If after seeing the lackluster The Other Boleyn Girl you are still jonesing to see a period piece somewhat based on actual events, then The Duchess may be of interest to you. Based (loosely, one must assume) on the life of the Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, The Duchess stars Keira Knightley as Georgiana, a woman forced into marriage with the Duke of Devonshire, a man who barely acknowledges his wife’s existence. When the Duke lashes out at her for not producing a male heir and then begins an affair with another woman, Georgiana acts out and attracts the attention and affection of every man in England. And while the Duke may not see fit to pay his wife any attention, it certainly doesn’t go over well when she seeks it elsewhere.

As I’ve stated before, I’m a sucker for movies featuring funny wigs and ruffled shirts, and The Duchess looks like it’ll be filled with plenty of good old-fashioned bodice-ripping passion. Knightley has certainly proved that she shines best in period pieces, and it’ll be interesting to see her hold her own against Ralph Fiennes (playing the Duke), so I’ll definitely RENT IT.

The Duchess is rated PG-13 and opens in limited release September 19. (Official site)

The trailer for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is very careful not to give away any major plot points. But when the premise of your movie is the story of a man who ages backwards, I guess you don’t need to reveal too much to get people interested.

Brad Pitt stars as Benjamin, and Cate Blanchett is the woman he knew as a child, when he was an old man, who he falls in love with as an adult, when he’s a young man. Confusing, yes, but after seeing the bizarre old-man child in the trailer, I am indeed curious to see how Benjamin looks as a young-child old man. I’ll eventually RENT IT.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not yet rated and opens December 19. (Official site)

The Coen brothers are back with a new movie that’s not meant to scare the living crap out of you. There’s probably not much I need to say to convince you to go SEE IT, so here’s just a few key elements for you to consider:

• Coen brothers
• Frances McDormand
• Comedy-Drama
• Brad Pitt
• Crime caper
• George Clooney

Convinced yet? OK, John Malkovich is in it, too. I’ll see you at the theater.

Burn After Reading is rated R and opens September 12. (Official site)

Why is it that so many people get so upset over old movies getting remade? Sure, most of the remakes kind of suck, but nobody made you watch them, and the remake doesn’t diminish the quality of the original movie we all know and love so well. Hell, Cruel Intentions was actually a great remake of Dangerous Liaisons. But The Women, a remake of a 1939 classic by the same name, is the latest remake that has classic movie lovers in an uproar.

Which is too bad, because it actually looks like a decent movie. The plot has certainly withstood the test of time: a group of socialite women discover that the husband of one of their own is cheating on her, so she leaves the cheater and joins her female friends at a ritzy resort. Cue the female bonding, plenty of cattiness and gossip, and lots of twisted relationships. With a cast that features Annette Bening, Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, and Meg Ryan (coming out from under the rock she’s been living beneath), this could be another great 2008 movie for female audiences (the other being some small movie about four women getting laid in a city of some kind). I’ll definitely RENT IT when it comes out on DVD.

The Women is rated PG-13 and opens September 12. (Official site)

I would hope that even the most die-hard Woody Allen fan would admit that the man’s work is either hit or miss. When he’s on, he’s on fire. When he’s off, you get The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. I can’t quite get a handle on which end of the spectrum Vicky Cristina Barcelona will fall, since the trailer really doesn’t give anything away. No, really…there’s not even any dialogue in it.

From what I can cobble together based on the snapshots in the trailer and my own reading about the film, Javier Bardem (looking far less terrifying than the last time I saw him) is a Spanish artist who gets it on with a lot of women. He’s sleeping with two American tourists (one played by Allen’s new favorite ingénue, Scarlett Johansson) and also has a jealous ex (Penelope Cruz) tracking him down. And there’s lots and lots of sex.

The trailer shows little more than short clips of some steamy love scenes all set to a Spanish song, with any dialogue from the movie removed. I would think they would want to market a Woody Allen film as something more than a sensationalized adult film, but what do I know? Well, I do know this: as for this particular Allen film, I’m going to SKIP IT. If it turns out to be his next Annie Hall, I’m sure someone will tell me.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is rated R and opens in limited release August 29. (Official site)

Finding Amanda is the story of a guy with a gambling addiction who goes to Las Vegas to convince his runaway niece to stop working as a hooker and go into rehab. Sounds like a pretty good role for someone like Steven Buscemi. But somehow Matthew Broderick is the one playing it.

Fully embracing the sad sack middle-aged loser persona, Broderick stars as Taylor, a man who has traded his drug and alcohol abuse for a gambling problem. When his wife finally has enough and kicks him out of the house, he decides to head for Vegas, where his niece Amanda is now living and working as a prostitute. Taylor figures if he can not gamble while there and convince Amanda to enter rehab, maybe his wife will take him back. But Amanda’s not too interested in turning her life around, and even a nun couldn’t go to Vegas and not gamble, so problems with the plan naturally ensue.

The movie is currently a part of the Tribeca Film Festival with no immediate wide release plans, so I’ll eventually RENT IT to see Ferris Bueller all grown up and dealing with his hooker niece.

Finding Amanda is rated R with an unknown release date. (IMDB site)

Don’t you hate it when all you want is a little peace and quiet for one day, but it seems like everyone you know has chosen that day to harass you? That one day is Henry Poole’s entire life.

Longing for a life of quiet solitude, Henry (played by the ever-affable Luke Wilson) retreats to his childhood suburban neighborhood and adopts a hermit-like lifestyle. But then a nosy neighbor notices a water stain on the side of his house that resembles the face of Jesus (or maybe it’s God; I sort of dropped out of Sunday school). So now, much to his chagrin, every devout believer in the area is coming to Henry’s backyard to worship and pray at his wall. But when he starts a tentative relationship with the women next store with a daughter who never speaks, Henry realizes that these “holy rollers” (as he calls them) may not be so crazy after all and maybe there is something to the whole faith and hope thing.

While this looks like it could be a moderately entertaining movie, I’m going to SKIP IT. Movies that use kids with weird disabilities or personality traits to tug at the heartstrings rub me the wrong way, as do overly-preachy movies. Plus, while I have enjoyed Wilson in his many supporting roles, I’m not sure he has what it takes to carry an entire movie by himself.

Henry Poole Is Here is rated PG and opens in limited release August 15. (Official site)

Today’s lesson: Life is short. So live fast, play hard, and love much while you can.

There, I just saved you $11 and an endless amount of eye-rolling at this ‘tragic love story torn asunder by disease’ movie, so you can SKIP IT.

Jack and Jill vs. the World is rated PG-13 and has an unknown release date. (Official site)

Ellen Page’s characters always seem to be in some sort of peril. First she’s hunting down a suspected pedophile in Hard Candy. Then she’s being threatened with a mutation cure in X-Men 3. And then she was everyone’s favorite knocked up teenager in Juno. Now she’s naked on a bus, desperately searching for her missing younger brother.

I’m trying to think of something clever or witty or insightful to say about The Tracey Fragments’ trailer…but I’m coming up blank. It doesn’t necessarily look bad, but I’m not sure it’s really all that good, either. Perhaps I’ve just seen Ellen Page be snarky while in peril in an independent movie too many times and I’ve become immune to reaction. Hm…when do the trailers for the big summer films start coming out? I’ve never been so desperate to see some shit get blown up.

As for The Tracey Fragments, I’ll probably eventually RENT IT. I’m curious enough to know why she’s naked on a bus and if she ever finds her brother.

The Tracey Fragments will probably be rated R and opens in limited release May 9. (Official site)

While I’m not working on TrailerSpy, I actually make my living as a scientist. And on more than one occasion, I’ve heard my scientist friends exclaim that someone should make a movie about life inside the lab. And not some Hollywoodized movie about a horrible genetic experiment gone wrong, but an actual drama about what it’s really like to be a scientist working in the research world.

But whenever I’ve heard this proposal, my response has always been the same: “It’ll never happen.” And it’s not that there aren’t some interesting story-lines that take place in a real laboratory. It’s just that the realities of science do not jive with the realities of Hollywood. I mean, what’s the chance of Hollywood making a movie about a bunch of socially awkward, not-so-attractive intellectuals, grinding out experiments in relative solitude?

But then I saw this trailer for Dark Matter, and I’ll be damned if Hollywood hasn’t just made a movie about what it’s really like to be a scientist working in the research world. Granted, they’ve obviously taken a few creative liberties, and it’s obviously dramatized quite a bit. But in general, it really does look like a pretty realistic depiction.

And what I’m really impressed by is the fact that the lead-character is Asian. Granted, it’s based on a true story, but they could have easily changed the character to a European and then just taken a well-known Hollywood star, slapped a pair of glasses on him, and given him an accent. But instead, they made a movie about a very real phenomenon in science: an Asian immigrant who joyfully comes to America, only to work for an overly critical boss, who pressures them into spending 24/7 in the lab, at the expense of their both family’s and their own well-being (I’ve had more than a few co-workers who fit that description perfectly).

Since Dark Matter is going to have a limited release, I’ll probably just RENT IT when it hits DVD. But I am definitely very intrigued by this movie. And kudos to Meryl Streep for joining the cast and giving this movie some leveraging power. I doubt it would have even gotten its limited release without her.

Dark Matter is rated R and opens in select cities on April 11 (Official Site).