Movie Make-out

A new, full trailer for Superman Returns and Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise is online at Yahoo! Movies, and yeah, I know, everybody hates Tom Cruise except for me, but this look very exciting. Cruise, of course, plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer involved in an assassination plot against Adolf Hitler.

I suppose it’s really neither here nor there that nobody in this film is even pretending to have a German accent, since they wouldn’t have been speaking English in any case, but… it’s just weird. I think I’ll be able to get over it for two hours, though.

After changing release dates a lot, Valkyrie is set to hit theaters on December 26. It’s odd how this and Revolutionary Road are opening on the Friday, December 26th. Even with Bedtime Stories, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Hurricane Season, Marley & Me, and The Spirit all opening on Christmas, you’d think they would want the extra day’s gross, especially considering Christmas is one of the biggest movie-going days of the year.

Readers of Black Hole will immediately recognize Charles Burns’ drawing style among the footage from the trailer for the new animated horror/thriller anthology, Fear(s) of the Dark. Burns and five other “comic and graphic artists” — Burns, Blutch, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire” contribute to the flick:

from a besotted student whose girlfriend is weirdly ardent in her affections, to a Japanese schoolgirl menaced by a long-dead samurai, and a pack of hounds on a bloodthirsty rampage, Fear(s) has a story strand to trouble every sleep — not to mention a stunning range of animation styles. Shot in shimmering black and white, the six intertwined tales create an unprecedented epic where phobias and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked and intense.

I love Burns’ art, but the CG technique looks stiff on his segment in a way that most of the others do not. In any case, this looks like a good, fun, spooky flick. Theaters will go Dark on October 24, 2008, just in time for Halloween. Now you know what to see instead of Saw V.

Based on a novel by Michael Downing comes veteran TV director Laurie Lynd’s Breakfast with Scot, the story of two gay men — a former Toronto Maple Leaf turned sports commentator (Scrubs’ Tom Cavanagh) and his partner (Ben Shenkman) —  who become the temporary guardians of a “swishy” young kid (Noah Bernett).

Freaked out by Scot’s ‘joie de vivre,’ Eric and Sam gently nudge Scot away from scented hand cream and all things pink, towards a more ‘acceptable’ pastime - hockey. But after Scot’s disastrous first game, Eric begins to rethink the compromises he’s made in his own life in order to be accepted.

Apple has a new trailer up, although another, funnier trailer found its way online last year, which you can find on YouTube.

Sure, the premise is another “be true to yourself” family-friendly comedy — except with a gay couple — but it also look funny and sincere, and that’s the important thing. Released last year in Canada (it’s even out on DVD there already), Breakfast with Scot comes out in America on October 10.

The trailer for Ari Folman’s animated documentary Waltz with Bashir has been out for a while, apparently, but was just added to Apple’s movie trailer page, which is the first I’ve heard of it.

Here’s the synopsis:

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there is a connection between the dream and their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images.

The movie looks very visually innovative, but limited by the undoubtedly tiny budget. Still, it’s an intruiging approach to an interesting subject. Waltz with Bashir hits theaters in New York and LA on December 26, and will hopefully widen next year.

If you’re interested in learning a little more about the film, YouTube has a clip of Folman discussing it on France 24 (from the Cannes Film Festival).

Not being “in the loop” about movies any more than you, indie movies often sneak up on me, sometimes months after I might have otherwise heard of them, such as this film, Ballast, the first feature by writer-director Lance Hammer, which won the Best Director Award at this year’s Sundance. In an odd way, for someone who chooses to write a movie blog, I almost prefer it that way — when a movie hits me like a lightning bolt of genius.

Anyway, Ballast, which has a trailer up at Apple now, deals with the effects of a man’s suicide on three people living in the Mississippi Delta, and it looks like a stunner. (The glowing praise in the trailer from a variety of film critics, most of whom I respect, certainly helps.) I’m reminded a bit of David Gordon Green’s George Washington and All the Real Girls, but without some of the artifice (i.e. the voiceovers) of those films, instead opting for something even more understated and naturalistic.

I’ll be looking for it at the local art-house theaters sometime after October 1, 2008, when it opens in New York City. Hammer talks about the improvised dialogue in a short clip for IFC over at YouTube. indieWire has an interview with him from around Sundance, too.