]]> http://theohoff.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/pic-of-the-day-101008/feed/ 1 Ted 63eb8bccdb895d9015776977cc1fe56d4624be2d_m1 http://theohoff.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/trailer-defiance/ http://theohoff.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/trailer-defiance/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:11:39 +0000 Ted http://theohoff.wordpress.com/?p=783 ]]>

Bond fighting Nazis. That’s all you need to know…

.

TRAILER: Variety

RELEASE DATE: December 12, 2008 (Limited)

SYNOPSIS:

Based on an extraordinary true story, “Defiance” is an epic tale of family, honor, vengeance and salvation in World War II. The year is 1941 and the Jews of Eastern Europe are being massacred by the thousands. Managing to escape certain death, three brothers take refuge in the dense surrounding woods they have known since childhood. There they begin their desperate battle against the Nazis. Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell star as brothers who turn a primitive struggle to survive into something far more consequential – a way to avenge the deaths of their loved ones by saving thousands of others.

At first it is all they can do to stay alive. But gradually, as whispers of their daring spreads, they begin to attract others – men and women, young and old – willing to risk everything for the sake of even a moment’s freedom. Tuvia (Craig) is a reluctant leader and his decisions are challenged by his brother, Zus (Schreiber) who worries that Tuvia’s idealistic plans will doom them all. Asael (Bell) is the youngest – caught between his brothers’ fierce rivalry. As a brutal winter descends, they work to create a community, and to keep faith alive when all humanity appeared to be lost.

“Defiance” is directed by Edward Zwick (“Blood Diamond,” “Glory”) from a screenplay by Zwick and Clayton Frohman, based on Nechama Tec’s non-fiction book of the same name. The producers are Zwick and Pieter Jan Brugge. The team recreating the forest haven includes two-time Oscar®-nominated cinematographer Eduardo Serra (“Blood Diamond,” “Girl with a Pearl Earring”), production designer Dan Weil (“Blood Diamond,” “The Bourne Identity”) and Oscar®-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan (“Gosford Park,” “A Room with a View”).

.

I’m currently smack-dab in the middle of reading the latest book (and first novel) from my favorite author, Chuck Klosterman, titled Downtown Owl, released a couple of weeks ago.  It’s great so far and I can’t recommend enough pretty much anything Klosterman’s ever written…

.

From Amazon:

Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn’t there. Disco is over, but punk never happened. They don’t have cable. They don’t really have pop culture, unless you count grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. They hate the government and impregnate teenage girls. But that’s not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it’s perfect.

Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. She gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer who listens to Goats Head Soup. Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years. He consumes a lot of coffee, thinks about his dead wife, and understands the truth. They all know each other completely, except that they’ve never met.

Like a colder, Reagan-era version of The Last Picture Show fused with Friday Night Lights, Chuck Klosterman’s Downtown Owl is the unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing. Loaded with detail and unified by a (very real) blizzard, it’s technically about certain people in a certain place at a certain time… but it’s really about a problem. And the problem is this: What does it mean to be a normal person? And there is no answer. But in Downtown Owl, what matters more is how you ask the question.

.

And FYI, Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is just about my favorite book ever. You can check it out here.

.

.

SONG: Walking on a Dream

ARTIST: Empire of the Sun

Much like Warner Brothers and director Zack Snyder did in the months before the release of 300, a screening was held this past Wednesday night in West Hollywood showcasing roughly 25 minutes of footage from the upcoming graphic novel adaptation.  The verdict?  Everyone will be watching the Watchmen come this spring…

.

From Chud:

From the scenes we were shown I feel comfortable saying that Snyder has nailed it. Watchmen looks amazing.

.

From Collider:

And just like “300,” he [Snyder] hit a home-run with everyone in attendance.

.

From Coming Soon:

Cue Bob Dylan’s “The Times, They Are A’Changin’” as we enter the opening credits, beginning with a shot of the 50′s-style Minute Men taking a group photo. There’s a lot of great bits against Dylan’s words, all captured in an almost-still kind of slow-motion. We’re taken through the whole history of superheroes in this world with many shots representing an alternate take on real-life historical events…

.

From Ain’t It Cool News (Report 1)

What’s your favorite opening title sequence of all time? Is it the glimpse inside the world of John Doe that kicks off SE7EN? Is it one of the beautiful stark graphic design trips by Saul Bass? Maybe one of the surreal titties-and-gun montages from a James Bond film? Whatever the case, get ready to add a title to that list, because the six minute opening title assault that kicks off WATCHMEN is one for the ages, a fascinating mini-movie that takes us through the whole history of this America-that-could-have-been.

.

From Ain’t It Cool News (Report 2):

… even if Snyder Bathgates the rest of the movie, those opening credits and Dr. Jon Osterman’s Glass-scored ascent from man to God are all-timers. Available evidence suggests that these passages won’t be isolated glimmers of genius. It’s taken two decades, but the light has reached us. People, I think Zack Snyder has conquered WATCHMEN.

.

From Variety:

He [Snyder] did the same thing two years ago for 300, screening additional footage that wasn’t shown at Comic-Con to generate advanced positive word-of-mouth. He got it then, he’ll get it again. The visuals are stunning. With Watchmen, he’s created a faithful adaptation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel that will satisfy fans. The characters pop off the screen; you can almost feel the texture of their suits, meticulously designed by Michael Wilkinson. The production design by Alex McDowell is overly theatrical but a world you want to visit. Overall, the sequences are mesmerizing and almost trance-like. And it’s dark. Very dark. The Dark Knight has nothing on the grit and violence that’s on screen.

.

Watchmen hits theaters and IMAX on March 6, 2009.  You can check out the teaser trailer here.  A new trailer is expected to debut with Quantum of Solace on November 14.

.

The “full trailer” (which apparently aired during Desperate Housewives last night) for Baz Luhrmann’s Outback-period epic, Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, has just been released online.  Any trailer featuring Explosions in the Sky as part of the soundtrack automatically gets a “must see” in my book, if only because it results in automatic chills.  I’m telling you, if C-SPAN had Explosions in the Sky playing over whatever life-sucking event they were featuring, I’d watch it 24/7.  Regardless, Australia still looks to be a pretty amazing film…

.

TRAILER: Trailer Addict

RELEASE DATE: November 26, 2008

SYNOPSIS:

“Australia” is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II. In it, an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local (Hugh Jackman) and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world’s most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. With his new film, Luhrmann is painting on a vast canvas, creating a cinematic experience that brings together romance, drama, adventure and spectacle.

.

Though somewhat vague (which is kind of the point, I guess), the trailer for Will Smith’s holiday ’08 drama, Seven Pounds, has made its way online…

.

TRAILER: The trailer has since been removed from the YouTube embed below, but you can still download the original feed here.

RELEASE DATE: December 19, 2008

SYNOPSIS:

Academy Award® nominee Will Smith reunites with the directors and producers of “The Pursuit of Happyness” for the emotional drama “Seven Pounds.” In the film, Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent with a fateful secret who embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers.

.

.

The full trailer for Brad Pitt’s holiday opus, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is finally here.  If anything, director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) looks to be delivering a visually stunning film, from the cinematography to the amazing effects work going into Pitt’s de-aging process.  Hopefully the story itself can live up to the precision and beauty of the assemblage of scenes found here in the trailer…

.

TRAILER: Apple

RELEASE DATE: December 25, 2008

SYNOPSIS:

“I was born under unusual circumstances.”  And so begins “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” adapted from the 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards.  A man, like any of us, unable to stop time.  We follow his story set in New Orleans from the end of World War I in 1918, into the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man’s life can be.  Directed by David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is a time traveler’s tale of the people and places he bumps into along the way, the loves he loses and finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, and what lasts beyond time.

.

.

I don’t know what bugs me more, the fact that Tom Cruise plays a German Nazi and doesn’t have a German accent – or, if he had gone with a German accent… the fact that Tom Cruise would be trying to pull off a German accent.  Both scenarios are (and would be) equally weird.  Either way, I’ve heard good things from Valkyrie test screenings (despite the many release date changes) and this trailer definitely seems to back up the relatively good buzz…

.

TRAILER: Yahoo! Movies

RELEASE DATE: December 26, 2008

SYNOPSIS:

Superstar Tom Cruise heads an international cast as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the aristocratic German officer who led the heroic attempt to bring down the Nazi regime and end the war by planting a bomb in Hitler’s bunker. The “July 20 Plot” on Hitler’s life is one of the most heroic but least known episodes of World War Two. Severely wounded in combat, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg returns from Africa to join the German Resistance and help create Operation Valkyrie, the complex plan that will allow a shadow government to replace Hitler’s once he is dead. But fate and circumstance conspire to thrust Stauffenberg from one of many in the plot to a double-edged central role. Not only must he lead the coup and seize control of his nation’s government… He must kill Hitler himself.

.

.