The LEGO Movie Trailer

Superman and Batman together in one movie at last! It's the LEGO movie. It's got Will Arnett as Batman and all sorts of other superheroes, ninja turtles and popular culture characters popping up in little yellow brick form. Will Ferrel, Morgan Freeman, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson are also on voice duties in what promises to be an epic or very small proportions.

It is directed by the guys who gave us Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street so although the trailer is unlikely to make you laugh out loud, there is at least some potential for plenty of silliness to please the kids and witty banter for the adults.

What I'm really sad about is the decision to go with digital animation over stop motion animation. The internet is filled with brilliant (and many not so brilliant) stop motion animations lovingly crafted by people in their bedrooms using the little Lego blocks and figures. However the makers have gone for what must be an easier (correct me if I'm wrong) option of digitally creating the world and characters. I'm sure it will lose of the charm of many amateur efforts in the internet.

I guess they are going for the full Brickbuster effect to maximise the appeal but it's a shame that stop motion isn't the format of choice for The LEGO Movie makers. Either way, let's hope that the film can be as imaginative and fun as the product itself has been for generations of kids since the interlocking blocks first emerged over 60 years ago. Here is the trailer:



More trailers at I Love That Film:


Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues



The Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolverine

Pacific Rim

Man of Steel and The Desolation of Smaug

Last Chance to See... The Artist, Like Crazy, The Grey

Three films I was lucky enough to catch in the cinemas this month:

The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011)

Very sweet love story told in the style of a silent film.  When a silent star resists the coming of sound, his star fades as the girl he loves rises to fame.  A pretty simple narrative that lacks surprises is disguised by the brilliant and clever way it’s told.  Great performances from the cast who manage to hold their own against the scene-stealing dog, it’s a fun, easy-to-watch silent film that uses sound sparingly in a couple of particularly notable sequences and is guaranteed to leave you with a huge smile on your face by the end.  Catch it before it cleans up at the Oscars on Sunday!

Like Crazy (Drake Doremus, 2012)

Oh the trials and woes of the middle class.  Academic students fall in love at an American college but are kept apart by strict regulations as the English girl breaks the terms of her student visa.  Convincing performances from the two leads Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin can’t hide the fact they are playing pretty boring, and not particularly likeable characters.  The most sympathetic character in the story is played by Jennifer Lawrence who shines with limited screen time and makes the audience care even less for the plight of the central couple.  The obscenely upper-middle-class parents of Felicity Jones’ Anna add welcome comic relief but also remind the viewer that these characters should really just stop moping and count their blessings. 

The Grey (Joe Carnahan, 2012)

Liam Neeson and a pack of alpha-males take on a pack of wolves after a plane crash in the frozen wilderness.  Starting slow, clichéd, and grey, the film steps up a gear after the characters survive the harrowing plane crash.  The characters take a while to develop as they get picked off one by one, but Neeson elevates the script with another convincing hard-man performance as he leads the survivors in a fight against the big, bad, wolves.  Oscillating between quieter moments of reflection in which the men let their guard down and vicious action set-pieces, The Grey is surprisingly gripping from start to finish and has a killer emotional gut-punch of an unexpected ending.  But be warned, the final shot will either leave you salivating or howling at the filmmakers’ bold choice.

I highly recommend The Artist, slightly recommend The Grey especially if you can turn your brain off, and vaguely recommend Like Crazy if you think two kids falling in love and being kept apart by visa regulations sounds like you're bag.  What do you think?  Has The Grey been unfairly snubbed by Mr Oscar and friends?  Is Like Crazy a painfully emotional and real story?  Did anyone not like The Artist?

CGI Overdose: Wrath, John Carter, Ghost Rider

Firstly, a little positivity.  Saw Chronicle at the cinema last night.  Liked it.  Nice use of the 'characters with cameras'/'found footage' technique taken to interesting new levels.  Pushed it a bit far with having a female video blogger added into the story to give a new perspective but the all-action climax was brilliantly realised using every possible camera the filmmakers could think of from tourist camera phones to police-car dashboard cameras and CCTV.

But the main thing that made me happy was the restrained use of CGI.  The trailers before the movie were for three films that bombarded my eyeballs with lashings of CGI.  By the time Chronicle came on, my head hurt and my nose was bleeding from this assault so it was a relief to have human characters in real locations.

 First up: feel my wrath at the Wrath of the Titans trailer starring Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes.  It feels like the only thing real here is the faces of the actors.  Ok so I never bothered with the Clash remake but I don't think I heard anything positive about it.  So why did it get a sequel?  How many people went to see it?  Didn't they warn people about it?  And what a waste of acting talent.  Neeson and Fiennes taking the money and running.  Worthington probably wondering when he's going to get to act opposite anything but a green screen.  Poor fella.  Anyway take a look at the trailer.  At least it has cool music.

Next up is Disney's John Carter.  A sub-Avatar battle of opposing forces on a faraway planet, one side being lead by a human savior.  Taylor Kitsch looks like a male model rather than an action hero and though the film was shot in Utah, the special effects created aliens and enhanced landscapes look completely over the top and unengaging.  Saddled with cheesy dire-logue and far too many CG creatures, it looks to me like director Andrew Stanton should go back to making completely animated pictures like Wall-E.  Watch the trailer.  It's got less good music than the last trailer though.

Finally comes Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, the sequel to another film I never bothered with.  It's got some actual people in it and some actual locations and even possibly the odd bit of real action.  But then on top of all that is the ridiculous CGI fire, flaming skulls, and Nicholas Cage just being Nicholas Cage.  They might actually be doing the audience a favour by replacing him with CGI.  Here's the trailer, cover your eyes!




Perhaps I'm being too harsh.  Perhaps the blame doesn't fall with the abundance of CGI and more on the choice of stars, the weak characters and the uninspiring stories.  What are any of these films about?  Not sure I care.  Cage, Kitsch and Worthington?  Not sure any of them are the finest actors of their generations.  Will I go see these films?  No.  Will my next blog be more positive and stop moaning?  I hope so.

Anyone looking forward to any of these?  Put me back in my place with your words...

I want to see them punished

Hands up who else watches movies to see characters get punished?  If you're a horror fan you'll be totally comfortable with this.  Yes I like to see characters endure all sorts.  Torture, murder... you name it.  I get a sadistic kick from watching characters squirm, plead for their lives and just occasionally come out the other side of their horrific ordeals at least partially intact.

Films are full of conflict, tests, confrontation and challenges.  If characters don't clash with something, then what the hell am I watching for?  If you want to keep an audience hooked, a screenwriters got to pile on complication after complication.  What would be the fun in having a character acheive his/her goal easily?  No drama, no complications, no crisis, no climax.  Even a rom-com piles on the barriers and obstacles to the couple getting together.  It wouldn't have much of a climax or resolution if the characters just got together without any fuss, arguments, break-ups or complications.

Horror fans are generally a particularly sadistic bunch.  We love to see blood, sweat and tears spilled.  Half the time the characters suck so bad, I'm not even sure I care if they survive by the end.  But the best horrors are the ones where we do care.  A couple of examples spring to mind;  Drew Barrymore in the opening of Scream, her parents so close to saving her as she clings to the phone unable to scream.  The lovely trio in Wolf Creek who endure all manner of nasty shit at the hands of a very nasty Aussie bloke with a bigger knife than Crocodile Dundee.

So you could say I'm a bit like the Saw franchise's Jigsaw.  I like to watch.  I like screenwriters to set up my characters in the worst possible circumstances and I want to see what they'll do to get out of it.  If that means sawing a leg off, so be it.  Sacrifice makes a great story.  Just look at the sales of the bible! 

With this in mind, I present two trailers.  The Cabin in the Woods is my most anticpated horror of 2012 (along with World War Z) and this trailer looks like a nice mix of the conventional and something new.  It also had the line that inspired my above musings.  Be warned: it seems to give a lot away but hopefully there will still be a wholesome WTF??? element.  And it's bound to be better than the Evil Dead remake (even if that is written by Diablo Cody).



Then there's The Grey starring Liam Neeson and pitting him against some hungry (hopefully nasty) wolves.  It's got a plane crash (having been in one(!), I'm always curious to see screen versions) and Neeson with a soppy reason to survive his grim circumstances.  The last time I saw characters threatened by wolves was in Frozen, featuring three characters stuck in a ski chair lift overnight as hungry wolves circled below.  That one didn't end so well but it will be interesting to see how hard-man Neeson fares against his own peckish tormentors.  Let's just hope the wolves aren't painfully awful CGI creations that distract from the drama.

Looks like there'll be plenty of sadistic pleasure to be gained from the trials of these characters.  Kids in a cabin in the woods up against who knows what... reality TV?  Or if you don't like horror so much, Liam Neeson up against hungry wolves.  Either way, the characters are in the middle of who knows where and there's sure as hell going to have to be sacrifices to be made if any of these characters are going to survive.  Bring on the pain I say.  Anyone else getting bloodthirsty?

Battle Games of the Brave Trailers

Three trailers that have caught my eye this week but not always for the right reasons. 

Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, 2012)  It's got amazingly red redheads, brave warriors, big bears and stunning CGI scenery.  It looks like a nice bit of feminism (but y'know for kids) with a feisty princess voiced by Kelly Macdonald (still sounding distractingly like Diane from Trainspotting) and Billy Connolly's grand Scottish brogue used as a voiceover to kick things off.  Looks like it should have some good action, beautiful visuals and some silly but not particularly funny attempts at comedy for the under 10s.

 Battleship (Peter Berg, 2012) Liam Neeson giving another gruff grumpy performance.  This time he's a navy man up against alien spaceships that look and sound just a tad too much like Transformers for comfort.  Ho hum another day another alien invasion.  Looks like director Peter Berg has been sitting in Michael Bay's filmmaking classes with sweeping shots of naval fleets, half naked girls bent seductively over things and big ass explosions.  It's also based on a game and therefore is unlikely to be any good at all.  Shame, I like Neeson.

The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012) Except for the hints at romance creeping in (we don't need another Twilight!), this adaptation of a kids (?) book looks seriously promising.  Jennifer Lawrence can be captivating (see Winter's Bone) and the 1984 / Running Man / Battle Royale vibe looks if not terribly original, at least pretty exciting.  Might have to read the book before this hits cinemas.  Like Brave, it also features another kick-ass bow-and-arrow weilding heroine. 





And just in case you missed my post on Bellflower, here's the trailer again.  IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THIS YET, STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WATCH IT NOW (please)!



Any of these taking your fancy?  If not check out some real reasons to start getting psyched for 2012.

Let me know what you think of the trailers above.  Especially Bellflower.  Seriously... watch that trailer!