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)

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)

A sequel 400 years in the making!

In Hamlet 2, Steve Coogan stars as a man who can’t make it in life as a lousy actor, so he becomes a lousy high school drama teacher. When the school threatens to shut down the theater department, he decides to put on a benefit show to rival all other benefit shows. But that doesn’t mean some lame revival of Oklahoma! or Death of a Salesman; he’s going to create his own original production. He decides to write a sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and manages to get around the pesky issue of 99% of the characters dying at the end of the original. All you need are a few convenient plot devices, like a time machine and the adding of Jesus as a character, and a few catchy musical numbers, like “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus.”

A plot this hilariously ludicrous and a cast that includes Coogan, Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler, and the reintroduction of Elisabeth Shue is bound to be an entertaining RENT IT. And if not, perhaps some other Shakespearian sequels will start cropping up. Coming next summer: King Lear II: The Reckoning.

Hamlet 2 is not yet rated and opens in limited release August 27. (Official site)

I actually think Anna Faris is a pretty funny lady, so it’s nice to see her doing an actual comedy, rather than yet another installment of the horror movie spoof series, Scary Movie. Faris plays a bubbly Playboy bunny (and Hef himself makes a cameo appearance) who is tossed out of the mansion for being a bunny of a certain age (27!). She stumbles onto a college campus and gleefully sees that the Greek system isn’t unlike the lifestyle she’s used to at the Playboy mansion. So she applies to be a house mother to one of the sororities.

And naturally she lands a position in a sorority house with the most awkward and socially clueless group of girls. They have dull hair, glasses, and non flesh-baring clothes; talk about inept! Time for a makeover montage! Faris takes the misfits under her bunny wing and teach them how to be better versions of themselves, and the clueless girls also teach her a thing or two when a campus cutie appears to be immune to her beguiling bunny ways.

There’s nothing earth-shattering going on here, but The House Bunny seems like it could be entertaining enough to RENT IT. It has a distinct Legally Blonde feel to it: ultimately pointless, yet harmlessly entertaining. I just hope no one has the “brilliant” idea to turn this one into a Broadway musical.

The House Bunny is not yet rated and opens August 22. (Official site)

If you’ve ever taken the time to read TrailerSpy’s “About” page, then you have way too much time on your hands. But also, you would have noticed that Grosse Point Blank is one of my favorite movies of all-time. I own the VHS (google it) and I’ve watched it more times than I care to admit publicly.

Anyways, a couple weeks ago, I was reading some guys blog, and he said that John Cusack’s new movie, War, Inc. looked like Grosse Point Blank 2. And I remember thinking, “Yeah right buddy, nice try.”

But then I saw this new trailer, and I have to say that the similarities are suddenly undeniable.

After all, John Cusack is once again playing a hit-man, and once again, his sister is playing his head-set wearing, foul-mouthed assistant. Dan Aykroyd is in this one as well (although this time they’re on the same team). And once again, he’s having morality issues and delaying the hit that he was sent to perform (this time on a foreign oil minister). Obviously there are a number of differences, but for the most part, Cusack’s character and the tone of the movie look to be exactly the same.

The truth is, this movie was bound to be a SEE IT for me, anyway. I love John Cusack, and the idea of him humorously tackling the Iraq War and the whole terrorist thing is music to my ears. But now that I see this movie for what it really is, a clever non-sequel sequel to one of my favorite movies, well, I am beyond excited.

War, Inc. is rated R and opens in limited release on May 23 (although the IMDB Page says that the DVD premiere is July 1st…are they serious?!! They’re really just going to do a pseudo straight-to-DVD for this movie?!! Maybe these guys just don’t like making money, because I guarantee this movie would gross at least $10 million on opening weekend. Hopefully they rethink that, so that my SEE IT doesn’t involuntarily become a RENT IT, because I’m just dying to pay someone, anyone, $11 to see this movie on the big screen. Alright, I’m done complaining now.)

Tropic Thunder has the potential to be one of the funniest movies to premiere in Summer 2008. Or it could be one of the most angrily controversial movies in recent memory. Either way, it should be interesting to see the public’s reaction.

Starring and directed by the sometimes funny Ben Stiller, Tropic Thunder tells the story of a group of narcissistic actors (is there any other kind?) filming a new Vietnam War epic in the spirit of Apocalypse Now. One is a typical action star (Stiller), one is a comedic actor looking to establish himself as a serious actor (Jack Black), and one (here comes the controversy) is a white actor who is so serious about portraying a role written for an African-American actor, that he dyes his skin black (Robert Downey Jr.). The film crew eventually gets fed up with their high-maintenance cast that they dump them in the jungle to fend for themselves, all to the blissful obliviousness of the cast, who thinks the cameras are still rolling.

The idea of having a movie that stars a white guy in blackface is certainly raising some eyebrows, but Stiller insists that the movie is poking fun at pampered actors, not black people, as seen in this article in Entertainment Weekly. That may very well be the case, but is that what the audience will allow themselves to see? Given the mixed feelings I have about Ben Stiller movies, I’ll wait to RENT IT and find out.

Tropic Thunder is not yet rated and opens on August 15. (Official site)

Here’s another movie to test my theory that Judd Apatow can’t lose. A pair of stoners, played but Apatow’s usual suspects Seth Rogen and James Franco, are forced to go on the lam when one of them witnesses a murder committed by none other than Bill Lumbergh, I mean, Gary Cole. Hilarious hijinx ensue. And a lot of pot is smoked.

While I’ve been thoroughly entertained by Apatow’s recent films, I’m not quite as stoked about this one as I was about last summer’s offerings of Knocked Up and Superbad. I have no doubt it will be fun and have its hilarious moments, but a stoner movie just seems like a way to get easy laughs. In Knocked Up, Apatow managed to make an unplanned pregnancy hilarious…so why is he now going for the obvious joke of, “hey, look, stoned people are funny!”? Yes, they are, and we all know that, so give us something new.

Normally an Apatow movie would be an automatic ‘see it’ for me, but for Pineapple Express, I think I’ll wait to RENT IT. I have no doubt it’ll be funny, but I’m not sure it’ll be $11 funny.

Pineapple Express is rated R and opens August 8. (IMDB site)

Every once in a while, a trailer comes along that makes me giddy with delight. A huge grin spreads across my face as I clap like a four-year-old on Christmas morning. The trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is one of these trailers, a trailer that reminds me why I love going to the movies.

Prince Caspian, like its predecessor The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is a faithful adaptation of the saga written by C.S. Lewis. I read The Chronicles of Narnia annually during my dorky childhood, and so far the movies are even better than I had ever imagined in the books. In this installment, the Pevensie kids return to Narnia one year later to find that an eon has passed and their kingdom is in turmoil. The battle scenes alone will be worth my $11.

Prince Caspian is unmissable. For everyone who loves an epic adventure on the big screen, SEE IT. For everyone who wishes there could be another installment of Lord of the Rings, SEE IT. For all you Harry Potter fans in withdrawal, SEE IT. For all the fellow dweebs who still hope to find Narnia waiting behind the next door, SEE IT.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is not yet rated and opens May 16. (official site)

P.S. This installment comes to you from Puerto Iguazú, Argentina. Check Globestompers.com for the latest on my trip around the world.

Feel free to comment on Julie’s post here.

In my post for Dan in Real Life, I stated that I was officially experiencing Steve Carell overload. Which is still true. By my estimation, Steve Carell has starred in about 200 movies over the past year (OK, so it’s actually only 4 or 5, but it does feels like a lot more).

I guess that’s why I was so quick to discredit his new movie, Get Smart. That is, until I saw this trailer.

The idea behind Get Smart is pretty simple: bumbling idiot becomes international spy. However, the idea behind casting Steve Carell in this role is nothing short of brilliant.

Get Smart is essentially a live-action version of Inspector Gadget. Or to put it in terms of more modern pop-cultural phenomenon, Get Smart is what would happen if Michael from The Office became an international spy. Which is exactly why this casting is so spot on. There’s a lot of good comedic actors around these days, but none of them do the self-righteous moron character quite as well as Steve Carell does. And this movie seems to be the natural progression for Carell’s self-righteous moron character. In other words, if you think he was funny running an office, wait till you see him trying to save the world…

So I guess that Get Smart is going to be a SEE IT for me. Granted, I still wish that Carell would tease us a little more by making fewer movies. However, this is certainly one of the movies that he should have made. And from the looks of the trailer, I expect it to be damn funny.

Get Smart is rated PG-13 and opens on June 20. (Official site)

When I first came across this trailer for What Happens in Vegas…, let me tell you that I was somewhat less than enthused. By now, I’ve seen so many mediocre movies about a young couple getting married that just the thought of watching another one kinda makes me want to gouge my eyes out. In fact, I can think of two such movies just starring Ashton Kutcher (Just Married and Guess Who)

In other words, watching this trailer was simply a formality before I wrote a scathing Skip It post.

But then something unexpected happened: I laughed. Twice.

And thus, I find myself in a somewhat awkward position. You see, I really have no desire to see another romantic comedy about the perils of an ill-advised marriage, especially not one starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. And yet, this trailer did sort of crack me up. In fact, the twists depicted in this trailer (particularly the part about winning 3 million dollars) makes me think that this movie might actually be better than the hundreds of other similarly themed movies. So I ask you, what’s a guy to do?

I guess when I really search my soul about it, there’s only one solution to my dilemma: I’m afraid I’m going to have to RENT IT. It’s certainly possible that the only funny moments were the ones shown in the trailer. But in the off chance that there are more just like them, I’m willing to make space for it on my Netflix que. Only time will tell if that was the right decision or not.

What Happens in Vegas… is not yet rated and opens May 16. (Official Site)

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