Turbo Trailer – Blink and You (Probably Won’t) Miss Him…

UK Release Date: 18th October 2013

Stars: David Soren (director), Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Luis Guzman, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriguez, Samuel L Jackson, Snoop Dogg.

Plot: A freak accident might just help an everyday garden snail achieve his biggest dream: winning the Indy 500.

With DreamWorks’ The Croods in cinemas this week, here is the trailer for the next DreamWorks animated film due for release later this year, with a quite frankly ridiculous plot of a snail trying to compete in the Indy 500 against real life cars… ridiculous…

Ridiculous but FANTASTIC. This is the kind of plot that can only work in animation and the trailer shows all signs of it being a hit for the slightly misfiring DreamWorks. They’ve put together a solid voice cast along with screenwriters who have previously worked on Shrek Forever After, Jack the Giant Slayer and The Wrestler.

What is clear from the trailer is that this is going to be a brilliant journey that audiences are going to be taken on and it’s going to be, probably, one of the feel good films of the year. The animation looks great as you would expect, the story is interesting, the cast is great, the laughs are there in the trailer. What’s not to like?

Gangster Squad Will Be The Coolest Movie of 2013

Gangster Squad was originally set to be released this year (2012) back in September, yet due to the tragic Aurora shootings the release date was pushed back and Hollywood execs felt the need to re-shoot what would no doubt have become an iconic scene in film history. The scene in question featured several of the characters shooting in to a packed screening at the cinema from behind the screen; obviously, this was changed as to not be associated with the Aurora shootings. However, now that everything has been amended Gangster Squad has a new trailer and a new release date of January 2013.

Gangster Squad is inspired by true events (although when a film says that you can never be sure just what is true and what has been fabricated) and Sean Penn plays famous gangster Mickey Cohen. The LAPD are undertaking an operation to keep the Los Angeles area free of gangsters in the 1940s and 50s and Cohen is at the centre of this scheme as he seems to be the most wanted gangster out there. Here is the trailer, you’ll get a better taste of the story from that:

 

 

The trailer does raise a couple of questions: Why does Ryan Gosling have such a squeaky voice? Did Emma Stone really believe that Ryan Gosling was a bible salesman? Is Emma Stone the most attractive actress working today? Who is the main good guy? But one thing the trailer does make clear is that Gangster Squad is determined to be a very stylish and quintessentially cool film.

The cast is one of the most exciting that I have probably ever seen. You’ve got the seasoned professionals in the form of Nick Nolte and Sean Penn; actors who have been around for a while but are now enjoying a reboot in their careers such as Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling, the latter of whom has established himself this year as one of the coolest men on the planet. Then you have the rising stars of the bunch with Emma Stone and Anthony Mackie all topped up with those actors you see in a lot of movies but never have a main role; Michael Pena and Giovanni Ribisi.

 

With a cast this good, this experienced and this versatile you need a director who is going to be able to get the best out of every single one of them whilst telling a brilliant story and giving the audience a real sense of being in the mid-twentieth century LA. In Ruben Fleischer I am not sure if they have that kind of director. Fleischer is pretty inexperienced and Gangster Squad looks as though it should be aiming to become one of the best gangster films of all time, yet Fleischer has mainly worked on comedies up until now so it could be a risk with him at the helm. If he gets it wrong the majority of the blame will fall his way, but if it goes right then this could be where Fleischer’s career really takes off.

Gangster Squad resembles Ocean’s Eleven in the way it carries itself and oozes style and substance and it has a cast to rival the George Clooney film as well. I am a fan of gangster and crime films and I am very excited to see how Gangster Squad turns out; I have a very high expectation for this one and am sure that it will not disappoint!

Everything Must Go Review

As soon as I finished watching Everything Must Go I had to Youtube the trailer because on the front of the DVD case the quote “sharply funny” was embedded along with “Ferrell has never been better”. These two quotes indicated to me that I would be watching a comedy and sure enough, the trailer makes Everything Must Go out to be a comedy drama. So I got all settled down, ready to laugh my head off at Will Ferrell doing some daft things… Everything Must Go should not be called a comedy.

Everything Must Go is more of an observation of five days into Nick Halsy’s (Will Ferrell) life; a small window which is enough to see his life be ruined. After losing his job for falling back into his alcohol addiction, Halsy returns home to find the locks on the door, gate and garage changed and everything he owns thrown out onto the front yard – this is the worst day of his life. Nick does nothing to change this and instead lives on his front yard until the police are called (who knew it was a crime to drink beer and have all your stuff on a front yard you have actually paid for?). Nick’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, detective Frank Garcia (Michael Pena) informs him that the law states you can hold a yard sale for five days and so Nick decides to sell all of his belongings.

It’s a nice story and despite it not being a comedy as it is so wrongly advertised what you actually get is a real gripping character piece. Will Ferrell, one of the best comedy actors of his generation (if not all time), is successful because he can actually act and here is has to rely wholly on those skills rather than comedic actions or elements and it is a terrific performance. For the most part this is an independently Ferrell film but with a few minutes on screen from the likes of Rebecca Hall, Michael Pena and Christopher Jordan Wallace the acting is really top notch.

The film doesn’t really give you that happy ending you would hope for after the first twenty to thirty minutes pretty much force you to watch the self destruction of a human life as we know it and Everything Must Go does leave the ending open without the audience knowing if Nick is going to turn his life around for good or not. One thing is for certain though, his friendship that grows with Rebecca Hall’s character and the young boy Kenny (Wallace) are very believable and warming relationships in an otherwise low tone of a drama.

Everything Must Go is a slow burner and as I mentioned before it is very much a character study but if you give it a chance and can stick with it past the first fifteen/twenty minutes then you will enjoy the story of Nick Halsy. Ferrell’s performance is enough to keep the audience’s attention even if you would rather see him in something like Anchorman. This won’t go down as one of the best films ever and it won’t win any fans for it’s guessable plot twists but it does invoke sympathy and tells a very good story.

My Rating: 6/10.

Action Packed Trailer for ‘End of Watch’

UK Release Date: 23rd November 2012.

Stars: David Ayer (director), Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick, Cody Horn, David Harbour.

Plot: Two young officers are marked for death after confiscating a small cache of money and firearms from the members of a notorious cartel, during a routine traffic stop.

From the writer of such crime and action films such as Training Day, The Fast and the Furious, S.W.A.T comes his latest film which is written, directed and produced by this man: End of Watch. Based on his previous films the action should be handled pretty well and will probably be placed above character in the order of prominence.

However, judging by the trailer, End of Watch seems to place more importance on character development and relationships that any of Ayer’s previous work so this could be a step in the right direction. Gyllenhaal and Pena play the two cops who come under attack by the drug cartel and hopefully their chemistry will be believable.

If the film is entirely shot in the same way as the trailer, with the action scenes sliced together with scenes that look like they are from a cop documentary then I would be very interested to see it. But the trailer seems to split itself into two halves. In the beginning it looks like a more realistic and real life look at the work of police officers, then it turns into just a generic action cop film. I think that once you’ve seen so many cop films they all become the same.

Saying that though, I do think End of Watch looks pretty good.