Movie Make-out

This trailer has been out for a long time, but the film hits theaters (in limited release) today: Vexille, a new CG motion capture action flick from Fumihiko Sori (Ping Pong) looks like an improvement on Appleseed (which Sori produced), but the motion capture people still bug me. They look stiff and lifeless, just as they did in the much bigger-budgeted Beowulf. I think this technology needs a lot of work before I’ll be able to properly immerse myself in any story conveyed with it, but if you liked Beowulf or Appleseed, you may enjoy it; the story seems to have been sort of well-received. See it at YouTube, where you can also find a ten-minute preview of the film (albeit in Japanese, no subtitles).

Chiwetel Ejiofor (American Gangster, Talk to Me, Children of Men, Serenity) steps out into his first major leading role, after a string of fantastic supporting roles, in David Mamet’s Redbelt, the trailer for which is supposedly up at Moviefone. The film, as IMDB sums it up, concerns a "mixed-martial arts instructor (who) refuses to participate in prize bouts, (but) circumstances conspire to force him to consider entering such a competition."

I’m interested in this because of Ejiofor, but Mamet’s films are hit and miss with me; he’s sometimes really good (State and Main, The Spanish Prisoner), sometimes insufferable (Heist), but this one looks like it’ll be good, not the least of which because of its terrific cast. The film goes into limited release on April 25, 2008. Tim Allen, Alice Braga (I Am Legend) and Emily Mortimer (Lars and the Real Girl) co-star. 

UPDATE (2/15 8:54 AM):  Cineplex Entertainment has a new trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. This is a different one from the one that was leaked and quickly yanked last week (although you can see it at The Happening Trailer blog). It’s better, because you get a (slightly) clearer sense of what the film is actually about, but when a supposed high school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) says something as obnoxiously stupid as, "Science will come up with some reason to put in the books, but in the end, it’ll be just a theory. We will fail to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding," I get a little skeptical about how intelligent a movie’s script is, not matter how creepy-ominous the trailer may be. The Happening happens on June 13, 2008. I wish Shyamalan would take a break from directing his own scripts.