Charles Bramesco
It’s Morphin’ Time in the Official ‘Power Rangers’ Trailer
Superheroes don’t have to come from the brightly-colored pages of American comic books; the Power Rangers series that captivated youngsters during the ‘90s and early 2000s had roots in Japan, stemming from their tradition of kaiju films. It’s a powerful bridge between cultures, the universal desire to watch a team of teenagers with extraordinary abilities team up to beat the stuffing out of gigantic monsters, And now it’ll connect generations, too, as the official trailer arrives today with the promise of the same spirit of teamwork and towering-menace-fighting that made them an unlikely cross-Pacific sensation two decades ago.
Brutal New ‘Logan’ Trailer Brings the X-Men Into the Real World
The most jarring line in the new trailer for James Mangold’s increasingly buzzy Wolverine spinoff Logan comes when the gruff mutant informs his young charge, “This is the real world. People die.” He tells her this after seeing one of her vintage X-Men comic books, and informing her that the team’s actual exploits bear little resemblance to what’s on the page. It all sends a clear message: this is a film unlike the solo Wolverine pictures that came before it, distinctive both in its high stakes and self-awareness. It’s a sharply written moment, but the new clip doesn’t linger on it for too long before getting to the good stuff — in this instance, a young girl cutting off an adult man’s hands.
Geoffrey Rush Plays Albert Einstein for Ron Howard in ‘Genius’ Trailer
It was only a matter of time. The long string of biographical depictions of troubled geniuses, an ignominious tradition more recently carried on by the likes of The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything, had to inevitably yield an Albert Einstein biopic...
Watch Vin Diesel Ski Through the Freaking Jungle in New ‘Return of Xander Cage’ Clip
Vin Diesel is a pro when it comes to doing awesome things in places where they should not be done. He drove a muscle car out of a skyscraper in the most recent installment of the Fastly Furious franchise. In 2005 family comedy The Pacifier, Diesel brought white-knuckle secret agent action to a sleepy suburban neighborhood. And in a newly revealed clip from the upcoming xXx sequel Return of Xander Cage, he straps on a pair of skis and speeds through the jungle like it’s an Alpine black diamond trail. This is the poetry and pain of Vin Diesel, always pulling the raddest of stunts in the unlikeliest of spots — unstuck in time and place, an innovator unappreciated in his era, the Van Gogh of shredding the gnar.
New ‘The Space Between Us’ Trailer Depicts Earth As Maybe Not So Terrible
As the past year or so has made abundantly clear, Earth is a bad place to live. If we don’t drain the plant’s natural resources, pollute the atmosphere to the point of toxicity, or drown beneath rising water levels, humanity could take the more direct route and wipe itself out through global nuclear war. Fascism and other forms of extremism have cropped up around the world like so many megalomaniacal dandelions, and Netflix still hasn’t added the fourth season of The Twilight Zone due to licensing complications. Everything is bad, and yet the upcoming sci-fi romance The Space Between Us boldly asks, “What if life on Earth was... good actually?”
Comedians Wax Poetic on the Virtue of Choking in ‘Dying Laughing’ Trailer
It’s the bugaboo that every comic who’s ever gripped a mic and squinted into the spotlight knows all too well: silence. You keep telling the jokes, and your best material isn’t getting a peep. The flop sweat starts to gather at the small of your back, and all of a sudden, you regret not taking the bottle of water they offered you backstage. The colloquial turn is ‘choking’ or ‘bombing,’ and it happens to the best of the best. They admit as much themselves in the new trailer for the upcoming stand-up documentary Dying Laughing; all the Emmys in the world can’t protect the biggest talents in the world from an occasional nuclear-class bombing, and the upcoming doc captures all the agony and ecstasy of life in comedy.
Red-Band ‘Death Race 2050’ Trailer Looks Incredible, May Have Cost Twelve Dollars
Does America really need another Death Race movie, considering the fact that America is approximately a year and a half out from living out its own insanely budgeted real-life Death Race sequel? Or do we, in fact, need a new Death Race movie now more than ever? As we rapidly hurtle towards our own dystopian world, can’t we look to the upcoming Death Race 2050 as a guide, a bloody roadmap for the deranged years to come? In order — yes, yes, and yes. (Note: this lede can be easily recycled for news concerning other apocalyptic franchises such as Mad Max, Terminator, and Bad Moms.)
The Miracle of Life Has a Taste for Death in Bizarre ‘Prevenge’ Trailer
Prevenge is, in the simplest terms, the movie about the pregnant woman convinced her fetus is ordering her to murder the people around her. It’s a pretty out-there logline, one that earned the film a handful of festival dates where it played to shocked, baffled, and delighted crowds ready to anoint a cult classic in the making. There’s more to it than the grabby premise, though; films with great concepts are not necessarily great films, but Prevenge has a strong wave of praise behind it suggesting that English first-timer Alice Lowe has the filmmaking chops to back up the promise of her script.
Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn Act Each Other Into Next Week in New ‘Una’ Trailer
It’s downright mystifying that Una, Australian theatre veteran Benedict Andrews’ first foray into screen directing, hasn’t found an American distributor as of yet. It’s got two major stars in Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn — and with Riz Ahmed also appearing as a supporting player, they could even work the “Rogue One reunion” angle! — the reviews out of its screenings at the film festivals in Telluride and Toronto were uniformly strong, and it also happens to be excellent. (I was one of the critics praising the film as a superb actors’ showcase back at Toronto.) While there’s no U.S. release date on the horizon, it’s only a matter of time until some clever distributor makes a move, and for now, we’ve got a new trailer.
Crossing $11 Billion Mark, Hollywood Poised for Biggest Year to Date
Even if it feels like things are getting worse all the time, with Hollywood delivering an unholy crop of expensive flops amidst murmurs of cinema’s death in 2016, that may not be the case. At the very least, the American film industry isn’t in danger of collapsing any time soon — quite the opposite, in fact. If we’re to take the total sum of money generated by ticket sales in a given year as a barometer of the industry’s overall health, Tinseltown’s still as strong as an ox, Ben-hur remake or no.
Alec Baldwin Is So Excited For You to Watch ‘The Boss Baby’ Trailer, Really
It’s not uncommon for stars to speak for a moment or two before a trailer for their upcoming film, hyping the release a touch while lending their celebrity directly to the proceedings. Especially for animated projects such as the upcoming The Boss Baby, it’s helpful to see the talent’s face as a reassurance of the film’s pedigree. But it almost looks like the Academy Award-nominated actor is trying to hold a straight face when he reads the words, “You are seconds away from seeing a sneak peek of Dreamwork’s new animated film The Boss Baby. I’m so excited for you. Really.” That little “really” tacked on to the end makes it sound like he’s got something to prove. Baldwin knows exactly what he’s gotten himself into. He knows how the phrase “The Boss Baby, starring Alec Baldwin” sounds.
Katherine Heigl Goes Homicidal in Trailer for Erotic Thriller ‘Unforgettable’
What the world needs now, in these turbulent and chaotic times, is more erotic thrillers. They were all over the place in the '90s, and yet somehow they've fallen out of favor in the decades since There have been a few cropping up in recent years, inspiring hope for some kind of erotic thriller renaissance; an obsessive younger man terrorized Jennifer Lopez in last year's The Girl Next Door and Morris Chestnut got caught in between two possessive women in this summer's When the Bough Breaks. Today brings the first look at the next film to join their esteemed ranks and contribute to the slow resurgence of the noble but underserved erotic thriller.