This is the edition wherein we showcase upcoming movies where the, or a, main star seems to be a questionable, surprising or downright bizarre casting choice. It could pay off! Or it could not! We’ll just have to wait and see…

In Bruges

Colin Farrell, who, as far as I could tell, had disappeared off the face of the earth after all the drinking and the starlet-bedding, is in no less than THREE new movies in the upcoming months—Woody Allen-goes-dark Cassandra’s Dream, another corrupt brother cop movie called Pride and Glory, and this, In Bruges, written and directed by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, who writes very violent, prize-winning plays of angry men. With its Carnivale-esque fonts and bouncy ethnic “We’re gangsters but we’re funny!” music, it actually looks…kind of good? The opening moment is pretty well done and chilling, the concept is a solid, if common, one, and is it just me or is Colin actually totally funny? His line about why Bruges doesn’t impress him is pretty perfect, and all his little scowls are both cute and kind of really amusing. In Bruges is currently buzzing away at Sundance, and well, I”m pretty excited. Welcome back, Colin.

In Bruges comes out in limited release on February 5.

Wanted

James McAvoy is having the best year ever. Basically unknown until he was a goat-man in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, he is now starring in Golden Globe and possibly Oscar-winning Atonement and will soon be an action hero in Wanted, doing the things that action heroes do (make out with a heavily eye-linered Angelina Jolie and follow wise pontificating from Morgan Freeman). Despite the fact that his name here is Wesley (which I really hope is a Clone High reference), this trailer rules. The supermarket opening is perfectly mysterious, and it’s stuffed with all those action shots that pop in a trailer and usually get drawn out too long in the actual movie, with the fire and the sliding under a train and the very fast cars, overlaid with a nicely heavy if ultimately meaningless justification for killing lots of people in exciting ways. And that part of him going through the glass is so cool. I’m not sure James deserves all this, but I hope it works out for him…

Wanted comes out on June 27.

21

Hey look who it is, Hey Jude himself. Even the people who hated Across the Universe called Jim Sturgess an instant hearthrob, though I’m not sure I see what the fuss is about. Which goes double for the trailer, here—lots of things and people that are sometimes very interesting, but sometimes…not. I tend to love Vegas movies, but somehow the math and the Jim Sturgess goes baaad and the smarmy Kevin Spacey seem unexciting this time. I mean, it’s probably a bad sign when my favorite part of the trailer is the funny Asian guy from The Perfect Score, right? Actually, the whole thing seems a little too reminiscent of a big budget version of that classic SAT flick, and, really…that’s not a good thing.
Do you think they used the Doors song on purpose, in reference to Sturgess’s classic rock credentials? It’s effective, I will say that. Debauchery, coming this way!

21 comes out on March 28.

Mamma Mia

So, a movie based on a profoundly fluffy musical of ABBA songs sounds awful, right? But somehow, they got Meryl herself, who’s usually seen around this time of year in entirely different sorts of movies, and somehow…this looks…fun? Sun! Pierce Brosnan! ABBA songs, which, y’know, are kind of catchy! Amanda Seyfried, of Mean Girls (And Big Love, and Veronica Mars!) nd Meryl can do anything, right? Maybe that’s why she’s here in the first place: she’s on a personal quest to play every type of role possible and decadent beach ingenue mother is one that hadn’t come up yet. Well she got it, and she’s gonna hit it out of the park, ogling and seductive sighs and sun-bleached hair and all. Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia comes out on July 18.

PS. Following up on previous Trailers mentioned: Cloverfield came out Friday and was exactly as awesome, in my mind, as the trailer suggested. And the full Dark Knight trailer is up and my excitement is further stoked—go Heath Ledger, go!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Leisure, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.