Very dramatic CinemaCon trailer for ‘The Wolverine’ rolls in

When James Mangold became attached to The Wolverine, despite having directed the excellent ‘Walk The Line’ and the decent, “3:10 to Yuma’, he had also just made ‘Knight and Day’, a cheesy Tom Cruise action picture, and maybe that’s what Fox saw in him. Aesthetically the film looks very bright and jolly, not what most of us were picturing. Wolverine loses his powers, not too wild about that, and once again they have gone for ridiculous action spectacle rather than something more grounded, the CGI train fight sequence looks just awful, unbelievable, even for an X-Men spin-off.

This CinemaCon trailer is more focused, they seem to be using a lot of the darker shots and set-pieces and is generally more moody and dramatic. It’s still not something we’re holding out huge hopes for, but the editing job on this trailer gives us some very faint hope at least that there is at least a good film hiding in there somewhere.

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[highlight]Based on the celebrated comic book arc, this epic action-adventure takes Wolverine (Jackman), the most iconic character of the X-Men universe, to modern day Japan. Out of his depth in an unknown world he will face a host of unexpected and deadly opponents in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Vulnerable for the first time and pushed to his physical and emotional limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel but also his inner struggle against his own immortality. Directed By James Mangold, The Wolverine hits theaters in 2D & 3D on July 26, 2013[/highlight]

 

Weekend trailer fix: Red 2, Sweet Vengeance and Mr. Pip

Red 2
In Red 2, the high-octane action-comedy sequel to the worldwide sleeper hit, retired black-ops CIA agent Frank Moses reunites his unlikely team of elite operatives for a global quest to track down a missing portable nuclear device. To succeed, they’ll need to survive an army of relentless assassins, ruthless terrorists and power-crazed government officials, all eager to get their hands on the next-generation weapon. The mission takes Frank and his motley crew to Paris, London and Moscow. Outgunned and outmanned, they have only their cunning wits, their old-school skills, and each other to rely on as they try to save the world — and stay alive in the process.

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Sweet Vengeance
Sweet Vengeance is an epic story of revenge set against the backdrop of the American Old West. Newlyweds Miguel (Eduardo Noriega) and Sarah (January Jones) settle on a patch of land and soon encounter community preacher Prophet Josiah (Jason Isaacs). As Sheriff Jackson (Ed Harris) arrives in town Prophet Josiah launches a plot to take Sarah’s land forcing her to defend her rights and launch an attack of vengeance that results in a jaw dropping showdown.

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Mr. Pip
Mr Watts is the only white man left on the island after the blockade. He opens the school and introduces the children the “Great Expectations.” Matilda, the teenage narrator finds comfort in the story of a Victorian orphan when her own world is falling apart. The Redskins, an army sent to destroy the local rebels are getting closer. Matilda writes ‘Pip’ in the sand. This simple act leads to terrible consequences when the Redskins suspect Pip to be a rebel leader and demand he be brought before them. (via IMDB.com)

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Cult infiltration in The East , a film about a radical anti-corporation group

In ‘The East’, Sarah Moss (Marling) is a brilliant operative for an elite private intelligence firm whose top objective is to ruthlessly protect the interests of their A-list corporate clientele. She is assigned to go undercover to infiltrate an anarchist collective known for executing covert attacks upon major corporations. Living amongst them in an effort to get closer to their members, Sarah finds herself unexpectedly torn between two worlds as she starts to fall in love with the group’s charismatic leader, finding her life and her priorities irrevocably changed.

The film stars, Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page, Patricia Clarkson, Shiloh Fernandez, Toby Kebbell, Aldis Hodge with Julia Ormond, and is directed by Zal Batmanglij. THe film is due to hit theaters on May 31st.

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Source: trailers.apple.com, YouTube

Mid-week trailer fix #2: Much Ado About Nothing, A Hijacking and “Narrow Escape” clip from Star Trek Into Darkness

Much Ado About Nothing
Shakespeare’s classic comedy is given a contemporary spin in Joss Whedon’s film, “Much Ado About Nothing”. Shot in just 12 days (and using the original text), the story of sparring lovers Beatrice and Benedick (Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof) offers a dark, sexy and occasionally absurd view of the intricate game that is love.

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A Hijacking
The cargo ship MV Rozen is heading for harbour when it is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Amongst the men on board are the ship’s cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbaek) and the engineer Jan (Roland Moller), who along with the rest of the seamen are taken hostage in a cynical game of life and death. With the demand for a ransom of millions of dollars a psychological drama unfolds between the CEO of the shipping company (Soren Malling) and the Somali pirates.

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Star Trek Into Darkness “Narrow Escape” Clip
Pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness. When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

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Your mid-week trailer fix: The Bling Ring, After Earth, The Grandmaster and Onion News Empire

The Bling Ring
In the fame-obsessed world of Los Angeles, a group of teenagers take us on a thrilling and disturbing crime-spree in the Hollywood hills. Based on true events, the group, who were fixated on the glamorous life, tracked their celebrity targets online, and stole more than 3 million in luxury goods from their homes. Their victims included Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, and Rachel Bilson, and the gang became known in the media as “The Bling Ring.”

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After Earth – “Return” Promo
A crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.

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The Grandmaster
With martial arts getting more popular in the Thirties, more people seek to learn them via the professionals at Foshan in Southern China. Some of the experienced masters like to challenge their counterparts and undergoing battles. To have their whole concentration, it is their practice to lock up the venues and no one is allowed to leave during battles. No food and no rest before reaching any results. Ip Man is a young rich man extremely talented in martial arts, but he chooses to keep a low profile. Yet this doesn’t keep him out of these troubles ahead. One day he is trapped in this battleground so he has to use every means in order to get out of there. The masters are amazed by his abilities. Master Kung and his daughter Kung Yi are amongst, and the latter is attracted to this newcomer. A high warlord is assassinated by his own guard Yi Xian Tian. All masters in Foshan vow to take Tian down no matter what…

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Onion News Empire (TV Show)
Onion News Empire is a smart, fast-paced scripted comedy set behind the scenes of The Onion News Network that shows just how far journalists will go to stay at the top of their game.

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‘Thor: The Dark World’ – full trailer officially released [VIDEO]

Well it has been a great week or so for the blockbuster trailers, and they just keep coming, earlier today we brought you two bootlegged versions of the trailer for Thor: The Dark World, now we present it to you in all its high definition glory.

So what can we take from this trailer? Thor is firstly in trouble with his lady friend form Earth, Jane, as portrayed by Natalie Portman. From what we have heard basically hasn’t spoken to her since the events of The Avengers occurred and like most women, she’s out for his blood. We know that there is a threat made against the Earth from some ancient being that predates even Odin. We know the dark elves are going to take Jane in some way, shape or form. And then we know that Thor will have to enlist the help of his murderous brother Loki to help ave the day, but as Thor warns him, “When you betray me I will kill you.”

The film hits Irish shores in November of this year.

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Marvel Studios’ “Thor: The Dark World” continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. In the aftermath of Marvel’s “Thor” and “Marvel’s The Avengers,” Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos…but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all. Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano and Jaimie Alexander with Rene Russo & Anthony Hopkins as Odin, “Thor: The Dark World” is directed by Alan Taylor, produced by Kevin Feige, from a story by Don Payne and screenplay by Christopher Yost and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and is based on Marvel’s classic Super Hero Thor, who first appeared in the comic book “Journey into Mystery” #83 in August, 1962. “Thor: The Dark World” is presented by Marvel Studios. The executive producers are Louis D’Esposito, Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Victoria Alonso, Craig Kyle and Nigel Gostelow. The film releases November 8, 2013, and is distributed by Walt Disney Studios.

Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes

‘Emanuel and the truth about fishes’ opened to a relatively mixed reception at Sundance a few months ago, now we finally see a trailer for the film, which we have to say looks fairly mediocre. Whilst we love nothing more in life than staring at Jessica Biel, and we really do love her, she is not the greatest actress who has ever lived, she does however play a very, very convincing pole dancer, and we were very moved in our pants by her outstanding performance in ‘Powder Blue’.

In this eerie indie-drama a young lady named Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario) becomes creepily obsessed with her beautiful new neighbor (Biel), who apparently bares a striking resemblance to the young girls mother. The film looks to be fraught with tension and also the filmmaker’s have explored some lush underwater dream sequences by the looks of it. The film doesn’t look outstanding but looks interesting enough to lose a quiet evening to.

A troubled girl (Emanuel) becomes preoccupied with her mysterious new neighbor (Linda), who bears a striking resemblance to her dead mother. In offering to baby-sit Linda’s newborn, Emanuel unwittingly enters a fragile, fictional world, of which she becomes the gatekeeper.

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Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines

Earlier in the week, PBS aired “Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines.” It’s an hour long documentary that looks back at the pop-culture history of the renowned DC comic-book character, and studies the massive effect the character had on feminism. Don’t fret if you don’t have PBS, none of us do in this country, however, the film is currently streaming online.

From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s to the blockbusters of today, ‘Wonder Women!’ looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation. ‘Wonder Women!’ goes behind the scenes with Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, comic writers and artists, and real-life superheroines such as Gloria Steinem, Kathleen Hanna and others, who offer an enlightening and entertaining counterpoint to the male-dominated superhero genre.

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First trailer and poster for ‘R.I.P.D.’ arrive and it’s basically ‘Men In Black’ with Ghouls

From the opening twenty seconds of this first trailer for RIPD it is evident exactly what this film is, how it was pitched and how it got funded. It looks to be a carbon copy of ‘Men in Black’, a hugely successful and admittedly rather enjoyable franchise. Jeff Bridges takes on the Tommy Lee Jones role of the tough-loving, mean, older, southern half of the ghost-busting team and Ryan Reynolds takes on the Will Smith role of the handsome, funny, younger rookie to the force.

The film looks to rely far too heavily on CGI effects, a pitfall of the MIB trilogy, we are really seeing the same stuff here, undead posing as regular citizens instead of aliens doing the very same. The one thing we can say is at least it’s an entertaining formula with this hokey premise of a “Rest in Peace Department”, that is secretly operating within our society, unbeknownst to all us regular breathers. Entertaining is the best we can really hope for.

The Dark Horse comic R.I.P.D. is adapted by Universal Pictures with this fantasy crime film focusing on a newly deceased cop (Ryan Reynolds) who’s drafted into a squad of zombie cops that battle the supernatural. Red’s Robert Schwentke directs, with Jeff Bridges co-starring as his partner and Kevin Bacon playing the villain. (Via CBM)

Below you can check out the trailer along with the now officially released one-sheet.

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Michael Bay’s pirate TV show ‘Black Sails’ get its sea legs

‘Black Sails’ actually looks to be a rather entertaining show from STARZ, to be honest they have been nothing but a disappointment when it comes to dramatic programming, and although there is definitely tough competition at present in the world of TV we will generally give most things a go, so it’s not as id they’re being measured against the greats. The show is directed by Neill Marshall, who has had previous success directing the ‘Game of Thrones’ episode, ‘Blackwater’, we wonder did the director of the incredible horror film, ‘The Descent’ get his sea legs on that job.

The cast seem reasonably solid and Michael Bay’s bank book being attached means we’re more than likely going to get some big action set-pieces and explosions, he is Michael Bay after all. Seeing as this series does fit in with the historically inaccurate ways of STARZ’s, ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’ and ‘Spartacus’, we don’t expect a sense of realism or well… history, but we do demand at least a compelling story that will make us come back for more.

The eight-episode first season of the pirate adventure centers on the tales of Captain Flint and his men, and takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.” Toby Stephens (Die Another Day) stars as Flint, the most brilliant and most feared pirate captain of his day, takes on a fast-talking young addition to his crew who goes by the name John Silver. Threatened with extinction on all sides, they fight for the survival of New Providence Island, the most notorious criminal haven of its day – a debauched paradise teeming with pirates, prostitutes, thieves and fortune seekers, a place defined by both its enlightened ideals and its stunning brutality.

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