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Trailer Trashin’: The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy Concludes with The World’s End

2013-05-14T18:39:22Z

Written by Timothy Monforton for CinemaNerdz

In the spirit of summer movies, this week brings the third-ever Trailer Trashin’ Double Feature, as I examine the new previews for White House Down and The World’s End. Now, let’s take a look at the UK teaser trailer for director Edgar Wright’s sci-fi comedy The World’s End.

Premise: Twenty years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell-bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King (Simon Pegg), a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their hometown and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, “The World’s End.” As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s, and reaching “The World’s End” is the least of their worries.

My take: I am a huge fan of Edgar Wright, the English director who helmed Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). He is responsible for some of my favorite comedies, and is a director whose work I will always support. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are the first two parts of a thematic trilogy of genre comedies, one not connected by narrative but instead by shared traits and motifs, all directed by Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg and Nick Frost. The trilogy is alternately known as either the “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” or the “Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy” – because of the shared elements of gory violence and a running joke about the British ice cream product Cornetto and its supposed effectiveness as a hangover cure. For a number of years now, Wright and company have talked about The World’s End, the planned third film which would take on the genre of science-fiction, but it kept being put on hold because of other projects. But now, the film is finally on its way. The first UK teaser trailer for The World’s End has arrived, and I think it looks like it could be another laugh riot.

A big factor in why the first two films of the Trilogy worked so well is the excellent casts, and that definitely seems to be the case here as well. In the lead roles, as always, are Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who here play, respectively, Gary King and Andy Knight. They’re both incredibly talented, and I like that Wright and Pegg have kind of flipped the dynamic between the two this time around. In both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Pegg played the more level-headed of the two while Frost was the bumbling but well-meaning one. But here, Pegg’s Gary is the irresponsible one while Frost’s Andy is serious and buttoned-up. The gang of five friends is rounded out by Paddy Considine, who worked with them in Hot Fuzz, Martin Freeman, who had brief appearances in both previous films, and Eddie Marsan. Rosamund Pike plays a woman apparently named Sam, who will probably be a love interest for either Gary or Andy. And the cast also includes Reece Shearsmith, Rafe Spall, Alice Lowe, David Bradley, and Michael Smiley, all of whom have appeared in one or both of the previous two films.

Judging from this trailer, the humor looks spot-on. So much of the laughs in the Cornetto Trilogy come from having these sort of momentous events happening in mundane settings, and the whole idea of a potentially apocalyptic alien invasion happening as the backdrop to five guys trying to complete a pub crawl is just inherently funny. We’ve got hilariously skewed priorities (“We are gonna get to The World’s End if it kills us”) and funny wordplay (“…to the bitter end. Or lager end.”). Even the names of the pubs make me chuckle and, given Wright and Pegg’s love of symbolism and foreshadowing, it’ll be fun to speculate about what we can expect based on those names. And the final moment shows that they are keeping up the running gag of each film having a scene where a character tries, and usually fails, to jump over a fence.

Simon Pegg in “The World’s End.

I also like what we see of the sci-fi elements of the film. While we know that it’s an alien invasion story of some kind, the exact nature of that invasion is not clear in this trailer. It’s also not clear whether the villagers are people who have been taken over by aliens or just aliens disguised as people, but I’m onboard with either scenario. And given the quick shot of Nick Frost dodging between three pointy metallic legs that stretch past the top of the screen, it looks like we might be getting some War of the Worlds-style alien tripods.

All in all, I think this is a great first look at what could be one of the best comedies of the year. I’ve been excited about The World’s End ever since it was announced, and this teaser has only increased my anticipation. I love both of the previous films in the “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy,” and this looks like a worthy conclusion. When the latter part of August rolls around, you can be sure that I’ll be checking out The World’s End on opening weekend.

ANTICIPATION: This looks brilliant, mate! Better go grab a pint and watch it!

Release Date: August 23^rd, 2013

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Rosamund Pike, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Thomas Law, Zachary Bailess, Jasper Levine, Flora Slorach, Reece Shearsmith, Rafe Spall, Alice Lowe, David Bradley, Mark Heap, and Michael Smiley
Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg

The post Trailer Trashin’: The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy Concludes with The World’s End appeared first on CinemaNerdz.

Trailer Trashin’: It’s Die Hard in the White House Again with White House Down

2013-05-14T03:51:21Z

Written by Timothy Monforton for CinemaNerdz

This week sees the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, another of my most anticipated films of the summer. And in the spirit of summer movies, this week brings the third-ever Trailer Trashin’ Double Feature, as I examine the new previews for White House Down and The World’s End. Now, let’s take a look at the second trailer for director Roland Emmerich’s action/thriller White House Down.

Premise: US Capitol Police officer John Cale (Channing Tatum) has just been rejected from his dream job of working for the Secret Service and protecting President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). Not wanting to let down his daughter Emily (Joey King) with the news, Cale takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is taken over by a heavily armed paramilitary group led by Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke). Now, with the nation’s government falling into chaos and time running out, it’s up to Cale to save the President, his daughter, and the United States.

My take: About every few years, we get another example of “dueling movies” – two films with the same or similar premise or subject matter released relatively close together. Back in 1998, we had two films about giant space rock threatening the Earth with Deep Impact and Armageddon. We got two films about Truman Capote with Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006). And just last year, we had dueling Snow White movies with Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman.

This year, we have two movies that can both be described as “Die Hard in the White House,” where a lone man has to rescue the President after hostile forces take over the White House. Back in March, we had Olympus Has Fallen, starring Gerard Butler as the hero and Aaron Eckhart as the President, and directed by Antoine Fuqua of Training Day (2001). That film got mixed reviews from critics, but was fairly successful at the box office. And in late June, we’ll the subject of this column, White House Down, starring Channing Tatum as the hero and Jamie Foxx as the President, and directed by Roland Emmerich of Independence Day (1996), among many other blockbusters. This is the second trailer for White House Down, and well I don’t know if I’ll see it at the theater, it looks like it could be a whole lot of explosive fun.

In the last few years, Channing Tatum has shown himself to be much more talented than a lot of people initially thought, and I think that a film like this, where he gets to both show off his action chops and play some comedic moments, is a good vehicle for him. After seeing Django Unchained, I gained so much respect for Jamie Foxx, and I think he looks like he’s having a lot of fun as President James Sawyer, even though it’s going to take more than a pair of glasses to make Foxx look like like someone who couldn’t handle himself in a fight. Joey King, who most people will know as either young Talia in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) or the China Girl in Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), plays John Cale’s daughter Emily, who is taken hostage during the attack on the White House, and I am grateful that they’re not playing the rebellious kid angle, because she seems to have a good relationship with her dad. Maggie Gyllenhaal is also on hand as a Secret Service agent, and I hope she gets some decent material to play. Jason Clarke plays the leader of the mercenaries that invade the White House, but we don’t really get to see him here. And some other notable names in the cast include Richard Jenkins, James Woods, and Lance Reddick, all of whom I’m happy to see appearing in a big summer movie.

I’ve had an interesting relationship with the work of director Roland Emmerich. For a long time, I only knew him as the guy who directed the awful American remake of Godzilla (1998), which, as a huge fan of the Japanese series, I absolutely despise. But later on, I saw his previous blockbuster Independence Day, which I absolutely love, and will defend for the rest of my life as a ridiculously entertaining popcorn movie. Other than catching most of Stargate (1994) on cable once years ago, I haven’t seen any of his other films. But I will say, this is the first new Emmerich film that I’ve actually wanted to see at the theater.

As you would expect from a Roland Emmerich film, the action looks really cool. We’ve got tons of gunplay, speeding cars, helicopters swooping low over the D.C. streets, fighter jets flying over the city, and even Air Force One getting blown up. Judging from this trailer, the action scene that most impresses me is the extended scene of Cale and Sawyer making their escape in the Presidential limo, particularly the moment of Sawyer leaning out the window and using a rocket launcher to blast a roadblock. Of course, the funny thing is that this is probably the most small-scale action film that Emmerich has done, just by virtue of the fact that it’s seemingly taking place mostly in one city, rather than having cities worldwide destroyed by aliens, monsters, or natural disasters.

Channing Tatum in “White House Down.” Photo by Reiner Bajo
© 2013 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I know it sounds hypocritical for me to be so positive about this when, back in January, I wrote a largely negative column about the first trailer for Olympus Has Fallen. In retrospect, I think a big part of why I was so down on Olympus Has Fallen was the fact that it seemed to be played so straight and so humorless that it ended up making a premise that is already a stretch into something completely unbelievable. By contrast, White House Down clearly does have a sense of humor, and because it’s operating on a more tongue-in-cheek level, it’s easier for me to accept the inherent goofiness of the concept. Ultimately, I think this film just looks like a lot more fun.

Ultimately, I’m way more interested in this movie than I had expected to be. I never thought I’d see a day where Antoine Fuqua and Roland Emmerich would both make what is, on paper, the same movie, and Emmerich’s is the one that would look less ridiculous. But that is exactly what happened here. With a cool cast and the promise of some great action, this looks like it could be absolutely ridiculous and a whole lot of fun. I’ll wait to see what kind of review it gets, but there’s a good chance that, come the end of June, I might be at my local theater checking out White House Down.

ANTICIPATION: I think I might vote with my wallet and go see it.

Release Date: June 28th, 2013

Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, James Woods, Garcelle Beauvais, Lance Reddick, Joey King, Rachelle Lefevre, Michael Murphy, and Nicolas Wright
Director: Roland Emmerich
Writer: James Vanderbilt

P.S. I was shocked and saddened to learn about the death of Ray Harryhausen last Tuesday. I’ve loved his amazing stop-motion animation work since I was a child, and I have no doubt that he played a large role in creating my love of cinema. My thoughts and prayers go out to Ray’s widow Diana, along with their family and friends. You were truly a legend, Ray, and we’ll miss you.

The post Trailer Trashin’: It’s Die Hard in the White House Again with White House Down appeared first on CinemaNerdz.

Enter to Win Tickets to an Advance Screening of Now You See Me

2013-05-14T02:18:15Z

Written by Administrator for CinemaNerdz

CinemaNerdz readers have a chance to receive complimentary passes to a preview screening of Now You See Me, the new film starring Morgan Freeman, Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Caine, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco.

For your chance to receive complimentary passes to see the film at the Emagine Novi in Novi, Michigan on Wednesday, May 29^th at 7:00 PM, just scroll down to the “Enter to Win” link further down on this page and click it.

You’ll then be directed to a form where you’ll be asked to provide your name and email. That’s it! You’re done! We’ll contact you if you’re one of our winners. But hurry because the contest closes at 11:59 PM on Monday, May 27^th, 2013!

ABOUT THE FILM

NOW YOU SEE ME: NOW YOU SEE ME pits an elite FBI squad in a game of cat and mouse against “The Four Horsemen”, a super-team of the world’s greatest illusionists. “The Four Horsemen” pull off a series of daring heists against corrupt business leaders during their performances, showering the stolen profits on their audiences while staying one step ahead of the law. (Summit Entertainment) This film is rated PG-13.

NOW YOU SEE ME opens in select theaters on May 31st, 2013!

Click here for more information on NOW YOU SEE ME!

Click the image below to enter the contest!

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