The Pulpmovies Trailer Park

There isn’t a lot I can tell you about Mass Hysteria. It’s from Thailand, claims to be based on real events and tells the story of a group of schoolgirls possessed by some sort of ‘evil influence’.

And nothing is creepier than a classroom of evil schoolgirls.

The Trailer

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There are times when you see a trailer and immediately want to see the film. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Tommy Lee Jones’s feature film directorial debut, is just such a film.

In the early winter of 2001, Tommy Lee Jones asked Guillermo Arriaga to write a screenplay about the border country between West Texas and Northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Jones was born and raised in West Texas and for many years had owned a large working cattle ranch in the Davis Mountains. “This is my home country,” he explained, “These are my home people, that’s why I’m interested in making a movie about this place.” They agreed that Arriaga would write the principal acting part for Jones, who would direct the picture as well. As a Mexican writer, and a lover of this border country, Arriaga also had a vested interest in telling a story that would explore the unique culture of the area-an area that both shares and divides American and Mexican people, customs, and traditions. Jones did not specify narrative or characters for Arriaga to follow, but rather discussed with him some anecdotes of historical injustices along the border, and spoke in broad terms about what he hoped to illuminate and achieve with the film. As he said later, “I wanted essentially to make a study in social contrast between the land that’s south of the Rio Grande River and the land that’s north of it. I wanted to understand how things are the same, and how they’re different, how they’re in and out of human control, what ironies might exist there, what injustices, what glory, beauty, and redemption you can find in this area that has its own character, its own quality, something that cannot be imposed, something that has grown, and evolved, something that cannot be controlled.”

The U.S.-Mexico border has long been plagued with violence and racism, and many of the events that unfold in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada are accurate depictions of the ongoing abuse of human rights in the region. But the film offers, in its conclusion, a pure form of contrition for wrongs committed, and a striking note of empathy for the lives so changed.

A man is shot and quickly buried in the high desert of west Texas. The body is found and reburied in Van Horn’s town cemetery. Pete Perkins, a local ranch foreman (Tommy Lee Jones) kidnaps a Border Patrolman and forces him to disinter the body. With his captive in tow and the body tied to a mule Pete undertakes a dangerous and quixotic journey into Mexico.

Guillermo Arriaga’s dramatic and poetic script weaves past and present as it gradually reveals a great friendship, the lonely subterfuge of an illegal migrant’s life, the cost of a promise made and kept, and culminates in the redemption of a callous if accidental killer.

And it all looks like very powerful stuff.

The Action Teaser

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The Trailer

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The White Countess - the latest film from Merchant Ivory - goes on limited release in the US on 21st December.

Set in Shanghai in the late 1930s, this is the story of the relationship between a disillusioned former US diplomat and a refugee White Russian countess reduced to a sordid life in the city’s bars.

Todd Jackson (mid-40s), once an American diplomat filled with idealism, has lost his sight several years earlier, and is now languishing in Shanghai’s grand hotels and elite gentlemen’s clubs, a burnt-out case, He has become bitterly disillusioned by realpolitik and the seemingly unavoidable nature of war and conflict. He is, moreover, deeply bereaved by the deaths of his wife and children - victims of violent events in the political turmoil of 1930s China that also robbed him of his sight.

As our film begins, we find him trying to retreat into a smaller, more controllable world by way of an ambition he has always secretly nurtured: to create here, in perhaps the world’s most licentious, glittering and sordid port, the perfect bar. After countless hours spent critically examining dive after dive in the city’s pleasure districts, Jackson has become a connoisseur of decadence. And one day, after a chance meeting with Matsuda - a mysterious Japanese who appears to share Jackson’s refined eye for the beauty of low-life establishments - Jackson gambles his savings on a horse, wins, and sets about realizing his masterpiece: a bar that will achieve the exquisite balance of romance, tragedy, and political tension.

He is assisted in his project by Matsuda. The fact that Matsuda is a decidedly shadowy figure fails to worry Jackson. And when rumors circulate that Matsuda has come to Shanghai to oversee a Japanese invasion of the city, Jackson still willfully refuses to listen. He absorbs himself in perfecting his bar, determined to keep the larger world - and his deeper emotions - locked firmly outside.

Sofia is a White Russian countess in her thirties who fled the Bolshevik Revolution as a child. Her immediate family have perished. She now lives in a Shanghai slum with members of her late husband’s aristocratic family and her ten-year-old daughter, Katya. Sofia is the household’s sole breadwinner, working as a taxi-dancer in dingy night spots, resorting to prostitution when times are hard. The rest of the household show their gratitude by endlessly ostracizing her for bringing disgrace to the family.

Jackson encounters Sofia one night working at her taxi-dance hall, decides she is the perfect blend of tragedy and sensuality and asks her to become the centerpiece of his perfect bar. Thus begins a relationship that will see Jackson - despite his best efforts - slowly coaxed out of his enclosed world. He gradually comes to concede that Sofia may be more than a beautiful picture, becomes drawn to the spirited young Katya, and ultimately, into the intrigues within the family to separate Sofia from her child.

The story ends as the Japanese invade Shanghai, with the entire world on the brink of World War II. Ironically, it is at this point that Jackson, in acknowledging his love for Sofia and her daughter, finds reawakened his own idealism for a world free from war.

The Original Trailer

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The Revised Trailer

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Who’d have thought that Spike Lee would have gotten involved in a mainstream crime caper?

At least that’s the impression that comes across from the trailer for The Inside Man, which stars Denzil Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster.

The Inside Man takes places during a hostage situation in which a tough cop matches wits a clever bank robber, who sets to pull the the perfect heist. Washington stars as New York police detective Keith Miller, a tough, street-smart cop fighting for a promotion while trying to live down accusations of misconduct connected to his last case. When he and his partner are dispatched to the scene of an in-progress bank robbery and hostage crisis, Miller must face off against a well-educated criminal (Owen) masterminding a concisely plotted operation. As negotiations grow more strained, a powerful lawyer with mysterious ties (Foster) becomes involved in the crisis… and Miller slowly begins to realize that in this ultimate game of cat and mouse, rules are arbitrary, all roles are up for grabs and the black-and-white of right an wrong has blurred to a shadowy landscape of gray. Willem Dafoe will be playing the role of a police captain while Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a detective in the film.

The Trailer

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Psychological thriller, Caché, from Michael Haneke won Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and more recently won awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor at this year’s European Film Awards.

Georges, who hosts a TV literary review, receives packages containing videos of himself with his family — shot secretly from the street — and alarming drawings whose meaning is obscure. He has no idea who may be sending them. Gradually, the footage on the tapes becomes more personal, suggesting that the sender has known Georges for some time. Georges feels a sense of menace hanging over him and his family but, as no direct threat has been made, the police refuse to help…

The film has already been released in much of Europe, but goes on limited release in the US on 23rd December. It opens in the UK and Germany in January 2006 and in the Netherlands in February.

The Trailer

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The trailer for Fearless - Jet Li’s final martial arts film - is now online, and looking good.

Li plays Fok Yuanjia , the son of a boxing champ who dreams of following in his father’s footsteps. After becoming the most famous fighter in China, he disappears for years when personal tragedy strikes. Ultimately, Li’s character must come out of hiding to defend the honor of his country in an international tournament.

The Trailer

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Eli Roth claims that he found a Thai website that advertised itself as a “murder vacation,” offering users the chance to torture and kill someone for the price of $10,000. Roth later showed the site to Quentin Tarantino and the two developed the idea for the film, Hostel, in which three backpackers head to a Slovakian city that promises to meet their hedonistic expectations, with no idea of the hell that awaits them.

The film is released in January 2006 and, from the trailer - and especially the clip - this is going to be a painfully disturbing film.

The Trailer

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The Clip

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Dnevnoy Dozor (Day Watch) takes over where Night Watch left off; the fragile peace between Light and Dark is still guarded by two supernatural police forces, the Night Watch and the Day Watch. Anton, the hero of the first film, tries to rescue his son from the claws of Darkness, and in doing so becomes a voluntary scapegoat when a mighty vampiric ‘Other’ is murdered. When the ‘chalk of fate’, a piece of chalk that can literally (re)write history, threatens to fall into the wrong hands, the instable truce between Light and Darkness starts to falter even more.

Just like in its predecessor, the – let’s say it once more – masterful special effects fortunately do not cancel out the human drama. Although the story weaves through different time periods and there are plenty of epic fights and unforgettable car chases, director Bekmanbetov leaves enough room for his impressive cast to shine.

Trailer #1

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Trailer #2

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