Rango

Coming up on this episode of Le Cinema Petit (or as I like to call it Lec Inem Ape Tit) we have the first ever trailer review of an animated feature. I know 2012 was close, but this one is for reals... well, in that it's animated. Well you know the drill here is the Trailer.

I embedded it this time, only because I love you guys. *Insert 3-D point at Audience*

So the trailer opens on a wide shot of a vast, mostly empty (save a few cacti), and arid desert. Silence. Then we hear the wailing of the majestic Johnny Deep. First, off in the distance, then closer, and a Chameleon speeds across the screen followed by a hawk... with a tin can on its head. Title card "JOHNNY DEEP". Excuse me I need to hop into my Mrs. Deep t-shirt in order to continue this review.

Muy Fuego!

Now our hero stumbles upon the small but scenic town of Dirt, which is a really nice name for a place of residence. Lizard Deep wastes no time and books it down the main street, but now with some sort of twizzler rope tied around him. I feel like we missed something, but its a trailer we have limited time I appreciate that. A little more magic trailer editing and bam! The Hawk is crushed by a water tower. Now the shy (and adorable?) inhabitants of Dirt come out to see the commotion.

Maybe they're a little rough around the edges.

The hare doctor declares the hawk dead and the critters of Dirt rejoice. Rango walks into the bar to sample the local fare. One of the town's critters walks up and asks "him who are you?" to which Lizard Deep replies deftly "Rango" as he snags the hat off the head of a tax paying patron.

Yeah thanks, I wasn't wearing that or anything.

And in walk the villains who also inquire about our reptilian hero, but this time the critters of Dirt answer for him and add that he isn't afraid of the bandito vermin. "Is that right?" one of them grumbles in a manner know to any gunslinger. Our hero obviously unable to handle his liquor comically belches a fireball into the bandits face and cowers oh so heroically. He then dabs out the fire with a napkin and smiles apologetically.

Consequently, Oxyclean is great for putting out fires (I'm legally bound to tell you that, that was a joke and please don't try and use oxyclean to put out any sort of fire, household or otherwise)

So we are now under the impression that the hero is a lovable screw-up whom luck oft favors. You know I don't think I've every seen J Deep portray such a character.

Right, he was in that movie.

We now know that this ship (pardon the nautical metaphor) is helmed by Pirate's Gore Verbinski, so at least we know the first installment of Rango will be entertaining, but the sequels will go overboard and not be as well received by critiques, but will probably make more money than the first. Diminishing return is not your fault G-Bin.

Next an elderly turtle tells Rango that the town needs hope as he hands him a sherif's badge. We are then shown a series of short clips that portray our companion as a much more confident chameleon. The new clothes he wears really gives it away. That, and facing off with a massive snake who claims that Dirt is his hacienda.

That is a really Snazy hat for a snake.

Here is where the trailer decides to introduce a little bit of intrigue for the story. As an old... whatever that was yelps "They done taken everything we got!" By now we were to have glenned that this is our typical Three Amigo story where J Deep is Norbit-ing all three amigos in one character. His character responds to this cry of desperation by giving a moving speech about as long as the sheriff sign hangs they got hope, and given the humor of the trailer so far we would expect that sign to clatter to the ground right there.

And... now. What? You serious it's still up? What is funny about that.

What follows are scenes of adventure... and a title card that reads "Adventure." Subliminal advertising is making a come back. But these scenes all have something humous in them with regards to the main character, As if to calmly pet our heads and say "shhh, don't worry, yeah it got heavy there for a moment but it will still be fun." The last of these being Rango and the love interest (I Assume) trapped in a flooding room as the Banditos and their snake overlord watch. Rango leaps into action and starts beating on the glass for mercy. When there is no response He says a little too cooly "Okay, Plan B." And the love interest rolls her eyes.

Okay so it's really hard to capture an eye roll with a still. Get off my back.

"Guffaw! see how humorous life and death situations can be." is the implied language of the trailer.

This trailer is well done, and very apt for its market. As a children's movie it hits the tickle-me-funnies and portrays characters in quick to catch Arch-types, so that we can absorb very quickly and separate the good from the bad... from the ugly (that was for me). Though this maybe a trait from the movie itself.

I like to add that I have taken a little bit of a shine to this film do to its setting and ascetics. Also may have made me a little biased with the trailer, but as it was said when I discussed Rango with Hamilton, the film could "go either way."

4.5 Mrs. Deep T-shirts out of 5

-Andrew Carey

THOR

Oh hi internets! On this mystical episode of Le Cinema Petit we will be taking a look at the new(ish) trailer for the movie THOR. Or as I like to call it Fly-e Hammer Thunder God. Anyway, as usual, here is the trailer.

First off, I am a Marvel Fan. However I have never picked up a Thor comic in my life. So, if there are any Thor fans out there reading this and I seem less than intuitive about some aspects of this trailer forgive me.

Okay to start off, the trailer opens with Lightning cracking through the sky. Seemingly obvious choice when it is a movie about the norse god of thunder. We are then panned over a makeshift compound in the rain, a nice little establishing shot. And if you stayed after the credits of Iron Man 2 you will know exactly where we are. Next a canted angle dolly in on Thor handcuffed to a chair beyond a room full of computers, this is one high tech facility.

There hasn't been much improvement in hammer scanning technologies since the 80's

We hear a voice tell us "It's not easy to do what you did," as we see Thor rage on some trained physicians. Funny, last time I checked god vs. doctor wasn't a fair fight. The voice continues "You made my men look like a bunch of minimum wage mall cops"

Eh, mall cops with guns.

Thor shows us some lack luster moves while kicking guys through tarp walls. Can we blame him? I mean he doesn't have his hammer. The voice is revealed to be the lovable S.H.I.E.L.D agent that has shown up in the last 2 Ironman movies. See how they're setting up for the Avengers. Well anyway he is offended and interrogates Thor where he got his training. "Afghanistan? Chechnya?" Thor looks up and gazes angrily.

Do I look like I'm from Afghanistan?

We are shown sweeping shots of the Sci-Fi-esque city-scape (?) that is Valhalla. I'm sure if the norse people saw this they would say, "Huh... I always thought it would look a little different." Any-spray, golden doors are open and we are in the court of Valhalla and Odin is giving Thor a brisk talking to. Thor has done a bad bad thing, I don't know what because the trailer just shows us scenes of him and some buddies walking it out on some trolls' faces. Loki tries to intervene, which is weird because I thought he was supposed to be the bad guy. Odin won't have it and Thor is stripped of his power. Say bye to that hammer and he is cast our of Valhalla. Where he wakes up to this...

Hey, didn't I see you pull feathers out of your back?

I would think that waking up to Natalie Portman would take out a little of the sting of being kicked out of Asgard. Thor however seems to disagree as he grunts "Oh no, this is earth isn't it?" There follows a montage of unintelligible images, a little fighting, some Chris Hemsworth (Thor) without his shirt on and wait is that a giant robot?

Aww man, I have been informed this is just armor... Destroyer Armor.

Over this montage Thor tells us, via a conversation with Ms. Portman, that where he comes from magic and science are one in the same. This gives me a sinking sensation in my stomach that the movie will try and explain that Valhalla is a super advanced civilization. Blarg! The montage continues with some of Loki fighting and more Destroyer armor, and more of this-

That is an adorable T-shirt!

Okay so that last screen cap was just for me. But this image of titular goodness is soon followed by (after the movie title of course) the nut crushing title of-

Ouch my balls!

Blarg! 3-D strikes again. I'm not going to go on my 3-D rant, but I think this movie will use it as much as The Last Airbender did. That's it, that's all I'm saying about 3-D today.

This trailer leaves me thinking that when Paramount found the goose that laid the golden eggs of comic book movies, they lacked the patience to wait for the goose to lay the eggs. So, instead performed frequent egg-C-sections, and that when they found out that you can't get eggs via c-Section went ahead and made Thor. Seriously the only thing I have against the trailer is that it opened and focused half of its time on Thor's encounter with S.H.E.I.L.D instead of focusing on the narrative progression of the movie Thor by itself. This Highlights this obsession with tying the films together for the Avengers rather than focusing on the films themselves. I really think that the Marvel universe coming to life in film is really cool, but are they too busy with that to focus on the films themselves at this point?

But, I'm getting on my soapbox, so I'll just say I plan to see this flick in theaters. However I will not say it is because of the trailer, which seemed to be content with just throwing images of how "cool" it will be up on the screen. With that said I leave you today with a little present. A picture from the nock off version of Thor produced by Asylum, the same people that brought you Transmorphers.

No caption needed.

Oh that is too good!

Thor gets 2 adorable Natalie Portman shirts out of 5

-Andrew Carey

The Mechanic

Everyone who loves Jason Statham say yeah! Really that many. Wow. Everyone who loves Ashton Kutcher say Yeah! No one, good this is the usual audience.

Ok so for my third post in a row, ehem, I mean this episode of The Small Cinema. We will take a look at the trailer for the new dramatic feature The Mechanic, what, It's an action movie? But it has Donald Sutherland. He doesn't do action, that's Keifer's job. What he stared in The Italian Job with Statham. Your shitting me IMDB. What Hamilton? No, not the french name. I won't. Damn it.

On this exciting episode of Le Cinema Petite we are treated with the trailer to the action packed re-team of D Suth and J Stat. Transporter 4. Sorry, The Mechanic. Here is the trailer.

The Trailer opens with J Stat pinning up pictures of dangerous looking business types, and mean mugging while firing guns. J Stat talks over this telling us that, "What I do requires a certain mind set."

That target looks so stupid. I want to shoot it in it's stupid face. Stupid!

Audience, set your mind to mindless. Some shots of expensive cars, and money being flipped though fingers later, and we know that J Stat is an assassin. When I started the trailer I thought he was a florist. J stat tells us "some jobs need to look like accidents. So he blows someone up in a gasoline fire that is fit for Zoolander. Everyone will assume it was a freak gasoline fight accident.

What a waste of orange mocha frappe-chinos.

Then he drowns some guy in his own private pool, because the "best jobs are the ones, no one knows your there." From the dudes facial hair I'm guessing someone is offing this guy for being too good with the ladies. Enter D Suth, finally, he knows he's better than J Stat, because J is a "damn machine." Then J stat jumps off a bridge. I don't know. Action Shots. Wait machines need mechanics. What? This movie is deep. they talk about D Suth's son, wait is Keifer in this? Then D Suth says his son's a disappointment. Okay so it's not Keifer.

Title cards flash

Generic Line.

Well of course it is but, wait... What! They killed D Suth! Well somebody better do something about that.

Until it stays a Generic Line.

Oh Shit! J Stat is about to kick some booty. D Suth's character's son shows up and wants to learn the tricks of the trade. J Stat asks "You know what a mechanic is?" A guy who fixes cars? "A hitman." Son boy answers stoically. Well I guess I was wrong.

Anyway more guns and explosions, and Son boy is ready. Now it's time to get that dude who killed our Mentor and/or Dad.

I can only show so many explosions before they get repetitive.

More action shots and I'm getting bored with it so, blah, blah, blah. Inset sweet tag line "A good Mechanic is hard to find." What? That's the title. So, bad guy throws bad guys at good guys, and taunts, "You think you can get to me before I get to you?" It looks like they will.

I hope it's not those damn Jehovah's Witnesses again.

More action, titles, and fade to black.

I want to give this trailer an in depth review of what works and doesn't, but I'm so board by the end of it I can't. It shows that there will be action, but it hints that we might get tired of it mid way into the movie. I hope people don't think me an action hater, but man, I was done with explosions about half way through this trailer.

2.5 intense taglines out of 5

-Andrew Carey

Sucker Punch

Since Hamilton and Micah aren't posting at all, and I am finding myself with an abundance of free time, I'm gonna hit them with a Sucker Punch........ or just make bad jokes till they kick me off their blog. Ok trailer review lets go. First here is the trailer.

The trailer opens with the image of a woman being buried while her children watch. We hear a voice over of (one of my personal heartthrobs) Emily Browning telling us that she has lost everything and blah, blah abuse, blah, blah, murder, blah, mental institution. lets get to the parts people care about. WAAAAH! Led Zeppelin, how'd they get them? No one gets Led Zeppelin. But seriously, someone put Emily Browning in a school girl outfit and made her clean floors, she's pissed. Time to bust outta this joint.

Annie was right it is a hard knock life!

But, for Miss Browning (please let it be Miss), or Baby Doll (I did the research this time), just escaping Lennox House isn't enough because as the trailer says "Reality is a Prison." So, if we can't escape in real life, how are we going to escape, well good thing we have ballet class. The one Leo must have attended before filming Inception. Here we learn that our imagination can set us free.

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over my boner.

Ok now we are shown what the movie will really be about, the crazy mix and match of every possible style and genre imaginable. Zac Snyder took it upon himself to place in this movie every thing he thinks is cool. That's why there is a cowboy robot riding a dragon in the trailer. Gotcha. We are however treated to a war torn WWII? era city, ancient japanese pagoda's, floating trains, and I don't know I think the dragon was on a castle.

Master of the house. Keeper of the inn.

The trailer decides to hit us with a little more story and we get to hear Scott Glenn deliver some cheesy lines in a cheesy way over some break-neck speed editing. We are told the heroes will need 5 things, and the trailer visually asserts that each thing will correspond to one of the settings Zac Snyder has crafted into the film. The five things they need are a map, fire, a knife, a key and well big surprise- the last thing is a mystery. I'm sure we will all be racking our brains over that one.

One down, 4 to go. Man I really wish I knew what the mystery item was.

The trailer at this point is really just trying to push us to the very edge of an action-gasm. Between mechs shooting down dirigibles, dog fighting a dragon in a WWII era biplane, and sword fighting giant stone samurai with gatling guns, I am a little ashamed to say it but I'm almost there. Then Scott Glenn turns around and delivers this little gut buster, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

That's what she said!

This almost ruins things for me, but I am not deterred. I plan on going to this movie. You know exactly what you are getting when you go to a Zac Snyder film at this point, a stylized visual overload, and this trailer is honest about what we are going to see, and pushes that point, while also clueing us in on the plot, while leaving out enough to intrigue. Yeah there is that cheesy line, but it feels in place for the movie. I know I won't be moved by the character's plight, but i will be swept away by the visuals.

4 Secret items out of 5 (because the last is a mysterious mystery)

-Andrew Carey

Real Steel

Hey do you remember playing rock-em sock-em robots? Those irritating days of being forced to play as the red bot because the piece of plastic that held his head in place was defective. and if you refused real boxing matches would occur. So, that second part was just me?

Well anyway, if you do hold a fondness towards robots and boxing, modern cinema has just the treat for you. Real Steel, somewhat ironically named since the robots are CG, opens (well the trailer) by announcing to the audience "Charlie Canton is in the house!" Get pumped people. Now we know that Charlie (Hugh Jackman) was somebody, but now is not. I'm just assuming that second part since his robot looks like an old rusted jalopy.

I repeat, Jalopy

Jackman then lends us his voice to tell us that fighting has changed, "but the crowd. They never change they just get bigger." And indeed the movie wants to convey the excitement we should be experiencing with sweeping shots over large screaming crowds, but I can't seem to get excited about the concept of this movie at all, and I love giant robots. I'm sure this is some sort of underdog come back story, mixed with a theme of man verse machine. It wants so bad to be rocky, but it doesn't seem to know how. Maybe its because this trailer is more Transformers than Rocky. The main difference being Transformers had Megan Fox in it, of course.

We are shown some scenes of what I assume is training.

Nice work boys, now hit the showers!

But more often then not this trailer is just stylized CGI ejaculate; the over glossed color saturated kind that made me woozy when I watched five minutes of Speed Racer. The kind that might give an epileptic kid a seizure (I just want to state for the record that I am not trying to offend any epileptic kids, just trying to relate a public health concern). This trailer seems to have no desire to try and show us there is a story here. It just shouts at us "HEY WE GOT ROBOTS! AND THEY ARE BOXING!" Wait, was that one of the desperate housewives?

Seriously is it? I'm too lazy to do the research.

This trailer shows us no promise of a story, it doesn't even display an overwhelming amount of action just to try and get us to see the movie out of sheer adrenaline rush. it doesn't promise drama, comedy, character development, or any hint of emotional attachment. All it promises is a lack luster mash of moving pictures. I will end with my favorite quote of the trailer. "The human body can only take so much." Your right Hugh, and my body has taken about all it can from this movie

1 Desperate Housewife hooking up with a robot out of 5

-Andrew Carey

Killers

Today, on a very special episode of Le Cinema Petit: Killers. Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl star in this hilarious rom-com about serial killers. Wait, what? It's about... oh, no. Okay. I see.

Today, on a very special episode of Le Cinema Petit: Killers. Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl star in this really irritating rom-com about the CIA or something dumb like that.

Here's the stupid trailer.

The trailer starts off with an overprotective father saying some stupid stuff about something no one cares about. "Uhhhgh, I'm not always single and/or alone," moans Katherine Heigl, radiating desperation and generally making everyone uncomfortable.

Cut to: our plucky heroine, holding a bottle of Maalox and being single and/or alone. The elevator doors open to reveal none other than the Kutchmeister himself. "Bonjour," he mutters smarmily, as if someone has just been Punk'd.

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who want to punch Ashton Kutcher right in his face, and people who probably shouldn't be reading this blog.

Cut again, and he's following her in a way that I personally find a little uncomfortable. "I'm Spencer, by the way," he says, as he holds up a Nikon camera and mugs for the audience. (Not really, but I bet it happens at some point in this movie.) "Jen," she says, "it's just Jen no Jennifer no it's Jenny hold on just call me Jen THIS DIALOGUE IS MEANT TO INDICATE THAT I AM UNCOMFORTABLE AROUND YOU." He invites her to get a drink with him, obviously charmed by her social ineptitude and desperation. He then inexplicably jumps into the water.

This shot serves no practical purpose. Sorry.

THE MAN OF HER DREAMS, proclaims an informatory screen. Oh! Okay. Now we're using sentence fragments that tell the audience things that are incredibly obvious. Cool. Are we going to get a screen that tells us that THEY ARE IN LOVE and HE IS A NICE PERSON as well? No? Right. Whatever you say, Killers.

They eat dinner and then the titles strike again. THE LIFE SHE ALWAYS WANTED, it tells us. Turns out Katherine Heigl's dream life is to be wealthy, not have a job, and live in France with Ashton Kutcher. Well, join the club, girlfriend.

But- oh no! Her daddy hasn't promised to be nice to him! (These are actual words from the trailer.) And her mom drinks bloody marys straight out of pitchers! There's a twist coming!

Okay, so I guess the desperation is heredity. Mmm, the sweet taste of giving up.

They start kissing and- wait a minute, her hairstyle has changed once again. Normally, as a heterosexual male, I wouldn't notice this, but I think there are like 18 different Katherine Heigl haircuts in this movie. It's actually a little confusing. I keep thinking "Oh no! He's cheating on her!" and then realize it's her, but now she has a mohawk/Jheri curl/Cher wig/whatever.

THE SECRET... says the titles as HOLD ON IS THAT THE TALKING HEADS

Hold on. Give me a moment. I need to wrap my head around this.

Alright, there's someone crashing through the window, whatever, this is disappointing at best, I can't believe they would besmirch the good name of the Talking Heads like this, this is kind of upsetting.
Oh! There's a fight! He's in the CIA or the FBI! There's a twist! This is the secret he forgot to mention!

I know it looks like this is a screenshot from an awesome movie, but don't be fooled. I'm still writing about Killers.

We find out that Katherine Heigl doesn't know how to use a gun, but she can use her SUV to ram someone's car into some barrels of explosives. Why is this such a common occurrence in videogames and movies? When was the last time you saw an explosive barrel on the side of the street? "Oh, my petroleum, better pour this in a brittle metal barrel and park it right next to the mailbox!" But I digress.

I don't know who decided to take two of America's most irritating celebrities and put them in the same movie, but I hate them. My guess is that there are two ways this movie ends: with Katherine Heigl becoming a secret agent, or with Katherine Heigl getting pregnant and becoming a secret agent. Whatever, I'm going to go write my hilarious rom-com screenplay about serial killers.

Rating: 2 suave, insufferable Ashton Kutchers out of 5.

-Hamilton

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Alright ladies and gentlemen, after a long break La Cinema Petit is back with another review of the previews. This time its the trailer for the latest in the Resident Evil series, Resident Evil: Afterlife.



I'm going to be very frank in this review, I hate this trailer/soon to be terrible movie so much that I can't even bring myself to cover it up with witty sarcasm and fake praise. Why do I loathe this monstrosity with such passion? Well if you were to say Avatar was what good can come from 3-D (I don't agree with that), then this is the ass-end of 3-D and the reason why it will ultimately fail.

We open up with the very standard post apocalyptic montage that shows "These are all iconic symbols but they're destroyed!!@$!@!!" This time its what I believe is the city of Los Angeles and of course the Hollywood letters(Shocking...). Then the plane lands in a field of other planes. This scene got my hopes up. For a brief moment I thought "Is this going to be Flyboys meets Resident Evil?" All of these hopes are dashed when we get more recycled Resident Evil stuff, but then this happens:
What? First of all, neither of those people are in anyway involved with this movie( It doesn't have a 12 gagillion dollar budget for Cameron, and really who cares about Vincent Pace). Second, all this slide is is a desperate attempt to say "You remember how cool Avatar looked, well we are using the same stuff." For everyone out there who thought the way Avatar looked made up for the fact that it had a sinkhole of a story, here are the consequences of that thinking. Trailers used to sell story (or at least tried to convince us that one existed), but this one is just selling us the Fusion Camera System, because apparently that makes up for everything. Its the fix-all for blockbuster movies.
For all of you who forgot what the Fusion Camera system was the trailer reminds us (or in my case lights another match and throws it on the soon to be bonfire of anger I have toward this trailer). Are you excited yet? Still love what 3-D is going to do for movies? Well with all of this 3-D technology how can the movie not have scenes like...
For the sake of fairness there is probably a very good motivation for why he would throw his sunglasses straight at the camera (in slow motion) that doesn't include "We just blew the bank on the fusion camera system now lets use it!" Prediction: Of the people that actually pay the absurd price to see this movie at least 25% will reach in the air to touch the sunglasses. I don't want that prediction to be right.
If someone does end up seeing this can you please take a notepad and keep track of how many times something explodes/flies/comes toward the audience. I would really like to know.

Finally we go through a bunch of action sequences and blah blah blah, when finally...
This is when I officially hated this movie. That is all I have to say(Sigh...).

Did the Trailer Work:
No. All that this trailer did was prove that 3-D is going to fall back into the same terrible place that it always has. It is becoming a gimmick yet again and the sooner it goes away the better.

0 3-D gimmicks out of 5.
Micah Russell