New PSA directed by acclaimed filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen for ThisIsReality.org, with the aim of debunking “clean coal” industry propaganda. It was produced in partnership with Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. Just released yesterday.

20th Century Fox aired the third and final 60-second television spots for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The third spot which premiered last night during American Idol is titled “Legends” and set-ups the team of Mutants that Wolverine joins along his journey: Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Taylor Kitsch as Gambit and Tim Pocock as a young Cyclops.

Cyclops was a surprise and not really sure why they would toss him in like that.  Still, you’ve got to question the movie with the changes to Wolverine and Sabertooth’s backstory and the addition of so many cameo mutants in the film.  Wolverine, as played by Hugh Jackman, is an interesting enough character to not be saddled with such burdens.

The second of three television spots for X-Men Origins: Wolverine aired last night.  It continues where the first one left off, with Logan and his brother running away from home and into World War I. 

The third spot airs tonight during American Idol, which means check back here if you want to skip that. 

The thing that stands out is the reveal that Sabertooth and Wolverine are brothers, which they are not.  Even if it was vaguely hinted at in the Wolverine origin comic. 

I get that some things should be changed or can be changed with very little affect, but it’s not right for them to make alterations this significant to the canon.

20th Century Fox aired the first of three announced 60-second television sports for X-Men Origins: Wolverine during Family Guy. The first spot is titled “Outcasts” and takes a look Wolverine’s beginnings as a young boy.

The second spot will air on Monday, February 16th during House , and the third will air on on Tuesday (February 17th) during American Idol.

Craig Gillepsie is the director of the very touching and sublime Lars and the Real Girl.  He also won a DGA award in 2006 for his commercial work.

Titled “Lifetime of Confidence”, the commercial uses “the epic life story of fictitious character David Abernathy to illustrate how even the most confident people need a little extra help when it comes to car shopping.”

It’s very Wes Anderson-esque, except it’s not nearly as composed, not nearly as perfect as what Anderson would typically do.  Still, it’s a pretty interesting commercial (love the Gompers and Aristotle part) right up until you find out it’s for cars.com.  Sigh.

This will be updated as more movie commercials/trailers are added to the mix.

Race to Witch Mountain

Land of the Lost

It’s got Will Ferrell (which could be a plus or minus) and Anna Friel (a bonus) in it, but that’s about all I can say positively for this flick.  Universal looks like it has a trainwreck on its hands, everything from the plot, visuals, and jokes seems underwhelming pedantic. Seriously, though, what’s up with the Matt Lauer references?

Up

Pixar has yet to disappoint and by all accounts, they won’t with Up. Disney has also released a little short called Adventures with Carl and Russell which involves the unlikely duo’s journey through the jungle. While the story seems a lot more subdued than previous Pixar films, the characters are just so immediately lovable.  What strikes me as interesting about this movie will be its reception.  Pixar raises the bar with each movie, but with each new movie everyone says they’ll never top that one.  Will Up continue this trend?

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

It’s hard to take this movie seriously and something tells me that Stephen Sommers doesn’t.  I think this thing is going to be aimed squarely at young kids and teenagers, which is G.I. Joe’s target.  I’m almost glad that they’re not aiming for the disgruntled 30+ crowd, who’s no doubt going to be disappointed with the movie anyways.  Well, they’ve got my attention.  Especially the shot at the end with Snake Eyes flipping over a car.  That’s badass.  Though the goofy supersuits could be done away with.  Everything up until that reveal had me going, okay cast looks spot on plot seems like generic summer blockbuster fair.  All in all, this might be something I can get behind.

Fast and Furious

Is it good or bad that Michelle Rodriguez, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Vin Diesel are grovelling back to the racecar franchise that made them famous?  Now in it’s fourth installment, the franchise should be going the way of straigh to DVD and yet it isn’t.  Because said stars are all coming back for more.  Look, the first movie was better (re: fun) than it had any right to be.  Can they capture the same magic this time around?  Hard to say, but I see nothing hear that makes me think this will be anything more than disposable summer claptrap.

Also, I love the trailer opening with Paul Walker saying, “A lot has changed.”  Um, no.  Unless you mean there’s a bigger budget this time around.

Star Trek

I’m already sold.  Great cast and with J.J. Abrams at the helm I’m fully convinced he can make not only a decent Trek picture but one that appeals to a wider audience.  We’ll call it the Star Wars audience.  The other space franchise has no problem appealing to a wide audience, but for whatever reason Star Trek has been relegated to nerds, dorks and geeks.  It’s been stigmatized.  I don’t think that will be the case this summer.  We see some new shots, but overall not a whole lot more than what’s already been revealed.

Year One

Columbia Pictures has released a sneak preview of the upcoming Judd Apatow-produced biblical comedy Year One. The film stars Jack Black and Michael Cera, as a couple of lazy hunter-gatherers who are banished from their primitive village, and set off on an epic journey through the ancient Biblical world.

Directed by National Lampoon’s Vacation and Groundhog Day helmer Harold Ramis, and written by Office scribes Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg (you know, the guys working on the new Ghostbusters script).

The Super Bowl sneak preview clip shows Black and Cera’s characters trying to hunt for food, when they run into a bunch of farmers named Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd).  They also run into Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.

I’m not entirely sold that this is anything more than an extended sketch-comedy skit or will be anything better than other pre-historic comedy movies (re: Caveman starring Ringo Starr).  I love that Michael Cera can’t play anything other than shy and awkward, even as a caveman he comes across as George Michael Bluth.  Adorable or a sign that his career will be over in five years?

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

ZOMG!  I can’t Michael Bay just reduced me to a 14-year-old fanboy.  We’ve obviously saved the best for last.  A few things.  It looks like the dog robot is Ravage and the giant fucking robot that Optimus Prime hangs off of at the end of the trailer is only one of the Destructicons.  So do the math, but if there are 9 of them in the movie forming Devastor, then the mother of all robots is going to the size of a Dubai skyscraper.

Massive.  This movie is going to be massive both in scale and at the box office this summer.  Still, no Dinobots and that’s just disappointing.

According to Slashfilm, a couple of weeks ago one of the Constructicon toys found their way online at tf08.net.  “The unnamed Transformer which has been referred to as the figure’s alt mode: “Steam Shovel” appears to look exactly like the Transformer at the end of the Super Bowl clip. TFW2005 user yizhi521 has even posted an image of the toy with a Legends Of Cyberton series Optimus Prime hanging on to the figure, and it looks very much to scale. I’m not sure about you guys, but the image below looks a lot like the huge transformer shown at the end of the teaser,” writes Peter Sciretta.

What has me curious though, is that the photo below looks exactly like the final image from the teaser trailer.  It seems odd that this photo would surface weeks early and then show up in the Superbowl teaser.  Meaning what?  I’m not sure to be honest, just that either the Transformers fan wanted to see how big the toy was compared to Optimus Prime or that it’s too convenient a coincidence.

We see Dubya confess that God wants him to run for president and his mother just looks at him with shock, it seems Cheney has nothing but contempt for Dubya having to correct him on the pronunciation of “Guantanamo.” “W” appears to still be on track for its October 17 release date, though director Oliver Stone has admitted to still be editing the damn thing.

It looks intentionally funny and I wonder if that’s just a marketing ploy or if this thing is really going to be a devastating satire. And with a pre-election release is this movie going to fire up both the Republican base to vote McCain to spite Hollywood liberals and/or liberals who will realize again that we just let some dumbass from a WASPy family run the country into the ground for the past eight years. I think that’s what my interest in this project will be – if there will be any tangible affect on the election.

Update: Hellboy is also playing videogames with Chuck, auditioning for a girls group, hanging with the American Gladiators and taking a moment to film a PSA.� All good stuff, but the Lipton one is still the best.

I don’t know if this is a television commercial or just an internet funny, but it makes me wish that Guillermo del Torro filmed lots of these little promotions with Hellboy going on Letterman, Leno, Kimmel and making the rounds at say, The View, Live with Regis and Kelly, etc.

It would be bizarre and funny much like the clip below. Also, does it get any better than hearing James Lipton give a “booyah?”

Now that Marvel has wrested control of their film properties comic book geeks are beginning to see the dividends with the formation of the Marvel Universe on film. We saw this first with Iron Man where at the end Nick Fury makes an appearance and mentions The Avengers and now with next weeks The Incredible Hulk we are seeing a crossover with Tony Stark.

It was supposed to be a non-secret that Tony Stark would appear briefly in the film, but with the success of Iron Man, Marvel is wasting no opportunity to cash in on that success and parlay it to help out The Incredible Hulk. Will it work? Maybe, but it’s great to see Tony Stark appear in the film and with all the easter eggs dropped throughout the latest Marvel adventure it is obvious they are building towards an Avengers movie with all of these characters appearing in one film.

The Incredible Hulk smashes into theaters on June 13.

Will Smith’s dysfunctional superhero movie Hancock has to be good right?� I’m not sure if I’m just trying to talk myself into the movie, but aside from Watchmen, we’ve long be overdue for a movie that pops the balloon of the “superhero” film.� Plus, I’ve long thought the most interesting aspect of “superheroes” are the peeps with powers who aren’t heroes at all.� The guys who are too apathetic or lazy to do anything, the ones who want to get drunk or use their x-ray vision to check out women (which yes only works if you want to see their bone structure but that’s important too and also seems way more witty when you’re 13).

Regardless, Will Smith stopped by the Ellen DeGeneres show yesterday and brought with him this clip.� It doesn’t reveal much, but it’s interesting that after getting a slew of movies about an uptight rich white guy learning how to “keep it real” or “live life” from a sassy black chick/dude, Hancock goes the opposite route and looks to be about how a dysfunctional black dude learns to tone it down from a smarmy white PR guy and eventually be accepted by white society.� In other words he learns to be less black and more white.

Ahhhh, racial stereotypes.� Glad to see Hollywood and society has come so far.

This one dropped during American Idol, which I don’t watch. So, um, at least Hellboy is getting exposed to a huge audience. Just not sure how many people watching American Idol would be stoked to go see Red in action.