Portman. We got Joel Edgerton as the co-lead, an actor of good talent that is on the rise in Hollywood, as well as Ewan McGregor as the main antagonist. Natalie doesn't seem forced in the role of a woman in the West out to defend herself on her own... and in fact it just dawned on me what this was reminding me of: Claudia Cardinale's Jill McBain from Once Upon a Time in the West, though she didn't go as far training with guns (that I can recall). Anyway, Portman looks comfortable in the role, and I'm intrigued.
One sentence synopsis: do you really need to know this?
One sentence trailer thoughts: ummm...
Expanded thoughts: I wasn't blown away. In fact, I had sort of the same reaction as with the teaser from last year. Well, not exactly, I liked this better. The trailer's certainly good, and the movie definitely looks good, but it lacked a certain... oomph to it, something to push it into epicness hyperspace.
After watching it three times (as of this writing), I'm still a bit bothered by the three different character voiceovers of Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), especially this last one, which seemed a bit forced. Also, did not like the look of this shot at all:
The lighting on that shot looks off, fake-ish, too CGI. Might work in the context of the movie, so I'm not completely dismissing it right now, but my first impression of it isn't good.
One of the dogfights look like a mix of Hoth's battle from The Empire Strikes Back with Endor's Death Star battle from Return of the Jedi, which is both a good thing, and not.
It's a trap!
And of course, this shot reminded me of Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, which is good:
The trailer did raise a couple of questions, such as what is Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) doing with Kylo Ren? Is he a prisoner? For some reason, my first thought was that somehow his origin is linked to Kylo Ren. I don't know. Anyway, the other question is, is Finn really going to lightsaber fight Kylo Ren? Even if he ends up having the Force, I don't see how he can win that duel.
All in all, I would rank this as the second best Force Awakens trailer, behind Luke's voiceover one. Good, but not great.
One sentence synopsis: the beloved novel by Jane Austin is adapted yet again for the big screen, just with zombies this time.
One sentence trailer thoughts: Yup.
Expanded thoughts: if it wasn't for the fact that I had already seen in bookshelves, many years ago, the novel to this (not the original Pride & Prejudice, obviously, but the 2009 novel Pride & Prejudice & Zombies), I would have done an epic eye roll at the mere sight of this trailer's title. Instead, I was mentally prepared for the sheer silliness of the premise... aaaaaand loved it. Ok, perhaps not loved it; the trailer hasn't completely convinced me, but it certainly has my attention, though now I'm more interested in reading the novel and getting the full details of the story rather than watching the movie.
So yes, this is the world of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, but in an alternate reality where zombies exist in the countryside. Whatever. The presence of these zombies will provide the slight alterations to Austen's original plot. Hilarity (or horror) ensues.
One sentence synopsis: it's BBC's Sherlock but in his original 19th century setting.
One sentence trailer thoughts: the more I watch this, the more I like it.
Expanded thoughts: watching this gives the rare sensation of watching an amazing fanfic of BBC's Sherlock series, but back to its Victorean roots... and then realizing that it is actually produced by the BBC and switching to "holy shit I can't believe this is happening" mode. This series has been a weird ride, considering how insanely popular it has been, how LONG the waits are from one "season" to the other, and then how it actually fills up one of those long interludes with this Conan Doylish version of Sherlock Holmes.
I'm digging it. Wasn't really through the first watch, but the second and third really got me.
Expectations: high, but measured; even this has a "coming soon" tag that's as good as a warning not to hold your breath waiting for this.
One sentence synopsis: from the video's description - when a group of cannibal savages kidnap settlers from the small town of Bright Hope, an unlikely team of gunslingers sets out to bring them home; but their enemy is more ruthless than anyone could have imagined, putting their mission in serious jeopardy.
One sentence trailer thoughts: HOLY SHIT!?!
Expanded thoughts: I love westerns. One of the westerns I love the most is Tombstone, starring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. So you can imagine that I was really curious about this trailer when I saw Russell again in a western movie. Then I watched the trailer. And got confused. Is this a western, or horror? (Mind you, the clip I embedded above is not the one I watched first, though it was the exact same trailer). Nah, has to be a western of some kind... and then I checked further, and it's a horror western.
I love westerns.
I hate horror movies.
It's freaking Kurt Russell.
The movie looks awesome, and disturbing, and awesome.
One sentence synopsis: it's the last battle between the evil government and the rebels that don't want to fight for hunger anymore.
One sentence trailer thoughts: gee, it will FINALLY be over!
Hero shot is heroic.
Expanded thoughts: seriously, thank goodness it's going to be over! Don't get me wrong: I actually liked the books, I thought the first movie was decent...ish, and Catching Fire was awesome and the best of the bunch (as was the book). But Mockingjay the book was sort of a disturbing mess, and dividing it into two parts was pretty stupid. The end result is that I don't care about this movie anymore, and all the buildup in this trailer, which was actually well made, makes me sigh with annoyance instead of pumping me up.
Will I watch it? Well, duh. Perhaps not at the theater, but eventually, I will. I mean, I have already seen the other three, might as well... sigh... finish this.
One sentence synopsis: Bond has to stop the bad guy for the 24th time in movie history.
One sentence trailer thoughts: for a final trailer it's really short, which might be a good thing or a bad thing.
Expanded thoughts: to expand on what I just said above, the trailer is really short by today's standards of a final trailer. That's a good thing in the sense of not giving away the whole movie, which I fully support, but since this is something we are not used to with big productions such as this one, it makes me wonder: is there some other reason? Like, the movie's kinda bad, or doesn't have enough action to be interesting? I mean, the director is once again Sam Mendes, who is most certainly a great director, but also nearly put me to sleep at some points during Skyfall, which is a cardinal sin in a Bond movie. I was also surprised by how little I care that Christoph Waltz is the villain in this movie, considering his Colonel Hans Landa is one of my all time favorite movie villains, and he was pretty good in Django Unchained as well. Judging solely from the trailer (obviously) he doesn't seem to be that special of a Bond villain. Even his Col. Landa wouldn't fit with Bond, great as he was.
Anyway, I'm really hoping this movie is more Casino Royale than Skyfall. Casino Royale was the perfect blend of solid story and solid action for a Bond movie. We need more of that. I need more of that. Make it so, Mr. Mendes.
Skull. Dead people. Spirits. Spectres. Get it?
Expectations: high, actually. This has been the Year of the Spy Movies, and I would be very disappointed if Spectre doesn't deliver.
One sentence synopsis: a guy finds an evil book, friend gets sucked into Hell, guy and another friend follow in to rescue, all Hell breaks loose.
One sentence trailer thoughts: well, it's different.
Expanded thoughts: No, this is not a Tim Burton movie, but it seems like the kind of thing he would do if he went back to stop motion animation. It doesn't look great, but there's one positive: at least American animation is exploring other territories beyond kiddie stuff. Yes, it has been done before, but not as a major release (at least that I can remember). Despite the hellish imagery, there's plenty of jokes here to confuse the "can't be bothered with researching the contents of movies" parents into bringing the whole family to watch an R rated movie. Of course, there's still the question of whether what caused the R rating ("pervasive strong crude and sexual content, language and some drug use") was done purely for shock value, or if it has a point. In other words: is this a movie that I, as an adult, want to be bothered with, or is it too stupid to care about? Just because Robot Chicken can be funny in small doses, doesn't mean we want 90 minutes of it.
