Soon after posting the last entry, I found a new cache of trailers for films around the corner over at Coming Soon: First off, Edward Murrow takes a journalistic stand against McCarthyism (with much explicit contemporary relevance) in the trailer for George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck, starring David Strathairn, Clooney, Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey, Jr., Jeff Daniels, and Frank Langella. Then, Charlize Theron braves borderline winds, the mining life, and sexual harassment in the preview for North Country, also with Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean, and Richard Jenkins. Meanwhile, law partners John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton look for the big score in Harold Ramis’ The Ice Harvest, with Randy Quaid, Connie Nielsen, and Oliver Platt. And, finally, journalist Alison Lohman looks into the racy reasons behind the demise of comedy team Bacon & Firth in Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies (recently saddled with a NC-17), and video gamer Allen Covert pays respect to his elders in the trailer for the Adam-Sandler produced Grandma’s Boy. (To be honest, I’m only blogging this last one for the “don’t judge me” monkey bit and the too-brief glimpse of the lovely Linda “Lindsey Weir” Cardellini.) Update: Ok, one more: Tilda Swinton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, Benjamin Bratt and Keanu Reeves try to help newcomer Lou Pucci stop a nasty habit in the trailer for Thumbsucker, due out in just over two weeks.
Tag: Tilda Swinton
Narn!
A number of new Chronicles of Narnia images materialize online, including several of Tilda Swinton’s White Witch, James McAvoy’s Mr. Tumnus, and Jim Broadbent’s Professor.
I’ll be your mirror.
From White Witch to Gallic chanteuse, Tilda Swinton gets set to play Nico in a forthcoming biopic scripted by Blade Runner scribes David and Janet Peoples.
Chronic Town.
In case you missed the Kramervision version last week, the first trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is now officially online.
Witches and Warlocks.
Glimpses of fantasy in our future: Newsweek offers some new shots from The Chronicles of Narnia (including Tilda Swinton as the White Witch, at right), and ABC airs some very brief Goblet of Fire footage, with more to come next week.
Your Lion Heart.
The AICN gang get their hands on (and quickly disavow) a Kramervision look at the first Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe trailer. It’s a bit Lemony Snicket-meets-LotR, and unless you’re a fan of the books I’d skip this Shakicam boot and wait until an official version leaks…but, otherwise, this is looking pretty solid, particularly Tilda Swinton.
Lung Shadows.
At first, after the early director troubles and the casting of Keanu, I wouldn’t have given Constantine a snowball’s chance in Hell. But, while I can definitely see how it might come off as long-winded, somewhat inscrutable, and mostly boring to folks who hadn’t read the comics, I found the movie a surprisingly good adaptation of the source material. Much more atmospheric than your average February release comic book film, Constantine is a well-thought-out, well-constructed (if occasionally overlong) B-picture. As Keanu might say, “Whoa.”
I haven’t read Hellblazer much in the past decade, but what I remember most about the early adventures of John Constantine were (a) his frequent conversations and complicated pacts with the various demilords of Heaven and Hell, and (b) the absurdly short life-spans among his worldwide network of demonologists, clairvoyants, freaks, and hangers-on. To its credit, Constantine gets both details exactly right, with Tilda Swinton, Gavin Rossdale, Djimon Hounsou, and Peter Stormare playing otherworldly nobility to great effect (although I think I preferred Viggo’s take on Lucifer in The Prophecy), and Max Baker and Pruitt Taylor Vince (born to play a Constantine sidekick) layering on the eccentricities thick as unlucky compadres of the man of the hour.
When Constantine falters, it’s mainly in the long, protracted scenes between Keanu and Rachel Weisz, the latter of whom plays twins (one the love interest, the other the McGuffin.) The two (or three, whatever) don’t have much chemistry, and they stop the film cold occasionally in the middle hour. Also, the depiction of the Underworld, which basically resembles Sarah Connor’s nuclear nightmare in T2, has that cheap FX-house look to it, and fails to capture the wry malevolence often seen in DC’s comic-book Hell (for example, in the various torments visited upon Alan Moore’s Anton Arcane in Swamp Thing, or, in a creepy vision that I’ve never escaped, when Grant Morrison’s Kid Eternity encountered his teddy bear in the throes of agony, pleading for respite and demanding vengeance for his abandonment.)
Still, despite these lapses, I found Constantine for the most part an enjoyable and sequel-worthy adaptation, and an auspicious sign for fanboy cinema in 2005. Perhaps this’ll even bode well for FF…Nah.
Dark Knights.
In case you couldn’t access it over the weekend (or just want a closer look), the new Batman Begins trailer is officially up, as is our most recent view of Keanu Reeves in Constantine.
Heaven & Hell.
In today’s trailer bin, Colin Farrell moves from Alexander the Great to John Smith in Terrence Malick’s very Malickian The New World, while Keanu Reeves Neos up Hellblazer in the full trailer for Constantine.
Hell boy.
Also new today is the first teaser for Constantine. Everything about this trailer looks pretty solid, except, alas, for the title character. I’m not a Keanu-hater by any means, but he’s not playing John Constantine here, not even close. Constantine is a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, trenchcoat-wearing Brit. Keanu is, well, Keanu. The differences are palpable.