I saw this in 3D last night before Captain America and got super excited.  The first person shots were excellent eye candy in 3D (and a direct homage to Mirror’s Edge which I enjoyed).

I sure do love me some Spider-Man!

David Fincher directing and a soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross should intense at least…

From the few shots we get in the trailer it looks like they’re staying pretty close to the source material, which is great news.  I loved these books as a kid and read them all several times.  They’re all worth checking out if you’re still a kid at heart.

It seems the script is mostly based on The Secret of the Unicorn but apparently they’re also throwing in elements of The Crab with the Golden Claws and Red Rackham’s Treasure (which is actually a direct continuation of Unicorn’s story) to fill in the story.  Spielberg is directing the first one, while Peter Jackson is producing and on the hook for directing a sequel. Wikipedia has the details, of course.

PS: Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock is particularly inspired casting but the other cast is great too.

Will First Class scratch my itch? The trailer certainly does; let’s hope the movie proves just as awesome!

Sold.

Trailer/IMDb

I wish the trailer showed Barry Pepper too.

I’m personally not watching it to avoid spoiling any exciting bits it might reveal. Hopefully, I won’t have to walk out of the theater for Avatar or some other big movie this holiday.

Also, I like the trailer page design. It seems like they’re trying to duplicate the iTunes store pages. Right now the only movies that have it are the aforementioned IM2 and the new Shrek film. Hopefully it will roll out for more trailers soon.

Say what you will about Russell Crowe being a stereotypical Hollywood celebrity; he’s still a great actor. On top of that, no one does historical action/drama quite like Scott.

Sign me up.

Update (December 21st, 2009):
Since the studio is dumping this one in February after many delays they evidently don’t have much confidence in the film. I still love the cast and makeup, but the movie itself might turn out to be a bomb.

1. Sam Rockwell always kicks ass.
2. Kevin Spacey voicing a robot? Sign me up.
3. This awesome poster.
4. Clint Mansell is doing the score.
5. It’s a science fiction thriller. An under-appreciated genera.
6. The trailer blows my mind.

Certainly the most original looking film I’ve seen in a while. Nice use of Arcade Fire in the trailer.

I recommend clicking the links to the 720p or 1080p versions in the bottom left instead of watching the little Flash version.

Update: I just watched it and my pants are a bit damp…

(Via Kottke.)

I mean, ‘Star Whores’… SOLD.

Best comic book movie of 2009?

Update: If you’re looking for the music from the trailer, it’s a Smashing Pumpkins B-Side called The Beginning is the End is the Beginning. You can pick it up on Amazon’s MP3 store for just 89¢. I could pick out the artist but thanks to inFocus for the tip of the song name.

If names like David Fincher (director), Eric Roth (screenwriter), F. Scott Fitzgerald (story), and Brad Pitt (title character actor) don’t do it for you… well… you’re in need of some film lessons.

(PS: Whoever is doing Brad Pitt’s makeup is going to win an Oscar. You heard it here first.)

Update 1: Kottke is just as impressed, plus he dug up the Fitzgerald short story (now in the public domain).

Update 2: Unsatisfied with the HTML version of the story I linked to above, I created a PDF with an improved layout. Download it here (80 KB) and share it as you like.

Update 3: Apparently I wasn’t the only one with the idea to make a PDF.  Jonathan McNicol has done even more work on a PDF by fixing up errors in the text and doing an even better job typesetting it on a leaflet style.  He’ll be doing one chapter a day for the next 11 days.  The first chapter is up now.

Sweet.

Sweetness.

I’ve been waiting years for this…

(Hat tip to Cinematical and Gus Mueller.)

“Hey, Zach, what happened to Fast Track?” a fan of mine might ask. This is what happened to “Fast Track”: None of the stars of the movie (me, Amanda Peet, Jason Bateman) are available at all right now to promote the movie. It was supposed to come out this week, but between promoting the Scrubs musical and shooting Scrubs and sleeping and doing all my other projects, it became impossible to get out there and plug it. And you can’t release a movie without the stars of it going out and telling the world about it.

Part 2: The studio always hated the title, because the movie has nothing to do with a fast track. Nothing to do with tracks or fastness at all. So since we moved the date they seized the opportunity to change the name to “The Ex”, since it is indeed about a nightmare ex-boyfriend (Jason Bateman) who tortures a current boyfriend, me (Zach Braff).

Still no firm US release date, which is just not a good thing.

I can’t resist watching it over and over and over.

I’m going to do my best to not look at any more Spidey 3 stuff at all like I did for Revenge of the Sith.

If you’re weak willed like me you can catch the new trailer here (but skip the crappy Flash video and look for the 720p Quicktime HD link under the search bar at the top).

In other important comic book news (that I’m too lazy to link up right now):

• Iron Man: Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. Fucking fantastic casting there.
• Punisher 2 is a go this is great news because Tom Jane was awesome in the first (Travolta was not but he’s out in this anyway).
• Fantastic Four 2 is currently filming. The Silver Surfer will be rocking this one. Hopefully much better than the first. Cautious optimism here.
• The Dark Night: Heath Ledger is The Joker. I have complete faith in Nolan despite this odd choice. No word on other villain appearances though.
• Frank Miller’s 300 looks absolutely wonderful in this trailer.

Unfortunately the title seems to be somewhat foreshadowing because I can’t seem to dig up much info about it (it was supposed to be released in NYC yesterday according to IMDb) and the fact that it both the screenwriter and director are first-timers (or close) doesn’t help my confidence.

Hopefully this will turn out to be as interesting of a thriller as it looks, but it might be one to look up on Netflix in a few months if things don’t go so well for when it’s released in theaters.

Update (11/2/06): Cinematical has a review… but it’s hardly full of praise. Looks like a Netflix rental; too bad.

Bonus points for lots of broadswords and an evil John Malkovich!

I really should read the book before the movie hits in December, but I’m surely going to see it even if it sucks: dragons are my snakes on a plane.

It just so happens that I lucked out this time and said trailer also happens to look very good (instead of a trashy teen thriller or some crap like that). It’s called ‘The Motel‘ and the trailer just went up a week ago even though the movie seems to have been playing around for a long time. I’m going to steal the summary right from the Apple Trailers site since I haven’t actually seen the movie yet but I plan on doing so as soon as I can (which might, unfortunately, be when it is released on DVD):

Puberty sucks, and nobody knows it better than 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau). As he watches guests come and go, Ernest finds himself forever stuck at his family’s hourly-rate motel, where he divides his time between taking orders from his overbearing mom, cleaning up after whatever miscreants the motel may attract.

Check both the song and the movie out (and let me know if the film is as awesome as it looks).

To add to the growing list there’s a new incredible trailer for The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky. I can’t decide if I’m more excited about this or The Prestige (but I guess I get Hujack either way).