First, I read the Entertainment Weekly guide to Fall movies, which allowed me to make jokes like "Christian Bale is starring in the new Mary-Kate autobiography flick!" (He dropped to 98 pounds or something for his role in "The Machinist.") Then this morning, feeling sick and unmotivated, I went to Quicktime to check out the trailers for the films that looked interesting.

I (heart) Huckabees
Okay, I'm excited for this film. It's about existensial detectives! It's as close as I'm ever going to get to a Dirk Gently film, and it stars Marky Mark and Jason Schwartzman. The trailer is convincingly goofy ("Have you ever transcended time and space?" "Well, time, but not space... I have no idea what you're talking about.") and kind of off-beat-ly hilarious, without getting all Wes Anderson about it. Five stars.

Finding Neverland
Johnny Depp! With an accent! That usually works out pretty well. Also, Kate Winslet, whom I love. It looks excellent, if a little schmaltzy -- I really don't need to hear Johnny reassuring anyone that "Neverland is always there... If you just believe, Peter!" That's a little much. But I do look forward to this most Mirimax-y of Mirimax films. Four stars.

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events
Hmmm... Jim Carrey. Vicky sent me this book when I was in Japan, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't like, overwhelmingly awesome or anything. It was a little bit scary and a tad bit depressing, which I approve of in children's literature. Some of the beats in the trailer really work, and look amusingly dark and cool. Others scream "THIS MOVIE STARS JIM CARREY! BOW TO THE MASK! BOW TO HIM!" It gets a mixed prognosis from me. Two and a half stars.

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow
Jude Law. Jude Law!! (He's in six movies coming out this fall, so I'll get my fix one way or another.) He's dashing and looks cool. On the other hand, Gwyneth Paltrow and I have a fairly contentious relationship. In that, she contends that she's an actress, and I just don't buy it. It certainly looks cool, but EW points out that there were no sets used on it at all; everything was shot against greenscreen, and you can kind of tell. So on the one hand, yay for old-timey serial sci-fi and Jude Law. On the other hand, boo for dodgey CGI integration and Gwyneth's "acting." Three stars.

The Incredibles
Awww, superheroes! I love superhero flicks! And god knows Pixar makes excellent films. This one didn't reach out and grab me and make me want to watch it over and over for hours, like Monsters Inc. and Nemo did, but it wasn't boring, either. I'm not sure how I feel about the black superhero yelling "Woman, where my superhero costume at??" like a Martin Lawrence routine, though. Four stars.

Alfie
Jude Law!!1!!1! He and Damon Albarn look a bit alike, actually. Anyway, this is a remake, but I've never seen the original, so here's what I got out of it; Jude Law is gorgeous and charming, and he sleeps (charmingly) with many women in Manhattan. (Rachel's thought process: "I AM MOVING TO MANHATTAN NEXT WEEK! JUDE LAW!!11!1ONE!!!!") The trailer has some excellently cool 60's-style graphic design in it. Also, shirtless Jude Law, which made me actually gasp. In all seriousness, it looks excellent, so I'll be running out to see this. Five stars.

Team America World Police
Ah, puppet movies. Marionette movies, I guess. I am, to be honest, incredibly frightened by puppets and muppets and marionettes and other things with fake faces. I couldn't watch the episode of Angel where he turned in to a muppet, because it scared me to death. On the other hand, the trailer made me laugh out loud. I won't give the gag away, but it's clear Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote the copy. Long may they reign! If I liked puppets at all, I would go see this immediately. There's no actual dialog from the film in it, though, just a shot of a marionette giving a standard action-movie one-liner at the end, which is kind of bleh. Three stars.

Wimbledon
This has two strikes against it; I don't like chick flicks, and I don't like Kirsten Dunst. BUT. I absolutely love Paul Bettany, and I adore come-from-behind sports flicks. The Bad News Bears? Yes, please. The Mighty Ducks? I'll take all three. The trailer is awesome; funny, charming, and just watching it gets you revved up in that "Oh no! He has to wiiiiiiin!" kind of way. Even KD manages not to make me want to smack her, which is a pretty big step. This looks absolutely awesome, and I am THIS excited for it. Five stars.

Mr. 3000
Bernie Mac is sort of an enigma to me; on the one hand, he's often very, very funny, but on the other hand, he's sometimes not funny at all. Here's another sports flick, about an underdog, and this one is even about baseball (my sports kryptonite), but it looks pretty... eh. The trailer is so formulaic, I almost emailed Becky to ask if we'd written it accidentally, when we were writing Unfrozen Caveman Baseball Player : The Johnny Damon Story. No real laughs, nothing I couldn't predict right now with my plot-o-matic, and the upswell at the end is about him bringing them together as a team, rather than Wimbledon's most excellent focus on Paul Bettany getting self confidence and becoming Britain's sweetheart. (He should be!) Watched side-by-side, those two trailers play like a "Good Idea/Bad Idea" montage. I mean, it's about baseball, so I'll probably go see it anyway. Two stars.

Ocean's 12
There is nothing I don't love about this. NOTHING. The end. Five stars.

National Treasure
So, I figured, I'll watch this; why not? How about "Because it looks like Goonies for grownups, but stupider, and starring Nic Cage." That's a pretty compelling reason, actually. Everything about this is stupid, from the opening flashback to L'il Nic Cage, to the "map-on-the-back-of-the-Declaration-of-Independance" explanation. Painfully, horribly, awfully stupid. Someone, somewhere, must like Nic Cage and find him attractive, and if I ever meet that person I intend to give her the beating of a lifetime. One star, for saying "From the Producer of Pirates of the Caribbean" at the beginning, and making me smile fondly at the thought of Captain Jack Sparrow.
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# Posted by Rachel on 11:44 AM