The new trailer for Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man reboot has just hit the web… and it doesn’t look bad at all! The film stars Andrew Garfield as the titular and angst-filled hero and Emma Stone as the love interest alongside Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Denis Leary, Rhys Ifans, C. Thomas Howell and Campbell Scott (and yes, probably Stan Lee). It claims to tell the “untold story” but appears to be an origin tale, so who knows what Webb and friends have up their sleeve. (Beside the web shooter I mean.) Check out the new trailer below.

When Sony released the “Untold Story” tagine for The Amazing Spider-Man, it rang about as true as a career politician and lobbyist claiming to be a Washington Outsider (or, for a less current joke, like Hot Pockets claiming they wouldn’t cause your bowels to erupt). It’s a rebooted franchise – essentially a remake of an earlier film that came out of the same studio a decade ago. However, there were always elements that hinted at Sony and direct Marc Webb going big instead of going home. A new synopsis, uncovered by the Times of India (via Screen Rant), shows off exactly what they mean by an untold story, and as it matches up to the original Sam Raimi film – it’s pretty damned untold. Sure, there are the teenage elements of angst and that certain feeling of being lost in a sea of hormones without a rudder or a helping hand. Hopefully there will be some playfulness and some sarcasm. Of course there will be a spider bite. All of it rings familiar, except the rest of the plot. In fact, much like a comic book, it reads like an alternate history of a character delivered by a new writer. Check it out for yourself:

Now, normally I don’t post stuff like this because staring at plastic toy designs in order to determine what a character might look like in an upcoming movie is less fun than, say, flying a kite or punching myself in the face. However, these speculative product tie-in pictures for The Amazing Spider-Man were too good/terrible to pass up. Why? Because I fear for the movie. I fear for it. I fear that a character I love is getting an unnecessary recharge because Sony wants more money. Beyond that, I’m excited to see more work from Marc Webb, but I fear that a director with incredible creative potential is being wasted on a project no one really asked for – a character introduction to someone we already know really well. Plus, these images from Idle Hands are ridiculous. If this truly does echo the look of The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) in the movie, then we are all in for the laugh riot of the year. The design here is, I believe genuinely, channeled from the abomination that was the 1993 Super Mario Bros.  Judge for yourself:

The trailer for The Five-Year Engagement doesn’t make it look like a movie I’m too excited to see. Which is strange, because it’s not just the latest film from director Nicholas Stoller, it’s also his latest writing collaboration with Jason Segel, and I love pretty much everything that these guys do. I think the problem is that this one looks like it’s going to be a romantic comedy that’s a little bit heavier on the relationship drama than it will be on the comedy. I like my Jason Segel more silly and whimsical than the one I’m seeing here, dealing with the trials and tribulations of loving a woman who’s career path is taking his life in a different direction than he saw it going. On the flip side of the coin, this little two-and-a-half minute trailer is pretty much the most comedy I’ve ever seen Segel’s co-star Emily Blunt do, and she seems to be rather good at it. Not every actor can do comedy, so you’re never sure what you’re going to get until they try. The image of Kate Hudson getting shot in the leg with an arrow really doesn’t do much for me, but when it happens to Blunt here I got my one solid laugh from the trailer. Emily Blunt certainly isn’t my issue. Check out the first trailer for The Five-Year Engagement after the break.

Yesterday the web was all aflutter with a “first look” at The Lizard from The Amazing Spider-Man that came via a Pez dispenser mock-up. Yes, it’s come down to this. Waiting to see a wicked new baddie through the eyes of a candy-related toy. As you’ll note if you read us daily, we missed out on covering it. Something about the entire situation screams “There’s something better for those who wait.” And lo, there is something better that’s come along this morning: some leaked concept art of what Rhys Ifans may look like as Spider-Man’s foe. Check it out after the jump if you dare be spoiled (but only a little).

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr puts on some 3D glasses to look at some puss… in boots, that is. He proceeds to rewrite fairy tale fiction to include more bodily function humor, an egg-shaped Zach Galifianakis and a hairy but still sexy Salma Hayek. Then, he heads to the reference department of his local library to discover who really wrote the complete works of William Shakespeare. When all signs point to Neil Miller as the real author, Kevin gives up, realizing he’s out of time. So he brings sexy back and heads out to kidnap Amanda Seyfried so he can occupy Hollywood and start a revolution together… or get arrested.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s all about movies, and television, and comics, and literature, and photos of hot women. Such as Miss Piggy, yo. We begin tonight with perhaps the most interesting twist of the fall movie season. In recent interviews, the likes of Frank Oz and other original puppeteers and writers from the Jim Henson school are speaking out about how The Muppets might not respect the characters they helped create. “I wasn’t happy with the script,” Oz told Metro. “I don’t think they respected the characters. But I don’t want to go on about it like a sourpuss and hurt the movie.”

For whatever reason, Roland Emmerich has decided to jettison his traditional style of destroying the world on film by way of pre-destined end-times or global warming or goo-covered aliens and has taken his cinematic endeavors in an entirely new direction. This time around, Emmerich doesn’t want to blow up the world – he wants to blow up literary history (and, by doing so, also blow up the minds, hearts, and souls of English lit majors everywhere). In Anonymous, Emmerich riffs on the theory that William Shakespeare didn’t actually write all of his works, and that the entire literary world has been at the mercy of the widespread lie that he did. At its heart, Anonymous is a conspiracy flick. About Shakespeare. It’s a Shakespeare-icy flick (you’re welcome). Somehow, Emmerich’s bizarre left-hand turn into historical whodunit gathered a solid cast that includes Edward Hogg, David Thewlis, Vanessa Redgrave, Rhys Ifans, Joely Richardson, and Rafe Spall. I don’t know if they’re in on the joke or not, but Anonymous still looks like the cheap punchline of a terrible joke that doesn’t quite make sense. Even the jokes about this film seem too strange to be real:

It’s been rumored for a while now that Javier Bardem would be playing the villain in the next installment of the James Bond franchise, but that production has been through so much turmoil that it was never a given. Recently, things seem to finally be more official. Director Sam Mendes is on board, things are moving forward, and the film has a solid release date of November 9, 2012. And perhaps because things are finally chugging along for real on the film, Mendes has decided to spill a little bit of info on the casting process while chatting up The Telegraph. Perhaps the biggest news is that he confirmed that Bardem will indeed be in the film, and that he will most certainly be playing the bad guy. Bardem, of course, won an Oscar for his portrayal of iconic screen villain Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, so seeing him put on the villain’s cap in a franchise as big as Bond, and opposite a Bond as dynamic as Daniel Craig, should be a real treat. The other casting announcement that Mendes let loose is that Rhys Ifans will also be joining the cast. He didn’t disclose what sort of role Ifans would be playing, but I don’t think that matters so much, as everything I’ve seen him do he has done exceptionally well. The Telegraph dropped a bit of trivia by pointing out the Ifans and Craig had already appeared together in the 2004 film Enduring Love, [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]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly column about entertainment news and points of view that, for the time being, is keeping it brief. It’s author has not yet seen the season four premiere of Breaking Bad and he’s worried that continued exposure to the internet will lead to spoilers. He’s a big, bearded pansy like that. We begin tonight with a first look at Karl Urban as Judge Dredd in the simply titled Dredd, the redoing of the character created by John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Pat Mills in the late 1970s. It comes courtesy of Bleeding Cool and for all intents and purposes, looks pretty slick. Though Urban is a considerably smaller man in that helmet than Sly Stallone, his actual acting ability could prove to his advantage. But we’ll see.

I was already pretty pumped just at the announcement that Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel were going to be working together again. Their first film collaboration Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of my favorite comedies of the last decade and the idea of them reteaming for Five Year Engagement had me at hello. But since then they’ve just kept making this movie sound cooler and cooler. From the very beginning Emily Blunt was cast as Segel’s love interest in the film. I defy you to find someone who doesn’t like them some Emily Blunt. Score one point. movie. But it didn’t stop there. The wonderful people behind this film then went on to cast the funny and adorable Alison Brie to play Blunt’s younger sister. After that they filled things out by adding the ridiculously charismatic Rhys Ifans and the next big thing in comedy Chris Pratt for supporting roles. Could things get any better? Well, yes, and they have.

Nicholas Stoller directed both Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek. I liked both of those movies to varying degrees. I found Get Him to the Greek to be an enjoyable enough romp, but I thought Forgetting Sarah Marshall was one of the top few comedies of the decade. I would be interested enough in his next project no matter what it was. So when I look over the cast that has been announced for this one so far, I start to feel myself go from interested to fanboy meltdown. Stoller and Jason Segel, the same team that wrote both of the previously mentioned films, wrote the script. Personally, I’ll see anything that Jason Segel has a creative credit on. I find the man to be completely charming and his upcoming film The Muppets is something that I’m just giddy over. Segel is set to star in this one alongside my current crush Emily Blunt (who I’m watching flashing leg on Conan the very moment I type this). It tells the tale of the high and low points of a relationship, hopefully less depressingly than Blue Valentine did. But whichever way they go, I have faith that they’ll find a way to tell the story with humor and heart. Community’s Allison Brie has already signed on to play Blunt’s younger sister, and that’s great because she’s funny and pretty. Tell me all of this and I’m already on board. Adding in the new news is some delicious icing [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 casting for Spider-Man keeps going strong, yet it feels like only yesterday they were announcing Willem Dafoe as the main villain for Spider-Man. Sony doesn’t want to give away who he’ll be playing, but they are willing to announce that it’ll be Rhys Ifans stepping up to the plate and battling Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker. Yes, since you were thinking it, this makes Spider-Man even more British. Ifans is a competent choice. It’s laudable that they’re choosing to cast strong acting talents, but Sony had that same game plan the first go ’round, so it’s not wholly unexpected. No word yet on which villain it’ll be, but Ifans’s physicality lends itself more to The Vulture than it does to The Rhino. What villain do you think he’ll be?

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dives into Spring Break at Lake Victoria, or at least that’s how it felt in 3D. He examined how similar Piranha 3D is to Eat Pray Love because piranhas eat their prey and all the bare boobies can inspire such self love. Then Kevin is chided by an ugly Emma Thompson for misbehaving, and suddenly she becomes a hottie. Finally, Kevin tries to determine whether vampires suck or if it’s just Vampires Suck that sucks.

There is the belief that art can elude, confuse, and manipulate meaning just as readily as it can reveal truth and reality to us. There is the alternate belief, however, that the illusion of reality and truth manifested through art is its most deceptive function. There’s a lot to be said about this subject with respect to Banksy’s street art documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, and here are what amount to, for what its worth, my two cents.

This week, chubby man about town Kevin Carr takes a look at How to Train Your Dragon, Hot Tub Time Machine (which sounds right up his alley) and Greenberg. You may want to wear a helmet.

I knew very little about this film, or the subject of the film. Needless to say, I had no expectations. When I walked away from the film however, I didn’t have to think long to know that it was one of the more enjoyable biographical films that I have seen in quite a while.

‘Greenberg,’ Noah Baumbach’s latest, is a mixed bag, with an enormously likable character battling a deeply reprehensible one for screen time.

Roland Emmerich loves destruction. If you can’t glean that little tidbit from his filmography — Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 — then you’re doing it wrong. The man loves to take something great, like Earth or humanity, and force us to watch it die in the most theatrical (not to mention implausible) ways. So it makes perfect sense that he will next tackle the work of William Shakespeare with Anonymous.

Focus Features has released the first trailer for director Noah Baumbach’s upcoming film Greenberg, which stars Ben Stiller as a jobless guy who doesn’t really want to do anything with himself.