Until I saw the trailer for Chernobyl Diaries on the big screen, I’d never heard of it. While the action was chilling enough and there are probably some genuine thrills and chills to be had,

I think I’d find it difficult to give a rat’s patoot one way or another whether or not any of the people involved survived their ordeal or not given how fundamentally STUPID they all must be!

The fact that the Ukranian government has opened Chernobyl and the neighboring town of Pripyat to tourists is ballsy indeed. The fact that anyone takes them up on this offer is insanity, pure and simple.  This is neither the time nor place to go into detail on the scientific or ecological ramifications of a nuclear disaster on the scale of Chernobyl or about how long the effects will last. But just on your gut reaction to the very name of the place, would you or would not choose it for your next vacation?

Here’s the premise: Six tourists hire an extreme tour guide to take them to the abandoned city of Pripyat, the former home to the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. During their exploration, they soon discover they are not alone.  Hello? Godzilla? Mothra? Rodan? Anyone? Bueller? Radiation baaaaaad….

As far as horror movies go, it’s not the worse setup ever. Why it has to be shot in “found footage” format though, I do not get. That really hasn’t worked since Blair Witch, the same film that started this craze.

The Chernobyl Diaries, directed by Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity) and starring tween-idol Jesse McCartney, Jonathan Sadowski (Friday the 13th), Norwegian actress Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (soon to be seen in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters) and Oliva Dudley (soon to be seen in The Dictator), opens May 25 in the US and Canada and 22^nd June in the UK.

Enjoy the trailer, posters and pics:

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Check out this poster. If you owned one, it may someday become a collector’s item since the new Ben Stiller, alien invasion comedy formerly known as Neighborhood Watch  has been renamed The Watch in light of the Trayvon Martin case down in Florida.  What they had in common was that both involve amateurs policing their communities. One is no laughing matter at all. Fox decided to try to distance themselves completely and put the focus squarely on the comedy. They had initially pulled the trailer out of Florida cinemas, but eventually decided it was best to just change the name altogether.

A spokesperson for Fox issued the following statement: "As the subject matter of this alien invasion comedy bears no relation whatsoever to the recent tragic events in Florida, the studio altered the title to avoid any accidental or unintended misimpression that it might."

Business aside, there is a new red-band trailer (courtesy of IGN) for The Watch. Not sure it sheds any more light on the film than the green band version. It does, of course, feature more vulgarity (most of which is pointless, in my humble opinion and I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination.)

There are also two new pics below. It appears that our heroes, Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, Vince Vaugh and Richard Ayoade, have found either the Great Gazoo's helmet or a malformed bowling ball. Not sure which. Directed by Akiva Shafer (MacGruber) and written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, The Watch will open in the US on July 27 and 29th August in the UK.

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Tim Burton appears to be back in top form this summer. Next week we’ll see the release of the director’s Dark Shadows (more on that later) and then later in this June we’ll finally get to see the Burton produced genre mashup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. (That’s a new poster above and a new image from the film below.)

A terrific new featurette has just dropped online. While there’s not a lot of new footage in it, what’s there is put into a bit of perspective by screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (who adaptsed his own novel) in conversation with the film’s director Timur Bekmambetov and producer Burton. The trio discuss the nature of Lincoln’s character and how he stacks up against other superheroes, Batman in particular.  What I find most amusing is how serious they are about it, given that the “character” they are discussing is a real historical figure

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter explores the secret life of our greatest president, and the untold story that shaped our nation. Visionary filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted) bring a fresh and visceral voice to the bloodthirsty lore of the vampire, imagining Lincoln as history’s greatest hunter of the undead.”

Benjamin Walker gets his big screen break as Lincoln. The supporting cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Mary Todd Lincoln, Dominic Cooper, Alan Tudyk, Anthony Mackie, and Rufus Sewell.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will be released in 3D on June 22 in the US and Canada and 2nd August in the UK.

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I truly think I’m going to love Safety Not Guaranteed.  It just seems, from the trailer we brought you at the end of March and today’s two new clips, like one of those special little films that hits on all cylinders. Both of the clips feature Mark Duplass as Kenneth and Aubrey Plaza as  Darius the duplicitous ad-answerer.

This first one is called Weapons:

The second clip,(from Popsugar via our friends at HeyUGuys) features Kenneth and Darius in the woods discussing his Star Wars action figures: 

“From the producers of Little Miss Sunshine – When an unusual classified ad inspires three cynical Seattle magazine employees to look for the story behind it, they discover a mysterious eccentric named Kenneth, a likable but paranoid supermarket clerk, who believes hes solved the riddle of time travel and intends to depart again soon. Together, they embark on a hilarious, smart, and unexpectedly heartfelt journey that reveals how far believing can take you.”

The supporting cast includes Jake M. Johnson, Kristen Bell, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jeff Garlin and Lynn Shelton. Safety Not Guaranteed impressed at Sundance and SXSW and will get a limited release June 8 in the US. That’s prime summer blockbuster season I realize (Prometheus Day for one), but this might just be a welcome alternative to having your senses assaulted by all of the 3D and IMAX. You can find out more at the film's official site. If you have any interest in seeing this movie, head to the official Facebook page to "like" them and start talking up the movie! 

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In addition to four Dutch versions of the beautiful posters that have emerged for the film, we have yet another new tv spot for Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and the Huntsman. Set to Florence  + the Machine’s “Breath of Life”, it manages to pack quite a bit of new in with the old footage in its short run time.  Take a look:

Whoever is cutting these trailers is a mad genius. The speculation as to whom Snow will end up with is running rampant. (TPTB are already talking sequel. I’m betting she ends up deciding to be her own Princess and ends up with neither of them.)

We also have a new behind-the-scenes featurette to share. This one focuses on Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman. Watch him get down and dirty…literally:

“In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart (Twilight) plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Oscar® winner Charlize Theron) who is out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, Thor) who was dispatched to kill her. Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) joins the cast as the prince long enchanted by Snow White’s beauty and power.

The breathtaking new vision of the legendary tale is from Joe Roth, the producer of Alice in Wonderland, producer Sam Mercer (The Sixth Sense) and acclaimed commercial director and state-of-the-art visualist Rupert Sanders.”

Snow White and the Huntsman opens everywhere on June 1. (In the UK, that means going up against Prometheus. Ouch) More to come, I’m sure.

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We have so much stuff for The Amazing Spider-Man to share with you! We have a sweet look at “teen-aged” lovers Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker (Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield – real life sweeties as of this writing), Spidey looking a little worse for wear and at the mercy of his arch-nemesis The Lizard (aka Dr. Curt Connors) played by Rhys Ifans, a couple of new posters, including one for the Japanese market, oh, and how about a look at Campbell Scott as Spidey’s late lamented dad,  Dr. Richard Parker?  One last thing, (thanks to Movieweb) a first glimpse at Irrfan Khan as another villain, Dr. Ratha.

“Like most teenagers his age, Peter (Garfield) is trying to figure out who he is and how to be the person he is today. In his journey to put the pieces of his past together he uncovers a secret that his father (Campbell Scott) held… a secret that will ultimately shape his destiny asSpider-Man. This is the first in a series of movies that tells a different side of the Peter Parker story.”

The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D on July 3 in the US and July 4 in the UK and most of the rest of the planet. Starring Garfield, Stone and Ifans, it costars Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen and Sally Field. More coming soon! (Hopefully this satisfies your RDA of Lizard.)

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I remember hearing the title, Beasts of the Southern Wild during this past January’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Cinematography Award. As intriguing as that title sounds, as intriguing as the premise sounds:

“In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions.”

…I hadn’t seen a single frame. Given that this is the debut film from director and co-writer Benh Zeitlin,  (the script co-written by Lucy Alibar), despite the fact that it had been so heavily lauded, I had no idea what to actually expect.

Prepare to be dazzled. The first trailer has debuted, along with that beautiful poster. Fox Searchlight snapped up the film after Sundance and will release it here in the US on June 27. (I suspect that release will be extremely limited but I can hope it will make it up to Beantown.)

The two astonishing children who make their screen debuts and lead the film are Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry.  Unreal. Enjoy the trailer. More as we get it.

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The first trailer for stoner comedy High School fell somewhere in between laugh out loud, hold-your-sides-funny and unbearably stupid, providing just enough laughs to make me want to see more. (And then of course there’s Adrien Brody.)

Today we have a new poster, as well as a red-band version of that trailer which gives us a little more raunch, particularly Michael Chiklis’ explanation of “banging down a stiff Lucy”. It’s definitely NSFW unless you’ve got headphones. (The images are pretty much the same; it’s more the language in this one that might make the boss blush.)

The premise: Henry (Matt Bush – Nice Guy Johnny), a straight-arrow with dreams of going to MIT, is talked into smoking his very first joint with his best friend Travis (Sean Marquette), a complete waste-oid. Now, we won’t go into why these two would be best buds without Henry ever having gotten high before the needed setup for this movie. Perhaps it’s explained.  Letting that go, it seems that the stick-up-his-ass principal of the school, played by Michael Chiklis in a hilarious wig and waaaaay against type, is so anti-dope that he’s having the entire school take a drug test. This of course, right after our hero Henry has inhaled for the first time.  Good-bye MIT.

The solution? Get the whole school high. This is the real jumping off point for the comedy hi-jinks that ensue.

Back to Adrien Brody: He plays Psycho Ed with total commitment and an abandon that will undoubtedly be the best reason to see this movie. (You can see him in all of his tattooed glory in the stills below) Ed is the local drug dealer  (I could watch the bit with the frog over and over. “What?”) his pals, that double as muscle, Mykelti Williamson (so good on this past season of Justified) and  Andrew Wilson (older brother of Luke and Owen).

This film, directed by John Stahlberg, Jr. (who didn’t do much before High School, but does have three projects due out in 2013), premiered at Sundance in January 2010, to great acclaim, then went on to play festivals all over the world the rest of that year, but it’s been looking for distribution ever since.  Starz/Anchor Bay has stepped up and will unleash it to theaters on June 1 in the US. With a supporting cast that includes Colin Hanks (in what looks like a variation of the Edie McClurg role in Ferris Bueller), Michael Vartan, Yeardley Smith, and Curtis Armstrong (of course), I maintain that this has potential. If it doesn’t find an audience in the theater, it definitely will on dvd.

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