This week's trailers were all eye-catching-even the bad ones-because of a few familiar faces. They're not all good and they're not all bad but they all have: STAR POWER.
Bear with me a moment: when I say STAR POWER, I mean people that matter to me, obviously. This means that many of these people aren't really what most people would define as big stars but they certainly are names that you should recognize. In any case, let's just try this out before this idea falls flat on its face before it's even out of the gate* (Note: No, I will not be commenting on the Star Trek trailer. Because I guess I am a trekkie, I want to see it on a big screen and I just haven't gotten around to Quantum of Solace yet):
Astroboy: Nice footage that wisely baits fanboys by not letting Freddie Highmore speak but reminds them not-so-gently by the end that this version of manga god Osamu Tezuka's seminal character is, well, white. But what nice white names! Bill Nighy, Eugene Levy and Donald Sutherland make my day; Nicolas Cage not so much but who knows, he may work out fine....no, no even I don't believe that one.
Adoration: No, the name here isn't Scott Speedman or Maury Chaykin but rather director Atom Egoyan. The film looks like an Egoyan film-unsettlign psycho-sexual melodrama-and certainly one that I'm pretty intrigued by the footage of. In fact, this trailer on the whole was pretty good, letting the footage speak instead of its dopey, negligible intertitles.
Coraline: Not a big Neil Gaiman fan at the moment-I normally stick to my jaded "what has he done for me lately" argument but I admit I should probably give some of his most recent stuff a chance-but I do think that the stop-motion animation director Henry "Nightmare Before Christmas" Selick has given this project looks pretty terrific. I especially like how the trailer hides the more sinister aspects of the story pretty well, making it both pretty and accessible footage. This could be pretty neat but I don't want to have too high expectations so I'll just go back to reading The Thief of Always, Clive Barker's own kid-friendly story. Ah; there we go. The bar has just been lowered. Much better.
Nothing but the Truth: This could turn out to be another Contender for writer/director Rod Lurie or it could be just as dismal as another Resurrecting the Champ. The difference between the two lies in how wiling you are to be manipulated by the story and the actors and this one has some pretty good names doing the things they do best, specifically Matt Dillon as a jerk in a suit and Alan Alda as a sympathetic but powerless father figure.
Race to Witch Mountain: This remake/adaptation looks pretty bad-for the kiddies-but I do think Dwayne Johnson is appreciating more and more as a genuwine star (see: Southland Tales and Get Smart, two films that beg to be watched together as a double bill) and less and less as a punchline to a bad joke (No, no I can't smell what you're cooking; I have a serious sinus infection).
