Banjos, Blood, and Baseball.

In the trailer bin of late:

A frog-without-fear does his best to defend Sector 2814 in another parody trailer for The Muppets, with Jason Segal, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, and a cast of many. (It’s the Muppets. I’m in.)
A shirtless barbarian takes to beheading like it’s his business, which I suppose it probably is, in this violent R-rated look at ~~Khal Drogo~~ Conan the Barbarian, with Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, Rachel Nichols, Rose McGowan, and Steven Lang. (Hard to imagine this being better than the classic Oliver Stone-penned original. I presume this’ll be hagga.)
And the Oakland A’s get the Aaron Sorkin treatment in Bennet Miller’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, with Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, and Darryl Strawberry. (Looks…Sorkin-y. But definitely maybe.)

“Wait…are there muppets in this movie?” Why, yes, yes, there are. In the trailer bin, a dapper Jason Segal tries to court Amy Adams in our first look at the romantic comedy Green With Envy. And it’s not easy being green, fuzzy, or a weirdo when the Fuzzy Pack comes back, in front of The Hangover Pt. II. Either way, movies are better with muppets.

Unicorn Spotted.

Blue blistering bell-bottomed balderdash! Along with the spiffy poster above, the teaser for Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is now online.

Hmmm. As a Tintin kid, I’m really looking forward to these movies. But, for now, I am not feeling the decision to go photorealistic with this at all. Snowy/Milou should not conjure grim memories of Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear. Here’s hoping a few more rotations in the CGI-machine smooths this out some.

Don’t Trust the Neighbors.

Two new remakes in the trailer-bin: Anton Yelchin doesn’t cotton much to Mom Toni Collette’s potential new boyfriend next door, Colin Farrell, in Craig Gillespie’s 2011 edition of Tom Holland’s Fright Night, also with Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Evil Ed and — though he’s not seen much in this clip — David Tennant as Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer. As I said here, Fright Night was one of my Halloween standbys growing up, so I hope this one works out.

And, also out today, James Marsden and Kate Bosworth run into some trouble with Alexander Skarsgard and the local yokels in Rod Lurie’s remake of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs. Even with the switch from Hammer Horror England to the Deliverance South, I’m not sure Straw Dogs needed to be remade — and it seems doubtful that Screen Gems is the studio to improve on the disturbing original. We’ll see.

Agent With Shield.

Among the trailers I’ve missed in recent weeks is this — arguably the most promising-looking comic book film in the summer of Thor, Green Lantern, and X-Men: First Class — the teaser trailer for Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger, with Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Sebastian Stans, Toby Jones, and, above, Hugo Weaving looking pitch-perfect as the Red Skull. Granted, Johnston’s The Wolfman was terribad, but I’m holding out hope for this one (and to be fair, Johnston was basically a hired gun on Wolfman, coming in four weeks before shooting to replace Mark Romanek.)

There’s Something about Mary.

“A military trial of civilians is an atrocity…” Now isn’t that quaint? Union war hero James McAvoy finds himself reluctantly defending Robin Wright (a.k.a. Mary Surratt), a possible accessory to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, in the trailer for Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, also with Kevin Kline, Justin Long, Alexis Bledel, Evan Rachel Wood, Colm Meaney, Danny Huston, and Tom Wilkinson. Here’s hoping the historical setting here can ease the didacticism that marred Lions for Lambs.

Hammer and Prongs.

Metallica roadie or Norse God of Thunder? Chris “Papa Kirk” Hemsworth finds himself stuck inside of Midgard with the Asgard blues again in the teaser for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, also with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Ray Stevenson, Clark Gregg, Kat Dennings, Colm Feore, Rene Russo, Jaimie Alexander, Stellan Skarsgard, and Idris Elba. Hmmm. Like the forthcoming Green Lantern over on the DC side, this looks rather cheesy…but maybe Loki will be fun.

Meanwhile, a more promising upcoming comic creation announces its main villain — one who’s also potentially featured in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises — in this impressive trailer for Batman: Arkham City, due out next fall. Looks great, and Arkham Asylum is both very fun and a totally immersive Batman experience. But, while I get that they’re riffing on Call of Duty: Black Ops here (and take that, Sam Fisher), I’m already way over the recent trend towards interrogation scenes in my gaming.

Life Through Other Means.

In the trailer bin of late:

Whatever they may show in the trailer for Jodie Foster’s family dramedy The Beaver, I’m guessing Mel Gibson’s imaginary puppet friend says unspeakably filthy things in his downtime. Anyways, The Beaver also has Foster, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence, and Cherry Jones. Tell me if it isn’t terrible.

Rome‘s Ray Stevenson gets his chance to shine as a son of Eire among the seventies Mob in the trailer for Jonathan Hensleigh’s Kill the Irishman, based on the true story of Danny Greene and co-starring Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, Vinnie Jones, Linda Cardellini, Vincent D’Onofrio, and a whole lot of usual suspects in the mobster kingdom (Steven Schirippa, Robert Davi, Mike Starr, Paul Sorvino.) Eh, definitely maybe.
HUGH JACKMAN. BOXING ROBOTS. SHAWN LEVY’S REAL STEEL. 10.7.11 (Oof. Only if there’s a lot of drinking involved beforehand.)
“There’s a distinct visual look, and a grand scope, and even of a sense of narrative (sort of). What’s hinted at here is a big-canvas movie in the best sense, one with both cosmic significance and intimate drama.” Sadly, the trailer that prompted this post doesn’t seem to be online yet. Nonetheless, in front of Black Swan last week was our first look at Terence Malick’s eagerly-awaited The Tree of Life. And it looks appropriately mystical and Malickian: May 27th, 2011. Update: It’s finally up.

Groundhog Train.

In the trailer bin of late, Amtrak rider Jake Gyllenhaal is stuck in a moment he can’t get out of in our first look at Duncan Jones’ Source Code, also with Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright. Looks a bit too much like Tony Scott’s Deja Vu for my taste, but Jones has already earned the price of admission for this one with Moon.

Fruits of the Hallows.

With young Master Potter set to commence his crying jags through the wilderness at midnight, the Deathly Hallows crop of trailers has sprung…

Dashing fighter pilot Ryan Reynolds is commissioned by a dying alien to defend Sector 2814, and maybe do some wisecracking along the way, in our first look at Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, also with Blake Lively (who seems reallll bored), Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Robbins, and Mark Strong. Hmm, ok. Sinestro, Kilowogg, and Tomar-Re all look solid, but the tone seems a bit FF-ish to me…This could go either way at this point. (For those looking to take it frame-by-frame, here are the screencaps.)

Amanda Seyfried romps in the forest with teenage werewolves (Shiloh Fernandez, Max Iron) as Gary Oldman, Virginia Madsen and Julie Christie look to make some mortgage payments in the trailer for Catherine Hardwick’s Twilight-ish take on Red Riding Hood, Yeah, no thanks.

Special Agent Michael Caine joins the Radiator Springs gang for a world-spanning Bondish adventure in the trailer for John Lasseter and Brad Bird’s Cars 2. I know Pixar doesn’t make bad films, but the first Cars is probably my least favorite of the bunch. Still, I’m probably in.

Jason Statham is Charles Bronson — eh, never mind ,no he isn’t — in the trailer for Simon West’s remake of The Mechanic, also with Ben Foster and Donald Sutherland. Maybe on Spike TV someday, I guess.

Slacker knights James Franco and Danny McBride team up with badass warrior Natalie Portman to save Zooey Deschanel from the clutches of an evil wizard in the trailer for David Gordon Green’s Ren Faire raunchfest Your Highness, also with Justin Theroux (as said wizard), Damien Lewis, and Toby Jones. Unfortunately, with the exception of that ridiculous weed-puffing muppet at the end, this looked aggressively stupid to me.

And, in the most promising of the lot, it’ll be a bad day at Black Rock when the ETs come to town in the impressive trailer for Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens, with Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown, Paul Dano, and a seemingly engaged, not-drunk Harrison Ford (perhaps reprising his character from The Frisco Kid?) I have to say, this looks surprisingly solid to me.

Category: Trailer Bin