Charles Bramesco
Mighty Ninja Warriors Take Up Weapons in ‘The LEGO Ninjago Movie’ Teaser
Hollywood’s getting in the Lego business, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Not that we’d want to, necessarily — The Lego Movie was a delight, and notices for the newly release The Lego Batman Movie have been positive. (Our trusty editor-in-chief Matt Singer spoke kindly of the film in his review earlier this week.) But regardless of where you personally stand on the matter, you’re getting more hot Lego content in the years to come. Production has already begun on the sequel to The Lego Movie, which should really be called The Lego Movie Sequel, and today brings a fleeting first look at the fleeting first look at The Lego Ninjago Movie.
Things Blow Up Real Good in ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Super Bowl Spot
Transformers and the Super Bowl are a match made in heaven. Is the NFL’s biggest night not, in its own way, the Michael Bay of televised sporting events? Massive budget, fetish for pyrotechnics, close-up shots of muscle-bound men glistening with hard-earned sweat, oodles of American patriotism, very few women, an overall roiling undercurrent of homoerotic tension — when the new TV spot for Transformers: The Last Knight runs on Sunday night during the big game, it’ll be difficult to tell where the football ends and the gigantic alien robot battles begin.
Don‘t Let Your Life Get Stolen As You Watch the ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Super Bowl Spot
Ah, the Super Bowl: the one magical night each year in which the nation unites under the binding forces of domestic macrobrewed beer, buffalo chicken wings, and good ol’ American football. Everyone’s got something to enjoy at the big game, whether that’s the competition itself or, for those of us unable to enjoy sporting events due to PTSD over a childhood of getting picked last, trailers for a movie in which Scarlett Johansson plays a sexy police robot. The Super Bowl regularly doubles as the premiere for a handful of brand new previews of upcoming blockbusters, and Paramount has done us all the solid of giving us a three-day jump on the fun.
Nicolas Cage Crashes All-Cage Film Fest to Read ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ in Classic Cage Move
For the past few Januarys, the good folks at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin have thrown a celebration of cinema’s greatest living actor called C4GED, in which they screen a surprise selection of five films starring Academy Award-winner Nicolas Cage back to back. Whether you fall into the so-bad-he’s-good camp or rightly recognize the Cage as a genuinely masterful and widely misunderstood thespian, it’s a roaring good time for all, with an open invitation extended to Cage so that he may come and receive happy birthday wishes. (The festival was specifically scheduled to fall in Cage’s birth month.) He’s never taken them up on the offer before, but this year was a little special.
Heads Get A-Splodin’ in New Teaser for ‘The Belko Experiment’
The strict dictionary definition of the word ‘new’ is as follows: “not existing before; made, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time.” So in the most literal sense, the trailer for The Belko Experiment that the film’s screenwriter James Gunn posted on his Facebook page last night is indeed new. It includes about fifteen seconds of fresh footage, in which Gunn’s brother Sean (so lovingly referred to as “Marty Espenscheid AKA Kraglin from Guardians AKA Kirk from Gilmore Girls AKA my idiot brother Sean” in the post) sneaks onto the roof of his office building with a couple coworkers for a quick all-natural smoke break. “Did you happen to read what you signed when you started working at this place?” he warns.
Descend Into Madness as You Watch the Psychedelic, NSFW Trailer for ‘Kuso’
Musician Steven Ellison first came to prominence under the moniker Flying Lotus, anointed as the toast of the hip-kid music blogs for his mind-expanding fusion of glitchy electronica and free jazz. He assumed the alias of Captain Murphy in 2012, pivoting from composing into rapping with the instant cult smash mixtape Du∆lity, a dense stew of stoner wordplay and snippets of audio from forgotten B-movies. His encyclopedic knowledge of bizarro cinema has evidently informed his newest career move — the poster for Ellison’s debut feature film Kuso simply reads “A film by Steve,” but the polymath’s latest project looks like anything but a return to basics. It’ll debut at the Sundance Film Festival in the days to come, and with a brief trailer now running online at Deadline, us folks at home can get a taste of the acid tab Ellison’s about to drop on Park City.
Brutal New ‘Logan’ Trailer Brings the X-Men Into the Real World
The most jarring line in the new trailer for James Mangold’s increasingly buzzy Wolverine spinoff Logan comes when the gruff mutant informs his young charge, “This is the real world. People die.” He tells her this after seeing one of her vintage X-Men comic books, and informing her that the team’s actual exploits bear little resemblance to what’s on the page. It all sends a clear message: this is a film unlike the solo Wolverine pictures that came before it, distinctive both in its high stakes and self-awareness. It’s a sharply written moment, but the new clip doesn’t linger on it for too long before getting to the good stuff — in this instance, a young girl cutting off an adult man’s hands.
Ireland Looks Bloody Brutal in First ‘Bad Day for the Cut’ Trailer
This morning, our trusty staffers Matt Singer and Erin Whitney head off to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, the biggest week in American indie cinema. For us commoners who won’t be able to attend, however, we’ll have to subsist on the steady stream of coverage along with the deluge of trailers that always accompanies these parade of premieres. The next week-or-so will offer first looks at the toast of the fest in an effort to get the general public gassed for an eventual wide release, and the fun got going today with a sneak peek at one of the Midnight selections.
Ryan Reynolds Will Go ‘F–king Crazy’ If ‘Deadpool’ Lands a Best Picture Nomination
An “October surprise” refers to a major revelation deliberately timed to influence the outcome of a Presidential election. The Oscars, then, regularly offer a January surprise, in which a contender comes out of nowhere to elbow their way into the awards conversation. This year’s big shock is permanently smirking superhero send-up Deadpool, which has already upended plenty of predictions by racking up nominations among various industry guild groups. Superhero movies have never been able to crack the Best Picture race, but perhaps the self-reflexive meta streak in Deadpool could give it the edge it needs to sneak into the category. The nominations will be announced one week from today, and who’ll end up at the big dance is anyone’s guess.
Apple Plans to Break Into Hollywood with Original Movies and TV Shows
Chances are, you’re currently reading these words on a phone, computer, or tablet manufactured by Apple. Maybe on your morning commute, you listen to music downloaded from the ITunes Music Store. If you are an on-the-go sort of person who’s not afraid to be made fun of, you may have an Apple Watch wrapped around your wrist right now. The tech giant’s influence has permeated so many facets of modern life, and as we patiently await Apple’s big foray into the burgeoning field of teledildonics, they’ve announced plans to plant their flag on one more heated battlefield.