I don’t know what to say about this remake of a very good, very influential movie, other than to say you could see it coming with blinders on and it looks like utter crap.

Okay, okay. The movie itself doesn’t look bad, but that trailer. My god. I’m no rocket scientist but what is up with the Limp Bizkit score and the movie’s tagline: “Titans Will Clash”? The movie is called Clash of the Titans and the best the marketing department could come up with as a slogan/tagline is titans will clash. Jesus H. Christ someone should be fed to the guillotine.

Also? Is Sam Worthington the real deal or is he just the latest in a string of Hollywood male leads they are really trying to jam down my throat. It was hard to tell with the latest Terminator, but we’ll get a really good look with Avatar and now this. Still, if anyone has seen Somersault then you know the guy is capable of delivering a nuanced and subtle acting performance.

Amy Adams is, without reservation, poised to inherit the romantic comedy crown Julia Roberts was more than willing to walk away from.  And after sitting through the dreck of Night at the Museum 2 where Adams’s plucky Amelia Earhart was the only redeeming thing, it’s evident she could act her way out of a Chinese prison camp (do those even exist?!?) with both hands tied behind her back.

Adams is a revelation and there is nothing wrong with the plucky heroines she portrays time and time again.  It’s a rare quality that few actresses can believably pull off and do so without being annoying.  I would watch her in just about anything, even if we already can tell how the movie will end.

The title aptly sums up my feelings for this movie.  Normally, I’d say no thank you to a movie like this (think any of those recent Diane Keaton flicks where she falls in love with Jack Nicholson, Steve Martin or Keanu Reeves, or whomever), but it’s hard to resist the charms of Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin.

I have a feeling this is a rental I’ll end up watching when I visit my parents in Boston, either on the airplane or when there is nothing else to do.

I’m still not sold on this flick, but the voice talent alone might make it worth it.

Normally, a premise as hackneyed as this one — two brothers go off to war and when one is suspected of being dead his widow falls for the living brother — has about as much chance of being a decent flick as it does a Lifetime Original.

But the talent behind this picture is too huge to ignore. Director Jim Sheridan is back to challenging, emotionally human interest drama (we’ll forgive him his paycheck cashing 50 Cent gangster flick) with the talents of Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobie Maguire in front on the camera.

In Columbia Pictures’ Salt, Angelina Jolie stars as Evelyn Salt, a CIA officer who swore an oath to duty, honor, and country. When she is accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy, Salt goes on the run to clear her name and ultimately prove she is a patriot. Using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative, she must elude capture and protect her husband or the world’s most powerful forces will erase any trace of her existence.

This movie was originally written with Tom Cruise starring as Evan Salt (or something like that) but when he dropped out it was rewritten for Jolie.

Salt hits theaters on July 23, 2010.

First official trailer for Mike Newell’s big-screen adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The film, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, and Ben Kingsley, is due in theaters May 28, 2010.  And you know what?  I had my doubts but this looks to be another solid Jerry Bruckheimer summer blockbuster.  Sure, you’ll forget it 20-minutes after leaving the theater, but man those two-hours sure will be fun.

Just a month until the movie comes out, John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road gets a second, much better trailer.  The movie, and story, is a hard sell because, um, not to ruin it for people who haven’t read this book (wait, what?  Seriously run out and read this book now!) yet, but it’s not exactly uplifting.  It’s dark and bleak and to polish the humanity contained within the grime is often difficult.  It’s not for the faint of heart, nor is it for those that like tidy, shiny boxes to unwrap.

John Lennon as a young man.  I’m glad they didn’t just go with bland, look-a-like actors, but it’s a bit strange that Paul McCarthy looks nothing like he did as a young man.  Also?  How come John is the only Beatle that gets any love when it comes to feature films?  C’mon Hollywood give me a George Harrison biopic.  Pretty puh-lease.

This is a much better trailer, at least now I get the gist of the story and it’s not so much “oh look at me and my fancy CGI” which was all the last trailer wanted to do.  I might be sold with this one — even if Cameron did plagiarize his story from an old pulp novel.

If you’re going to make a movie about Nelson Mendela, it’s pretty much a given that Morgan Freeman would play the South Africa president. So it’s no surprise, then, that he shows up here in Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-baiting flick about Mendela’s early moments as President, in which he attempts to unite a post-apartheid country through the national rugby team.

Matt Damon shows up as leading player, Francois Pienaar. Of course, the team captain guides his team to the 1995 World Championship and everything in South Africa has been peaches and cream since then. Or something like that. Expect nominations aplenty when this is released on December 11.

Am I worried that director Paul Greengrass has turned an adaptation of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone into a $100 million Bourne-esque action picture for Universal? 

Absolutely. This is a fairly standard cut action trailer. But that doesn’t make me want to see this movie any less.  Greengrass is, afterall, the Irish madman behind both kinetic Bourne movies and the politically charged  United 93  and Bloody Sunday.

“It’s great, I’ve seen it. They’re finishing some of the effects, and it’ll be ready for March. We got a $100m Iraq movie, so we’ll see!,” Damon said in an interview with Empire Magazine. “I do have high hopes for it, though. I think it’s really good. I know the Iraq movies haven’t been particularly popular so far, but hopefully this will find an audience. It’s a thriller, really, set against the canvas of Iraq in 2003.”

Universal needs to sell this movie (hence the straight forward trailer), but I’m guessing Greengrass has something far better and deeper up his sleeve than this trailer is letter on.

Okay, it’s been a little bit since we were first introduced to Benecio del Toro’s Wolfman. And I’m not sold on director Joe Johnston, but I’ll admit this looks good. I might even be able to overlooked the strange decision to cast Anthony Hopkins as del Toro’s dad. You know? Genetics and all, they look nothing alike. And I should be able to forgive Emily Blunt from marrying Jim Halpert. [via]