Trailer Round-up – Oct 28th
Warner Bros. have given us our first look at the latest Clint Eastwood movie, Invictus, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman.
The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation which is the true story of newly elected President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, played here by Morgan Freeman, and his attempts to unite his bitterly divided country through sport. No sport is South Africa highlighted the Apartheid racial divide more than rugby, and so Mandela set about rectifying the situation in the run-up to the South African based 1995 World Cup. Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar the captain of the host nation, desperate to win the Webb Ellis trophy for his team and for his country.
The movie will be out on December 11th in the US, just in time for the Oscars and can be seen in Ireland on February 5th, 2010.
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Matt Damon is again present in the new Iraqi war drama, Green Zone, from The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass.
The film, set in the chaotic early days of the Iraqi War, is based on the 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran and centres in Green Zone, Bagdad. Damon stars alongside Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Ireland’s very own Brendan Gleeson.
Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, leader of a team of Army inspectors who were dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert, during the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003. All is not what it seems however as the team must work with faulty intelligence and search for answers that will either clear a rogue regime or escalate a war in an unstable region
Greengrass and Damon’s last two outings were excellent and this is shaping up to be a barn-stormer too. Green Zone is out March 12th, 2010.
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Martin Scorsese’s new movie Shutter Island has been looking promising for a while and the lastest trailer has hit the internet.
The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo as two US Marshals, Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule. The story takes place in 1954 on Shutter Island, home to a psychiatric hospital called Ashecliffe. The two marshalls are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient who had committed multiple murders. As a hurricane hits the island the pair run into trouble when they are deceived by the hospital’s chief administrator and an inmate riot traps them.
Scorsese and DiCaprio have a great track record and Denis Lehane books have been adapted incredibly well recently with Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. The movie will be out February 19th, 2010.
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Walt Disney Pictures have released a full-length trailer for Tim Burton’s epic 3D fantasy adventure Alice in Wonderland.
The movie is an extension of the Lewis Carroll novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and sees Alice return to Wonderland 10 years after her first visit. The white rabbit comes back for Alice claiming that she alone is the only one who can slay the Jabberwock, who guards the Red Queen’s empire. She embarks on an adventure of self discovery and to save Wonderland from the Red Queen’s reign of terror with the help of her Wonderland friends.
Johnny Depp returns to work with his favourite director, in the guise of the Mad Hatter, while the rest of the cast is suitable impressive. Newcomer Mia Wasikowska plays Alice; Helena Bonham Carter is Iracebeth, the Red Queen; Anne Hathaway is Mirana, the White Queen; Michael Sheen the White Rabbit; Alan Rickman the Caterpillar; Stephen Fry the Cheshire Cat; and Christopher Lee is the Jabberwock. Matt Lucas is also present playing both Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
If ever a director and book were more suited then I don’t know which one. Burton’s fantastical mind should make this movie an absolute must see when it is released March 5th, 2010.
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Quick round-up of the rest:
The Men Who Stare at Goats, the quirky dark comedy inspired by the real life events surrounding a top-secret wing of the U.S. military with an insane mission, and starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor, has a new TV Spot.
A Christmas Carol, the Disney motion-capture take on Charles Dicken’s immortal Christmas parable, starring Jim Carrey, Jim Carrey and Jim Carrey, has a new Featurette.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful Twilight series, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, has a new Featurette.
Ninja Assassin, the upcoming martial arts film from V for Vendetta director James McTeigue and starring South Korean pop-sensation Rain, has a new Featurette.
The Men Who Stare at Goats is released November 6th, 2009.
A Christmas Carol is released November 6th, 2009.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon is released November 20th, 2009.
Ninja Assassin is released November 27th, 2009.
* I did post this on my own blog as part of my daily round-up of movie news, but I felt it deserved the wider audience that Culch has. Apologies if I was being presumptuous.
About the Author
Niall The proverbial man lost in La Mancha. Sports aficionado and all-round scoundrel. Über-geek to boot. I run the movie website Scannain.com and can usually be found twittering away as @niallxmurphy.
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You weren’t. ?
Shutter Island looks great, but I think I’ll have to convince Gill to go. She wasn’t impressed by the previous trailer.
Shutter Island looks amazing (having not seen the previous trailer), as does Alice In Wonderland. Not terribly interested in seeing A Christmas Carol though. Not that i hate the story mind (quite the opposite in fact), but it’s been done so many times now…plus i’m just not into Robert Zemeckis’s whole dead-eyed motion-capture thing (why not just use real actors and sets?). Just my opinion.
Inviticus looks rather amazing. Morgan Freeman, as Nelson Mandella, in a story few people know about, sounds like a winner.
The Invictus poster is genius too.
Every time I have tried to comment on these films I have been interrupted, having my own gov’t conspiracy theories and I work for the US gov’t..
‘Invictus’ looks brilliant !
‘Green Zone’ looks great too, is this fact?
‘Shutter Island’ looks interesting & scary.
‘Alice in Wonderland’ has a great cast and crew, should be very entertaining.
All for now ?
Invictus looks brilliant, that’s the first trailer I’ve seen for it.
Green Zone – seems to be an overload of films about US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan these days, though this one looks pretty interesting.
Shutter Island – looks kinda scary (to me), the trailer gives me the creeps-that said, if I get the opportunity to, I’ll go and see it. I’m glad you followed it up with Alice – can’t wait for that ?
A Christmas Carol looks marvellous and magical too, looking forward to that one as well.
Great post Niall, as always.