Here’s one version of a trailer for Man of Steel, the Superman movie that opens June 14 (next weekend). Are you planning to see it? And if so, when? I just realized that I’ll be traveling for family events (birthdays and wedding) that weekend, so I won’t be part of the opening weekend crowd. Expectations are high for the film, as Warner Bros. needs a superhero hit. Marvel makes it look so easy, and the future of DC Entertainment will […]

At the Cannes Film Festival last month, the winner of the top prize, the Palme d’Or, was a French lesbian romance called Blue Is the Warmest Color. Turns out that it’s based on a graphic novel by Julie Maroh (which will be published in English this fall by Arsenal Pulp Press), making it the first film based on a comic to win the prestigious award. According to the NY Times, the movie was “celebrated for its explicit sex scenes”, which […]

I finally got a chance to see the 2010 movie adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel Tamara Drewe, and it was wonderful. Tamara Drewe (the movie) is a very British romantic comedy with a sprawling, talented cast and good observations about human nature. And writers. Roger Allam is a best-selling novelist cheating on his wife (well-played by Tamsin Greig, whom I knew from Black Books), who without thanks runs a writers’ retreat out of their farm home. Gemma Arterton stars […]

Out on Tuesday is Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite, a long title for a short (71 minutes) computer-animated original movie. It’s awfully cute. This film caused lots of giggling at our house, part just from the weirdness of seeing these characters as Lego, but more from how fun it all was. (I worry that some six-year-old is going to be disappointed that his Lego figures don’t walk and talk and clap by smacking their U-shaped hands […]

With one successful superhero movie in theaters now, it’s still not too soon for Marvel to start promoting the next one. Here’s the first trailer for Thor: The Dark World, arriving in theaters November 8. Chris Hemsworth returns as Thor, with Natalie Portman apparently unfortunately used as a bargaining chip to pressure him. Tom Hiddleston as Loki is always fun, plus this sequel adds Christopher Eccleston and Zachary Levi to Kat Dennings and Jaimie Alexander (as the bad-ass Sif). In […]

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming R.I.P.D., a buddy-cop action movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges as dead lawmen who work for the Rest in Peace Department hunting down bad escaped souls. The film, out this July, looks like a not-too-far-removed twist on the “saving the world from an alien invasion” idea. (And, once you consider “grizzled vet takes cute newcomer under his wing”, the Men in Black comparison becomes inevitable.) It’s based on a miniseries from Dark Horse […]

Which makes it, what, six times the fun? Marvel (Disney) has released a short (minute-long) trailer for Phase 2 of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe”, as producer Kevin Feige highlights what all this means. It’s all part of the promotion for the big Blu-Ray box set of Marvel superhero movies so far (delayed due to trademark violations around the case). Six movies on ten discs includes “collectible packaging supplemented by prop reproductions and artifacts from the motion pictures!” and a new […]