Trailers for the art house and independent films opening US December 2, 2011, including:

Coriolanus
Shame
Sleeping Beauty
The Lady
Answers To Nothing
Outrage

See Movies Opening December 2, 2011

Coriolanus

Shame

Sleeping Beauty

The Lady

Answers To Nothing

Outrage

Trailers for the art house and independent films opening US November 23, 2011, including:

A Dangerous Method
The Artist
My Week With Marilyn
Rampart

See Movies Opening November 23, 2011

A Dangerous Method

The Artist

My Week With Marilyn

Rampart

Rampart + Official Trailer [HD] from Rampart Movie on Vimeo.

THE HUNGER GAMES
Preview and Trailer Review by Lillian DeRitter

The first official trailer for the epic adaptation of The Hunger Games dropped today, bringing anticipation of the film to fever pitch after multiple Entertainment Weekly spreads and behind the scenes features.

The Hunger Games trilogy is often compared to The Lord of the Rings because of its critical acclaim, avid fanbase, and adult approach to genre fiction. (Though the books are written for young adults, the series is notorious for its depictions of violence, corruption, and dystopia.)

Let’s pretend for a moment that I haven’t read the books. What lessons does the new Hunger Games trailer give us about the film and, quite frankly, about life in dystopia (now or in Panem.)

The Apocalypse is Greener Than You Thought
Recent apocalyptic films like The Road and Children of Men have presented an overdeveloped and exhausted environment dominated by dead leaves and gray skies. The trailer opens in Appalachia, the location for the futuristic District 12. Despite the dystopia, Appalachia is still green and gorgeous. As a Pennsylvanian with an awareness of the long term effecting of coal mining on an environment I call BS, but hey, that’s just me.

Avery’s Stay in North Korea Made Her Really Weird
The announcer of the lottery (Effie Trinket) is played by the usually hilarious and adorable Elizabeth Banks (who played Jack Donaghy’s girlfriend Avery on 30 Rock.) In Hunger Games, Banks takes on a strangely musical Standard American dialect and borrows Helen Bonham Carter’s makeup from Alice in Wonderland. The overwhelming implication? Rich people are crazy.

Donald Sutherland Is Willing to Use His Gravitas for Evil
Donald Sutherland’s role in all this isn’t exactly clear in the trailer, though we know he’s playing President Snow, the head honcho of this world gone mad. Yet the very fact that Hawkeye is willing to let this killing of children go on is enough to turn my stomach. Great job casting director. You’re giving me nightmares.

Every Dystopian City Will Look Like Firefly, Blade Runner, or Star Wars
Hunger Games went with Firefly, blending the frontier feel with futuristic screens and blue tinged hospital/beauty salons staffed by Lenny Kravitz. Great, now I’m writing fanfiction where Katniss and River Tam team up.

Reality TV is the Beginning of the End
In our day the only sporting events that earn big screen coverage in town squares are the World Cup and the errant local championship, but in the future, the masses assemble to watch teenagers kill each other. I blame The Amazing Race and the return of Fear Factor. Also America’s Next Top Model because of the waxing moment and Kravitz reminding Katniss that she “needs to make an impression.”

Jennifer Lawrence Will Always Be More Badass Than You
Ever since Winter’s Bone, Jennifer Lawrence has been the stunning beauty with the fortitude of a Navy Seal. It was a joy to watch her Mystique grow into herself in X-Men: First Class, and I was worried for Anton Yelchin’s safety when he contemplated breaking up with her in Like Crazy. Though the trailer offers up none of the violence the book promises, just look at the determination on her face during the countdown. I have complete faith that when Lawrence stiffens her upper lip, heads will roll.

The Hunger Games emerges from the brush, weapons drawn on March 23rd.

Trailers for the art house and independent films opening US November 18, 2011, including:

The Descendants
Tyrannosaur
Another Happy Day
Tomboy
The Lie
The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch
Eames: The Architect And The Painter

See Movies Opening November 18, 2011

The Descendants

Tyrannosaur

Another Happy Day

Another Happy Day – Red Band Trailer [HD] from AnotherHappyDayMovie on Vimeo.

Tomboy

The Lie

The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch

Eames: The Architect And The Painter

21 Jump Street
Preview and Trailer Review by Lillian DeRitter

Early on in the 21 Jump Street trailer, Ron Swanson (errr…Nick Offerman of Parks and Recreation) tells us (and our heroes) that the police are reviving a canceled undercover police program from the 80s. This is not entirely an accurate statement. The 2012 21 Jump Street bears only a conceptual resemblance to the 1987 high school themed police procedural that refused to apologize for its adorable leads. (21 Jump Street was ready to be a WB/CW network series eight years before either network existed.) Channing Tatum and a newly slim Jonah Hill replace the multi-ethnic cast of the original, which included a young Johnny Depp, Holly Robinson (now Holly Robinson Peete), Peter DeLuise, and Dustin Nguyen.

Hill rewrote a script by Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) to accommodate starring roles for himself and Tatum who shows off a striking ability to play a comedic meathead. (He recounts the Miranda rights as “The right to remain… an attorney.”) Brie Larson is probably Hill’s love interest seeing as she’s the only female lead other than Ellie Kemper (of The Office and Bridesmaids.) It’s great fun to see Kemper get her inner awkward cougar on when hitting on her student who just happens to be the adult beefcake Tatum. Ice Cube takes on the role of 21 Jump Street’s no nonsense commanding officer, Rob Riggle is a clueless athletic coach, and the perp is played by professional high school jerk Dave Franco (who played a similar role in Fright Night and is probably a perfectly nice person.)

This adaptation is very loose, more like a blend between Superbad and the premise of the eighties procedural. The trailer promises the usual antics we’ve come to expect from Hill, but the most exciting surprise here is Tatum’s comedic ability. (I personally demand more of this for the G.I. Joe sequel.) Hill tends to really shine when his partner challenges him, so Tatum’s ability to play dumb and straight bode well for the team-up. 21 Jump Street is directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller who last teamed up on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and seventeen episodes of How I Met Your Mother as co-executive producers. This is their first large scale live action adventure so we’ll see whether their animation background helps or hurts them. (My bet’s on helping considering how cartoony the action comedy genre tends to be.) Here’s hoping 21 Jump Street lives up to Jonah Hill’s promise of an R-rated, insane, Bad-Boys-meets-John Hughes-type movie. I still hope the rumors are true that Dustin Nguyen will make an appearance along with Depp’s reported cameo. He makes me miss Tiger Beat.

If you want more of a taste for Hill’s R-rated vision, the Red Band trailer is here. 21 Jump Street hits theaters March 16th.

Trailers for the art house and independent films opening US November 11, 2011, including:

Melancholia
London Boulevard
11-11-11
Cook County
The Greening Of Whitney Brown
Into The Abyss

See Movies Opening November 11, 2011

Melancholia

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo.

London Boulevard

11-11-11

Cook County

The Greening Of Whitney Brown

Into The Abyss

Trailers for the art house and independent films opening US November 4, 2011, including:

Young Goethe In Love
The Son Of No One
Killing Bono
The Other F Word
Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story
Charlotte Rampling: The Look

See Movies Opening November 4, 2011

Young Goethe In Love

The Son Of No One

Killing Bono

The Other F Word

Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story

Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story from Diesel Films on Vimeo.

Charlotte Rampling: The Look

By Lillian DeRitter

[*Spoiler Warning for the Chronicle trailer, The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, The Last Exorcism, and Cloverfield.]

With the first trailer for Josh Trank and Max Landis’ Chronicle dropping to whispers and buzz and Paranormal Activity 3 topping the weekend box office despite its R rating, there seems to be a new Renaissance in found footage films.

After watching this seductive trailer, a strange blend of Blair Witch, Cloverfield, and X-Men, it seems like a good idea to take a look at the other innovative found footage films made by young (relative) unknown up and comers (though Chronicle‘s writer Max Landis is the son of John Landis of Animal House and American Werewolf in London) that were snapped up by large studios (20th Century Fox in this case) in order to see what we can learn about Chronicle. We’ll talk a bit about Cloverfield too since it invoked its more independent found footage predecessors despite being fully financed by a studio (with an f/x budget to match.) With that in mind, let’s look at some rules for found footage genre films.

Rule #1: They Tend to Be Profitable.

The original (or perhaps let’s say most influential) found footage film The Blair Witch Project became the most profitable film ever when it was released in 1999, earning $246.8 million at the box office, compared to its meager $60,000 production budget. Ten years later, the first Paranormal Activity beat that ratio, earning over $193 million worldwide compared to its $15,000 budget.

Chronicle has a reported budget of $15 million, which aligns it more with Cloverfield ($25 million cost). Cloverfield currently holds the opening weekend box office record for January releases. Thanks to the potent combination of low budgets, viral marketing, and a growth of genre fans, there are no notorious found footage flops, but the genre is pretty young. Apollo 18 was critically panned but managed to recoup its losses. Cloverfield invoked a bit of a backlash against the form, with AMC movie theatres and other chains posting signs that warned patrons of possible nausea as a result of the cinematography in the film. Speaking of…

Rule #2: Bring a Barf Bag. This Could Get Bumpy.

Ever since a strange force knocked down Heather at the end of Blair Witch, found footage deaths and threats have often been about what the camera can’t see, rather than what it can. This is is direct contrast to horror films like Halloween, where the camera gives the audience information the characters don’t know, like the fact that Michael Myers is standing right behind you, you BLIND PERSON. In found footage films, someone is usually holding the camera. (Think of Hud in Cloverfield.) When they get scared or run, the camera shakes. This cinematography technique, nicknamed “shaky cam” aims to lend the film a cinéma vérité feel. While Blair Witch‘s cinematography (or lack thereof) lent it an air of urban legend authenticity, we now see found footage films so often that the faux-documentary approach tends to look like a gimmick. Emmy knockout Modern Family uses it for cripes’ sake.

Unless Chronicle has found a way to innovate the form the way Paranormal Activity did, the found footage approach could work against them, especially with a narrative that we’ve seen before (the making of a supervillain.)

Rule #3: There Will Be Some Jerking Around (in addition to the camera.)

The marketing campaign for The Blair Witch Project goes down in history as one of the most powerful viral campaigns ever. People were whispering to each other “Did you see the movie about those kids who disappeared in the woods?” I had friends who were sure it was real. Audiences weren’t the only ones being jerked around. The production process for Blair Witch involved what the directors called “method filmmaking,” depriving the actors of food and sleep, “breaking every SAG rule possible.” Cloverfield employed a similar viral marketing take to Blair Witch, creating a parallel world surrounding the film, advertising “Slusho,” a fictional Japanese drink that had previously appeared in J.J. Abrams’ Alias. 

Cloverfield, much like Abrams’ other creation Lost, doesn’t give you all the answers. Or really any answers at all. By employing cinéma vérité, the filmmakers justify a lack of explanations. In real life, sometimes you don’t know how your keys magically reappeared in the key bowl when you just checked there, how that sock magically returned to the dryer, why that demon is tormenting you, or why that monster woke up and is destroying Manhattan. Stuff just happens and no one provides you with the exposition to make sense of it. Yet in a film, we grow to expect answers. Each Paranormal Activity sequel has provided more information to justify the events of the first film. If we don’t eventually figure out what’s going on, we’re liable to feel jerked around.

Chronicle may escape that by giving us a better idea of what is actually going on in the trailer than Abrams did in the first two seasons of Lost. However, if we don’t find out how those boys get their superpowers (let alone why), this plotmeister’s going off the deep end.

That said…

Rule #4: Enigma is Found Footage’s First, Last, and Middle Name

Have you ever tried to watch The Blair Witch Project at a party with lots of people talking? As your friends laugh and giggle through the shocking ending, you find yourself wondering how you could’ve been left sleepless for weeks by this shoddy film.

Found footage films depend on a certain level of environment and mystery in order to work. They are one of the last true arguments for the need for dark, silent movie theaters. Talking breaks tension and almost all genre found footage films require that taut silence to generate fear at all. You can be mysterious in a found footage film because the normal narrative rules don’t apply. If we accept that “Heather Donahue” the filmmaker might just be a real person, we will be more invested in her journey than the typical scream queen, because we will feel like she actually lived, that she has family who wonder where she is, that her confession means something. The minute that illusion is broken, you get all those snotty nose close to the camera parodies. (South Park‘s “I’m… so… startled.” being the best.)

Chronicle might be an exception here, since it’s telling a more conventional story rather than trying to scare the pants off you. Yet if the point isn’t to invoke cinéma vérité and to make these boys feel real, why use found footage to tell the story?

Rule #5: They Will Be About How People Are Stupid…Just Like the Rest of Us

Blair Witch documents the quick unraveling of a besieged girl’s leadership when the world stops making sense, as well as how idiotic it is to throw away a map when wandering in the woods. Cloverfield focuses on a group of hipster twenty somethings who willingly follow their friend uptown to save his trapped girlfriend, moving through subway tunnels filled with huge insect-like parasites that vaguely invoke Sinspawn from the video game Final Fantasy X towards the mysterious monster that has been destroying New York City. The Last Exorcism shows us a showman preacher who tries to make amends for his showmanship. None of these stories end well, because people are stupid. The common question in found footage films is “Why are you filming?” often yelled or screamed in moments of stress. Why are you filming when the world is crumbling down around our ears?

In George A. Romero’s found footage zombie flick Diary of the Dead, documentary filmmaker Jason says “All that’s left is to record what’s happening for whoever remains when it’s over.” Despite its lack of apocalyptic or horror elements, Chronicle has to be done with found footage. If you were a young man, and you discovered that you had superpowers, wouldn’t you want to make the best Youtube videos ever? To this generation (my generation), “if it’s not on camera, it’s like it never happened.” That impulse to share is what makes filmmakers, journalists, superheroes and supervillains. (Why else would you wear spandex if you didn’t want attention?)

Chronicle could shape up to be the most innovative approach to the genre in a long time if it’s willing to tackle the “oversharing” impulse that generates so many tweets, blogs, videos, and even Academy Awards. ”Why are you filming?” is the eternal question in found footage films, but the answer is both more obvious and more painful than we’re willing to admit. We’re filming because we have to, because we’re afraid of what every hero and villain is afraid of: being forgotten. And we’ll do anything to be remembered.

Trailers for the art house and independent films opening US October 28, 2011, including:

The Rum Diary
Like Crazy
Janie Jones
The Double
13
And They’re Off

See Movies Opening October 28, 2011

The Rum Diary

Like Crazy

Janie Jones

The Double

13

And They’re Off

Trailers for the art house and independent films opening US October 21, 2011, including:

Margin Call
Martha Marcy May Marlene
The Mighty Macs
Oranges And Sunshine
Norman
Le Havre
Snowmen
Revenge Of The Electric Car
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey

See Movies Opening October 21, 2011

Margin Call

Martha Marcy May Marlene

The Mighty Macs

Oranges And Sunshine

Norman

Le Havre

Snowmen

Revenge Of The Electric Car

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey