Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was a disappointment for me. I had heard a lot of good stuff about the movie, and it was in the road trip sub genre that I love so much, but the actual film turned out to be amusing at best, with some sparse laughs. Not bad, but not something I would pay to see in a theater.

And the second one is looking like more of the same, so I’m pretty sure I won’t be rushing out to see this one on the opening weekend. Perhaps when it comes out on DVD.

Recent Dr. Seuss movie adaptations, like The Cat in the Hat and The Grinch, have been pretty lame. This, however, looks like it could be interesting, if for no other reason than just because the animation is quite beautiful and gives the movie a look that seems to me to be more fitting to Dr. Seuss than recent live action versions.

Of course the film’s quality will depend a lot on how good the original comedy bits are, and what we see in the trailer isn’t exactly great. But still, mark me as hopeful.

I have to say, the animation in this mostly looks incredible and extremely real looking. But then there are a couple of shots that just look off, either because of the characters movement or the look of something. And because everything else looks so good these shots stick out like a sore thumb.

I guess this is the problem with the sort of realistic animation Zemeckis is using here. Unlike normal animation, where we are willing to let a lot go because it’s obviously meant to real, we simply expect something close to perfection.

Than again maybe I am the only one who is expecting this. After all The Polar Express had the same problems and plenty of people went to see that. And animation aside, the movie looks very, very promising.

Oh, there is nothing quite as funny as death is it? Well, ok, perhaps there is a few things funnier than death. But still, funerals are events were families come together in a stressful situation, which make it a comedy goldmine. And I have to admit that I love me some black humor.

Anyway, this looks really funny, so keep an eye out for it. Death at a Funeral opens August 17.

It’s a little weird to see Daniel Radcliff in any role besides Potter. He has become synonymous to me with that character and I guess it will take me a while to be able to unthinkingly accept him as someone else.

But the movies does look interesting. It’s the sort of movie I would probably love when I was younger, but that I can still appreciate nowadays.

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.

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.

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.

I’m a bit of a sucker for these kinds of character pieces that mostly show a few people talking and interacting. They almost never turn out to be among the best films of the year, but they are often engaging and interesting, and they can make me think a little about the ways I myself interact with other people. Add to that the possibility of seeing Steve Buscemi acting and you have enough to get me really interested.