Sunday, February 01, 2009

Trailer Trash

I saw part one of Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara film last night, and recommend it highly. There were two trailers on before it:

The Reader
This stars Ralph Fiennes and lovely Kate Winslett. I think she has been nominated for awards and stuff for this film, in which she appears to deliver a "brave" performance (i.e. gets kit off). The trailer is ambiguous… this could be good, but one worrying sign is its being in some way brought to us by the same people that made the turgid and over-rated The Hours. The trailer also helpfully gives away the plot twist. I am not sure if I will actually go and see this.


Frost/Nixon
This is my second time seeing this trailer; oddly, this time seems that bit more impressive. It is based on that book about the time David Frost interviewed Richard Nixon, after the latter had been forced by scandal to resign the presidency. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella play Frost and Nixon respectively, with Langella seeming to have turned himself into a simulacrum of the evil ex-president. The film looks like maybe it is portraying Frost as its hero, and not as the self-seeking careerist that many of his old associates seem to regard him. I might go and see this – it looks like it is good on period details and stuff, plus films about Nixon are always good for a laugh.


The Damned United
I saw this on the internet. It is the trailer for the film of David Peace's book, with Michael Sheen (again) playing Brian Clough and various other British stalwarts playing the other characters (and some Irish guy playing that grinning Irish bastard Johnny Giles). The trailer does not really look like the film will be that good. Ultimately, they seem to have taken a novel about despair, self-doubt, alcoholism, and failure, and created a feel-good film about chirpy chappies having a bit of a larf and overcoming adversity. I may nevertheless go and see this anyway.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I highly recommend The Reader. The sex and nudity part is only at the beginning and not even half of the movie. And it's really tender, moving, and sensual too.

The rest of the movie is also moving but in a different way. It's a really interesting subject matter and I was holding back tears much of the time. Kate definitely deserves all the nominations and awards she's gotten for this role.