Yes, No, Maybe So: "Midnight in Paris"

It occured to me yesterday while writing up the Crazy Stupid Love trailer that we hadn't yet discussed the new Woody Allen trailer for Midnight in Paris. Despite the occasional Vicky Cristina Barcelona or Match Point the Woodster has been dwindling creatively for some time. Let us not speak of last year's obnoxious and unfunny Woody. So let's break this one down like we do: yes, no and maybe so.

I have to admit that that "But Paris after midnight... is Magic" beat, got me. Especially because the staccato images included Owen Wilson dancing. I am a firm believer that dancing makes most any movie better, no matter who is doing it and it also brought back warm memories of Woody's 1996 musical Everyone Says I Love You which I really loved at the time (I haven't seen it since. Does it hold up?). In fact pretty much everything in that little sequence of the trailer looked promising, though Marion Cotillard as Ideal French Woman is a bit...expected at this point. There are other French actresses you know. France churns out awesome gorgeous talented actresses with pretty much the same speed that Australia manufactures movie stars.

For all the surface excitement of the new "Woody Allen, World Traveller" film series (it kicked off with The Blondes in London Trilogy), he's still making pretty much the same movie every time: Unhappy well educated couples cheat and even the cheating doesn't make them happy. This happens whilst Woody philosophizes either through the characters or a narrator. The samey-sameyness of the filmography didn't used to be a problem when the films were as perfect or as imaginative or as funny as they once were. To be honest, I'd rather he stopped switching countries and experimented with switching genres. Lately he seems to just be doing dramedies that aren't fully dramatic or comedic. One of the reasons Match Point worked so well was that it was quite a serious darkly dramatic picture.

But I guess I am interested in seeing Owen, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen and especially In the Loop's Mimi Kennedy act within his universe.

The most promising aspect of the trailer is that it does not in fact, tell you the plot. It does what all trailers should do instead: set up the premise, leave said premise dangling in the air, allow audiences to wonder about What Happens.

Most of the trailer is familiar but then we get the sense that Something Happens and a P.I. is brought in but that P.I. disappears? This doesn't seem to be the same movie unless it's a red herring.

Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So?

I guess I'm a soft No based on what I see here -- and how much I actively disliked You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger -- but my vote matters less than yours. See, I religiously see Woody Allen pictures even if I don't want to. It''s kind of my personal annual thank you for him being such a crucial figure in how I came to love the movies.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Crazy Stupid Love"

The tradition here at The Film Experience is to break down new movie trailers under Yes, No and Maybe So reactions. It's a way to measure expectations rather than allow good (or bad) marketing to totally control us. But watching the trailer for the new comedy Crazy Stupid Love defeated my critical sensibilities entirely. It left me giddy and "Can I see this today. Please!???"

This single image best sums it up.

It's more for the two thumbs up than for the Tomei, though our thumbs are always up for Marisa, too. But this is one of those rare trailers wherein every new star that appears just ups the pleasure ante.

I guess we should play the game anyway. For consistency's sake.

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Super 8"

We already did this once during the Superbowl but here's the full trailer to J.J. Abrams Super 8, a clear attempt to recapture 80s Spielbergania. Disturbingly hypey things are flying cross the internet like 'a Best Picture nomination is all sewn up!' uh... from 2 minutes of footage? It's not like its a Holocaust drama or a biopic and looks particularly fetching. History is littered with trailers that looked awesome, the movies proving less so. We shall see. The other disturbing thing I read was that the internet had 'a collective boner'. Call me old fashioned but the only way I'd ever be interested in a collective boner was if I could handpick the orgy members. Ewww. But those caveats aside the trailer IS good. I'm a "yes." But let's play our game anyway.

Yes It certainly looks intriguing... and all the things that worked in the 30 second version (the mystery, the borrowed music, the "gee whiz it's 80s scifi!" feel) are expanded and gain in oomph at 2 minutes. Surely a good sign for the next (two hour) expansion, right?

No Sometimes when people (J.J. Abrams) try to be someone else (Steven Spielberg) they feel like jpgs that have been saved at lower resolutions. Or they miss the mark and end up like some weird amalgam (Spielberg + Shyamalan ÷ Abrams = ?) The proof, one way or the other, will be in the full 2 hours.

Maybe So I know that this is about the kids but wouldn't it be appropriately wondrous if Coach Taylor knocked a plum supporting role out of the park and had a big screen career and/or an awesome TV offer to follow his Friday Night Lights perfection since that stellar show has filmed its last scenes.

Here's the new trailer

Yes No or Maybe So people?
Okay okay, I'll bite on the overhype. Let's discuss Oscar prospects, too. A few techs or much more?

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Larry Crowne"

This isn't a trailer but let's make an exception for two of the most recognizable faces on the planet.

Do we want to see Tom Hanks & Julia Roberts round two in Larry Crowne? The clip starts at about the one minute mark.

yes... well Julia is singing Gilbert & Sullivan in the clip. Plus, there aren't enough romantic comedies about adults and by adults I mean adults with functioning brain cells.

no...

maybe so... Tom is trying his damndest to sell it and admitting how awkward it is to sell your wares... though maybe he's pushing that a little too hard. It's not like you can be as cool as you wanna be by pretending not to be cool. It's too transparent. But I liked That Thing You Do! kinda, didn't you? I dunno. Both Julia and Tom both have similar weaknesses as massive stars go: the charm offensive. They have to walk a very fine line between barely selling it and letting their natural charisma do the work, barely selling it to the point that they just look like lazy/overconfident about their charisma which doesn't work, and overselling it because of the charm offensive.

It must be complicated to be a superstar.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "X-Men: First Class"

The trailer has arrived.

Travel back in time with me to the late 70s. Yes, I know the movie we're about to discuss takes place in the early 60s. But I wasn't alive yet and neither were many of you. Wee Nathaniel was alive in the 1970s (shut up!). Jump forward to Christmas 1979. In Nathaniel's Christmas stocking, the greatest gift he'd known until that time: The Uncanny X-Men #129. He tore through the pages, died right on the spot from joy and went to heaven. The End.

The point is this: no matter how many bad superhero movies may come, no matter how glutted the superhero genre becomes at the movies, no matter how many bad X-Movies arrive (Hi, X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. You suck!) Nathaniel will always be susceptible to Charles Xavier and the School For Gifted Youngsters. He will always hope that the movies will ever capture the magic of those first comic books. He will always be glad that Bryan Singer's X-2 (the second or third best superhero movie ever made) nearly managed it in a few scenes.

To this point the X-Men movie series has ignored The Hellfire Club, who were all introduced in this very (personally sacred) issue that changed my young life. I was a junkie thereafter for mutants, comic books, and spectacularly-bodied superheroines like Storm & Phoenix and spectacularly-bodied ice queens like Emma Frost, The White Queen. Kitty Pryde was also introduced in this movie but she was only 13. (Even then I preferred the older ladies. Storm and Phoenix were probably only 20 or something but to me that was ADULT. anyway.... reign it in. geezus!

This time the movies are going there, Emma Frost (January Jones) and all.

X-Men: First Class trailer and further anxiety after the jump! Wheeeee

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