Movie Trailer Trash
By Matt Harvey
_____With War of the Worlds being
reasonably successful, Hollywood
has finally brought its 19-week box
office slump
to an end. Before this
film hit theaters, cocaine demand was at an
all-time high as executives
and producers enjoyed one final bender
on the studio’s dime before
they lost their jobs.
_____Some
quasi-experts say the slump was due to a still lagging
economy. Others
feel it’s due to poor marketing plan execution.
However,
the most commonly fingered excuse has been the quality of
the films available.
To wildly accuse a collective institution such as
Hollywood of offering
sub-standard product is an unfair slap in the
face. If nothing else,
Hollywood has always been known for quality
and integrity. But is this
true for this summer’s offerings? As a public
service, I have illegally
downloaded trailers for some of the films that
are still to come this
summer and reviewed them for your protection.
_____Dark
Water is a sensitive, heart-warming and touching
tale of a
woman terrorized by an unidentifiable black liquid. The film’s
title
refers to the liquid as “water”, however as the story
is set in New York
City, that is just an assumption based on the regular
shade of the
Hudson River. Although she tries to bring the goods, Jennifer
Connelly
is out-acted by the liquid. SPOILER WARNING: At the end of the
picture
we find out her apartment was built on top of an oil well. A
possible
Beverly Hillbillies themed sequel is in the works, with Connelly
slated
for the role of Granny.
_____Of
course War
of the Worlds is the box office
picture of the
summer for Tom Cruise, but it’s another film where
he’s going to
flex
his taut thespian muscles. In Risky Medicine, Cruise plays a self-
taught
psychiatrist who decides his years of help and healing are a
total fraud
based on a pseudo-science. He then goes on a hero’s quest
to teach
the world the right way to treat depression; marrying people
half your
age.
_____Deuce
Bigelow: European Gigolo; you think this
film is going
to be awful, right? Well you’re wrong! A plot may
not actually exist,
the acting is amateurish, but it’s an impressive
special effects tour de
force. It’s the most incredible train
wreck ever caught on film! It
should be noted that this is a high water
mark in the career
of Rob
Schneider. Honorable mention goes to the director for capturing
most
of the trailer in focus.
_____Into
the Blue stars Jessica Alba’s body and some other
people.
This action/heist/romantic/screwball/period/thriller set mostly
in the
water, has Jessica Alba’s body and friends discover
buried treasure
that’s in plain sight about four feet under
the water. Then they have
to keep their find a secret. They do for
about 45 seconds. Nice
effort.
Jessica Alba’s body does a sufficient job of carrying the
picture, being
that her soul is currently starring in Fantastic Four
and her mind is on
hiatus.
_____The
highly acclaimed and gifted actor/comedian Steve Martin
attempts to
commit career suicide by lethal inflection
of a French
accent in the
remake of The Pink Panther. The distraction
of tired
sight gags and poorly executed slapstick humor should hopefully
allow
audiences to forget they’re
bearing witness to the whoring of Peter
Sellers memory.
You can email Matt at editor@myhyena.com
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