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Star Wars: Clone Wars - New, hotter than ever, trailer

The forthcoming Star Wars Clone Wars CGI animation probably represents Star Wars fans’ last, best hope for a truly great cinema experience. The three ‘prequel’ movies weren’t quite as bad as they are sometimes painted but all of them, especially the first, suffered from an excess talkiness that rather detracted from the thrill of the situation.

 After all, the Star Wars movies are kids movies, They’re just kids movies that a lot of adults enjoy. And who wants to watch a kid’s movie about a trade dispute? Even if it’s a trade dispute in space?

 The Clone Wars trailers promise to wipe all that disappointment away. They take the fizzy, aspartame-crazed excitement of Genndy Tartakovsky’s original animated shorts and add the solidity and sheer spiffy ‘now-ness’ of an all-CGI production.

 If you grimly sat through all three prequels waiting for some of that classic laser-sword and force-ery magic to come back, now is your time. Watch the trailer below to see what I mean.

 

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The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - New Trailer

 

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Get Smart: New stills, trailers, and general silliness

In a new interview, Mel Brooks talks up the  new movie version of his classic spy comedy in the LA Times

REC: Be very afraid, Señor

The video diary aesthetic has already been tried in both Horror (The Blair Witch Project) and Creature Feature (Cloverfield) genres. Spanish director Jaume Balagueró thought he'd take his own stab at the First Person Horror movie with a film which many are already describing as the most terrifying movie ever made.

[REC] tells the story of a young TV reporter and her cameraman who are taping a news item, when things take a turn for the profoundly creepy. The situation only worsens as they realise that they are trapped in a building with someone, or something, very dangerous. Their desire to escape conflicts with their compulsion to document the escalating horror of their situation  The fact that the movie's in Spanish doesn't matter too much. Screams are the same in any language. [REC] will be released in cinemas nationwide on April 11, 2008.

 

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Wall-E: New trailer

The story of loveable rubbish-collecting robot Wall-E is so assured of being the biggest kids' movie of 2008 it seems almost unfair. Mixing equal parts Short Circuit and ET, and the adding a sprinkle of that irresistible Pixar magic the lonely mechanoid's creators have built an all -conquering merchandising phenomenon that will undoubtedly be selling toys, lunchboxes and (for all I know) actual robots well into the next Century.

You're going to end up seeing this film. Might as well watch the trailer now to get yourself in the mood:

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The Ruins: One more great reason never to go on holiday

If horror is your thing, or if like me you abhor holidays, Dreamworks' forthcoming big screen adaptation of Scott Smith’s bestselling novel The Ruins may well be slithering right up your street..

It tells the story of a suspiciously attractive group of friends who awaken an ancient evil while they are backpacking in the jungles of South America. The trailer offers hints of Cronenberg-inspired body horror and a stark reminder to not to forget travel insurance before you go away this summer.

The Incredible Hulk: Trailer

He Hulks out! Things go bang! We get a good look at the Abomination! Who doesn't look like a ridiculous Creature from the Black Lagoon!

Marvel just keep getting their trailers right. If they can make the movies half as good as the trails, it's going to be a spectacular Summer for people who like Films That Go Boom. The Incredible Hulk will rampage across the UK on June 13th.

Get Smart: Inside the cone of silence

There's more than one movie about a dorky intelligence agency back-room boy who steps up to field ops to impress a girl. Hell, there's probably more than a dozen.

Don't dismiss Get Smart on those grounds though because what Steve Carell's latest movie has a secret weapon that Johnny English, I Spy, Austin Powers and a million other James Bond parodies didn't: Maxwell Smart.

Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry in the golden age of swinging espionage, Maxwell Smart is the definitive secret inept agent. He had a mobile phone built into his shoe before the idea was a twinkle in Mr Nokia's eye.

The new movie take on Smart's adventures sacrifices none of the original TV show's silliness, glamour or propensity for over-the-top special effects. The cast isn't too bad either: As well as Carell, star of the US take on The Office, we have Terence Stamp, Alan Arkin, The Rock, and James Caan helping to save (or in some cases destroy) the world. Watch the trailer below for a masterclass in half-witted spying skills.

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Speed Racer: Are you excited yet?

What could be better than a new Speed Racer trailer?

How about two Speed Racer trailers?

There's almost too much stuff to see on a small screen, but the movie, and (especially) the IMAX presentation should be an intoxicating riot of colour that will need you in need of a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

Iron Man Exclusive: New trailer & stills from one of 2008's hottest movies

Our exclusive new Iron Man trailer offers all the joyous moments that US audiences saw in the much-talked-about Superbowl Spot last month, but add more detail that further humanises the Armoured Avenger and fleshes out more of alter ego Tony Stark’s character arc.

It’s even more evident now from the earlier scenes in the trail that our hero starts out as something of an ass. Showboating shamelessly through his Lord of War moment he sips whiskey in a combat zone and generally acts like God’s gift.

He becomes a hero through adversity, as a result of disability, and that’s ultimately why people will love Iron Man. None of us can come from Krypton like Superman, nor (we hope) be bitten by a radioactive bug like Spiderman, but any of us could – in theory – strap on some high-tech armour and accidentally write off a priceless sports car.

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Exclusive Movie Clip: Fool's Gold

Matthew McConaughey is best known these days for his successful string of romantic comedies, which aren’t necessarily the kind of movie you’d expect to see covered here, but his cheerful disregard for historical fact in U571 and his unforgettably scenery-chewing turn in Reign of Fire mean he’ll always be assured of a welcome at Blockbuster Buzz.

His latest effort, Fool's Gold, will be a delicious guilty treat for everyone who still keeps a tattered-looking VHS of Romancing the Stone hidden under their TV.  Check out the clip below or click through for the trailer.

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Vantage Point: Exclusive Clip

Imagine a new engrossing, action packed thriller in the Bourne Identity mould. Great, right? Now imagine an engrossing, action packed thriller in the Bourne Identity mould that made you feel clever after you'€™d seen it.

Vantage Point is just that thriller: showing the assassination of a US President from multiple viewpoints that fit together like a Chinese puzzle.

Dennis Quaid plays a post-traumatically stressed Secret Service agent, with Lost star Matthew Fox as his partner. Forest Whitaker is the Zapruder-style tourist with a video camera, and William Hurt is the unlucky President. Sigourney Weaver rounds out the cast as a tough, no-nonsense space marine hunting down aliens...no, that's not right... but she'€™s in it all the same.

The movie has already excited considerable controversy in the US with some viewers baffled by its tricksy structure while others are calling it the best movie of its kind in years. Watch our exclusive clip below, and let us know what you think in the comments.

 

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The trailer

Starship Troopers 3: Trailer

The new trailer for Starship Troopers 3: Marauder tells us quite a few things: First, that 'thinking woman's Vanilla Ice' Casper Van Dien is back as Johnny Rico. Second, that the effects budget for the movie doesn't seem appreciably higher than it was for the lamentable Starship Troopers 2. Third, that this thing looks like a riot.

At last humanity decides to deploy some WMDs to combat those persistent bugs: "Let's go crack a planet" is sure to be catchphrase of the year but there are still plenty of scenes of troopers packed suicidally close together and hosing down monster cockroaches with assault rifles.

 

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The trailer does its best to capture original director Paul Verhoeven's mock-totalitarian irony, and is full  of preposterous action. There's still no sign of the power armour from Robert Heinlein's original book but the movie still looks like an essential guilty pleasure treat for fans of sci-fi action.  It's direct-to-DVD, so no-one will spot you in the cinema queue.

Iron Man: Latest trailer

If you haven’t already seen the latest Iron Man trailer, you’re missing a treat. It features at least two elements with the power to make anyone smile; The cocky tone in Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) voice as he announces ‘Yeah, I can fly’ and the way that he turns dismissively away from the tank that’s been menacing him without a second glance.

Batman Begins demonstrated that superhero movies could still be cool, and Fantastic Four showed us that they can still be fun. Iron Man shows every sign of being both.

 

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Batman: Gotham Knight

Set in the timeframe bertween Batman Begins and the hotly anticipated Dark Knight, the Batman:Gotham Knight DVD contains six Batman stories by the likes of David S.Goyer and Greg Rucka which have been animated by a number of top Japanese artists, giving them distinctly different look and feel to the by now standard Bruce Timm interpretation.

There are at least three animation houses producing content for the DVD: Madhouse, Prodiction I.G and Studio 4ºc are definitely working on segments. This should give each individual stories a characteristic visual style. It's reminiscent on the approach taken on The Animatrix, the suite of animations that was released between the two Matrix sequels and explored different aspects of the Matrix universe.

Anticipation for Christopher Nolan's next chapter in the Batman story is already running at fever pitch, so the appeal of this DVD, due out before June this year,  should spread far beyond the fans who bought feature-length animated Batman productions like Mask of the Phantasm. Personally? My order's in.

Rambo: Exclusive Clip

After yesterday's Indiana Jones excitement  it's a treat for Rambo enthusiasts today in the form of this exclusive clip from the born-again Eighties action hero’s latest (and last) outing. Released on February 22^nd it’s an action movie with a topical slant, as the old warhorse is lured out of retirement for one last time to take on the Burmese junta.

For a 62 year old combat veteran he’s still pretty sprightly though: he can still run and jump as well as ever. It’s a lesson to all of us armchair warriors that we’ll quickly forget as we get sucked into the tension of the last of the classic action heroes sneaking into a prison camp crammed with heavily armed troops.

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There's a second clip after the jump:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Trailer

Our Pals over at Sun Online have the new Indiana Jones trailer. It's great: It looks just like an Indiana Jones film should, with very little obvious CGI jiggery-pokery and plenty of fine hat and whip work. It’s hard to tell from this short clip whether Shia Leboef, as Indy’s son, will prove to be a scene-stealer like Sean Connery or merely scenery. Watch the high res trailer here or watch the slightly scruffier YouTube version below:

Rambo: Deadlier than ever

My colleague Veronica Schmidt over on the main Times Online Film section has written an entertaining analysis of the steeply growing body count in the Rambo series. It's as well that Sylvester Stallone has announced that he's hanging up Rambo's sweaty bandana, because there probably aren't enough people on Earth to act as disposable ethnic goons for John Rambo to kill in a fifth movie. Not the way the body counts are increasing, as shown in this handy chart from the LA Times. Best just to watch the trailer below: he only kills about 15 people in that. Plus a fish.

Trailer: Street Kings

Only last week Street Kings got a new title (it was previously labouring under the somewhat prosaic 'The Night Watchman') but now it has a spiffy new trailer. The movie, writen by contemporary noir master James Ellroy, is a gritty cop drama with a stellar cast including Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker,  Chris Evans (from Fantastic 4 rather than Radio 2) and one time Bertie Wooster turned maverick House doctor Hugh Laurie. Rap star Common, who recently confirmed that he had signed to play the Green Lantern in George Miller's Justice League also appears. Watch the trailer here.

Wall-E: Trailer

Yes, it's a film for kids, but it's a Pixar fim for kids. That's the badge of quality that should see the childless among us begging our more fertile relatives for a short-term kid-loan so that we can see this movie in a cinema as nature intended and not have to wait for the DVD. True movie geeks will also note that for the first time Luxo has a little company. Watch the trailer, if only for the gorgeous moment with the cloud of space junk surrounding a future Earth.

My name is Bruce: Trailer

Remember The Three Amigos? Would you like to see a film with basically the same story, but with a little  more...awesomeness? In that case, we have good news for you:

Be Kind, Rewind: Trailer

Following Michel Gondry's rather peculiar Swedish promo movie, we now have a slightly more conventional trailer for his upcoming comedy in which Jack Black sets out to re-make the classic films he has inadvertently erased  with his magnetised brain. It's an old story, but one worth re-telling.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Not generally expected to be quite an out-and-out blockbuster, bubbling away at number 36 on our entirely unscientific Biggest Movies of 2008 list, You Don't Mess with the Zohan features Adam Sandler as a Mossad agent who fakes his death so he can start a new life in New York City as a hair stylist. Sloppy Farrely Brothers standard savate effects in no way detract from the trailer's ability to tickle the funny bone with comical bullet catching stunts and fanciful accent work.

 

Cloverfield: The Creature revealed

All of the official trailers so far have avoided showing you any images of the beastie we here at BB are insisting on calling Clovis. Here is the first 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' glimpse of the big white ..thing. If you've already seen the movie and just want to see Clovis again, or if you're just the kind of person who doesn't like surprises, click play on the clip below:

Wanted: Superbowl Spot

Doomsday: Everything you need from an action movie, and nothing else

If you want to produce a contemporary action thriller there are certain features that you’re obliged to consider: Near-future setting (cheaper effects), Global pandemic (fewer extras), slumming British thesp (looks good on the marquee), Kate Beckinsale, some Mad Max stylings,and at least one ostentatious piece of product placement. You’ll be  pleased to hear that the makers of Doomsday have managed to combine all of these tropes into one dynamite trailer. Well, they couldn’t find Kate and substituted former Lara Croft spokesmodel Rhona Mitra instead but you would have to be paying very close attention to see the difference. That's why I, for one, will be queueing up on the first day to leave my brain at the popcorn kiosk and watch this movie. If you like films where things blow up and people drive beautiful Bentleys through buses I urge you to join me.

Michael Moran

Jumper: Superbowl Spot

20th Century Fox Jumper Movie Trailer Super Bowl Commercial

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Iron Man: The Superbowl Spot

A Jumper for Valentine's Day

Hayden Christensen's next project , Jumper, is out on Valentine's Day and Apple have a delicious looking trailer online now so you can start persuading your better half that it's the ideal romantic date movie.  Which it isn't. It's a fantastically silly-looking piece of fluff about a group of mutants who can teleport themselves, other people, and occasionally London buses in order to pull off impossible bank robberies. Samuel L.Jackson rejoins his old Jedi sparring partner as the improbably peroxided investigator that's pursuing him. The trailer's a masterpiece of quick cuts and stylish imagery that is probably a thousand times better than the film, but we're totally sold on Jumper already. It's No.42 on our Top 50 list of  the hottest popcorn gems of 2008. If you're still having problems convincing your date Coming Soon have clips of all the best bits of the film online too.

Michael Moran