Hey Jude, don’t make it weird: A Paullish Jim Sturgess and Thirteen‘s Evan Rachel Wood fall head over heels in love during the always-turbulent Sixties in the new trailer for Julie Taymor’s Beatlepalooza Across the Universe. Hopefully, it comes off better than The Times They-Are A Changin’. (And where’s Clarence?)
Tag: Eddie Murphy
Die Hard with an Ogre.
In the preview bin, the brand new teaser for Live Free or Die Hard (a.k.a. Die Hard 4) and the full trailer for Shrek the Third. I can’t see either on my current connection, so sorry if they’re terrible.
I Vant to be alone. (So does Beyonce.)
More from the movie bin: Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy let Beyonce break up the band in the full trailer for Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls, and Stephen Soderbergh noirs up George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire in a Mr. Movie Voice trailer for The Good German.
Ogling the Ogres.
I was remiss in noting in my last update that I — like most of America — caught Shrek 2 over last weekend. Not much to say about it really…I thought it was as entertaining, eye-popping, and effervescent as the first outing, if ultimately somewhat insubstantial. I enjoyed myself while Shrek was on, then promptly forgot about it, but what more can you really expect?
Antonio Banderas as Puss-in-Boots (at left) was a quality pickup for the franchise, and I particularly liked the COPS takeoff and anything involving the blind mice. Still, if I have a beef with Shrek 2, it’s mainly that the movie wouldn’t stop trying to sell me the associated soundtrack of easy listening tunes and contemporary standards. Enough already! I prefer my fairy tale adventures without merchandising tie-ins…there’s only so many Versarchery, Farbucks and Old Knavery jokes one can make before the film feels complicit in the commercialism it’s sending up. But, that’s the ogre talking…All in all, Shrek 2 is 100 minutes of solid escapism, which is more than you can say for a lot of films so far this summer.
Ogres and Coens.
Some stirrings on the film front: Dreamworks releases the first trailer for Shrek 2 (Looks like more of the same, but it should make for a fun afternoon.) And, speaking of fun, Latino Review posts the one-sheet for The Ladykillers. The Coens have yet to let me down, and given how amusing I found the teaser for this one, I highly doubt they’ll start now.