The whole-earth nature documentary space is quickly becoming crowded. We’ve got:
The Blue Planet, 2001
Deep Blue, 2003
Planet Earth, 2006
Earth, 2009
Nature’s Great Events, 2009
Oceans, 2010
The last one on the list is from Disney. If you watch the trailer, the company is attempting to say, “Planet Earth? Ha! Disney was down with nature all along!” Pfft. A point in Disney’s favor however is that Oceans is being done by Jacques Perrin, the man responsible for Microcosmos and Winged Migration. Points against: the film has cost $75 million so far (for a documentary!), the footage in the trailer looks like it was lifted directly from The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and no David Attenborough narration.
Update: I added Earth to the list, also from Disney. Here’s the trailer. BBC and Discovery are listed as partners so it’s likely that the footage in the film is from Planet Earth. (thx, @gjdsalinger)
I am hoping that Moon will be awesome and not just a mashup of 2001 and Solaris. The score is by Clint Mansell, who has scored all of Darren Aronofsky’s movies, most notably Requiem for a Dream. Moon opens on June 12 in NYC and LA. (via sarahnomics)
How to Take a Beloved Children’s Classic Book and Screw It All Up, Exhibit A: based on the trailer, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Except for the food falling from the sky, they changed everything else. But it’s IN 3-D!!! *pffft*
Trailer for a new film called Guest of Cindy Sherman. It’s a documentary about a man who becomes romantically involved with the famous artist, only to find that his ego can’t handle her fame. I wonder if we actually get to see the real Sherman in the film…the trailer is very teasing about it.
Vendela Vida, Dave Eggers, Sam Mendes, John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney, Catherine O’Hara. Movie. Trailer.
In this trailer for Terminator Salvation — more like salivation, which is what I’m doing waiting for this movie to come out, amiright? — we’re led to believe that perhaps Christian Bale turns out to be a Replicant or a Mecha. (via fimoculous)
During the closing credits of the Academy Awards, a clip was shown previewing some movies that will open in 2009. None of them look like they’ll win any Oscars so I presume this was paid advertising and not editorial on the part of the program. Fun though! (via /film)
Tarantino’s latest film is about Nazi-killing American soldiers and stars Brad Pitt. I can’t decide if this movie is going to completely suck or be really great. Vampire movies notwithstanding, Quentin always gets the benefit of the doubt from me so great it is.
With the exception of the two animated films and Year One, all of the above are either sequels or remakes. And Hulu, in a stroke of highly irritating genius, has inserted advertising before each of the trailers linked above. Advertising *in* advertising…the 20th century has officially ended. Welcome to the future.
Update: I’ve switched out the Hulu links for ones at Apple; they’re higher quality and can be seen outside of the US. I wish the Apple trailers would have been live last night; it would have made for a lot less whining in my inbox. I just go where the links take me, folks. Oh, and I added the GI Joe trailer. (thx, david)
Back in the late ’80s, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of diehard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey. Estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and unable to sustain any real relationships, Randy lives for the thrill of the show and the adoration of his fans.
Rourke looks great in this and Aronofsky appears back on form. I’m not saying that The Fountain was bad…but it probably was. (thx, kabir)
Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. ‘2012’ is an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.
It is the eleventh Star Trek film and features the main characters of the original Star Trek series, who are portrayed by a new cast. It follows James T. Kirk enrolling at Starfleet Academy, his first meeting with Spock, and their battles with Romulans from the future, who are interfering with history.
I’m not a proponent of the idea that any Trek is good Trek so I really want to hate this movie but it looks kind of awesome. At least f’ing McG didn’t direct.
The trailer for Synecdoche, New York, the first film directed by Charlie Kaufman, who wrote Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A.O. Scott liked it at Cannes. The film will be out in limited release (NY & LA?) on Oct 24. Say sih-NECK-duh-kee…kinda like Schenectady. (via crazymonk)
Update: I removed the embedded video…I didn’t know it came with all that extra cruft around it.
Don LaFontaine, the voice of countless movie trailers, is dead at 68. I liked this tribute from the Washington Post:
In a world of people who all have some sort of private omniscient voice-over running things inside their heads, sometimes God, sometimes Mom, and sometimes Don LaFontaine…
In a world where marketing is far more important than content…came one man…with a Voice.
The second trailer for Hancock, the Will-Smith-as-apathetic-superhero movie due out this summer, is up on Apple Trailers. I believe this is the same one I linked to on YouTube a month ago, but watch it again anyway. I am hoping against hope that this one isn’t going to be as stupid as I think and instead will be as awesome as I hope.
I’ve got Will Smith action hero fatigue, but HOLY CRAP does Hancock look awesome. I am into apathetic superheroes. There’s a second trailer available on YouTube…and its quality is surprisingly good. (You can tell I don’t make it out to the movies a lot these days…the first trailer has been out since December.)
Here’s the trailer for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
It was done by a fellow named Pablo Ferro; it was his first movie trailer. Steven Heller writes:
After seeing Ferro’s commercials, Kubrick hired him to direct the advertising trailers and teasers for Dr. Strangelove and convinced him to resettle in London (Kubrick’s base of operations until he died there in March 1999). Ferro was inclined to be peripatetic anyway, and ever anxious to bypass already completed challenges he agreed to pull up stakes on the chance that he would get to direct a few British TV commercials, which he did. The black and white spot that Ferro designed for Dr. Strangelove employed his quick-cut technique — using as many as 125 separate images in a minute — to convey both the dark humor and the political immediacy of the film. At something akin to stroboscopic speed words and images flew across the screen to the accompaniment of loud sound effects and snippets of ironic dialog. At a time when the bomb loomed so large in the US public’s fears (remember Barry Goldwater ran for President promising to nuke China), and the polarization of left and right — east and west — was at its zenith, Ferro’s commercial was not only the boldest and most hypnotic graphic on TV, it was a sly subversive statement.
Ferro worked with Kubrick on the iconic and fantastic main titles for the film as well.
Kubrick wanted to film it all using small airplane models (doubtless prefiguring his classic space ship ballet in 2001: A Space Odyssey). Ferro dissuaded him and located the official stock footage that they used instead. Ferro further conceived the idea to fill the entire screen with lettering (which incidentally had never been done before), requiring the setting of credits at different sizes and weights, which potentially ran counter to legal contractual obligations. But Kubrick supported it regardless. On the other hand, Ferro was prepared to have the titles refined by a lettering artist, but Kubrick correctly felt that the rough hewn quality of the hand-drawn comp was more effective. So he carefully lettered the entire thing himself with a thin pen. Yet only after the film was released did he notice that one word was misspelled: “base on” instead of “based on”. Ooops!
If you want that hand-lettered look for yourself, Pablo Skinny is a font by Fargoboy that closely duplicates Ferro’s handwriting.
Ferro went on to make several well-known movie title sequences, including those for Bullitt and the original The Thomas Crown Affair but not Napoleon Dynamite. He collaborated with Kubrick once again on the trailer for A Clockwork Orange, another classic.
Update: According to this Wikipedia article, the work of Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Arthur Lipsett caught the eye of Stanley Kubrick after an Oscar nomination for his short film, Very Nice, Very Nice and, more importantly for our business here, that Kubrick directed the Strangelove trailer himself in Lipsett’s style after Lipsett refused to work with Kubrick on it:
Stanley Kubrick was one of Lipsett’s fans, and asked him to create a trailer for his upcoming movie Dr. Strangelove. Lipsett declined Kubrick’s offer. Kubrick went on to direct the trailer himself; however, Lipsett’s influence on Kubrick is clearly visible when watching the trailer.
The two are stylistically similar for sure, but Ferro is credited with having designed the main title sequence (according to the titles themselves). That passage doesn’t appear to have been derived from any particular source, so I looked for something more definitive. From a 1986 article by Lois Siegel
After his Academy Award nomination, he received a letter from British filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. The typewritten letter said, “I’m interested in having a trailer done for Dr. Strangelove.” Kubrick regarded Lipsett’s work as a landmark in cinema — a breakthrough. He was interested in involving Lipsett. This didn’t happen, but the actual trailer did reflect Lipsett’s style in Very Nice, Very Nice.
Kubrick described Very Nice, Very Nice (1961) as “one of the most imaginative and brilliant uses of the movie screen and soundtrack that I have ever seen.” Kubrick was so enthused with the film he invited Lipsett to create a trailer for Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1965) an offer Lipsett refused. Stanley Kubrick, letter to Arthur Lipsett, Arthur Lipsett Collection, Cinematheque québécoise Archives, Montreal, May 31, 1962.
It’s not clear what the connection is between Lipsett’s work and the trailer that Ferro ended up producing for Strangelove, but several sources (including Heller) say that Ferro developed his quick-cut style directing commercials in the 1950s, work that would predate that of Lipsett.
Lipsett more clearly influenced the work of another prominent filmmaker, George Lucas. Lucas found inspiration in Lipsett’s 21-87 in making THX-1138 and borrowed the concept of “the Force” for the Star Wars movies. Lucas’ films are littered with references to Lipsett’s film; e.g. Princess Leia’s cell in Star Wars was in cell #2187. (thx, gordon)
Stay Connected