Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

It’s funny... I just walked in the door from the Butt-Numb-A-Thon. I stayed in Austin until the middle of Tuesday afternoon. This was my holiday vacation, basically. I just enjoyed time with my friends in Austin and talked about that insane orgy of movies we mainlined on Saturday and Sunday and spent time showing my girlfriend my home away from home these last few years. The whole time I was gone, from Thursday morning at 7:00 AM to just about three hours ago, I didn’t turn on a computer. I didn’t watch TV. I didn’t go to any regular showings of films at normal theaters. I saw a 16mm print projected at Harry’s house one night. I saw the movies of the BNAT at the Alamo. And I stopped after getting in from the airport, with my girlfriend, and met some friends for THE TWO TOWERS. Like many of you, I got to see some new trailers in front of the film, and when I finally got here (and, boy, does it feel good to be in), I saw that the trailers have been online, in some cases for the entire time I’ve been gone.

So don’t bust my nuts and yell about how these are “old” trailers in some cases, okay? This is the one weekend each year where I intentionally turn off everything except the event I’m in town for, and it’s nice to step outside the literal shitstorm of hype that I stand at the center of each and every day working on a site like this. What’s funny is how in synch I was with Harry over the weekend on all the movies of the BNAT... well, most of them, anyway. I agreed with him about how much NIGHT WARNING kicked ass, and I think we can agree that one of the secret films simply didn’t work, even if there’s some good work in it. I think I liked HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES a little more than him, even though we agree that Sid Haig is the star of the film and deserved far, far more screen time. Because we were so closely in agreement on the majority of the movies we saw together over the weekend, it surprised me when talking to him tonight after stepping in the door that we had totally different reactions to the trailers we saw when we saw the films. As a result, I thought we’d run the links and both talk about what we thought, since obviously opinions are going to be divided. I’m also curious what all of you think, since we seem to be so diametrically opposed.

First, there’s the new TERMINATOR 3 trailer. RISE OF THE MACHINES. And DECLINE OF MY INTEREST. I think this looks powerfully bad. I’m sorry, gang. I wish I could go with this. I wish I could say that Mostow looks like an inspired choice. But that shot of the POV of the thing being shot at the Terminatrix? Give to me f’ing break, please. This looks like something you’d see “premiere” at 1:45 in the morning on a Friday on Cinemax starring Mario Van Peebles and Christopher Lambert. “She’ll be back” is the stupidest fucking line of dialogue I’ve heard in a movie trailer since “John Connor... it’s time.” Yeah, there’s some decent FX work, and a few outsized stunts here, but they’re shot terribly. I hate that they’ll use Brad Fidel’s incredible TERMINATOR theme in the trailers to sell it, but Marco Beltrami has recently said he won’t use the theme in the film. That’s not fair, damn it. Unless that next trailer really kicks my ass, I’m afraid we’re looking at a dead shark, as Woody Allen would say.

Harry here - Moriarty is stark raving insane! Ok, I might feel that this movie may in fact suck the short hairs from his mangina, but this trailer kicks ass pretty fucking hard. Trailers are not truth in advertising, they are their own entity. The studio obviously knows that Brad Fidel's score sells TERMINATOR - why they're being retards and hiring the biggest hack in the music world to slap together shit in place of it... I have no clue... But at least in this trailer ... it is there. And that's fine with me. And if something that looks this good is on Cinemax at 1:45 in the morning every Friday, then I'm turning on Cinemax - just kidding... I don't watch TV, idle threat. What do I like about the trailer... The gizmos, the score, Arnie's bloody eye, that whole underwater skull pool with the flying Hunter Killer searchlighting through it as the world burns beyond... This trailer makes me want to believe that TERMINATOR 3 can be a great fucking movie that gets me jazzed and screaming and excited. And that's the job of a trailer. Now - our job is to see through that shit and see if it really is going to be that. All signs from the scripts are shit, production problems, budget issues - none of that screams shit, it just means irresponsible out-of-control production. Love the trailer, I'm just wary of the film.

Check out that new T3 trailer right here!!

Next up, there’s BAD BOYS 2. Which... god help me... I liked. Color me shocked and confused. I am, after all, the notorious Michael Bay hater on the site while Harry is his card-carrying apologist. Or at least... that’s how it’s supposed to work, I thought. Problem is, this trailer did what it was supposed to do. It sold me the idea that this film will be worth paying $22 to see on opening weekend, my girlfriend at my side, at the best theater in town because those stunts look absolutely insane. I like the gunfight that is shown constantly rotating between inside and outside. That’s a cool fucking idea. And the end of the trailer made me laugh. Oh, and didja see that “Written By” credit? Ron Shelton, John Lee Hancock, and Jerry Stahl? That’s pretty damn impressive, as are the glimpses we get of that insane car chase. Bay shoots action well, and dropping the pretension of PEARL HARBOR earns him much kudos in my book. Instead of making something like THE ALAMO, he’s gone back to pure boneheaded action films, and I think that’s admirable. This movie looks so dumb and fun that they even resurrected Don Simpson to co-produce it according to the credits. What more do you need from a summer movie?!

Drug Dealing KKK Members? Um... So this was written by Ron Shelton, John Lee Hancock and Jerry Stahl... did they happen to be on KKK brand drugs at the time? The end of the trailer made Moriarty laugh? You mean the part where Martin acts like a total retard (like 99% of his movies) and forgets the lyrics to the title song - which was sung terribly from the get go - and was funny - MAYBE 7-8-10 years ago, but now it's so anciently inept that I just sort of cringe. The highway stunts are cool as hell as is that rotation camera thing on that shoot out, but I wonder how many times we go ring-around-the-rosie, and if we keep it up for 5 minutes. I'm really tired of Martin Lawrence on film as a dumbshit with a gun movies. Personally, Don Knotts did it best in THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST and THE APPLE DUMPLING GANG. And am I the only one that looks at this as a major career back-pedal for Will Smith... I mean to go from ALI to MIB 2 to BAD BOYS 2 -- Isn't that like following up SCHINDLER'S LIST with LOST WORLD? After falling for the action in the PEARL HARBOR trailer - seeing a couple of really nice action shots in a Michael Bay trailer - followed by tons of bad comedy and tired performances - this one doesn't really have me interested.

”Whoopsie daisy, it’s the nigras!” Whatcha gonna do when BAD BOYS 2 opens this summer?!

I’ve seen OLD SCHOOL already, so I was curious to see how they were selling it. The trailer’s good, but it gives away a TON of the film. There are jokes I wouldn’t have even hinted at here, but then again, if the audience doesn’t know the film’s got some giant laughs, then they might not go. It’s a tricky proposition. Rest assured, there’s a hell of a lot more than you see here, but this gets the tone of the film right, and it uses some of the things I think are going to become pop culture catch phrases after the film opens, including Vince Vaughn’s consistently funny “Earmuffs.” Don’t believe me that it’s good? Maybe Mr. Beaks can convince you...

Harry here - This trailer doesn't strike me as being particularly funny - I actually laughed more at that bad Eugene Levy - Steve Martin - Queen Latifah trailer. Drew swears this is very funny and Beaks says it's very funny, so i'll give it the benefit of the doubt and it has a great cast - but I'm just not all that jazzed about it.

Quick! Look here if you want to see Dreamworks give away about five of the big moments in OLD SCHOOL!

The new X2 trailer starts the same basic way that the Comicon footage started, with the chess match between Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Professor X (Patrick Stuart) intercut with shots of soldiers descending on the Xavier School in the middle of the night. Good stuff. Builds steadily with a great sense of mood. And then the new stuff kicks in, and we see some shots of Nightcrawler and Rogue and Magneto in full costume and a mysterious character in a wheelchair sitting behind Professor X in full Dark Cerebro mode, and if you look closely, there’s all sorts of crazy shit going on, like Magneto in jail being beaten by a guard and Mystique in action and Wolverine... holy shit... is he hitting a SENTINEL, fer chrissakes?! Lady Deathstrike and Kitty Pryde and even more Nightcrawler and Storm finally using her powers to bring some seriously crazy weather to play and that last vicious slash and... how can you NOT want to see this thing?!

Harry here! The X2 trailer doesn't really do it for me. Now I haven't read the script - so all the action and movement is pure trailer nonesense, but the only stuff that works in this trailer for me is the Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart stuff. I hate Pyro pointing his hand in the direction of cars and them just blowing up. I like Pyro sculpting flaming animated birds out of flame that attack the cars and make them blow up. After watching trailers for DAREDEVIL seeing the whole film SPIDER-MAN and looking at that HULK poster - I just don't like the whole look of X-MEN anymore. It feels cheap and ugly. The costume changes from the originals just don't pass for me anymore, because I've seen it work when they did it right. I want X-MEN to kick major ass - and Moriarty loves the script something fierce - but he and I come from different places on this stuff because I'm a chapter and verse X-MEN fan. I love Nightcrawler and seeing him all growling and ferocious isn't how I want to see Nightcrawler. I want to see Nightcrawler being charming, debonair and smooth. I want to see elegant long acrobatic pans that involve convenient fun teleportation where I hear BAMF and I smell sulphur in my theater! Halle Berry's Storm wig looks much better this time out. And I went frame by frame and can't seem to find anything that even vaguely looks like a Sentinel to me? But sometimes its hard to spot the GIANT ROBOT in a frame... maybe its just me. There's still nothing in any of the X2 trailers that has me sold on the film. Lady Deathstrike looks cool in that one shot, but the bad Wire-Fu leap of hers, reminds me of the bad wire-fu from the last film. I'm dying to see the film, but this trailer really had nothing to do with that. It's the hope that the script is actually good like Moriarty claims - and that it might actually kick ass - but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm much more excited for HULK and the MATRIX sequels!

”The war has begun.” “Eric... what have you done?”

"Moriarty" out.

"Harry" out.