Columbia Pictures has released the teaser trailer for the new Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups. The film stars Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Maria Bello, Gary Busey and David Spade, and is directed by Dennid Dugan, the filmmaker behind of some of Sandler’s earlier films like Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy, but who recently has been responsible for some comic clunkers like I Now Pronouce You Chuck & Larry, and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.
Five friends and former teammates reunite years later to honor the passing of their childhood basketball coach. With their wives and kids in tow, they spend the Fourth of July holiday weekend together at the lake house where they celebrated their championship years earlier. Picking up where they left off, they discover why growing older doesn’t mean growing up.
It looks like a fairly generic comedy, even more so than the recent Sander efforts. Almost makes you wish that Sandler was still making second rate romantic comedies with Drew Barrymore again. You know, when they at least featured a few good jokes. And what is that on Kevin James’ face? That can’t be a beard, is it? Watch the full teaser trailer after the jump, and leave your thoughts in the comments ago.
Slash Film Said"Update: An official domestic teaser trailer has been released online, and is now embedded after the jump. The original story follows.
We’ve seen a few photos of Angelina Jolie in character for her lead role in Salt, the political action thriller that was rewritten for the actress when Tom Cruise bailed on the role. Now there’s an international trailer, straight from Russia. First thought: man, they really do some great lip-matching work when dubbing movies over there! Check the Russian trailer after the jump.
Yeah, so this trailer is entirely in Russian, a language that keeps me at bay in the same way that an Insane Clown Posse shirt wards off attractive women, so I can’t do much to recap what’s going on here. It looks like a slick thriller — more in the vein of the older Jack Ryan movies than Bourne-influenced shaky-cam stuff, and I’m fine with that. And really, did you think that director Philip Noyce was going to have his DP shaking the camera all the time? He’s got Angelina Jolie dead in his sights, and the fact that she’s hot and kicking ass is crucial to the success of the film. Audiences better be able to see it.
Awesome actor Chiwetel Ejiofor evidently gets some chance to run around, and I’m hoping that Liev Schreiber won’t just be stuck in a suit, yelling on the phone for the whole movie. Guy deserves a chance to make up for Wolverine.
As we’ve said before, the film tells the story of a CIA officer (Jolie) who is outed as a Russian sleeper spy, and must evade capture by those who are convinced she’s aiming to assassinate the president.
Bet on seeing a real domestic trailer soon; then we’ll be able to get a much better idea of the story this clip is selling. Meanwhile, I know we’ve got some readers who are adept at Russian translation, so feel free to post a little trailer transcript in the comments.
Slash Film Said" One of the movies I’ve been increasingly curious about in the last year has been Green Zone, the Paul Greengrass-directed semi-adaptation of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. Universal has just released the first trailer. Check it out and let us know what you think of the latest political actioner from the guy behind United 93, Bloody Sunday and the last two Bourne movies.
Yahoo has the trailer debut. After watching the trailer a couple of times, what I’ll say is this: I hope the film is a lot less conventional than this pitch makes it appear. What I’m seeing here is a fairly serious political action movie sold in a Bourne manner to appeal to the widest possible audience.
Which isn’t really a surprise, as there has been concern in some quarters that Universal didn’t have the greatest confidence in the film. It was pushed from this fall to March of next year, though in a weak business year for Universal, like 2009 has been, that makes sense. Because Green Zone is a $100m Iraq movie, and no Iraq movie has done that well with audiences. But star Matt Damon is behind it, while recognizing that it isn’t the easiest sell:
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It’s great, I’ve seen it. They’re finishing some of the effects, and it’ll be ready for March. We got a $100m Iraq movie, so we’ll see! I do have high hopes for it, though. I think it’s really good. I know the Iraq movies haven’t been particularly popular so far, but hopefully this will find an audience. It’s a thriller, really, set against the canvas of Iraq in 2003.
Regardless of my less than ecstatic feelings for this trailer, there aren’t many mainstream American filmmakers in whom I have more confidence and interest than Greengrass. He hasn’t made a bad film yet, and United 93 was all the things a 9/11 film needed to be: powerful, tasteful and full of insight. If anyone can knock this one out of the park, it’s him."
You will watch this trailer and believe you’ve been transported to another decade. This three minute promo for The Expendables—Sylvester Stallone’s latest project as writer/director/star—has pretty much everything you’d want from a cheesy as all hell ’80s action flick. A group of tough guys gathered to take out some military leader, check. A mysterious female contact who they can’t trust, check. Explosions and said tough guys leaping away from those explosions in slow motion, you bet your ass.
And perhaps most telling that this film knows exactly what it wants to be, you have Dolph Lundgren referencing Showdown in Little Tokyo with “Bring it happy feet!”—this time with Jet Li in the place of the dearly departed Brandon Lee.
I suppose at this point the lot of us have already made our minds up about this film. For me, the combined cast of Statham, Rourke, Terry Crewe, and Danny Trejo (in addition to those mentioned above) has me sold. Stallone proved he can still shoot action with the latest Rambo, and I’m getting good vibes from what we see in the trailer. Most importantly, all the main actors seem to have a good rapport with each other, and that’s exactly what I’d want out of such a dream team cast.
The negatives: David Zayas may not have been the best choice as a ruthless military dictator. Perhaps its because I mostly associate the guy with his lovable character Batista in Dexter, but from the glimpse we’ve seen it doesn’t seem like he’s channeling his Enrique Morales from Oz in this film. Then again, it may just seem bad out of context.
Whomever edited that great ‘No Signal’ montage of cell phone failure in horror movies did so too soon. There’s a primo example of it right here in the new trailer for The Crazies, directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara director and Micheal Esiner’s son) and loosely based on George Romero’s 1973 thriller. Perhaps very loosely based? Though there’s a definite Romero vibe to this trailer, the basic character set is a bit different from the original and the overall feel is (unsurprisingly) of a modern studio horror film rather than the independent, homegrown original.
Apple has the trailer debut, in which we see Timothy Olyphant’s sheriff and Radha Mitchell’s doctor as a midwestern couple whose life goes more than a little insane when townfolk around them start behaving oddly. As in Romero’s version, the culprit appears to be military in origin, and some very violent methods are brought to bear to contain the spread of insanity.
I’m happy enough that this isn’t a Platinum Dunes effort, and am definitely intrigued by the Romero feel. The military action, huddled characters and masses of crazed townspeople in the second half of the trailer are all very evidently inspired by the zombie master’s films in general. Will it have the counterculture suspicion and “madness unleashed by human error!” vibe of the original? We can hope.
One mark against this trailer is the use of the cover of ‘Mad World’ that became famous via Donnie Darko. It worked really well in that film and was perfect in the Gears of War teaser. And the song works fairly well here, too. It actually marks the point in this trailer where I got a little bit interested. But that’s the problem — despite the Romero feel and liking Timothy Olyphant quite a lot I didn’t care about this at all until that familiar, loaded song kicked in.
Here’s the trailer for the new version (check it out in HD at Apple) and below it the trailer for Romero’s original. Under those is the lovely new ‘no signal’ screengrab.
D. Kerry Prior’s horror/comedy The Revenant has been making waves on the festival circuit, with rave reviews from a variety of bloggers/critics. It recently screened at Fantastic Fest and now (via Quiet Earth) a trailer has surfaced.
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