Trailer Round Up

Been a while since I graced the apple trailers site , and I thought i'd check out some of its new fare to see what might catch my eye.

Ratatouille

I haven't even gotten a chance to see Cars yet, but already I find my fancies tickled by the trailer for the next Pixar installment, the tale of a rat who lives in Paris, and is also a culinary snob. It looks cute, and the design as ever looks marvelous. I love the way they did the cheese and the big panorama of the city of paris. I also think the freeze frame of our rodent friend in mid air is pretty amusing.

Wicker Man

I could barely believe my eyes when I saw this trailer . Another missing/tormented little girl horror flick? Really? Haven't there been at least three or four every season for the past few years, but none of them have done well? Silent Hill was dreadful, An American Haunting I did not see, but did not do well, nor was it exactly critically acclaimed. I think the Ring was the last film to do the creepy little girl thing right. And seriously what is up with Nicholas Cage being the busiest man in Hollywood? He is in more movies than any other big star. He has a movie coming out every month, it is absolutely insane. His trailer for Ghost Rider, is a whole different issue entirely, which I'll get into in a moment, but I can barely believe he agreed to do this film. The only thing that could be potentially promising about this is the wierdo, eerie coven of witches. The other head scratcher on this film is the director. How the hell did Neil LaBute end up on this job? This is teh guy who favors small, psychologically disturbing films like In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things. Suddenly he's directing a big budget horror film starring Nicolas Cage. I wouldn't call it selling out exactly, I'd just call it a strange match of artist and material.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

OK, I admit, I fell for the ridiculous marketing gag of this film already, which is that they only run the trailer from 10 PM to 4 AM. I scoffed at this when I first went to check out the trailer in the morning, and laughed about the fact that they would be so silly as to put something like this on their site to start generating chatter. But I will say this for it --mock it as I might, I did run to my laptop right at 10 PM to start downloading the darn thing. Now, surprisingly I actually thought the first remake was entertaining. Naturally it did not even approach the original in terms of its fright factor and style --the first one is just an anomaly of its circumstance, the low budget and gritty style combinging to create almost a documentary like feel. Howver, for a Friday night popcorn muncher I thought this remake had some scary moments of its own (the scene where Biel steps into the trailer of the two old women comes to mind), and kept me engaged throughout.

Ghost Rider

Now, I'm not familiar with this particular Marvel comic and I'm not one for biker culture either, so this trailer did not do a whole lot for me. And again, what is with the Nicolas Cage? I think he's definitely put in some good performances over the years, but sheesh I don't exactly envision him as a superhero, and certainly not the man cast to fight the devil's son himself (as in Ghost Rider)