Trailer Park

In between footage of Michael Phelps and Romanian marathon runners, I've been watching the Olympics and their side stories of panda cubs and beach volleyballers visiting the Great Wall.  Somehow it had slipped my mind (hey, lotsa DVDs coming out, so little time to think about all of them) that I could see more of the same (the China sights, not Phelps--sorry, fans) with a new documentary called Wild China, which was not so coincidentally released this month (there's a Blu-ray too).   Our reviewer says "We see the jumping spiders atop Mount Everest, the winding grace of the Great Wall, and of course some shy pandas that many people equate with China." You can watch the trailer below:

I've been nursing an embarrassing crush on the awkwardly adorable Michael Cera since his George Michael Bluth days on Arrested Development.  If I were a sixteen year old girl I would definitely have his pictures plastered all over my walls and probably be president of his fan club (do teen stars still have fan clubs these days? Answer: they have fansites).  As my teenage years are safely and happily behind me, I instead indulge my crush by carefully following Cera's IMDB profile and making sure I see basically every thing he does - sometimes many, many times.  This occasional (constant) perusal of Cera's body of work has paid off many times over.  First I discovered the very funny online series Clark and Michael and the still "rumored" Arrested Development movie (yippee!).  If those weren't two good enough reasons to rejoice, I found out the Cera has been cast as the lead in the adaptation one of my favorite books as a teenager - Youth in Revolt.  A happy day indeed.   

Today's IMDB check-in brought me another exciting discovery - the trailer for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is up.  Movies that function as entertaining films and as a showcase for good music (that's definitely a top 10 list for another day) are a weakness of mine and Nick and Norah looks likely to deliver.  Cute teenagers + romantic comedy + super hot young cast + hip soundtrack = a movie I will inevitably love.  Looks like I'm waiting until October to see this on the big screen, but for now the trailer and my copy of Juno will have to get me through.

-- Kira

See how the Dragon Emperor was brought (back) to life in China with this behind-the-scenes footage.

Muggles are celebrating everywhere! This trailer has been LONG overdue--especially after that silly teaser before The Dark Knight.

If you are a hard-core Harry Potter fan like me, then your head is probably about ready to explode right now. Some of the coolest "scenes" in the stories are when Harry and Dumbledore go back and magically explore Tom Riddle's (aka Lord Voldemort) memories--and we find out how a young orphan turns into the darkest wizard of all time.

That's what this trailer focuses on--and it's bloody awesome! Highlights from these magical 100 seconds include the child Tom Riddle being discovered by Dumbledore, and Dumbledore conjuring a wall of fire (probably to fend of the inferi). See for yourself. Accio November!

--Jordan Thompson

That's Dubya to you, that is, our current Commander in Chief. Oliver Stone has been hurriedly working on a biopic set to release before the election, marking the first time a president has been portrayed in film while he's still in office. In this teaser, Josh Brolin plays Dubya as a hard-partying Yalie reprimanded by George Sr. (James Cromwell, who makes no attempt whatsoever to look or sound like H.W., and therefore you think he's some college professor at first) about making something of himself. There's flashes of the supporting cast (Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, etc.) With "What a Wonderful World" playing over the teaser, I wonder where Stone's going with this one. --Ellen

Got Terminator fever with the upcoming release of the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles?  Here's the teaser trailer from the upcoming movie Terminator Salvation, starring Christian Bale and scheduled to open in theaters in May 2009. This trailer was apparently released to coincide with tomorrow's opening of another Bale movie you may have heard about, The Dark Knight.  --David

Disney has released the first trailer for High School Musical 3, the final(?) installment of its blockbuster franchise which leaps into the big screen for the first time. Surely this won't really be the last one ever, although the original cast will have graduated and it seems unlikely that they will be filming anything called  College Theater Department Musical. (Plus, won't Troy have gotten a groovy basketball scholarship that takes him elsewhere?) As I write this, of course, disneysociety.com has posted a rumor that the studio is thinking about High School Musical: The College Years. (Let's think about that title for a bit.)

So enjoy Troy, Gabriela, Sharpay and the gang as they cuddle in the rain, dance in a junkyard (very "Greased Lightning" of them), and duet across a basketball court. What do you think? Will this cable hit work on the big screen? -- Ellen

First impressions of upcoming movies, based on trailer (Click on the title to watch the high-resolution trailer: You may need QuickTime for most). Release dates are subject to change. --Ellen

Quantum of Solace (dir. Marc Forster): Yeeeeeee-haw, and the countdown begins to the next Daniel Craig Bond movie (Pierce who?), which can only mean more abs and more grit. Now that our favorite MI-6 agent has been betrayed by the woman he loved, he's on a trail of vengeance to find out about the man responsible for her deceit. Rumor has it Quantum is the name of the shadowy organization that connects Mr. White (featured at the end of Casino Royale) and Le Chiffre (Casino's villain), which could explain the title; otherwise we're at a loss, surmising that the new Bond women (Gemma Arterton and Olga Kurylenko) are the ones helping to give a "quantum of solace" our heartbroken agent. Whatever that means. But back to the trailer, which... oh never mind, we can't wait. (Nov. 7)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (dir. David Fincher): Brad Pitt stars as a man born as an old geezer (but tiny like a baby, which makes for one odd-looking infant) who ages backwards, further complicated when he falls in love with Cate Blanchett and proceeds to go from the older man to the younger man. With David Fincher directing and Tilda Swinton and Julia Ormond also in the cast, the curiosity factor (excuse the pun) is high. But the last shot of the trailer (an old lady, presumably Blanchett, walking an infant down the street) makes us wonder: Will she seriously change his diapers? And if you look carefully at the shot of Pitt with a baby, that's none other than Ms. Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. (Dec. 19)

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (dir. Rob Cohen): Jet Li really needs to stop playing third banana to funny white guys. Is this really what he crossed over into American films for? For every Hero, there seems to be three Lethal Weapon 4s, Forbidden Kingdoms, and now The Mummy, where his battles with Michelle Yeoh--which sound great in theory--are overshadowed by Brendan Fraser's bulgy-eyed panicked expressions. And in place of Rachel Weisz (who dropped out because she'd just had a baby and didn't want to bring him to China for production) we have Maria Bello, whose British accent is a little jarring to see after her usual tough-Philly brogue. Still, No one predicted the success of the first two Mummys, so there's no reason why this would be any different. (Aug. 1)

Twilight (dir. Catherine Hardwicke): There have been many fantasy stories who laid claim to the Harry Potter throne: Lemony Snicket, Spiderwick Chronicles, and now Twilight, which is for a slightly older crowd than the others but still has a chomp-size following. It's about vampire-nonvampire romance, you see, but what do you do when you're afraid your desire for your girlfriend borders on hunger? This teaser trailer isn't filled with much more than longing glances and some pretty kickass vampire powers, but it does have one thing in common with Mr. Potter: Its vampiric star, Robert Pattinson, played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. (Dec. 12)

Swing Vote (dir. Joshua Michael Stern): As smooth as Kevin Costner used to be in the '80s, he's even more likeable as the beer-slugging, belly-scratching, backwards-cap-wearing losers he's played in The Upside of Anger, Tin Cup, and now Swing Vote. Only this time he's the one guy whose vote will decide the presidential election. Leave it to his daughter (Madeline Carroll), who falls into the requisite "precocious" category, and a reporter (the gorgeous Paula Patton, Deja Vu and also known as Mrs. Robin Thicke) to teach him to care about his country.  (Aug. 1)

--Ellen

Here's another trailer from the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars for you.  --David

Are you excited about the next Stargate SG-1 movie, entitled Stargate: Continuum? So are we, and part of the reason is that it'll be the first Stargate in Blu-ray! Here's a short trailer to watch.  --David