Subject: Misc: Movie Trailers--Millennium Philcon

From: Mark R. Leeper <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 02:31:50 -0000

Movie Trailers--Millennium Philcon
                Film comment by Mark R. Leeper

The World Science Fiction Convention's annual presentation of 
upcoming films has devolved into a presentation that is mostly 
just a string of trailers for the films.  It is really tough to 
tell how good films are from the trailers.  I have become cynical 
about the films shown in these presentations.  And while I was 
absolutely right about some films such as BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 2, I 
would be less than honest if I did not say that at least two 
excellent films when previewed looked like they would not be worth 
seeing.  GATTACA, the best science fiction film of the 1990s 
looked from the trailer like a bad made-for-TV distopia.  REQUIEM 
FOR A DREAM, which previewed like an incoherent mess, was a very 
fine film also.  This report is doubly removed from reality since 
it is based on the trailers and not the films themselves and 
further it is only my impressions from the trailers. 
 Two positive trends are noted.  First overall the films look 
better this year than they have in previous years.  A lot of these 
films I have some interest in seeing.  The second not entirely 
unrelated trend is that while the film industry used to shy away 
from films set in historical eras under the assumption that 
schools were not doing a good job in teaching history.  This year 
there seem to be four or five historical films.  I hope they do 
well. 

Now to my comments on the trailers. 

1. PLUTO NASH stars Eddie Murphy in a comedy crime film set on 
what appears to be the moon.  The idea, if that is the idea, has 
been done before as a nearly missing film, MOON ZERO TWO.  That 
was not a great film, but this does not look a whole lot better.  
It look not so much like a space movie starring Eddie Murphy as an 
Eddie Murphy movie set in space.
 
2. ROLLERBALL is a remake of Norman Jewison's film based on a 
story by William Harrison.  The original film mixed sports, 
violence, a view of the future, and introspection.  The latter two 
are not obvious in the trailer of the new film.  It has some 
familiar actors including Jean Reno.  I am not fond of sports 
films, but it deserves a chance. 

3. SHALLOW HAL is a trailer I have already seen in the theaters.  
Jason Alexander of Seinfeld plays the main character.  The plot is 
the story of a man who wants to date only beautiful women.  Under 
hypnosis he is made to believe that even unattractive women are 
attractive.  He falls for a grossly fat woman whom he sees as 
Gweneth Paltrow.  The trailer has scenes that shows how fat the 
woman is, then we see it from the main character's eyes and it is 
Gweneth Paltrow who is making the huge splash in the pool.  The 
film looks like a compendium of tasteless fat jokes simply being 
filmed with Paltrow.  Curiously in a film industry that likes to 
use younger stars, an older man, perhaps older than would be 
dating, is cast as the disagreeable lead.  Why insult the ticket-
buying demographic?  That is the bad news.  The good news is that 
showing surprisingly more taste than the filmmakers did the 
audience booed the film.  Perhaps mean-spirited, poorly written 
comedies are losing favor.  I hope this film is not as bad as the 
trailer makes it look, but there is little reason for hope. 

4. Recently we saw a fairly interesting update of an old low 
budget William Castle horror film, THE HOUSE ON THE HAUNTED HILL.  
That formula continues with the creaky classic 13 GHOSTS.  
F. Murray Abraham dies leaving a strange futuristic haunted house 
to some younger (presumably) relatives.  If you have to remake an 
existing film, this is the way to do it.  I cannot believe anyone 
has much fondness for the original.  The first version was really 
just an exploitation film to show another use of red and green 
cellophane.  You had a ghost viewer so you could see or not see 
the ghosts.  Of course that is the kind of film that should be 
remade, not a CASABLANCA that so many people love. 

5. AFFAIR OF THE NECKLACE seems to be a stylish film set in the 
late 19th century.  It is hard to tell a lot from the trailer, but 
a film that works so hard to create the period probably will show 
care in other aspects. 

6. HEARTS IN ATLANTIS stars Anthony Hopkins in a Stephen King 
story with a light tinge of fantasy.  Hopkins appears to be a 
psychic who comes to live in a boarding house and forms a 
relationship with a young boy.  Hard to say, but the film appears 
to take place at least a few years in the past.  Word from film 
critic Dan Kimmel is that Hopkins is better than the rest of the 
film, though in my experience Kimmel tends to be less fond of 
sentiment than I am.  [Previewed at Toronto: Not too bad a film.] 

7. The next trailer seems to be telling the story of a young man 
in early 19th Century France.  The dialog calls him Edmund Dantes 
and I let out an involuntary "Ah" of approval.  The man is treated 
grossly unjustly and thrown into prison over circumstantial 
evidence.  Of course he will spend years in prison only to escape, 
find a fabulous fortune, and seeking revenge return to France as 
his alter ego THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO.  The Alexander Dumas 
classic was due for a remake.  It has been done for TV, but I do 
not know of a theatrical version since the old Robert Donat 
version.  This version seems to play up his sword skills to add 
some visual excitement.  This one I am looking forward to. 

8. MONSTERS, INC is a Pixar animated film whose trailer is already 
in theaters.  There is a good reason monsters hide under the bed.  
They are as afraid of humans as humans are of them.  Monsters have 
there own world and one day a little girl crosses over.  The film 
looks charming.  Billy Crystal, John Goodman, and James Coburn 
lend their voices. 

9. BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF looks like a very intriguing French 
horror film set in the 18th century.  The countryside is up in 
arms about some sort of wolf-like monster making life difficult 
for the local populace.  It may resolve to a werewolf film or may 
be something better.  [Previewed at Toronto; familiar story, good 
period look sabotaged by anachronistic martial arts and 20th 
Century political attitudes.  Disappointing in the long run.] 

10. "Smallville", while it was not made clear here, is a TV 
series, not a film.  It is about a humanoid from outer space sent 
to Earth by spaceship as a child.  The boy, Clark Kent, is growing 
up not knowing who he really is and keeping to himself the fact he 
seems to be acquiring special powers including indestructibility.  
A lot of his problems are ones that any teenager might have.  Some 
are unique to him.  At least in the trailer there is no mention of 
the future we know he will have.  (Nod, nod.  Wink, wink.)  It 
does sound like it will have more human values, perhaps like 
Buffy. 

11. Next was a small piece on a theatrical film network film based 
on POWERPUFF GIRLS, the TV series on the Cartoon Network.  It does 
not look like very good animation. 

12. Another Alexander Dumas story is THE MUSKETEER.  This is an 
adaptation of the frequently film adapted THE THREE MUSKETEERS.  
The period seems almost stylishly recreated but the photography is 
dark.  Perhaps inspired by CROUCHING TIGER, the athletic seem to 
be assisted by an excess of not very believable wirework.  
Probably not very good.  [By now it has been released and has 
gotten very, very bad reviews.] 

13. THE SCORPION KING is the origin of the character we saw in THE 
MUMMY RETURNS.  Not a lot can be told from the trailer, but the 
style seems to be borrowed from CONAN THE BARBARIAN.  That could 
be worse.  The character certainly did not look that good in THE 
MUMMY RETURNS.  Still the audience seemed unimpressed by the 
trailer and hissing was heard. 

14. The audience was much more pleased by the trailer for BC.  We 
could not tell a lot about the movie, but what we saw was a 
sequence featuring a squirrel on an ice field trying to bury an 
acorn and causing himself a great deal of trouble in the process.  
The film is done in 3D animation.  Whether BC is from the comic 
strip "Hey, BC" or if it is just some other story set in 
prehistoric times is not clear. 

15. FROM HELL stars Heather Graham and Johnny Depp.  The style 
seems similar to that of SLEEPY HOLLOW.  This film takes place in 
London and is the story of a detective tracking Jack the Ripper.  
It is said to have an authentic recreation of the original murder 
sites.  Stage sets were made on a scale unmatched since the Golden 
Years of Hollywood.  It also claims to be a new way of looking at 
the Jack the Ripper case. 

16. In THE ONE with something like 123 counts of murder, a killer 
(played by Jet Li) goes from one parallel universe to the next (as 
in the TV show  "Sliders") killing people.  Our universe's version 
of this person (also played by Jet Li) decides to stop him.  Again 
the action is enhanced and made less believable with an excess of 
wirework.  Delroy Lindo co-stars. 

17. This coming attraction is a teaser showing a bank robbery 
filmed to reasonable action film standards.  The robbers escape by 
helicopter.  As the helicopter weaves its way among buildings 
suddenly it stops still in air.  Then it seems to be bouncing 
around in air.  It has been caught in a giant spider web.  Cut to 
the title SPIDERMAN.  We see one side of the head of Spiderman 
with a big dewy green eye.  Now did Spiderman figure their route, 
get ahead of them and spin his web in time to catch them?  Did I 
miss something?  Was he also bitten by a radioactive version of 
The Flash?  People were making a big fuss over this, but it does 
not look that good. 

18. HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCEROR'S STONE looks like it has nice 
art and production design.  It features actors like Maggie Smith 
and John Hurt.  It looks like it recreates the look of a British 
boarding school very nicely.  You can tell that a lot of care is 
going into the production.  Chris Columbus will direct. 

19. As the capper of the previews is a trailer for Peter Jackson's 
production of J. R. R. Tolkein's THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  This 
looks like a beautiful production up to some of the best artwork 
that has been used to illustrate the classic fantasy.  Jackson 
will do the trilogy as three films. 

The trailers were followed by a question and answer period with 
presenter Jeff Walker.  The following are among the facts gleaned.  
These should be regarded as strong rumors:
-- MATRIX 2 will be released soon.
-- 2001 and E.T. will get re-releases.  E.T. will be in a special 
enhanced edition.
-- A title has been announced for the next STAR WARS film.  It 
will be STAR WARS 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES.
-- A live action SCOOBY DOO film is coming.
-- A new SUPERMAN is under development
-- A FANTASTIC FOUR film is in the works
-- An Elfquest film is being developed
-- X-MEN 2 is being made with new mutants.  The world needs some 
more new mutants, I guess.
-- PERN, a TV series based on the Anne McCaffrey novels, was in 
the works but the plug was pulled by Warner Brothers TV and is 
looking for new venue.
-- QUEEN OF THE DAMNED by Anne Rice is coming.
-- A HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY MOVIE is tied up since author 
Douglas Adams died.

					Mark R. Leeper
					[email-masked]
					Copyright 2001 Mark R. Leeper

-- 
Mark R. Leeper, <[email-masked]>
http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/
Or try your search engine on "Mark Leeper"

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