Trailer Spotlight - 8/31

It's been a few weeks since I've had the chance to do a Trailer Spotlight. We'll be playing a bit of catch up with some of the trailers I've missed recently but in order to keep this from getting too far out of hand I'm going to cap this session at five. For a complete recap of what we've missed lately, head over to The Focused Filmographer and browse through his Trailer Time Thursday posts. Great stuff there!

Red Dawn (November 21) - Chris Hemsworth, Adrienne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson
If you haven't tracked the troubled history of Red Dawn over what seems like the last decade, you may not be as surprised as I am that this is finally finding its way to theaters. It was announced in 2008, began production in 2009, and was scheduled for release in 2010 before MGM ran into financial issues. It's been sitting on a shelf ever since, though n post production the baddies were changed from the Chinese to the North Koreans. This release date kind of came out of nowhere, too, as the studio backers felt (rightly so) that this was a weak Thanksgiving market and that Red Dawn could find some favor. The first trailer is in and I must admit it looks much better than I would have expected.



Zero Dark Thirty (December 19) - Chris Pratt, Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton
It definitely won't be the only movie related to the events of Seal Team 6 and the killing of Osama Bin Laden but Kathryn Bigelow gets credit for being the first to put the story on the screen. I love what Bigelow did with The Hurt Locker and this cast is outstanding, even if it does lack a bankable star. We're not given much here but just from a patriotic standpoint, Zero Dark Thirty is likely to be a big hit.



Seven Psychopaths (October 12) - Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson
If you're a fan of dark comedies and you haven't seen Martin McDonagh's In Bruges then you're doing things wrong. It's outstanding and it gets better upon further viewings. McDonagh re-teams with Farrell here and man, does this look good. And what a cast he's assembled this time around! PREDICTION: Tom Waits will steal the show in this film. Mark it down.



The Company You Keep (TBD) - Shia LaBeouf, Robert Redford, Anna Kendrick
Wait. So you're telling me there are TWO movies this year in which a thoroughly undeserving Shia LaBeouf is being backed by a tremendous cast of much better actors? What's your deal, 2012? It's been over a decade since Redford has done much of anything worthwhile but at the end of the day, he's still Robert Redford and he can still get me to a theater just on the off chance that he nails it. The Company You Keep looks to have some potential but as with Lawless, it will probably come down to whether or not LaBeouf can not stink.



The Last Stand (January 18) - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Genesis Rodriguez, Forest Whitaker
Oh boy, did I save the best for last. And by "best", I mean "really bad even for January." Having just come off of my Expendables 2 viewing, I have to say that Arnie was the worst part of the movie (beyond the actual writing, of course). I expected some rust given his long hiatus but it was more than that. His flat, painful deliveries were indicative of an aging pitcher who has lost his fastball. The Last Stand looks pretty miserable my friends.