Trailers! X-MEN, V FOR VENDETTA, SUPERMAN and FREEDOMLAND

Kot-tam.
On the other hand, the trailer for V for Vendetta is here. Alan Moore, who wrote the original (and excellent) comic, is quite unhappy with producer Joel Silver. "In [a] press release, Joel Silver, as well as announcing that the release date November the 5th 2005 was the 100th anniversary of Guy Fawkes attempt on Parliament, instead of the 400th anniversary, also said of Alan, 'he was very excited about what Larry had to say and Larry sent the script, so we hope to see him sometime before we're in the UK. We'd just like him to know what we're doing and to be involved in what we're trying to do together.'

"Alan felt, basically, that his name was being used in vain. Not only had he expressed the opposite to Larry, but his endorsement was being used as a selling point for a movie - the reason he'd requested his credit and association be dropped from all of these movies."

The trailer looks like the film will be an exciting action pic, but very heavy-handed. The British fascist party in charge is so obviously Nazi-like (down to colour choices in uniforms and posters and the party leader looking like Hitler) that the sadder, grimmer truth will be masked: fascism, as it currently exists or exists in part, does not and will not look like the Nazis. It will look heroic, adventurous, decent, honest, "family values"-oriented, good for business, patriotic... in other words, it is and will be an effective con job. Let's remember that imperialism, which slaughtered more people than the Nazis, didn't look like a pack of slavering monsters at home... it looked and smelled like civilisation. Only the victims saw the true face. Fascism today looks like... business suits, press conferences, news stories of heroic and victimised soldiers, pleas for "unity" in the face of "the enemy," and childish phrases like "the war on terror" and "intelligence failures" swallowed mindlessly by a cowardly, obedient or otherwise yassuh-bossing press corp. That's at home. Overseas it's 1.5 million Iraqis killed by sanctions, including 643,000 children under five... and countless babies horribly mutated by depleted uranium, the WMD that "our" side simply loves to use.

On a lighter note...
Superman Returns is coming back... uh... I mean, it's a new film, and it's called Superman Returns, which really means more Superman films will be in the theatre, rather than it being a story about Superman going away and coming back (we had the same problem with Batman Returns... and that's not the royal "we." Why no "James Bond Returns"?) . The trailer is mighty swell. And for whatever sneaky, bait-and-switch reasons, when you click on "FULL SCREEN," you actually get a trailer for something called The Fountain with Hugh Jackman, some bizarre SF/F film which looks even better than Superman. Check it out, too.


I'm looking forward to Freedomland, the new Sam Jackson film based on one of my favourite novels of the last ten years, written by Richard Price (the film is, too). View the trailer here.

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