Trailer Hitch
By Jim Van Nest
June 1, 2006
Welcome to Trailer Hitch, BOP's look at the latest movie trailers to hit the Internet. Included this week are the adaptation of a beloved children's book, an adaptation of a beloved television show and we'll get a third helping of fast cars and terrible dialogue.
The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift – Opens June 16th
I may be the wrong person to review this trailer. I liked The Fast and The Furious, despite Paul Walker. But when Vin Diesel bagged out of the sequel, so did I. And after watching this trailer, I'm not in any danger of jumping back on the bandwagon. The third installment of this franchise takes place in Japan and centers around drift racing, a style of racing based on the concept of "oversteering"...you know, where the rear wheels seem to want to catch up and pass the front wheels. From what I can tell, an American outsider tries to enter the world of Japanese drift racing. Complete with hooking up with the wrong girl, winning the wrong race and getting on the bad side of the wrong guy, I just don't see anything new in this film aside from the style of racing. And I'll admit, the race scenes in the trailer will get your adrenaline pumping. They look pretty cool. My guess is if you loved the first two movies, you'll love this one. Me? I'll give it a pass.
Who Killed the Electric Car? – Opens June 28th
If you're like me, every time you drive by a gas station and see the price of a gallon of gas lingering between $2.75 and $3.00, it pisses you off. And if this pisses you off, I have a feeling that Who Killed the Electric Car? may make you homicidal. This documentary tells the story of General Motors EV1, an electric car produced in 1996 and now being shredded in an Arizona desert. I knew nothing about this car until I saw this trailer and now I have to see this movie. The line that got me the most was, GM decided to produce the Hummer instead of the EV1. Are you frickin' kidding me? Let's junk the electric car that would cost people the equivalent of 60 cents/gallon in favor of a truck that gets three gallons to the mile. With alternative fuel options being a huge topic in America these days, the timing of this film couldn't possibly be any better. And with elections coming in November, you can bet this movie will be getting quite a bit of press.
Pulse – Opens July 14th
Ok, this is one creepy looking flick. The trailer starts off with a suicide. Simple enough, right? Well, a couple days later, the guy who killed himself starts sending e-mails to his friends asking for help. Not simple anymore. It seems that somehow through our technology, the dead can re-enter our world to take from us what they don't have anymore...life. At a time when so many horror/thrillers are beating us over the head with blood and gore, it seems that Pulse wants to take us back a ways to the days where the imagination's ideas can usually be worse than the writer's. The best way to describe this is just creepy. It seems to have captured the feel of films like The Ring (which I didn't like, but the trailer was fantastic.) If the movie can live up to the trailer, we might be looking at the next Ring right here.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend – Opens July 21st
Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson headline Ivan Reitman's My Super Ex-Girlfriend. As the trailer says, this is a well-known story. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl and for whatever reason, boy breaks up with girl. But in most of these cases, the girl doesn't throw your car down the street and launch great white sharks into your bedroom. What Wilson doesn't know is that the heart he just broke belongs to a superhero who has no problem unleashing all of her super powers in his direction. I really like what I've seen of this film so far. While Owen Wilson plays a great goofball and slings one-liners with the best of them, Luke is the perfect straight man. And Thurman has spent just enough time with Tarantino to have the whole vengeful girlfriend thing down cold. With Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office), Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard and Wanda Sykes along for the ride, this film has some top-notch comedic talent. I'm having a hard time figuring out how this will be anything but hilarious.
Miami Vice – Opens July 28th
Okay, this trailer's been around for a while now. I've avoided it because I didn't watch the TV show and I really don't care for whole TV show-to-film thing. What I didn't realize was that Michael Mann produced the show. And Michael Mann wrote and directed the film. So, with this new knowledge, I clicked on the trailer. And I like it. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx take the lead in a film that looks nothing like the TV show to me. What we see is a fast paced action thriller where Crockett and Tubbs are deep undercover in the Miami drug world. Crockett seems to have fallen for the dealer's girlfriend and the lines between good guys and bad guys seem to get blurred. What can I say? This trailer, plus Mann, plus Foxx, plus Farrell add up to me seeing this movie in the theater rather than maybe renting the DVD.
Snakes on a Plane – Opens August 18th
And here it is, the first teaser for the much anticipated thriller, Snakes on a Plane. Plan on seeing a lot of this film in this column as it's one of my most anticipated movies of the summer, and I plan on reviewing several teasers/trailers. This one is quite simple actually, it starts with a simple typed up message about all the cool stuff you'll see at the movies this summer. It then points out that there's one thing you won't see in any other blockbuster this year...wait for it...snakes on a plane. We only get a couple snippets of the movie. Basically, they let us know that it stars Samuel L Jackson and that's about it. For me, though, it's a pretty effective little teaser that has me ready for the full blown trailer.
How To Eat Fried Worms – Opens August 25th
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've never read How To Eat Fried Worms. I may be the only person to have made it through grade school without reading it. After watching this trailer, I'm so bummed. This looks like it could be the most fun you'll have in a theater this year. The story is pretty familiar, new kid (Billy) accidentally gets on the bad side of the school bully (Joe) in his new school. Some sort of confrontation occurs and usually, a fight is scheduled. Through an odd set of events, instead of a fight, this one ends up with Billy agreeing to a bet in which he'll eat ten worms in a day. This sets in motion some hilarious scenes of Billy's friends trying to help him find the most appetizing way to eat worms. Along the way, Billy seems to earn a following and a girlfriend. Honestly, having two young boys, I'm lucky the TV spots haven't started for this one yet, because I know I would have to spend from now until August hearing about how bad they want to see How To Eat Fried Worms. With the possible exception of Over The Hedge, this has to be the best kid's flick trailer of the year. Outstanding.
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