Roland Emmerich likes to destroy things. We know this. He obliterated the White House and several major cities during Independence Day, had a giant lizard trash New York in Godzilla, and more recently decimated the planet with severe bad weather in The Day After Tomorrow. After a comparatively sedate diversion with primitive men in 10,000 B.C, he's back with a global disaster scenario that surely he'll never top: The End Of The World.
In 2012, Emmerich basically uses the famous Mayan prophecy that the world will end in that given year (because that's when the ancient civilization's calendar mysteriously ended1) to spend a few hours destroying everything he can. The trailer already shows skyscrapers falling, the Vatican crushing worshippers, a Buddhist mountain temple being hit by a tidal wave, an aircraft carrier rolling into some buildings, entire cityblocks rising up from earthquakes, etc. All for no real reason, beyond God's whim, it seems.
As expected, the effects look extraordinary, but a simple escalation of targets and a variety of what's being destroyed doesn't have me psyched to see this -- not even on the level of pure eye-candy. Do we really need another cinematic Armageddon, at the tail-end of a decade that was already born amidst a plethora of disaster movies (Twister, ID4, Deep Impact, Volcano, Armageddon)? I think not. Even the presence of John Cusack, whom I really like, doesn't give me much hope. Nor does the rather obvious plot-point of governments creating a modern-day Noah's Ark-style project for humanity to survive in some form. I get the impression 2012 will have nothing new to offer us in terms of story, but the effects will be bigger and better than the last movie that focused on global catastrophe... well, at least until the next movie Emmerich attaches himself to. It's got to be the end of the Universe next for him, surely...
Oh, the airlifted giraffe is already this year's flying cow, too.
Released: 12 November 2009 (AUS), 13 November 2009 (UK/US)
HD Downloads: 480P | 720P | 1080P
1. The Mayan calendar had to end somewhere, surely! Time's an infinite thing. Maybe they ran out of stone tablets?
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Do you like black comedy? I mean, really dark? If so, the trailer for WORLD'S GREATEST DAD is tailor-made for you. Written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait (yep, the erstwhile Police Academy loon, who's now making a name for himself as a creator of controversial comedies), WGD stars Robin Williams as unpublished author Lance Clayton, who... well, I guess this counts as a spoiler... discovers his son's accidental suicide through autoerotic asphyxiation, but decides to spare his family the embarassing truth by penning a suicide note in his son's name. Said note is accidentally published in the school newspaper and becomes surprisingly popular, prompting Lance to write ghostwrite his son's posthumous autobiography. Spoiler ends. How's that for dark and twisted? Weirdly, or perhaps commendably, none of that storyline is apparent in the red-band trailer (above), but you still sense the vibe of this movie. Shame it doesn't really have an obvious hook without the spoiler-ish info, though. Anyway, the movie was a hit at Sundance and it's certainly worth keeping an eye on if you enjoy your laughs wreathed in barbed wire.
Another week, another zombie movie. This one appears to be in the comedy-horror mould, starring Woody Harrelson as a talented zombie-killer in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by the undead. There's not much else to say about ZOMBIELAND, really. I love the idea of Woody Harrelson in a role like this, and parts of the trailer look fun... but there appears to be next to no story, and nothing really sticks in your head about it. So, underwhelming, but maybe the next trailer will open up a bit. I like the cast, though (Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin, Superbad's Emma Stone, Pineapple Express' Amber Heard and Cursed's Jesse Eisenberg), and apparently Bill Murray has a cameo as a zombie. You gotta see that, surely...
Released: 9 October 2009 (US), 30 October 2009 (UK)
HD Downloads: 480P (29MB) | 720P (83MB) | 1080P (134MB)
Finally, the influence of Charlie Kaufman on cinema continues with COLD SOULS, starring Paul Giamatti as a despondent man whose soul is "weighing him down". So, he decides to have his soul removed in a cutting-edge procedure and "put on ice" in a company's freezer. Unfortunately, his marital life doesn't improve once he's souless, and he's forced to go on a trip halfway around the world to retrieve his lost soul after it's stolen. I've heard good things about this festival sci-fi drama, but the trailer didn't do much for me. It seems to show Giamatti being Giamatti and a high-concept idea that feels indebted to Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Without Kaufman involved, I'm not sure it will have the stroke of genius necessary to take this fun idea into orbit. But, we'll see. I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong, as the trailer could be hiding a lot of the good stuff to come.
Released: 7 August 2009 (US, limited)
HD Downloads: 480P (34MB) | 720P (100MB) | 1080P (157MB)
