I’m starting to think that The Dark is Rising is a bad title for this film. After all, it seems like a pretty light family friendly adventure. The current title made me expect something a little darker and at least a little more epic.

Anyway, this doesn’t look good at all. It reminds me of nothing as much as Eragon, which I didn’t actually see, but still feel very confident in saying it was really bad. As far as the kid encounters parallel universe genre goes, I’m much more interested in Spiderwick Chronicles.

I’m not at all a fan of Roland Emmerich. Godzilla was a missed opportunity and Independence Day, despite some major qualities, was in the end too stupid and unbelievable to be really good. But the idea of making a Hollywood style effects extravaganza movie that takes place during pre-history is just too good for me to just dismiss it because he is directing.

The trailer itself is just a teaser and doesn’t show us much. It also doesn’t tell us what the story is about. But still, I’m sort of excited.

Seeing Michael Caine is always a treat. And I’m sure the pedigree behind this movie means that it will be suitably smart. So yeah, I’m looking forward to Sleuth.

But I have to say, the trailer makes me think that this is going to feel a lot like a stage play that was filmed, and not so much a movie. Constrained spaces, few characters, etc. I like this kinds of films, but they tend to be limited in just how good they can be.

The kid discovers a parallel world close to our own genre is getting a little crowded. But I have to admit that this Spiderwick trailer makes the movie look really good. And I mean both that it is beautiful and that it looks like it could be interesting.

Somehow I get the feeling the the actual film will be less scary than the trailer leads us to believe, since this is aimed at kids and all. But I’m now, much too my surprise, sort of eager to see at the movie. Could this actually turn out to be good?

Most Christmas movies are either too sugary, or simply stupid. And quite a few are both. But there are some exceptions. Films like Elf and Bad Santa, that manage to be funny and a little subversive, while still having the Christmas spirit at its core.

I’m afraid Fred Claus isn’t going to be one of these movies. If the trailer is any indication. It’s going to be one of the stupid unfunny ones.

Honestly, I didn’t laugh one time during the trailer. Not one! How is it possible that you have a movie with Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti and you can’t find one truly funny moment to put on the trailer? Unbelievable.

Cloverfield (yes, I’m going to go on calling it Cloverfield, at least for now), the new and very mysterious J.J. Abrams produced film has been gaining a lot of attention due to it’s very creative and secretive marketing campaign. And the trailer fits well with that, showing just enough to get us interested, but not enough to allow us to know what the hell it is. Well done in that front.

But I think there are also many very promising aspects to the trailer that go beyond just the mysteriousness of the whole thing. I’ve always felt that the kind of filming technique used on the Blair Witch Project, using handheld cameras, having the characters be the ones filming the movie, where great for horror movies, but also felt that they could be done better than they were in Blair Witch. This might be the film does it better.

I also like how the trailer seems to focus a lot on the characters and in how they react to the strange things that are happening. A lot of the best horror movies aren’t about “the monster”, they are about how the characters handle the existence of said monster.

I think this just might turn out to be a very good movie, and not just a very good marketing campaign.

This looks just trippy enough to be interesting, doesn’t it?

Bending a film’s reality in order to better portray the internal feelings of the characters can lead to some very interesting scenes. And bored at work has great potential for comedy. Both of those things are hard to do well, but I’m hopeful for this one.

I’ll be totally honest here: I didn’t like Casey Affleck’s acting in the trailer, but it is possible that I’m being too hard on him because he is the brother of the director, who happens to be a well known movie star. I hope I’m wrong, because the trailer indicated that there is a very strong story behind this movie, and many of the actors involved are genuinely great. So, if Casey turns out to be good, this could be a really interesting film.

This trailer for Catacombs reminds me a lot of The Descent, another horror movie that involved a group of women going into a dangerous cave “for fun” and finding themselves stuck and facing unexpected perils. The Descent was a really good horror movie, but I get the feeling Catacombs won’t measure up to it. The trailer gave me the impression that the scares will be too obvious and that the characters won’t be nearly as interesting.

Of course, it’s just the trailer, so I could be wrong. The premise certainly is a good one.

Well, this looks like a smart, fun and harmless women friendly movie. Which is something we need more of.

Way too many films that target women specifically are of the cliched romantic comedy type. Although this movie is not likely to be one of the best films of the year, it should at least make for an entertaining couple of hours.