Trailers I saw before 300

Because my review of 300 was an attempt in extreme stylization, I had to leave out quite a bit of information that I usually put in. (For example, I had a whole section on implied racism that got left out. In short: Greeks in movies equal Brits, and they were fighting Persians, which equals Africa and Asia. Those were the facts, so I'm not sure you can do much about the implied racism other than ignore it and assume they aren't trying to send a "message.")


Anyway, I did want to talk briefly about the previews I saw:


Showtime's THE TUDORS


This looks to be Showtime's attempt to keep up with HBO's Rome, and the preview, at least, made me wish I had showtime. (BTW, off the subject, but is Showtime's The Brotherhood worth renting? Does anyone know?)


OCEAN'S THIRTEEN - I loved Loved LOVED the first, bored to tears with the second. What does that mean for part 3? I'm willing to watch, but they better get their act together, or it will continue to sour my warm feelings for part 1.


THE INVISIBLE - A pretty neat preview for a high school psychological scarefest. I'm not going to post it here, but feel free to check it out for yourself. The tagline works too: "How do you solve a murder when the victim is you?"


KNOCKED UP - I can already tell you everything that happens in this movie, not because I'm psychic, but because the preview gives it all away. I know I rant about this all the time, but jeez. (I guess for chicks this is smart marketing, as most women don't want to see a chick flick unless they are assured there will be a happy ending.) Besides my antipathy for the trailer is the movie itself. Because of her protrayal of "Izzy" and a couple of interviews I read I have become quite the anti-fan of Katherine Heigl. Not even pictures like this give me warm feelings any more.

And Seth Rogen gets to be the guy? I'm not even going to link the preview. You're on your own.


BLADES OF GLORY - Or what I would like to be the first to call "Talladega Ice." Feel free to use it, but give me credit. Basically Will Ferrell and Jon Heder team up for Pairs Figure Skating. With comedies you never know, but this has all the potential. This brings up whether or not Ferrell is capable of doing serious work, making that transition like Robin Williams and a few others, but since I don't have time to get into it tonight I'll just let you watch the trailer:



Who else wants to make love to Craig T. Nelson's hair?


THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 - Not my thing, but I mention the preview only for this: rather than only showing tiny pieces of the monster, they elected to show much more. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a preview go so far in the gore/icky factor. Since the entire point of trailers is to get the target audience to want to see the film, I guess you'd have to score that as a success.


THE REAPING - A genre I'm calling "Mainstream Horror." Such previous entires would include THE SKELETON KEY, WHAT LIES BENEATH and THE GIFT. Anyway, small southern town gets visited by the Plauges of Egypt, blah blah blah. The preview pretty much tells you whether you'd want to see it, which you can watch here.

Here's the problem: Swank either hits it out of the park (playing small town trash like in BOYS DON'T CRY and MILLION DOLLAR BABY) or sucks on the screen (like THE AFFAIR OF THE NECKLACE and THE CORE.) But I don't care about that. I care about how she looks.

I would not call Swank ugly, but I would never EVER call her hot. No sane man would. (And no, Chad Lowe was not sane. Else why try to kill President Palmer II?) Swank is one of those women I wrote about a few weeks ago, where a guy could say she was hot (he'd be lying, but he could say it), and girl would be okay with that, because we all know Hilary is not stealing anybody.

Okay, then. I'm watching the trailer for THE REAPING, and I'm enjoying the view of the chick, only to realize IT'S HILARY SWANK! What the hell? She's almost hot! Here is pictoral proof:

Then I found this:

And now I don't know what to think. My whole world is turning upside down. is Hilary Swank now supposed to be considered hot?

Help me!