Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?

Future X- Cops Trailer

If I had any money to give someone to make a movie, if I had any pull to give someone all the time in the world to put their creative vision on the screen, I would give all of it to writer/director Jing Wong.

Without question this trailer has to be one of the most unintentionally bizarre examples of what is possible when you mix a hyper stylized vision of the future with an action movie that looks like it belongs on basic cable circa 1986 as a dubbed import that would have been played after Lazer Tag: The Cartoon Series but before Soul Train.

This is my new favorite film.

I mean, you cannot watch this and think this is anything but an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers that got plumb out of control in the wardrobe department, where the director decided to steal wholesale from action movies from America, and where the writers campaigned, and won by attrition, to have a love story crammed within its action scenes.

When you start a trailer that rips off Iron Man’s assembly montage, and does it without winking an eye and plays it completely straight, while also having a battle sequence where a guy has bulletproof, pterodactyl wings and another guy with metal alligators on the end of octopus tentacles a la Spider-Man 2, you’ve got my attention. It’s phenomenal. It’s glorious. It’s a battle royale that I can’t help watching a few times over because it is just that good. You’ve got a guy doing battle with a Conair hair dryer, the costumes are outrageous, and a guy gets crushed with a mega forklift arm that seems to be straight out of Aliens.

This trailer is above reproach because after all this insane stuff happens, the mood changes and we get a violin suite that sounds like it should belong in Gone With The Wind, our hero cuddles with a woman he deeply cares about. Smash cut to a flaming helicopter falling to the ground. Bad guys start terrorizing an amusement park, one guy hand cranks a Ferris wheel hard enough to jettison a car while another removes some track off a roller coaster in a special effect sequence you can’t help but wonder who authorized it, while some woman is driven through concrete walls by a flying motorcycle. Cut to violins and our hero making out with his girlfriend.

This trailer is utterly insane and defies any rational explanation.

The ending of this is no better, with our hero (Andy Lau) becoming a glossy white Iron Man, looking like it was designed with Mega Man in mind instead, and literally boring a hole through one of the bad guys.

I couldn’t make this up on paper if I tried but so help me God I want to own this movie and savor it today.

The Myth of the American Sleepover Trailer

Look, three things:

One, these kids are way too self-aware to be the kind of horned up, late teen crowd that I, and many of my cohorts, was back in the day. Some of the dialogue is way too snappy for some pimple faced geek who is looking to break himself off a piece like a Kit-Kat bar, splittin’ a log if you want to get vulgar about it I guess, to be spewing as some of these kids are in this trailer.

Two, as anyone who is a regular reader of this column knows, I am an avid lover of most anything teen related. I was personally felled with great sadness when PBS’ American  High was over, but the subject matter of this trailer reminded me of that series in a way.

Three, high fives to director David Robert Mitchell for getting a cast, mostly, of kids who at least look like they could be your average American teenagers on the screen; this helps to not only create a sense of voyeuristic realism but it enhances the drama unfolding on the screen.

By his own admission, as it states on his website, Mitchell cuts movie trailers. This helps to explain how this thing starts out feeling like a film and not a trailer cut by a first-time director who only knows how to make movies. There’s a subtlety to it and it shows here as we ease into this film with girls being girls; it’s a little cutesy but it gets to the heart of what we’re watching.

The music accompaniment is perfect, eschewing some emo blowhard band and putting in a nice pop track that doesn’t overpower what’s happening on the screen, and the subsequent scenes only help to flesh out those who we’re going to be following. Like I mentioned, we get a little too cerebral with the language in some areas but the cinematography just makes up for it.

Dare I say it but this trailer has the strongest final half I’ve seen of many trailers this year. It’s a bunch of seemingly unrelated moments but those moments make you want to see this film that much more. It’s when you realize the trailer’s over that you’re left wanting. Kudos all around for making me feel something on the inside.

No One Knows About Persian Cats Trailer

You’ve got a lot of things people can project on this film happening all at once.

Bahman Ghobadi has directed a movie that feels like a documentary shot within Iran. In that regard, you wonder whether this is a movie that was made in a clandestine manner as it is set in a country where political and social unrest lies just beneath the hard crust of their patriarchal exterior. Then you have the actors who brim with such joy and are passionate about their love of music you can feel your mind drift as you think why our 24 hour news cycle hasn’t told us about the normal lives of Iranians. The trailer is a wonderful mix of all these things, it keeps you engaged throughout, as we try and piece together what it is we’re supposed to be focused on.

What I like about this preview, primarily, is that we’re given a solid push from the start. The interstitial lays it all out from the beginning about informing us about what it’s like in modern Iran for those who love talking about their government and who love to listen to rock n’ roll. It’s a dichotomy that drives the entire trailer.

The Cannes recognition at the front helps to establish its pedigree and, like a popularity contest, says how special important people think this movie is. And it is, as the trailer’s musical beats feel peppy and hard to not root for as the action on the screen tells the tale of a band who wants to play music. It’s a mix of the traditional and the sacred as we see some of the more fundamental aspects of traditional Iranian music give way to these long hairs who find themselves playing in alcoves and cow farms. There does feel like there is a tension simmering below what’s happening on the screen and that’s when the fuzz pops up.

The trailer spells it out, what happens to people like musicians who decide to play for passion and for creative expression. It’s all very hush hush and the risks that these kids take in order to express themselves through their art is captured wonderfully. The tail end of this trailer, filled with quotes from people who excite you with their praise of this picture, packs little moments that show you further the line between doing what you feel and doing what you’re told. Glorious.

Shelter Trailer

When Timur Bekmambetov was tapped to direct Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy in Wanted, I was intrigued more than anything else.

It’s not that I thought that Timur was going to light the world on fire with his brilliance or ability to film a scene in a way that’s never been done before but I was nonetheless curious at how an artist goes from making films in his own style to making one in a studio system. Forget about geography, I would bet dollars to doughnuts there was an adjustment in making a movie that conforms to the way us here in America like our action films given to us. Truth be told, he nailed it well and he seems to be doing fine on his own.

Now, with this film, Shelter, co-directed by Swedes Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, you have a movie that stars Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers with these guys’ previous directorial credits being “Snapphanar” and “De drabbade.” Again, it’s interesting to see how the language of an artist comes through when they do a project wholly separated from the system they’re used to. Here, I would say, there seems to be nothing lost in translation as I was pretty dialed in to what was happening in the beginning of this trailer.

It absolutely has the vibe of a big picture thriller, no question; we’re all used to how sanitized these movies can be but there does, at the very least, have the sheen of something foreboding, exciting.

Meyers plays someone with a multiple personality disorder which does open the door for overacting, I know, but it seems pretty well in check along the lines of Primal Fear. That was a movie that depended on the strength of its story and of the actors in it and this trailer at least teases that Meyers is channeling something great along with this movie being penned by Michael Cooney of Identity fame.

Yes, it’s a little hokey with the flashbacks to when Meyers wasn’t mental, his illness being explained as a result of emotional abuse, but I will tell you what I really do love the cut scenes with images of deformed freaks, dudes wielding tire irons in the rain, snakes being drained of their poisonous juices, and a plot line that isn’t spoiled with anything revealing.

It’s refreshing not to have something like this ruined with too much information and it’s equally pleasing to have a movie that looks like it could be enjoyed by the older set as it seems like it’s skewing that way. No matter, as the mix of weirdness and the fantastical makes this appear like a solid two or three star thriller. As well, this trailer knew, and embraced, what it is and it made for a viewing experience that didn’t feel false or a lie and for that I think it deserves a place on the radar.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed Trailer

Taken surprised a lot of people last year so with a little effort at least this movie has something to attach its hitch to.

No matter that you have one of the most frightening actors working in the UK today, Eddie Marsan, starring as a wicked kidnapper but the trailer just gets right down to it without any set up. In fact, we start out with a video camera capturing the plea of a tormented victim founded in actress Gemma Arterton that we don’t need background, we don’t need an explanation. With that, we’re off and running wild to put together how we got to this point.

I’m not sure of the particulars but the story elements that we’re given just make this look like a straight kidnap tale with a pack of guys who planned everything out. It’s all so well-presented that when the script is flipped and the kidnapped becomes the person in charge it all becomes so much more interesting.

This trailer just explodes with its concept that it’s not she who is going to blow these guys away with a gun she wrests away from one of the kidnappers but that she’s going to allow the ransom to be paid so she can take a slice of it, much to Marsan’s ignorant disappointment. Seeing how Marsan is on the outside it just follows that the plan concocted will eventually be sniffed out and the trailer just does an excellent job in ratcheting up the excitement. It’s a game of who will figure out whom first but this trailer plays it simple with just giving us enough information without being too predictable.

In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week:

• Final Poster for Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Movie Trailer #2
• Exclusive Clip from the Red Riding Trilogy, Britain’s Ambitious Serial Killer Epic
• Red Band From Paris With Love Clip
• From Paris with Love Movie Trailer #2
• The Warlords Movie Trailer: Jet Li’s Recent War Epic Finally Comes to the States

We know very little about Terrence Malick’s new film Tree of Life, said to be a generational family drama. We know it stars Brad Pitt as part of the film’s elder generation, and Sean Penn as the adult version of Pitt’s son. Beyond that, plot details are sketchy as Malick’s team has been very good about scrubbing them from the web. Not so sketchy that you can’t find them if you really want, but I’d rather leave all that as a mystery. Feel like I know too much already.

Various theoretical release dates have been batted around since the film was pushed back from a late 2009 release. We’ve figured it would premiere at Cannes, and while that debut isn’t yet confirmed, it seems almost a lock now. Apparition’s Bob Berney has been talking up the film, and confirming that an early November release is currently planned for North America. There’s not much here, but for those dying for this movie (like me), is is something.

Peter Hammond is reporting a few small details about the film that come by way of Berney, i.e. the guy releasing the film. So take them with a certain informed caution, since the guy has a vested interest. These details are small and verging on hearsay, but bear with me. It’s a slowish news day, and this is a movie about which I know a lot of people are keen to know more.

Berney said at the Independent Spirit awards that Tree of Life would see release in the beginning of November, and is “very likely to show up in Cannes.” (Emphasis on ‘very’ is Hammond, not me.) He’d previously given that November date to Anne Thompson as well.

Hammond reports that Berney says Tree of Life is “like a dream and Malick fans are going to be extremely happy.” Berney compares Brad Pitt to Robert De Niro in This Boy’s Life, which is not really what I expected to hear. He also highlights Jessica Chastain, who plays Pitt’s wife, as a performer to watch out for.

Like I said, scant new details. Is there any trailer I want to see more than this one? Nope. Not even Scott Pilgrim.

• Casting: Chow in Dragonball, Affleck in State of Play, and Pitt in Tree of Life
• Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life to Get Cannes Premiere?
• No Surprise: Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life Held Until 2010
• Brad Pitt Will Narrate Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time Doc
• Sean Penn Backs Out of Three Stooges and Cartel
• Terrence Malick Working on Two Separate Films: The Tree of Life and “The Voyage of Time”

Stephen talks about the Romance of Travel and the realities of shooting on location, relating some Rules of the Road he has gleaned from experiencing the good, the bad, and the very bad.

The Tobolowsky Files is a new podcast from the people who brought you the /Filmcast, featuring a series of stories about life, love, and the entertainment industry, as told by legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky. You can always e-mail Stephen at stephentobolowsky(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or you can e-mail David at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com. You can also follow Stephen on Twitter or follow David on Twitter. Please let us know what you think of the show! You can find every episode of the podcast at http://www.tobolowskyfiles.com!

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Stills from the film "The Runaways," based on the lives of Joan Jett and Cherie Currie. "The Runaways" is directed by Floria Sigismondi and stars Kristin Stewart and Dakota Fanning.

The theatrical trailer for the film "Robin Hood," directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Matthew Macfadyen.

“Telephone,” the newly released and incredibly hyped music video from avant-garish pop star Lady Gaga, sees her teaming Thelma and Louise-style with Beyonce in the hot yellow Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill. Why? We guess it’s relative to Gaga’s appreciation for renegade female empowerment, something Quentin Tarantino’s bloody classic expresses like few films before or since.

According to Wikipedia, it’s the same Pussy used in the film, which, if memory serves, remains proudly owned by QT. Over the vid’s nine minutes, the truck gets more than a cameo, including a close-up of the name plate key chain in the ignition. The vid is also infused with a somewhat dated hyper-Japanese street culture sensibility that begs the question: why didn’t QT direct the video and knock it out of the park? Surely he would have been into the idea. Insert: priceless shots of bedazzled Gaga toes. Also, QT would have made sure the video—which doesn’t hit the 2010 epic wow mark—had tighter editing.

Another movie the vid pays homage to in its first mins is Caged Heat, the catty 1974 women-in-prison grindhouse flick directed by Jonathan Demme and produced by Roger Corman (recent recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Oscar). It’s also interesting to see the stylistic influence of Eric Wareheim, of [adult swim]’s Tim and Eric, shine through in scenes with bad-cable-signal effects and schizo flourishes lifted from his cooler music videos for Major Lazer and other artists. The entire video and more screenshots after the jump. We welcome your thoughts.

If you’re wondering, the director is Jonas Åkerlund, who made the 2002 meth head guilty pleasure flick, Spun, starring Mickey Rourke and Brittany Murphy.

Like /Film, Esteban is non-plussed…

• Quentin Tarantino Sued Over Kill Bill, May Make Doc About Harvey Weinstein
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Nick Kocher & Brian Mcelhankey are two writer-actors who make up the comedy team BriTANick. Check out their exclusive interview with MakingOf.com as they discuss short format comedy production.

A new version of Heavy Metal, the 1981 animated anthology film with stories based on the comics magazine Heavy Metal (originally Metal Hurlant in France), has been batted around for the last couple years. At various points a whole laundry list of directors have been ‘confirmed’ to helm segments: David Fincher, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Zack Snyder, Rob Zombie, Gore Verbinski, Mark Osborne and probably more that we’ve forgotten.

The film was dropped by Paramount in 2008, but is reportedly still kicking. David Fincher has stayed on as producer and a possible segment director, and Blur Studios, the outfit also reportedly animating the Fincher-produced The Goon, may still be involved.

Now there’s new word that the core team of Fincher, Cameron and Snyder is moving forward with the film, which will be entirely animated in 3D.

Deadline talks about the project, though in truth they don’t have many details beyond what we’ve already known. It’s in Fincher’s hands now, and he’s looking for independent financing and distribution commitments. Mike Fleming says that the film will feature eight or nine animated segments, which echoes what we’ve heard over the past couple years. He also says “all of them [will be] infused with the spirit of the erotic and violent storylines that defined the magazine,” which means, yeah, it’s Heavy Metal. (The 1981 film had seven segments, or eight if you count the opening credits sequence ‘Soft Landing’ as being separate from the framing story.)

Deadline labels this a ‘passion project’ for Fincher, but it seems more like a playground, especially with Cameron involved. All the pulp sci-fi inspirations that have always played in his work are right there in Heavy Metal, and doing a segment for the film would be a way for Cameron to make something a little lighter than his usual features. (Hopefully his playing won’t look anything like that dismal music video for Bill Paxton’s band.) Cameron’s involvement may be the one thing that can get this movie financed at this point. Maybe they can get Jason Reitman in there, too. His father produced the original film.

I only hope that a new version can echo the original’s blend of idiosyncratic animation styles. Whatever you think of the ‘81 Heavy Metal (yeah, it’s an indulgent cheese-fest that often makes no sense at all) it has some unique animation. Hopefully a 3D version won’t just gloss everything over with the same style. At least it’s likely to be better than Heavy Metal 2000, which was truly garbage.

• James Cameron Joins Heavy Metal
• Woody Allen and Miyazaki Not Included on EW’s 25 Greatest Active Film Directors List
• Heavy Metal Returns to Paramount? Zack Snyder, David Fincher, Gore Verbinski To Direct!
• Zack Snyder, Guillermo del Toro and Gore Verbinski to Direct Heavy Metal!?
• Confirmed: Paramount Feuds with David Fincher Over Benjamin Button
• David Fincher to Produce CG Animated Comic Book Film The Goon

Joaquin Phoenix famously ‘retired’ from acting a year ago (after finishing Two Lovers) to start some sort of career as a rap MC which may or may not be fodder for a documentary or other film product of sorts involving Casey Affleck. It’s all a bit murky, really, but I don’t think anyone has ever been convinced that Phoenix is really retired. If this report is correct, he isn’t, and will in fact be playing Edgar Allan Poe in an adaptation of Daniel Stashower’s book The Beautiful Cigar Girl.

The news comes from the Mumbai Mirror, by way of The Playlist and their magical Google alerts. The messenger is Resul Pookutty, a sound man who won an Oscar for his work on Slumdog Millionaire. Pookutty says:

I couldn’t be happier because I am doing a period film. It is a very special challenge because I have to recreate the sound textures of New York in 1854. It’s an adaptation of The Beautiful Cigar Girl by Daniel Stashower and based on an eerie real-life experience of author Edgar Allen Poe which happened just months before his death. Joaquin plays Edgar Allen Poe.

The central concern of the book is the death, perhaps murder, of tobacco clerk Mary Rogers, who while alive somehow became a minor celebrity in 1841 Manhattan. Her beaten body was found along the Hudson shore in Hoboken in July 1841. No one was ever convicted of her murder, and a year later an innkeeper claimed that Rogers was the victim of a botched abortion that took place at her inn.

The case was prominent on it’s own, but a year later Edgar Allan Poe made it the subject of ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,’ which featured his Parisian detective Dupin and his attempt to solve the murder. The story is said to be the first detective tale based on the events of a real crime, and while that claim may be suspect, it is certainly the first published while the inspirational crime was fresh in the public mind.

Stashower’s book recounts the grand spectrum of the story, from the death of Rogers to the involvement of Poe and the public audience that took it all in. Sounds a bit like the 19th century The Black Dalia.

There aren’t many more details available on the film — no director or writer, no other stars. Hard to say where this one is, in terms of development.

Then there’s the other Poe film going; that’s The Raven, directed by James McTeigue and starring Jeremy Renner. Totally different movie, though it also contains a portrayal of Poe.

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Is there any point to doing a Harold & Kumar movie without Kal Penn? We may find out, as John Cho is now saying that the proposed third film in the series, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas could end up shooting this summer for a fall release.

Cho is promoting FlashForward, and told Collider that while on hiatus from that show he’d be able to shoot the third Harold & Kumar film this summer.(Or, more properly, Collider led him a bit with the question about shooting the film while on hiatus, and he agreed.) The question is Kal Penn, who currently has a job in Washington, DC as part of the Obama administration. Will he able to do the film? Doesn’t seem like they’ve got a movie without him. Which, erm, might not be a bad idea if this is really going to be a stoner Christmas movie.

There’s a script for the film already, and Cho says “it looks like it’s happening,” but he hasn’t read the script. His understanding is that it picks up a while after the second film, and that it could be a “legit holiday movie,” with an intention to make a film very much in the spirit of other holiday-themed comedies. But Cho doesn’t know what the plan is vis a vis rewrites, and says there’s no director at this point.

Cho says Neil Patrick Harris “is supposed to be in it,” and…yeah. Why would he do this? Then again, NPH is in the Smurfs movie, which is a couple points below Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay on the grand sliding scale of worthwhile films, so who knows? (Truth be told, I didn’t really mind Escape from Guantanamo Bay, though I’m hardly scrabbling to add the DVD to my collection.)

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas was officially announced in May of 2009, and was then slated for a November 5, 2010 release. Can they hit that date if the film shoots in June? Why not?

• Harold and Kumar 3 Announced
• Hunter Stephenson’s Movie Review: Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
• Possible Harold & Kumar Spinoff Film with Neil Patrick Harris?
• Harold and Kumar 2 Movie Trailer
• Saint John of Las Vegas: Photos, Poster and Movie Trailer
• A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas and Happy Feet 2 Announced