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VALKYRIE Trailer Sells Hitler-Killin' Real Good!
Beaks here...
"Any problem on Earth can be solved with the careful application of explosives." And any problem movie in Hollywood can be rescued with one confidently cut trailer. Though I've had my doubts about Bryan Singer's VALKYRIE, they've completely vanished for the time being.
As a friend said earlier, Singer's perverse fascination with Nazis is palpable here. There's a fetishistic attention to detail that's downright Hitchcockian (the triggering of the detonator with pliers, the sizzling of the mosquito with the lit cigarette, etc.). Visually, I'd say VALKYRIE feels closer to APT PUPIL than anything else in Singer's filmography, only this time we've a decorated war hero trying to reclaim his righteousness rather than an impressionable teenager relinquishing his conscience. There may be an interesting symmetry there, or I may be digging too deep for meaning. I just know that I'm awfully impressed by this trailer, and that's something of a surprise.
After bouncing around the release schedule, VALKYRIE is set for a December 26th bow.
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looking forward to it
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Is directing ZOD in this. That is cooool! Noticed they didn't even hint at German accents? Looks good though. I might just check it out.
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and a great director. That's right, take it, Gus Van Rant !
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He knows how to cut a trailer. I got a very retro vibe off the way the trailer was edited. One question though. Is Cruise the only Nazi in the movie to speak with an American accent?
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It never fails to happen. Ya'll heard the one about consistancy, small minds and Hobgoblins right?
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Kevin Costner? Where the fuck is the German accent?I mean come on. At least try.
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That looks great. Except for the tampon commercial screaming at me right after the clip. It really reminds me of how awesome the non-script part of Superman Returns was. Strange that they would advertise that he was the same director, since most people I know hated the thing.
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Which is worse? An American actor doing a cheesy European accent (and Americans doing Continental European Accents almost always sound like camembert)... or making no effort and having these Germans talk American?
Hmmm... In a perfect world, you'd get European actors; in a near perfect world you'd get actors capable of pulling off the accent successfully; in our world you get Tom Cruise talking like he always does. -
..I hate these guys...
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You have people on both sides of the fence. Some say he's an overrated hack and some say he's a modern Spielberg. I find it hard to pinpoint what it is about Singer's work that sometimes feels uninspired. Even X2, which people went nuts for, felt a but TV-movie at times in how Singer shot the thing. Same for Superman Returns, which has moments of greatness but a lot of snores as well.
But then you have to give him credit for bringing maturity to comic adaptations with the first X-Men.
This trailer looks fantastic. Could a nice balance between commercial entertainment and Important Historical/Political/Biographical Awards Season Film. -
pretty interesting ...
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HITLER DIES
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He's never made a bad film. Sure, SUPERMAN RETURNS wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either.
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THE BOAT SINKS
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There will only be one Spielberg. The man is a legend in the truest sense.
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The trailer didn't give any sense of quality acting, writing, or even storytelling. The fade-outs and fade-ins were just pretentious. No, this will be an entirely bad film.
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I wonder if Cruise tried to pull of the German accent but failed?? Because I have no doubt in my mind that mega-talented actors like Bill Nighy and Terrence Stamp would have no problem doing a German accent.
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eXcommunicated is flogging a dead horse :)
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I really enjoyed it. It felt a bit like MUNICH, which I enjoyed immensely. One of the best films of the last five years IMO. I loved it.
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You know, the bit with all those Nazi flags waving.
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I completely agree. I wasn't suggesting that Singer is in any way a "modern Spielberg". I find such comparisons are usually a waste of time -especially since the industry, and the film community itself, just work so differently now to when Spielberg could do no wrong. The only film maker who has had anything near the commercial and critical success, as well as positive public profile, of late 70s/early 80s Spielberg is Peter Jackson, and that was for one film trilogy. And Jackson, lovable though he is, is sure as hell no Spielberg. Their styles are ultimately completely different.
I know I've gone off track, especially for this talkback, but I feel I need to justify eveything I say or someone will accuse of saying that Peter Jackson is a "modern Spielberg" -
Maybe i'll feel different watching the film, but of the footage i've seen, whenever Cruise talks, i'm out of the moment, out of the reality of this being Nazi Germany. Trailer looks cool, i expect it'll be a pretty good film, but i don't think i'll be able to get past the british/american accents for the Germans. We'll see.
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I won't watch it anyway. The Scientologyfication of German history is too much for me.
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You forgot about James Cameron. He and Spielberg are the two greatest directors in modern cinema IMO.
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This looks great! Cruise very rarely chooses sub-par material and Singer is a thoroughly dependable mainstream craftsman.
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People having normal accents in films where they are'nt supposed to kind of bugs me. Especially with a film that is supposed to have this great attention to detail. The sole exception would probably be Amedeus(which was inaccurate in a dozen other ways anyway).
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but that looks rubbish!
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but it seems to me that Cruise is phoning it in. Good direction though, keep Singer away from comic books and the kid may have a future...
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or dubbing of anime. One character always sounds like he is from the Lower East Side, another, a surfer dude, yet another, a posh blue-blood, etc.
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would be cast as Europeans" - nah. That might work for character actors, but the leads should be someone with talent, ability to act, and love of the work. Namely, Jeremy Irons, Willem Dafoe, and Lance Henriksen should be cast in every major role, and Stan Winston should be brought in to do "makeup" and shape their face crags to mimic the character they are embodying. It would be like a modern Kabuki, and usher in a new age of cinema.
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Seriously, I've not seen a better trailer in a long long time. Cruise seems to be back on form. Singer seems to have given the film a distinctive style. And the use of sound is excellent.
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Come on, stop this dumb accent-talking. As is the quality of a movie would depend completely on this issue! This is so childish! Where is the Greek accent in "Troy"? Where is the Latin accent in "Gladiator" (they could have used Italian accent for reference). Who in "Chocalat" speaks with a French accent besides Juliette Binoche? This movie is set in Germany and the characters are supposed to be speaking German with each other. It makes sense for an American movie to translate the dialogue into English and pretend that the English the characters are speaking is in fact German. It would be completely fake, however, to have the characters speak English with a German accent, because this way, we would assume that the characters spoke like that the whole time. And believe me, being from Germany I can assure you that we don't talk to each other in English all the time with a German accent. We do have specific dialects but I don't mind that the movie does not try to recreate those. If you think that this is artificial, you should have watched the German production on the subject in German with subtitles. I have my own issues with the movie, a lot of them, in fact, but the accent issue strikes me as the dumbest debate one could have about this movie. Grow up, people!
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Otherwise it's not real Bryan Singer
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accent dosnt ruin it. just watch robert carlye playing hitler. accent dosen't matter (for that matter james mason as rommel)
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Flick...flick...flicker...
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Like oldskool coppola but the lack of accent just hurts what could have been a better film!? Just don't get it! It's not a moovie!You go to all the trouble with locations! Costumes, Period detail and then have em all spout the well written lines in their own voices! Fucksake!!! they are actors!!! get em to fully act 100% looking at that cast I doubt it would have been a stretch! ''you know guys I want you to not do any accents''!?WTF!!! Piss and shit i hope i can enjoy this and the fact that a massivew detail like that has simply been fucking ignored makes me mental!!! Anyone got a reason? was it not acceptable to US audiences? did the Croozer do a shit job so they got em all to ditch it? ???
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...is no problem. Im an american living in germany and here you get somewhat used to these issues. You hear Jack from Lost, for example, perfectly dubbed in german..so...yeah. Its okay. Someone brought up the "gladiator" or "troy" example. I´d second it. These republican aliens from the star wars prequels had an french accent ..but thats another thing.
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NATHAN ALEXANDER.
Without him, this film simply would not have happened.
Look for great things from him... -
Angst and isolation from society. 15 seconds of action. Sexually ambigious antihero gets beaten up. Religious alleghory. Dull pacing. Hospital climax.
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It looks great enough that they put it in the trailer, but in what context will it be in the movie? Will they introduce a character that is such a basstard that he likes to torture insects with burning cigarettes? Will it be a metaphor? ("Hitler is like a giant cigarette who appeared from the sky!")
I mean, this must be an important scene. It looked realistic, so since they can't burn real mosquitos on film, this must have been a huge special effect. Was the cigarette CGI or the mosquito? Maybe the whole scene was photorealistic CGI! Or they build a huge animatronic mosquito and an even bigger cigarette.
Shit, what's up with that fucking mosquito? -
...just buy the German DVD, so you hear everybody speak perfect German if this is what you want.
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cant wait for this movie to come out, though tom cruise can still fuck off
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Fools! You can't seriously want a film of people running around with fake German accents, Monty Python-style, do you?
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But yeah, it falls on how much you can stand Cruise isn't it? It's pretty clear from the style of character and how it's played that it was a role more suitable for someone like Ralph Fiennes or some other restrained english actor. I think perhaps some of the blame for Singer's failings can be attributed to him starting off with a dodgy idea and trying to make the best of it. Although sticking to the Donner Superman continuity may be more obvious, who makes a film where the good guys are Germans (but not the resistance) and they fail? And they make it in Hollywood? With Tom Cruise?
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And about the accents. Dude, if this film had accents, everyone would just be bitching about how shitty they are. Cue "K-19: The Widowmaker." Seriously, let's calm down. Someone mention how every time Cruise talks in the trailers or clips, they're drawn out of the moment. I kinda have the same problem, however, I would rather have this than Cruise acting through the film with a half-ass German accent. I'm sure the cast messed around with the idea, and it probably turned out horrible.
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Sep 26, 2008 6:22:48 AM CDT
Also, do you think Singer saw the trailer for Milk
by troutmaskreplicant
And thought "that old bitch Van Sant! I want some of that"? They're not visually similar, but they're both quite stylish. In fact, is there a Movie Trailer Database where you can find out who cut trailers? Trailers are the big forgotten element in film history.
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I think that's probably one of the most solid trailers I've seen in the last little while (will the exception of the voice over of the word Valkyrie)--I hope Singer's film retains the kinetics of the trailer. I like alot of his work, but he his known for the way his camera kind of floats through a room.
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WoW!! That is one of the best cut trailers. Enough exposition on story - it is a true story and we know he didn't succeed (unless you lived in a cave for decades and just ame out).. excellent cut. Singer can never unmake Superman Returns, but at least he can give us what we love him for - Apt Pupil, Usual Suspects, and I suspect, we will love Valkyrie. Cruise comes through again. Sure looks like it. Just don't bet against him .. or Lev Grossman is gonna dance!!!
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... oh, wait! We burned a mosquito with a cigar!!!!
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because I've sworn off Tom Cruise movies, but love WWII movies, and this trailer did sink the hooks in me. Is it ok to put my Scientology ban on hold for this one movie?
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Fuck all the Cruise haters, his personal life might suck and he might be an annoying little man, but I'll be damned if the man doesn't pick badass projects. I love every movie he makes (minus lions for lambs maybe) and I can't wait to see this. Cruise fucking rocks.
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They wouldn't even be speaking english to each other, they'd be speaking German. So how is having them speak english with German accents any more realistic? Anyway, they should have stopped listing Bryan Singer's credits after The Usual Suspect, maybe throw Apt Pupil in there. Crediting him with Superman returns coupled with Tom Cruise in a Nazi uniform and eye patch trying to look serious was unintentional comedy overload. Gravitas.
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is going to make or break Scientology. Get over yourself.
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The true story is amazing. This should make for a very compelling film. Singer is undeniably talented. Post Donner Superman would be challenging for anyone.
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Well made trailer, but the film itself looks kinda average. At least the overrated hack Singer is working from a McQuarrie script. I mean, his one and only good film was McQuarries work. Shame he couldn't be at the helm.
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i mean, you geekboyfucks seem to hate singer because of superman returns (which I didn;t see becasue superman is the most outdated and uninteresting of all superheroes. He's the corn flakes of superheroes), replete with ugly, immature gay bashing.... none of you seem to remember that this is the man who directed the usual suspects...his SECOND film. Considering that movie is consistently in every 'top 10 movies of all time' list going i find it weird that you all latch onto his supes film as if he walked nito your houses and pissed on your mother. jesus! cast your mind back to a little film called 1941, or another one called The Lost World. Or a steaming pile of shit called Always. And lets not forget AI. Its not as if spielberg is a bd duirector but he doesn;t have a clean track record either. And anyway, it wouldn't matter to me if every film spielberg made after Jaws turned out to be garbage, he still made the finest thriller put to film so he gets a pass from me. As for singer, usual suspects is his Jaws, and Xmen, X2 and Apt Pupil are also great so shut the fuck up. As for accents... uh... how about every human being in the star wars trilogy (and they are human according to a leia line in empire of dreams) speaks english? really? english? humans from different systems a long time ago in a galaxy far far away all know english? seriously, if you're gonna pick apart one film for fcuking up accents then you have to pick them all apart. no? oh well then. fuck you.
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And I like that cruise has no accent.
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Great script and cast. I would have said great direction, had I not witnessed the adbominationally awful shitty work Singer has done on subsequant films. Parts of Apt Pupil and the X Men films looked...alright. But I don't think i've ever seen an uglier, cheaper looking 200 million dollars than Superman Returns. I don't mind the accents issue. Sure it would be cool if they were all speaking German, but that ain't happening, and after the first ten minutes or so, if the film is working, the accents become a non issue.
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This looks so awesome.
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Suck it Superman Returns haters.
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It starred Brad Davis, and was pretty good. He was also in Midnight Express and A Rumor of War "ambush is killing, killing is fun."
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I'm still waiting for that.
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....of the screen phasing in and out of blackness in movie trailers. Other than that, looks to be a good movie.
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Ban this sick film!
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Its not only a great film but was pretty much accepted that way especially around here until everyone decided to hate it cause its cool to hate Singer now.
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Germans speak German, not English with German accents. If you're not going to have your actors speak German, than having them speak English with a German accent may actually be DUMBER than having them just speak English. Seriously, let it go, people.
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Superman Returns was fantastic...I've never understood all the hate.
X-Men: Great
X2: Amazing
Usual Suspects: Great
In general I'd say Singer does pretty well...even if he is (apparently) a real SOB -
without having seen anything but the trailer, it was kinda obvious to me what that was trying to show.
Operation Valkyrie, for all its effort and intent, was nothing more than an angry biting mosquito on the backhand of an enormous machinery of evil - a machinery so massive, that it need only casually snuff out this little annoyance with the littlest of effort, but with the greatest of maniacal reward - it would not be enough to simply slap this mosquito and squash it in the blink of an eye. No - for these who dared to take on the nazi regime, their end must be slow, torturous and painful. Let them take a bite. Let them draw the first taste of blood. Let them think they have accomplished some great injury - and then, slowly lower death upon them when they least expect it, and snuff them out with sadistic ease. -
as much as I hate jeffrey katzenberg, every time he was on screen it was just embarassing. i really really wish he'd make a movie about Xenu with a huge budget directed by Paul WS Anderson, it'd be the funniest movie ever made.
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he demands progress!"
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Well, in a world where someone might have to sell the idea of not voting for McCain, I guess that makes sense.
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There are british actors in the movie doing british accents, playing germans, and americans playing germans with our accents. that just throws me off way too much. and i really like most of the people in this movie, in spite of Cruise's crazy beliefs. I like singer, the story sounds awesome, it looks great, but the accents are throwing me off.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCJTR3XeiAc
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is a non-issue. Geez. It's a group of English speaking actors, and you are supposed to pretend they're speaking German. That's how it's _ALWAYS_ done. Do you need to have them fake a German accent in order to help you imagine they're actually speaking German? This movie just got rid of that silly distraction.
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Ha ha haaaa!.........midget.
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... was a robot. Singer is a sadist! First "Superman Returns" than this horrible insect/torture scene. Monster!
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Sep 26, 2008 11:37:49 AM CDT
I used to hate the idea of them not using German accents...
by blue_demon
but I've since changed my mind. It was easier to accept that Germans would talk among themselves in German-accented English in "Raiders of The Lost Ark,("I am uncomfortable vis ze idea of zis Jewish ritual...) since they were almost cartoony, in a Republic Serial kind of way. This story, however, looks really good and I think I can overlook the American/English accents on the screen. I'm not a huge Cruise fan, but I hope this movie's good. I love WWII films.
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It's a friggin' mosquito. I like to let the little bitches get full of blood on my arm, let them think the have a good meal and then smack them.
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Shlindler's list, The Indy movies, Saving Private Ryan ect.
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The Singer formula IS "Angst and isolation from society. 15 seconds of action. Sexually ambigious antihero gets beaten up. Religious alleghory. Dull pacing. Hospital climax."
And YES his superhero films all feel like bland TV movies. -
...with that eye patch and casting him in this role was a big mistake imho.
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LOVE IT!
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lurks outside his ex-girlfriend's house, eavesdropping. I hear Hitler will also discover an illegitimate child and be able to lift a continent even though he's infected with crippling radiation. I can't wait to watch him pout and NOT punch anything.
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I'll save my World War 2 nut for Inglorious Bastards.
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Sep 26, 2008 3:31:28 PM CDT
Accents aside...................................................
by crackerfarmboy
This looks awesome! Certainly better than that Green Hornet shit we've been getting around here lately.
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I actually just saw the SP episode. Its fuckin hilarious.
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Couldn't agree more about the accent non-issue. If anything, the fake accents are insulting (Memoirs of a Geisha)
HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER... Now that movie had realistic accents -
The hack is in everything so might as well ask! ;)
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is dead to me. Mindless mysticism is no excuse.
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A Frenchman who spoke English. English was probably their common language. So it made sense that they speak English with a German accent.
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The Hunt For Red October was the perfect way to handle accents in films. Do the first 15-20 minutes in German with subs and then switch over to English. Then chew some steak with greasy lips, Sean Connery style.
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Not that it matters. This is pulp cinema. I wouldn't expect or demand authenticity from a Tom Cruise comeback thriller.
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toms shoe lifts.
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nuff said.
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AMAZINE
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then you're secretly gay. So the best thing to do is to go on and on about how much you hate his films, because he is gay, and all his films squirt Gay Juice when you watch them. Gay Juice makes you gay. Also, it's a good idea to say that he ruined Superman Returns, because you really wanted a movie about a guy in tights to live up to your expectations.
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the production design, camera work.... the accent thing.... I hope they handle like it was handled in The Hunt for Red October which has had a memorable transition. Otherwise, the trailer made me interested. Peace.
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..who got a lucky break with a great script. I bet Gary Fleder watches BS's films and says "Even I could do that!".
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I completely agree. I've never seen it done that way in any other movie. Slow zoom in as the actor speaking in Russian-pause- start speaking in english. I've never once questioned Connery as Ramius in that movie, despite the thick Scottish accent. Sam Neil does do a very slight accent in the movie- not american, not australian- vaguely eastern european sounding.
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a couple of 70's style panels and people wet themselves..
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More than anything the rating is very suspect, pardon the pun, but you know what I'm saying.
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Come on, how does posturing a fake German accent enhance your immersion in a movie? WTF is that supposed to represent, anyway? That they're "speaking in German?" People that want accents to enhance the realism are f'ing retarded. I have one movie for you: K-19 The Widowmaker. Go watch that and come back here and tell me that Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson spouting their dialogue in thick Russian brogue makes it more realistic for me. Assclowns! Could you get any stupider?
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Who cares? Maybe the movie starts in German and they transition ala Red October, or maybe they start with accents and quickly fade to the actor's familiar voice ala Thirteen Days. I personally am more inclined to just accept Tom Cruise's voice rather than have to hear his phony accent
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Nazi Cruise jumping up and down, clapping hands, alternately laughing and getting serious: "Ha! OK! Gonna do this... gonna kill Hitler. OK! Ha! Ha! Ha! OK! Time to get serious! Ha!"
A Nazi Officer... Vit a Bomb In Ze Ribcage!?!?! -
Heil!!!
(Yeah, that's a repeat) -
... I wonder if we could overuse the words "hate" and "haters" any more on this board than we currently are?
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and still be Tom Cruise in a costume
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Looks so much better than anticipated.
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http://www.bathrobekimono.com/CaptainAmerica.html
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The trailer looked, but did not sound, great. Cruise's prosaic American everyman accent stuck out badly amongst all of the painstaking WWII period detail. Cruise gets paid how many zillion dollars per film and he can't muster a simple bavarian accent? It has got to be the easiest accent on the planet, vat vith all ze zee's und vatnot. My ten-year old can imitate Ahnold by now giving his Kahleefohneea state of the state address and this phenom of american cinema is too narcissistic to even try? Did he have a no-accent clause in his contract? Unfortunately, that can kill a movie because it takes the audience out of the immersive experience, when every actor is trying except the main protagonist. It's no longer historically accurate, it is just us watching Tom Cruise mysteriously transported to Nazi Germany to assassinate Hitler, not Col. Claus von Stauffenberg. May as well be Time Cop part II.
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Without Cruise we would not have Top Gun, Mission Impossible, The Last Samurai, Tropical Thunder, Days of Thunder. Half of them with girls with big titties!
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I won't repeat my post from above, you can read what I have to say about the accent-issue there. But I have to do some nit-picking. Arnold does not speak in a Bavarian accent, but in an Austrian accent. While pronounciation itself might be closely related to Bavarian, the speech melody is completely different. From listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking English, you can clearly hear the Austrian melody of speech. So please, don't demand something that you yourself don't seem to know anything about.
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What the fuck, seriously. As much as Cruise's recent behaviour is not to my taste I think he is a decent actor. From this I can see that Tom Cruise is nothing more than Tom Cruise. THEY ALL HAVE DIFFERENT ACCENTS!. For god's sake.
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Singer saw Swing Kids I guess.
Loved that movie. -
It's like Nikolai in Eastern Promises having to speak accented English because he is in England. Makes sense... he's in a foreign country other than his own. Now if the movie took place all in Russia, I wouldn't expect him or any actors to use Russian accents. Its understood where they are. English is only a matter of getting across the plot.
When a film is set in somewhere like Germany and the cast are speaking english with no accent, I think "Oh they're speaking German because everyone can understand everyone. German people understand each other perfectly and this way I understand them perfectly so it's like I too am speaking German." It helps to draw you into the world. But when they're speaking English in Germany with a GERMAN ACCENT I think "Why the hell are these Germans struggling to speak English in Germany?". It's the major thing that killed Hannibal Rising for me (That and all the other horrible things it did).
What about "Hitler: The Last 10 Days?" Many people (myself included) consider Alec Guiness' portrayal of Hitler to be one of, if not the best ever put to film. As I recall, the cast is nearly all British speaks with English accents, but the effect is riveting. (Did Guiness speak with a Russian accent in Dr. Zivago? I cant recall, but don't think so.) Sure, in a perfect world they'd all really speak German with subtitles. But if you can't have that have normal English not some damn fence sitting crap. If the script is good and the acting first rate (as seems to be the case here), I'm willing to accept any accent they use. If they aren't, then there isn't any authenticity that's going to save a second or third-rate movie.
There's my 2 cents, thanks for reading! -
I mean they can't possibly be playing Germans, right?
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