Volume 33:
Party On, McClane
A Good Day to Die Hard
Dir: John Moore – Planned release date:
February 14, 2013
Bruce Willis’
undying action franchise is returning next Valentine’s Day with a film that, if
nothing else, proves they are very close to running out of titles for these
things. And yet, this trailer for A Good
Day to Die Hard looks pretty darn awesome. Make no mistake: there is zero
substance here. Not a thing. But boy, oh, boy does it look like a place I want
to go to. This preview is essentially a 60-second barrage of practical stunts
and effects, and anyone who knows me knows that I am a sucker for anything
practical. (Also, it should be noted that Jonathan Sela’s cinematography looks
surprisingly stunning.) Sure, there are silly touches like a woman stripping
down to her underwear for no reason, but in the course of one minute I went
from being completely ambivalent about a new Die Hard movie to being 100 percent on board. Bring on the
explosions.
The Lone Ranger
Dir: Gore Verbinski – Planned release
date: July 3, 2013
The idea of a
$260 million Lone Ranger movie
directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Johnny Depp has always bored me to
tears. Just say that sentence to me and I’ll immediately know what I’m getting:
it will be two-and-a-half hours of bloated, over-the-top action scenes
interrupted by scenes of Johnny Depp looking strange and doing silly things
that will make the audience giggle politely. And what do you know, here comes
the first trailer to show me just that. I may be in the minority here, but
nothing about this is appealing to me. It just looks like a conglomeration of
every major blockbuster film of the last 10 years, with Depp doing his shtick
that long ago became stale. If he were not in this film, people would already
be proclaiming The Lone Ranger the
next John Carter. I’d love to be
proven wrong, but right now absolutely nothing about this appeals to me.
Broken City
Dir: Allen Hughes – Planned release date:
January 18. 2013
The urban crime
drama Broken City is most notable for
being the first solo project for Allen Hughes of the Hughes Brothers; the
sibling team that brought us Menace II Society,
Dead Presidents and The Book of Eli. It’s also notable for
bringing together an all-star cast that includes Russell Crowe, Mark Wahlberg,
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jeffrey Wright and Kyle “Coach” Chandler. However, this
trailer places its focus solely on the first two names in that equation, and
plot-wise it hits the strange balance of revealing everything while revealing
absolutely nothing. All we really know is that Hughes will be piling on twist
after twist after twist. We just don’t know what those twists are going to be. Depending
on how the story plays out, Broken City
could either be a compelling crime drama or a ridiculous one, and that January
release date isn’t too reassuring. But keep the faith, folks: last year
Wahlberg starred in the solid January thriller Contraband. If Broken City
can approach that very relative level of quality, I’ll be very pleased indeed.
The Guilt Trip
Dir: Anne Fletcher – Planned release
date: December 25
For me, the
weirdest part of Anne Fletcher’s The
Guilt Trip is that Seth Rogen is in it. Sure, everyone’s got to pay the
bills, but this is a film that seems to directly clash with what Rogen normally
chooses to do. Yet when I got around to watching the trailer, it suddenly
started to make sense. Rogen isn’t really departing from his normal, raunchy
self; he’s just bringing Barbra Streisand along for the ride. This is a film
with a ridiculously thing premise—older Jewish person gets in car with younger
Jewish person, and hilarity is sure to ensue—but I’d be lying if I said this
movie doesn’t look a tad appealing. It looks disposable as a used tissue, sure,
but at least it seems like it could be a tissue worth savoring. How’s that for
an analogy?
Parker
Dir: Taylor Hackford – Planned release
date: January 25, 2013
I almost
considered not writing about Parker
just because of the ridiculously annoying bars on the top and the bottom of the
widescreen image above. I mean, seriously, that angered me. Cooler heads ultimately prevailed, and so here
you go. Yes, it looks like a typical Jason Statham action movie—typically awesome—but I’m burying the lead
here. The most important thing you should know about Parker is that the scene of Statham walking through a parking lot
dressed as a priest was filmed not 10 minutes away from my current residence in
Columbus, Ohio. In fact, there was quite a bit of hubbub when some sequences in
Parker were shot here last year.
Unfortunately, this preview seems to hint that the film leaves for more
tropical pastures once the priest-thieving is done, but beggars can’t be
choosers. Enjoy the brief, out-of-focus look at Columbus Crew Stadium, world.
For cinema history has been made.
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