Holy cigarette filter-chomping hell. FDR: American Badass! is attempting to win every award for low budget insanity ever made. It’s an obvious money grab in response to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer, but whereas that gem sought to preserve a bit of history, FDR: AB! takes history, injects it with polio, glues 8 pounds of fur to it and lights it on fire. There is nothing about this trailer that doesn’t live up to the Badass pedigree. It all screams “Success!” Explosions, Werewolf Hitler, Barry Bostwick taking it all exactly as seriously as it needs to be taken. Of course, it was all directed by Garrett Brawith, the guy who played Jeffrey Dahmer in Diary of a Serial Killer. Plus, Kevin Sorbo playing Abraham Lincoln. Figure that one out. Werewolf Nazis, people. It’s people in werewolf costumes in Nazi uniforms. Enjoy!

It’s about time more lady-centric comedies popped up in theaters, and the success of Bridesmaids (and what appears to be an insatiable demand for a sequel) should usher in a bit of a golden age for the mini-genre. If that’s so, it’s no shock that such a female-driven sex comedy would show its goods at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Carrie Preston‘s That’s What She Said will surely be the butt of many jokes around Park City come next week, so it’s fitting that we’re getting the film’s first trailer to warm up the Michael Scott in all of us. The film stars Anne Heche as DeeDee (Heche was at last year’s Sundance with Cedar Rapids) and Marcia DeBonis as her best friend Bebe (you might recognize DeBonis as Jennifer Garner’s put-upon assistant from 13 Going On 30). Both unlucky in love, DeeDee is trying to heal herself up with bad habits (lots of smoking), while hopeless romantic Bebe thinks she might have finally met her match. A pretty standard plot, right? Well, that’s probably why Maeby Fünke herself, Alia Shawkat, gets tossed in with her own messed up notions about love. Shawkat’s Clementine is a sex addict, and it looks as if her boundary-pushing just might force DeeDee and Bebe to rethink their own choices. Plus, you know, sex and cigarettes. That’s What She Said will have its World Premiere at Sundance on Friday, January 20, with three additional screenings throughout the festival. Check out the film’s official trailer [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

The story of the West Memphis Three (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley) has already been, quite famously, immortalized in filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost trilogy (which wrapped up this year after the Three were finally freed from prison), but Berligner and Sinofsky were not the only filmmakers captivated by the unbelievable story of the men, the murders, and the miscarriage of justice surrounding them. Peter Jackson and his wife and producing partner Fran Walsh have long been supporters of Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley, so it’s no surprise that the pair have helped produce a new documentary about the men and their case. West of Memphis is an investigative documentary by the Academy Award-nominated Amy Berg that “tells the untold story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light.” The film picks up with the official police investigation in 1993, covering the story “from the inside.” Filled with new information and new evidence, West of Memphis is a timely and welcome addition to this year’s Sundance Film Festival. West of Memphis will have its World Premiere at Sundance on Friday, January 20, with four additional screenings throughout the festival. Check out the film’s official trailer after the break, along with screening information for Sundance. See you there!

While the film has never had an American release, it seems like Kinji Fukasaku‘s Battle Royale (based on the novel by Koushun Takami) has already been seen by every cinephile who has sought it out (I saw it just a couple of weeks ago at Los Angeles’ own Cinefamily, when it had its first American theatrical run). The film never got an official U.S. release, because its subject matter (kids killing kids!) struck a little too close to home when the film was first made and ready for U.S. distribution (in 2000, post-Columbine). But it has shown at various festivals and has been readily available on bootleg DVD in the twelve years since, though it’s still worth celebrating that the film is finally getting an official home video release in the U.S., thanks to Anchor Bay. Of course, the timing of the release does coincide quite perfectly with another film based on a book that mines very similar territory. Like Battle Royale, the upcoming The Hunger Games film follows a government-sponsored fight to the death between teens. The comparisons between the two of been made many times, but as our pal Russ Fischer over at /Film notes, author Suzanne Collins “maintains that she had never seen or heard of Battle Royale before writing her books,” something he finds “difficult to believe — it seems like someone whose interests run to the sort of material represented in The Hunger Games would have known Battle Royale — but I suppose it is [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

I don’t know where you stand on the issue, but the release of a new Wes Anderson movie is pretty much cause for a gigantic celebration around my house. I know that he’s kind of a love him or hate him director, but personally, his dry humor, fairy tale tone, and satirical yet sentimental look at neurotic intellectuals hits my funny bone in a way few other things do. And his meticulous attention to production design detail make his movies a joy to pick through and study over the course of multiple re-watches. These are films that grow in my esteem over time, and his newest work, Moonrise Kingdom, looks like it’s going to fit, perhaps quite predictably, right in that oeuvre. Anderson’s movies always feel like they’re taking place in a world slightly more magical than our own, but his last film, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, went a step further by being an animated film starring talking animals. Though Moonrise Kingdom sees the director stepping back into the world of live action, it looks like he’s bringing more of that animated absurdity back with him. This trailer has impossible tree forts, Ed Norton in a Cub Scout uniform saying things like “Jiminy Cricket, he flew the coop,” lightning strikes, and little kids brandishing homemade weapons. Make no mistake, Wes Anderon’s latest movie looks absolutely bat-poop crazy, and I’m super stoked to see how far he’s willing to take things. The final scene, where Bill Murray interacts with some children [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Perhaps you watched Bridesmaids and wondered to yourself, “self, I wonder what it would be like if Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm’s characters had a functional romantic relationship. And, perhaps what it would be like if Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd‘s characters were married with kids. And maybe Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt could be there, too.” Fine, if you wondered about any of that, it was probably just the first part – but, hey, bonus! Actress Westfeldt has already penned two romantic indies that she’s also starred in (Kissing Jessica Stein and Ira & Abby), and she’s pulling triple-duty on her next, the amply-titled Friends With Kids. The film follows just that – three very different couples who are all at different points in their lives, particularly when it comes to child-rearing. While Wiig and Hamm are newlyweds and Rudolph and O’Dowd are married parents, Scott and Westfeldt play best friends who decide to have a kid together, even though they’re not romantically involved. As the film’s first trailer shows, that kid comes – followed by a romantic interest for both of his parents. Stock up on your folic acid and check out the film’s first trailer after the break.

I’m not sure how we missed this one, but I can only assume it was intentional. If you do a search of our site for the name ‘McG’ you’ll find mostly negative comments, critiques and flat-out insults including us celebrating the idea of the director being launched into space on a one-way ticket. (Of course, you’ll also find my Transformers 2 review that inexplicably calls for an apology to be given to McG.) But while we’re a month late in featuring this trailer for McG’s newest movie, we’re at least covering it with an open mind and a positive attitude. Because surprisingly, This Means War looks like it could actually be kind of fun. Tom Hardy and Chris Pine play CIA agents at the top of their game. They’re partners and friends who have each others backs and would let nothing come between them. Nothing that is, except a hot blonde. When the two discover that they’re both dating the same woman (Reese Witherspoon) they decide to let her choose the better man. But that doesn’t mean they can’t try to hedge their bets using all the skills and equipment at their disposal. So yes, it’s basically Mad Magazine’s Spy vs Spy with a love story angle thrown in as motivation. Check out the trailer below, and get ready to accept the fact that even with Chelsea Handler co-starring it doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as we all feared.

American horror master Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Poltergeist) has contributed substantially to modern classic scarefests and what we consider to be a the standard American horror canon, so it’s interesting that his latest film, Djinn, was filmed entirely in the United Arab Emirates and uses a menace straight out of Arab folklore and Islamic teachings. The film follows “an Emirati couple (played by Khalid Laith and Razane Jammal) return from a trip to the United States only to discover that their new apartment has been built on a site that is home to some malevolent beings.” Seriously, everybody needs to put some time into investigating just what their homes are built on. But Djinn might be encountering something even more terrifying than issues of architecture – STYD reported just last week that the film might not see the light of day, as rumors held that “someone close to Abu Dhabi’s royal family has seen the movie and does not appreciate its portrayal of the UAE and considers the movie to be politically subversive, and that they’ve paid off the studio’s chairman, Mohammed Al Mubarak, to bury it…Two other film companies even offered to buy it outright, but the chairman refused to hear their bids.” But after that story was posted, another site got official word from the studio that held that “These rumours are unfounded. Djinn is in active post-production, and Image Nation looks forward to releasing the film in theatres later this year.  As for offers, [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Movies presented in real-time are a sort of rarity. High Noon and Rope jump to the mind immediately, and they’re fantastic, but there are also a handful of films that never got past the concept as pure gimmick. However, it’s always been interesting to guess at what the appeal of taking away the possibility of jumping forward or back in time really is. One obvious trick, is the creation of suspense. A constantly ticking clock that the audience is physically aware of. That seems to be alive and well for Sundance favorite Silent House which features Sundance favorite Elizabeth Olsen. It comes from Open Water creators Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, and tells the story of a young woman and her father who are stuck inside a home where a noise continues to grow louder and louder. It’s based off the Uruguayan movie from Gustavo Hernandez that Rob was not a big fan of. Gimmick-based or not, the trailer here is pretty damned limp. It’s composed almost entirely of shots of Olsen breathing heavily and then a poorly shot “thing of some sort” grabbing her? Not grabbing her? Hard to say. Check it out for yourself:

I heard good things about Liza Johnson‘s Return after its Cannes premiere, and since then I’ve been watching out for it. Why? Well, for the most ultimate of starters, it starts Linda Cardellini, an actress I wish we saw more of. The last time I saw Cardellini appear in a film was in James Gunn‘s (awesome) SUPER, and that was only a cameo. She could make your heart wrench or fly on Freaks and Geeks, and it’s a real shame Cardellini hasn’t yet had any feature films to work with that give her that type of strong material to work with. But apparently Return does. Even the reviews that didn’t praise Return as a whole made special mention of Cardellini’s performance. The trailer for the film has an impressive low-key and claustrophobic buildup, and you can definitely see where the praise for Cerdellini is coming from. And, hey, Michael Shannon. Check it out after the break.

Juan Diego Solanas‘s Upside Down was first announced back in 2009, and since then, I’ve often wondered when we’d see our first meaty piece of marketing for the writer and director’s Kirsten Dunst- and Jim Sturgess-starring romance. Turns out, it’s today. Turns out, the film looks just as bizarre, occasionally inspired, kind of derivative, slightly silly, somewhat hammy, and potentially headache-inducing than I could have possibly expected. Yow. Star-crossed (or make that world-crossed) lovers, Adam and Eve (yes, really), live in two different worlds – really different. Poor Adam lives “down below” and Eve lives “up top” – two different worlds that exist on top of and inverted of each other. Sound weird? It is. However, the film’s official synopsis (which has been kicking around for awhile now), combined with the trailer, does pretty effectively communicate the laws and look of the dueling worlds. The synopsis informs us that “Adam is a seemingly ordinary guy in a very extraordinary universe. He lives humbly trying to make ends meet, but his romantic spirit holds on to the memory of a girl he met once upon a time from another world, an inverted affluent world with its own gravity, directly above but beyond reach… a girl named Eve. Their childhood flirtation becomes an impossible love. But when he catches a glimpse of grown?up Eve on television, nothing will get in the way of getting her back… Not even the law or science!” Damn you, law! Screw you, science! Breakin’ all the rules [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

If you’ve seen the 2009 Greek release Dogtooth, then you know that Efthymis Filippou is a unique storyteller. That film, which details the lives of a family with an interesting take on child rearing, plays like an onion of crazy that makes your brain cry harder every layer of plot you peel away. If you haven’t seen Dogtooth, drop everything you’re doing and go watch that one before you read further here. It’s still streaming on Netflix…just prepare to be disturbed. Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s talk about this new movie, L. It’s a film about a man living in a car that’s set to debut at this year’s Sundance. Okay, to be more specific, it’s a film about a divorced man who lives in a car, whose family lives in another car, and who often has meetings with him in random parking lots. One of those meetings makes up the bulk of this trailer, which kind of plays like a weird microfilm. As you might imagine, this isn’t such a great way to live, even for a professional driver/honey delivery man, so the protagonist is also wrestling with the idea of giving up cars for motorcycles.

When HBO wanted to create an adaptation of the best-selling book “Game Change,” about the 2008 presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama, they picked up the phone and called Jay Roach – the director behind Austin Powers and The Fockers who also delivered them the television movie Recount. Now, Roach has covered, semi-fictionally, politics in 2000 and in 2008. Slog through the dialogue between Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt (the Republican strategist) and Ed Harris as McCain, and you’ll be rewarded briefly with who will inevitably be the real star of the show, Julianne Moore slingin’ a down home twang as Sarah Palin. The question is this: with so much going on socially and economically, are we really interested in going back in time to examine a reality television star?

Since moving to Germany, I’ve gotten used to watching movies overdubbed in Deutsch (last night was Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik). Still, there’s no amount of dubbing that could prepare me for hearing Samuel L. Jackson say “We get ready,” in a deep, Russian baritone. Мы получаем готовый! The Russian trailer for The Avengers is essentially the same one from our shores, but they shine a bigger spotlight on Black Widow (which means extended footage of Scarlett Johansson looking like an ice-veined killer in black latex while explosions happen all over the place. It’s no surprise they’d treat native daughter, and former KGB operative, Natasha Romanoff with such respect. Now check it out for yourself:

If you had asked me about The Devil’s Carnival yesterday, I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about. I probably would have assumed it was a 70s exploitation flick that took place behind a patchwork tent where a woman gets raped in a pile of elephant dung and then seeks revenge (or something). But I would have been wrong. The movie is a new project from the overworked Darren Lynn Bousman, who has a full dance card but decided he wanted to put another record on. The teaser trailer for the movie is an extended, 11-minute-long shot of a woman (Emilie Autumn) going about her lingerie-clad business. It’s experimental, but it looks more like it was directed by Bela Tarr because it’s a lot of nothing. There are clever little notes that are struck with some cartoonish CGI, but mostly it’s a woman just hanging around doing nothing in particular. Now, that doesn’t mean the movie itself won’t be a hellish explosion of style. According to Shock Til You Drop, Bousman is collaborating again with Repo! writer Terrance Zdunich. Check it (and the poster) out for yourself:

Cinematographer of many a short film, Óskar Thór Axelsson, is making his feature directing debut with a Stefán Máni novel. Black’s Game focuses on the evolution of the 1990s Reykjavik underworld from a tepid endeavor to a stirringly violent one. At the center is a gang (based on no gang in particular) of drug dealers who aggressively fight for control of the trade. From the look of the trailer, things are about to get ugly. Check it out for yourself (now with convenient English subtitles!):

Anytime you can’t tell whether a trailer is for a real movie or a parodic lark, it reaffirms the need to give it a second or third look. That’s priceless for a lower budget movie based off an internet meme. Bad Ass, a totally real, actual movie, stars Danny Trejo as a bearded man riding a bus who is set upon by local street toughs. When video of him taking their asses out to the curb goes viral, he becomes a crime fighter. It’s based, of course, on Epic Beard Man – an Oakland bus rider who encountered the exact situation (including delivering a whooping and becoming a viral video star). So, why not watch the trailer and the original viral video together? Check it out for yourself, and start growing a beard for justice.

When the theatrical trailer was released for Paramount’s upcoming horror movie The Devil Inside, I responded to it by groaning and putting my face in my hands. There wasn’t anything in the footage that made this film look any different from the one million exorcism movies or the one thousand found footage horror movies that are already out there. Was this project really necessary? Well, the new red band trailer hints that though it might not be necessary, The Devil Inside might still be pretty fun. No, there isn’t anything revolutionary going on here that’s going to separate this film from the rest of the pack in your mind, but it’s starting to look like this one goes a few steps further than the rest of the recent exorcism films as far as big time spectacle, creepy effects work, and offensive content goes. This time around we get extended bone-crunching gymnastics, camera-splattering vaginal blood, lots of action, and a bit with a baby that’s bound to give you the willies.

If you woke up this morning and felt you needed to see a trailer frothing over with semen jokes, it’s as if the planets have aligned to tell you that you need more therapy and that the redband trailer for Babymakers has poked its little head out onto the internet. This is the Broken Lizard movie that isn’t a Broken Lizard movie. Instead of the gang from Beerfest trying to impregnate everyone, it stars Olivia Munn and Paul Schneider (Away We Go, Lars and the Real Girl) as a couple who have trouble conceiving. Fortunately, Schneider’s character donated a bunch of great sperm years ago. Unfortunately, it’s all gone, so he has to try to steal some of it back. Good old Kevin “Farva” Heffernan is on board as the sidekick, and Jay Chandrasekhar is directing and playing an Indian mafia killer (complete with genuine Indian accent!). As for the rest of the Broken Lizard gang, they look like they’re relegated to the background here. Check out the trailer for yourself:

All I want for Christmas is for the bizarre trickle (leaks and all) of Prometheus marketing (teaser trailers for teaser trailers? seriously?) to stop and for everyone to stop ruminating on how Ridley Scott‘s latest fits into the Alien universe. It’s clearly a prequel, but that could just be the eggnog talking. The film stars a seriously wonderful cast that includes Noomi Rapace (in just her second English-language role), Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, and Idris Elba. The film was once touted as a direct prequel to Scott’s 1979 sci-fi classic Alien, though since the film’s initial conception, the cast and crew of the film have turned cagey, tossing off terms like “being in the same universe of” the Alien films, which was weird enough already. And that was until said marketing trickle, with all signs pointing to “yes, this is a prequel.” And, today, finally the first trailer for the film, which hits two notes – “incredibly awesome” and “totally a prequel.” I’ll stop hemming and hawing now and let you take in the trailer for one of 2012′s most anticipated new releases. Check out the first (really, actually, truly official) trailer for Prometheus after the break.