The Avengers

G.I. Joe Retaliation

Battleship

John Carter

The Hunger Games

MTV Movies asked Rodriguez and Antal about the phantom scene, and the head Troublemaker explained the subterfuge:

You don’t want people to always know. A lot of my movies have trailer shots that I shoot just for the trailer, so that people haven’t seen the movie already but they get the feeling of what it’s supposed to represent.

While I would say it’s a valid argument, I’m getting more than a little tired of “bait-and-switch” tactics in trailers. From the grousing I heard at the advance screening I attended, I know I’m not alone. How about you?

It’s okay if you call me a hypocrite – in this case I won’t mind. Y’see, I rail continuously about Hollywood’s obsession with remaking everything from the 1980s into big-screen fiascos, and the news of “The A-Team” remake was no exception. Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith? Sharlto Copley as “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock? Please.

However, looking at the new trailer for the movie (low-res for now, and we’ll post the high-res as soon as it hits)… I’m cautiously optimistic. You be the judge:

The van, Bradley Cooper

Bradley Cooper and Rampage Jackson join Neeson and Copley in the film, written and directed by Joe Carnahan. He knows a bit about mass mayhem with automatic weapons, to be certain.

“The A-Team” guns for theaters June 11.

We got a brief tease in the summer, and now there’s a second teaser out, embedded here (and available in high-def on Apple’s trailer site):

[flv:http://redcarpetcrash.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Inception.flv 550 289]

The trailer is identical to the French teaser we saw briefly on the Web last week – before we could get a proper translation of the clip, Warner Brothers pulled the clip from FirstShowing.net.

Your amazingly vague synopsis:

A contemporary science fiction tale set within the architecture of the human mind.

Gee, thanks.

“Inception” hits theaters July 16.

Here’s your aforementioned synopsis:

Humans have extended and improved our lives through highly sophisticated and expensive mechanical organs created by a company called The Union. The dark side of these medical breakthroughs is that if you don’t pay your bill, The Union sends its highly skilled repo men to take back its property…with no concern for your comfort or survival.

Jude Law plays Remy, one of the best organ repo men in the business. But when he suffers a cardiac failure on the job, he awakens to find himself fitted with the company’s top-of-the-line heart-replacement…as well as a hefty debt. But a side effect of the procedure is that his heart’s no longer in the job. When he can’t make the payments, The Union sends its toughest enforcer, Remy’s former partner Jake (Forest Whitaker), to track him down.

Now that the hunter has become the hunted, Remy joins Beth (Alice Braga), another debtor who teaches him how to vanish from the system. And as he and Jake embark on a chase across a landscape populated by maniacal friends and foes, one man will become a reluctant champion for thousands on the run.

“Repo Men” is coming for your heart, liver or kidneys on April 2.

We’re a little bit closer to the answer, as the feature trailer for “Hot Tub Time Machine” went live today:

Behold, your new synopsis:

Hot Tub Time Machine follows a group of best friends who’ve become bored with their adult lives: Adam (John Cusack) has been dumped by his girlfriend; Lou (Rob Corddry) is a party guy who can’t find the party; Nick’s (Craig Robinson) wife controls his every move; and video game-obsessed Jacob (Clark Duke) won’t leave his basement. After a crazy night of drinking in a ski resort hot tub, the men wake up, heads’ pounding, in the year 1986. This is their chance to kick some past and change their futures – one will find a new love life, one will learn to stand up for himself with the ladies, one will find his mojo, and one will make sure he still exists!

“Hot Tub Time Machine” hits theaters on February 26.

Gamer

The seemingly ubiquitous Gerard Butler is cast in a sympathetic and believable hard-action role, again.  Of course, with the sci-fi twist, you know it’s got my interest piqued a little, but I’m wondering at which point the writer stepped away from “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card and started penning his own interpretation thereof. It’s gritty, it’s dirty, and Butler is a slightly more emotional version of Clive Owens. I know I can’t be the only one thinking that there were scenes in there lifted from “Children of Men”. And then there’s the whole “Running Man” aspect of it, and I think that makes… two? three? movies with the same focus/goal of Death-Row Convict Earns Freedom Through Lethal Entertainment Only To Get Screwed By The Man In The End.  “Gamer” comes out next Friday, September 4, 2009.

Inception

Leonardo DiCaprio has really started to grow up. As a fresh-faced starlet-bait pretty boy, he wasn’t terrible as an actor, but he tended to get shoe-horned into roles that fit him like a factory-reject suit from an octopus farm. Now that there are roles with a little more substance coming – and casting directors who aren’t afraid to bank on DiCaprio’s naturally creepy presence – I suspect we’re going to see something impressive very soon. The “Inception” trailer gives almost nothing about the plot – which is good since it’s not slated for release until July 16, 2010 – but it’s certainly very fascinating to think of how using a sudden tilt room is going to come into play.

Youth In Revolt

Do you ever get the feeling as you look at Michael Cera that he’s kind of disgusted with himself and he really wants to get into a more serious acting role that maybe has some relevance to a demographic larger than the years between 14 and 19? Yeah, me, too. And then I see a scene with him running, and I realize that that’s probably never going to happen. I think this film will fit squarely with the other genre pieces “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist” (which, in hindsight, really only had two things going for it) and “Charlie Bartlett” (which had the same two things going for it, but also had Chekov, so maybe that’s three). “Youth in Revolt” does not have those two things going for it and almost has the opposite of those two things, so… yeah. Michael Cera with a mustache doing a teen-angst meets “Fight Club” routine. Maybe we’ll figure it out October 30, 2009.

Talking with Entertainment Weekly, Zombie said that while he’s “pissed” the trailer got out, he’s pleased people will now get an idea of that the new film is all about:

When I first saw the trailer [cut by the company Buddha Jones], I went, ‘This is the f—ing movie we made.’ And then [Dimension Films] was like, ‘We don’t want to use it, we don’t like it,’ and they just threw it away. Then they cut all these other trailers that just look like generic, stupid f—ing slasher movie trailers, and I was f—in’ pissed. In fact, I wrote this long letter to the promotion department: ‘I hate these trailers and these TV spots, and I f—in’ hate you.’ You spend forever trying to craft something special and they’re gonna market it like a generic piece of ’80s slasher movie sh– because they think audiences are so f—ing stupid they can’t understand anything else. That trailer leaked from wherever, and I’m thrilled. The response has been like, ‘Wow, I didn’t want to see this movie until I saw this trailer.’

Don’t take Rob’s word for it – watch the original trailer below, then leave your comments underneath.

Avatar

I promise, this is not the same thing as the cartoon, not the same story at all.  Really.  It’s a totally different universe, despite the cool floating islands.  You’re thinking of “the Last Airbender” which isn’t due out until next July.  (Hey, it’s our job to keep up with these things.)  Despite that brief moment of disappointment, I have to side with our illustrious editor Devin on this one:  holy wow, matban!  That looks awesome!  It has all the things I love in a trailer: enough of the visuals to get the look-and-feel of the movie, enough of the good shots to write a great promise of excellent return, and just enough of a whisp of a plot to leave something to be discovered at the feature itself.  “Avatar” is slated to come out December 18, 2009.

The Wolfman

I think this is a case of “Sleeping Hollow” meets “Brotherhood of the Wolf” meets something infected with the bad inappropriate accent of Keanu Reeves.  I personally appreciate the desire to retell old stories with new vision, but Benecio del Toro as a werewolf?  I think I could get behind that more if it were a contemporary piece and not “period”.  There’s a lot of plot given away in the trailer, but can we say it’s “too much plot” if we already know the story really well?  It’s not new by any means, even if you were born after 1990.  Lon Chaney, Jr., may well be rolling in his grave over this one, but we have until February 10, 2010, to see if it’ll be worth the time.

Surrogates

Bruce Willis may once again be my hero.  Every time I think he’s gone as far as he can, he surprises me, and this time, it’s with a return to what I adore about movies: new takes on established themes that somehow manage to still be entertaining.  “Surrogates” is the story of a world where humans live vicariously through the bodies of robots.  It’s a little like “Strange Days” meets “Total Recall” with a little bit of “Matrix” thrown in for non-hippy-raver flavor.  I’m not expecting it to answer any of the deepest mysteries of humanity, but it looks like it’s going to be pretty thrilling ride – despite the blaringly bad toupee.

A day early, Fox released the two-minute trailer for the film. Take a gander, kiddies:

[flv:http://redcarpetcrash.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AvatarTrailer.flv 550 229]

(You can also head to Apple’s Trailers site to watch in 1080p QuickTime.)

Cameron has said in interviews that it’ll be easy for audiences to identify “Avatar” with other “gone native” movies such as “Dances With Wolves.” Add that together with the plot description:

A paraplegic ex-marine war veteran is unwillingly sent to establish a human settlement on the distant planet of Pandora, only to find himself battling humankind alongside the planet’s indigenous Na’vi race…

…and you get a good idea of what you’re looking at above.

To further whet your appetite, here’s a few production stills from the film, including Cameron talking with his old conspirator, Sigourney Weaver.