At long last — since Quentin Tarantino fans have been dying for a glimpse since the first peek at that hand-scrawled script suggested that yes, this was really happening — comes the first trailer for Django Unchained , Tarantino’s December 2012 spaghetti western about a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) shooting his way across the South. Because nothing says Christmas like slavery and vengeance! UPDATE: Sorry folks, the trailer is set to officially debut on Fandango later today. Check back for updated video… Foxx plays Django, a slave taken under the wing of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz, looking delightful). Together they journey from plantation to plantation shooting bad guys on their way to rescuing Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) from the evil, oily Leonardo DiCaprio. Between the contained ferocity in Foxx’s eyes, the character actors that line the cast, Tarantino’s use of classic genre zooms and camera moves, that swaggering sense of humor, and the promise of seeing Django get the ultimate historical-revisionist retribution in his quest for “life, love, and the pursuit of vengeance,” the trailer packs quite a punch. And that’s even before Foxx’s Django sidles up to the OG Django , Franco Nero, and explains to him how his name is pronounced. Oh, references! Verdict: Might be a bit too genre for mainstream audiences, but my inner exploitation nerd can’t wait. Django Unchained hits theaters December 25.
The first trailer for the Tony Gilroy-helmed spy sequel The Bourne Legacy has arrived, and it’s got everything you want: Bone-crunching action, fire extinguisher guns, Rachel Weisz as a hot lady doctor, and Jeremy Renner banging around doing his sensitive-strong mooney-eyed thing (and leaping out of rivers half-naked) as secret agent Aaron Cross. Okay, those are all the things I want from The Bourne Legacy , but the trailer gives us one more essential bit: Explanation as to how and why Renner’s been retconned into Bourne lore at all. Renner’s turn at the Bourne wheel isn’t a conventional sequel or reboot but a universe-expanding parallel storyline that seems to take place simultaneous to the events of the previous Bournes, with Matt Damon ‘s face popping up here and there — via photograph, a la Natalie Portman in The Avengers , or Robin Harris in House Party 2 — as the fugitive spy who upturned the Treadstone apple cart and set the spy world a’scramblin way back in 2002’s The Bourne Identity . So Renner’s Aaron Cross — and the comely agency doctor (Weisz) who patches him up between missions, then goes on the run with him — are freed from the singular mission that Jason Bourne was on. They can flee for their own lives, together. He can use his medically-enhanced super soldier skills to leap from buildings into tight alleyways when she calls his name. So romantic! And, also importantly, Renner’s Cross already seems like a much different man-spy than Bourne was. Damon played the tortured amnesiac thing well, but Cross doesn’t seem to be flailing about in some existential crisis; he knows what he is. That confident self-possession is magnetic. HE JUST WANTS TO LIVE, DAMMIT! At least, that’s what I got from these two minutes and change of trailer footage. And let’s not forget what else the trailer promises: Oscar Isaac. Ed Norton. No more shaky-cam! Verdict: In, obviously. From Universal: The narrative architect behind the Bourne film series, Tony Gilroy, takes the helm in the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise that has earned almost $1 billion at the global box office: The Bourne Legacy. The writer/director expands the Bourne universe created by Robert Ludlum with an original story that introduces us to a new hero (Jeremy Renner) whose life-or-death stakes have been triggered by the events of the first three films. For The Bourne Legacy, Renner joins fellow series newcomers Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach and Oscar Isaac, while franchise veterans Albert Finney, Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn reprise their roles. The Bourne Legacy is in theaters August 3.
About 20 minutes into a 3-D press screening of The Avengers Monday night in Los Angeles, one member of the audience interrupted the superhero theatrics to make it known that all was not right with his viewing experience. “Fix the projector!” the exasperated gentleman bellowed during a conspicuously quiet moment, as Mark Ruffalo ’s contemplative face filled the screen. Something was very off, giving the complainant and others in attendance a less-than-ideal, even disastrous presentation. The only problem? There was nothing wrong with the projector. The issue that led this particular fed up gentleman — who may or may not have been a film critic on assignment, I’m not sure – to shout out in irritated frustration wasn’t any fault of shoddy projection, or texting teens, or (forbid!) an accidental digital file deletion up in the booth, or any of the common complaints audiences have in the age of modern moviegoing. It was a case of faulty 3-D glasses mucking up the picture for the poor guy, giving Joss Whedon’s ZOMG epic 3-D adventure an unsolicited layer of blurriness, blackouts, green tint and/or other visual muck — only he didn’t realize that it was because of the cumbersome contraption on his face and not the projection itself. I know this because about 10 seconds into The Avengers , I realized my pair of theater-provided 3-D glasses were also inoperable — and then spent 15 minutes running back and forth from lobby to darkened theater aisle, sorting through literally dozens of pairs in a frantic attempt to find ones that worked so I could get back to watching Hulk and Co. smash, already. Now, a brief techie aside: The Arclight theaters, which hosted the screening in Hollywood, employ the XpandD active-shutter kind of 3-D glasses — they’re the heavier ones with the rubberized frames and the just-cleaned wet spots, weighty because the active-shutters in each pair are synced to an infrared signal broadcast in the theater which switch alternate right — and left-eye images at high speeds and require batteries. (The alternate kind of 3-D glasses, passive glasses, use polarized lenses and tend to be those lightweight, disposable, hipster-looking shades; these were used at the incident-free Avengers ’ L.A. premiere last month at Grauman’s Chinese, but the Arclight cinemas are XpanD partners.) So the Arclight’s active-shutter glasses were causing a major malfunction for us unlucky attendees who’d grabbed bunk pairs on our ways to our seats. And the exasperated gentleman and I were not alone. In my journeys up and down the hallway I saw many fellow would-be Avengers -watchers doing as I was, all of us locked in a comically desperate dance of grabbing glasses, testing them, returning defeated. Trays upon trays of fresh 3-D glasses were laid out in front of us by the bewildered theater staff, who quickly retired their “These should be working” auto-reply and let us seize handfuls of the damned things at a time. (The Arclight Cinemas declined to comment for this article, by the way.) Critic/journalist Fred Topel , who’d been in the same boat, tweeted about the snafu that night along with an explanation he’d received from the theater manager later, after it had been fixed: @ arclightcinemas 3D glasses broke tonight. Some stayed blurry, some blacked out one of the eyes. I tried 7 before I got one that worked.— Fred Topel (@FredTopel) May 01, 2012 @ Arclightcinemas manager Joshua said they fixed the broken 3D by adding a second emitter in the booth.— Fred Topel (@FredTopel) May 01, 2012 Topel managed to find a working pair before too long, but others weren’t as lucky; of the handfuls of folks I saw leaving their seats to hunt down working 3-D glasses, some, like Screen International critic Brent Simon, gave up the search when he’d decided too much movie had gone by to return to his seat. “My glasses had in-and-out image flickering, one of them went black, and then I had massive green tinting on one pair — sort of like Hulk vision?” he told Movieline. “I tried watching with no glasses for a while, but that was problematic.” After 15 minutes of attempting unsuccessfully to find a working pair, Simon decided he’d have to see the film from the start another time, and left. But unlike those who’d exited altogether or managed to eventually find a working pair, there were the untold folks who, like our exasperated gentleman, either never realized the glasses were the problem or that they’d have to leave their seat and miss parts of the film in order to find a fix. “I had a good vantage point from where I was sitting of how many people were coming back and forth, streaming down the aisles,” said Simon, “and some people were just watching without their glasses.” If you’ve ever watched 3-D without 3-D glasses, you know that watching a film for any amount of time with that kind of consistent blurriness would totally suck. So is every 3-D release worth the potential hassle? Or worth the potential risk ? I’ll put this out there: The Avengers does not need to be seen in 3-D. For starters, it contains a number of scenes that are dark and dimly lit to begin with, notwithstanding the added dimness that most 3-D post-conversions usually suffer. (For example: The entire opening sequence is composed of nighttime action shots that are frustratingly hard to make out.) At moments I glimpsed the screen sans 3-D glasses and the film was brighter, crisper, much more vivid, even gorgeous, and if not for the blurriness of the third dimension I’d have preferred to watch it that way. Whedon seems to have shot for immersive 3-D rather than gimmicky 3-D, which is fine and all, but overall the added dimension doesn’t add that much. If I were to recommend The Avengers to anyone, I’d wholeheartedly push them toward 2-D. Besides, to be in a 3-D film and not get the full 3-D effect — or worse, to sit through a blurry presentation without even realizing something was wrong — would defeat the point entirely. And if 3-D isn’t an essential or notable enhancement to a film, why bother? Just remember: In our brave new world of 3-D dominance, we are all, potentially, that exasperated gentleman. How many of us might continue to sit there, watching through broken glasses, unaware of why the picture was so darn fuzzy? But 3-D continues to be pushed upon us, and while Monday’s minor debacle was just one isolated incident of the technology revolting against its bearer, I simply offer it up as anecdotal evidence of a bump in the road to our moviegoing future; take from this what lessons you will if you see The Avengers in 3-D this weekend. Just don’t rush to blame the blurry curves of ScarJo’s Black Widow getup on the projector. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“From the writer of Training Day … and The Fast and the Furious …” Yeah, OK. The first trailer for the thriller End of Watch is all that lead-plated machismo and more jammed through the chaotic handheld prism of Crank and distilled with the essence of Jake Gyllenhaal until the potency has you lapsing into a cop-buddy-shoot-’em-up swoon, faceplanting helplessly into writer-director David Ayer’s oversaturated L.A. grit. And it’s got Michael Pe
Here is the first trailer for Hope Springs , featuring Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones as a 60-something married couple on a steep sexual downswing. What to do? Travel to Dr. Steve Carell’s Seaside Coitus Clinic, of course, where, with the director of The Devil Wears Prada and Marley & Me , the group will explore the all the carnal dilemmas of our proto-senior population. I don’t know about crankypants Jones, but I predict that at least the box office for this thing — which Sony will open Aug. 10, right around the time the studio’s ” Julie & Julia ” hit big three years ago — will be rock hard. VERDICT : Sold! (To our parents)
The theatrical specialty release space has a new contender joining the fray. Chicago-based entertainment company MPI Media Group is launching a new theatrical distribution label with an initial slate of seven titles and have tapped veteran execs to spearhead operations. MPI’s EVP Greg Newman will oversee the newly dubbed MPI Pictures, which will be led by former Wellspring co-chief and producer Marie Therese Guirgis who will serve as Head of Theatrical Distribution. Guirgis and Newman will attend the upcoming Cannes Film Market to acquire more titles for release under its label. Also joining the team to oversee the initial MPI lineup are distribution executive Emily Woodburne (formerly of BEV Pictures) and marketing exec Dan Goldberg (formerly of Wellspring and IFC Films). MPI Pictures will specialize in foreign-language art house fare as well as “high end genre and American independent films,” according to MPI. “”The audience for commercial foreign-language and independent films remains a flourishing niche in the marketplace,” commented Newman on launching MPI Pictures in a statement. “With the launch of our theatrical division we have the ability not only to release completed feature films that we acquire but also to release our own original productions. The commercial appeal of all our films reaches across all distribution platforms from theaters to Video On Demand, digital, DVD and beyond.” MPI Pictures’ current roster of seven films include Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s ( Gunner Palace ) SXSW ’11 mixed martial arts doc Fightville , currently in release; Brian Crano’s story of two friends starring Jason Ritter, Bag of Hammers ; Mathieu Demy’s directorial feature debut Americano starring Salma Hayek and Chiara Mastoianni; Guillaume Canet’s drama Little White Lies with Francois Cluzet and Marion Cotillard; Catherine Deneuve and Romain Duris starrer The Big Picture by Eric Lartigau; Victoria Mahoney’s Berlin ’11 debut feature Yelling to The Sky starring Zoe Kravitz and Gabourey Sidibe; and crime drama The Heineken Kidnapping by Dutch director Maarten Treurniet. MPI Media Group is a producer, distributor and licensor of films, home entertainment, historical footage and more. Founded in 1976, Chicago-based MPI Media Group remains one of the largest independent entertainment companies producing and distributing narratives and documentaries.
The Cannes Film Festival revealed its 2012 lineup this morning in Paris, with a competition heavy on male auteurs — and films featuring Croisette-ready stars like Robert Pattinson ( Cosmopolis ), Kristen Stewart ( On the Road ), Brad Pitt ( Killing Them Softly ), Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy ( Lawless ). Lee Daniels’s Precious follow-up The Paperboy (starring Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman) is also among the 22 films screening in competition, along with Wes Anderson’s opening night film Moonrise Kingdom . Other competition highlights include new work from veterans David Cronenberg, Michael Haneke, Ken Loach, Cristian Mungiu, Thomas Vinterberg, Walter Salles and Abbas Kiarostami. They are joined by fellow Cannes returnees Bernardo Bertolucci and Takashi Miike, who will screen their new films out of competition. And 2012 Sundance Film Festival competition winner Beasts of the Southern Wild by Benh Zeitlin joins the festival’s Un Certain Regard lineup along with 16 other titles. Competition : Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson (Opening Film) Amour by Michael Haneke The Angels’ Share by Ken Loach After The Battle by Yousry Nasrallah Beyond the Hills by Cristian Mungiu Cosmopolis by David Cronenberg Holy Motors by Leos Carax The Hunt by Thomas Vinterberg Killing Them Softly by Andrew Dominik In Another Country by Hong Sang-soo In the Fog by Sergei Loznitsa Lawless by John Hillcoat Like Someone in Love by Abbas Kiarostami Mud by Jeff Nichols On the Road by Walter Salles The Paperboy by Lee Daniels Paradise: Love by Ulrich Seidl Post Tenebras Lux by Carlos Reygadas Reality by Matteo Garrone Rust and Bone by Jacques Audiard Taste of Money by Im Sang-soo You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet by Alain Resnais Out of Competition : Thérése Desqueyroux by Claude Miller (Closing Film) Me and You by Bernardo Bertolucci Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted by Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon Hemingway & Gellhorn by Philip Kaufman Midnight Screenings: Dario Argento’s Dracula by Dario Argento Ai To Makoto by Takashi Miike 65th Birthday: Une Journée Particuliére Un Certain Regard : 7 Days in Habana by Benicio del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Juan Carlos Tabio, Gaspar Noe, Laurent Cantet 11.25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate by Koji Wakamatsu Antiviral by Brandon Cronenberg Beasts of the Southern Wild by Benh Zeitlin Confession of a Child of the Century by Sylvie Verheyde Después de Lucia by Michel Franco The Pirogue by Moussa Toure La Playa by Juan Andrés Arango Laurence Anyways by Xavier Dolan Le grand soir by Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern God’s Horses by Nabil Ayouch Loving Without Reason by Joachim Lafosse Miss Lovely by Ashim Ahluwalia Mystery by Lou Ye Student by Darezhan Omirbayev Trois Monde by Catherine Corsini White Elephant by Pablo Trapero Special Screenings : A Musica Segundo Tom Jobim by Nelson Pereira Dos Santos The Central Park Five by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon Polluting Paradise by Fatih Akin Journal de France by Claudine Nougaret, Raymond Depardon Les Invisibles by Sebastien Lifshitz Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir by Laurent Bouzereau Villegas by Gonzalo Tobal
The more I see of Steven Soderbergh ‘s Magic Mike , the higher it climbs up my most-anticipated list. Here’s why: Shirtless Channing Tatum. Sensitive Channing Tatum. Dancing Channing Tatum! A cute romance with total girl next door Cody Horn. Rihanna on the soundtrack! They found love in a pantsless place, you guys . Watch the full trailer after the jump. Beefcake! Sure, we have no idea how Shirtless Alex Pettyfer or Absent-from-the-Trailer Matt Bomer or Joe Manganiello figure into the plot. And I’m 99 percent sure most male strip clubs don’t have this high a percentage of young, hot lady customers. But I do want to know what Channing has to do for those $20s. Head to Apple for the trailer debut in HD. Verdict: I hereby declare June 29 the official ladies movie night of the summer. Who’s with me?
Looper ! The full trailer for writer-director Rian Johnson’s latest is here, planting Joseph Gordon-Levitt in time-travel assassin mode — at least until his older self (Bruce Willis) is one day sent back to the past to become his own next victim. What’s a smirky, brash young hit man to do? Don’t let him escape, that’s for… Oh, wait. There he goes. The rest is what it is, blending Johnson’s sleekness and class with pure sci-fi/action pulp. Works for me, even if the other genre angle generally doesn’t. Take Jeff Daniels’s word for it: “This time-travel crap just fries your brain.” Thoughts? [via ENTV ]
