Trailer Tracker: The Big Year, Margaret, and more

It’s been a big year for a lot of things in 2011, though distressingly most seem to tilt towards the negative side of things. So, I believe it's time for a laugh with this week's featured trailer, The Big Year, starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson as three friends and birdwatchers who pluck themselves from the real world to enter a year-long competition of ornithological bliss – or not. Matt Damon, Anna Paquin and Mark Ruffalo star among others in Margaret, a drama about a bus accident and the consequences that come from telling the truth about the event or seeking to hide it amongst lies. Director Tom Six returns with the follow-up to his stomach-turning shocker The Human Centipede: First Sequence with “Full Sequence,” which is apparently so disturbing it has already been banned in the UK. Last off, Tom Tykver (Run Lola Run, The International) debuts his trailer for 3, the Golden Lion nominated drama about a married couple who partake in an affair with the same man, unbeknownst to the other. It’s always a saucy affair on Player Affinity – it’s Trailer Tracker.

New clips this week:

The Big Year
Margaret
The Human Centipede: Full Sequence
3

The Big Year

Planes, Trains and Automobiles meets The Bucket List in The Big Year, an adaptation of the novel of the same name which finds bird enthusiasts and friends Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson facing respective mid-life crises and decide to travel across North America in search of the most rare species, with expected impacts on their lives back home (and so forth). Rashida Jones and Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons also star, and with David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley and Me) at the helm there is plenty to be excited about in this October comedy. Sadly, the trailer is not one of those attributes; generic, rather unfunny and apparently loaded with slapstick, the subject matter casts doubt on the bare-bone strengths of the film.

A debut clip aside, I am still intrigued, especially at what looks to be an interesting dynamic between three comedians with vastly different styles of evoking laughs. Looking at the lowest common denominator, let’s hope the movie at the very least looks glorious, as filming took place in any number of picturesque locations across Canada and the United States. Comedies are always hit and miss; you can thank the subjectivity of the genre, so hopefully there is more substance to the material than three oafs stumbling around the woods.

Margaret

We’ve all heard of delayed films. Sometimes it's a few months, even a few years, but how about since 2007!? Margaret was scheduled for a debut four years ago, but director Kenneth Lonergan was unable to come up with a final cut with which he was satisfied, resulting in multiple lawsuits from executives. This delay is especially odd considering for once it was not the studio behind the time shift, and that it stars Matt Damon, Anna Paquin, Mark Ruffalo, Jean Reno and Mathew Broderick to boot. Paquin (in her pre-True Blood days) stars as the titular seventeen-year-old student who may have contributed to a bus accident but hides the truth bringing about potentially dire consequences for all those involved. Hopefully Lonergan found his desired cut as the cast and strong dramatic presence at the very least have the ability to make this troubled little film work.

The Human Centipede: Full Sequence

Getting in shit received a whole new connotation with Tom Six’s gross-out surgical horror movie The Human Centipede: First Sequence about a deranged scientist who stitches together three unfortunate souls' mouth to anus. I was personally a fan of the original thanks to a creepy central performance from the mad doctor and surprising restraint considering the premise. My fear is now that director Six will try and go all out and forgo any attention to tension or atmosphere – a fear that is slowly being realized as it has already been banned in Britain and stripped down for its U.S. debut. I will be checking this out based on outstanding goodwill alone, but consider my expectations in check.

3

Nominated for the Golden Lion at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, 3 finds a couple named Hanna and Simon, living in a twenty-year marriage but in a non-relationship. Each eventually develops an affair with a man named Adam, without knowing that from each other, and without Adam knowing that his two lovers are married to each other. Apparently a comedy (you wouldn’t be able to tell from the trailer, that’s for sure) and containing plenty of promiscuity, there has been a significant amount of buzz, reportedly rising above a premise that could be very movie-of-the-week. Expect 3 to hit North American theatres in time for awards season.