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I do love a good trailer. I'm one of those people who gets to the theater in plenty of time for the previews, and if I see a movie that has one or fewer trailers playing with it I feel gypped. It's as much part of the experience as overpriced popcorn and ill-timed cell phone usage. Man, did I see a lot of trailers this year. 2007 was my first full year of doing the Trailer Park feature here on Cinematical and the experience has strengthened my appreciation for the form. I'm not placing these in any particular order, but here are ten trailers that really got my attention this year. Some of the movies I've seen, some I haven't, some have yet to be released, but all (in my humble opinion) do an exceptional job of selling the film. My choices, of course, are purely subjective and will undoubtedly conflict with yours, so please add a comment and let us know what your favorite trailers of 2007 were.


Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (teaser)
This one may have dropped in late 2006, but I''m including it here for two reasons: I mentioned it in a Trailer Park last January and it kicked serious ass. Sure, the full length trailer had a little more meat on its bones, but it's the teaser trailer for the Fantastic Four sequel that had people talking, myself included. The wedding of Mr. Fantastic to The Invisible Woman (a pivotal moment from the early Lee and Kirby issues of the Fantastic Four comic) is interrupted by the arrival of The Silver Surfer. The Human Torch gives chase across the skies and through the tunnels of New York. One of the first movie's biggest problems was that the Torch wasn't able to fully exercise his powers until near the end of the film, but this time we get it up front in the trailer.

Cloverfield (teaser)
No one knew what to expect when this trailer showed up with Transformers last summer, but it has since inspired all kinds of speculation as to what this movie is all about. A hand-held home video of a farewell party in New York City is interrupted by a power failure. A massive roar can be heard off in the distance and a gigantic fireball engulfs a large chunk of the city. Huge pieces of shrapnel fly everywhere, including a large chunk of metal that turns out to be the Statue of Liberty's head. This is one of those trailers that is so good you find yourself saying, "the hell with that movie I just paid to see, I want to see this one right now." To further tantalize audiences, producer J.J. Abrams and company didn't even tell anyone what the title was at first. The full length trailer that followed added more footage, but failed to be as engaging as the original teaser.

It can be hard to pick scary movies for a group of adults to enjoy -- unless you go the family film route, and who wants that? Some people can watch an eye be plucked form a skull, or a slow, terrifying scene scored with creepy music and be in heaven; others will squeeze their eyes shut and plug their ears to escape what they consider hell. While brainstorming ideas for Cinematical's month-long tribute to all things creepy, scary, and gory, I had the bright idea to cover scary flicks for the wimpy -- those people who squeeze, plug, and hate to be scared.

I didn't quite think about how antithetical this idea was. If it's scary, the wimpy won't like it, and if it is too watered down, it isn't scary any more. To make things even more difficult, everyone has different ideas about what is scary. For example, I consider Psycho to be scary for its time and not-so-scary now. Chilling, yes. Nail-biting or hair-raising? No. My friend, however, just looked at me like I was insane for including it on this list. Where in the heck do you go from there?

Comedy always works. The funnier the gore, the less scary it is. But this isn't a comedy list, so there has to be some sort of variety, and this is how it will work: the following is a list of movies you can watch with your more wimpy friends, but still have those ever-loved Halloween themes, and at least a little gore or a few jumps. They are listed from wimpiest to least-wimpy -- all of which should fall well below the truly scary films out there. If anyone finds the lower-rated ones too much to bear, you should probably stay away from anything scary, the evening news, and the absolutely frightening Showgirls.

There are so many awards programs out there that it's hard to keep track of mountainous piles of accolades that any morsel of media can win. It can gain awards from your favorite faux music station, for being truly terrible or for just coming from a particular area. The latest distinctions to be handed out for films -- the Vancouver, BC Leo Awards, which "celebrate excellence in British Columbia film and television." This is a combination of Canadian efforts, and productions filmed in BC, the locale that is often picked to represent locations stateside.

For the ninth annual awards, the two bigger-buzz winners were Douglas Coupland's Everything's Gone Green and the funny slave-zombie flick, Fido. The Green flick, which stars Paulo Costanzo, has been featured a few times on Cinematical, most recently in April, when Kim Voynar shared an exclusive clip. The film nabbed Leos for Best Feature-Length Drama and Best Screenwriting, not too shabby for Dougie's first feature-length screenplay. Then there's the Billy Connolly zombie-riffic Fido, which turned BC into a haven of 50's fantasy and zombie servitude. The movie was awarded a slew of behind-the-scenes Leos for Best Cinematography, Best Overall Sound, Best Musical Score, Best Make-Up and Best Visual Effects. Unfortunately, no accolades-love for Connolly, who spent the entire movie moaning and groaning.

Four other films grabbed the rest of the feature honors. Ross Weber's indie flick, Mount Pleasant, won Best Direction and Best Supporting Actor for Ben Ratner (not Brett Ratner). Unnatural & Accidental, a murder drama, scored Leos for Best Picture Editing, Best Supporting Female Performance for Margo Cane and Best Lead Male Performance for one of my favorite Canadian actors, Callum Keith Rennie. Finally there is the historical drama Partition, which won some Leos for Best Sound Editing and Best Production Design, and Past Tense, which won Alexia Fast (who also happened to be in Fido) a Leo for Best Lead Female. You can get a list of other awards, which includes television and short film Leos here.

Here are some trailers to peek at before the weekend:

• Last month, I could only share a brief teaser of the upcoming Zombie flick, Fido. Now, there's finally a very substantial trailer, if you want to see more before you head to theaters to watch it. (It finally opens tomorrow!) We've got head coffins, zombie crossing guards and just a little bit of zombie luvin'. Honestly, the film is fun, and just as zany as the trailers suggest. Check it out.
• On the more foreign side of things, there is a strange "teaser" up for Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson's latest film, You, The Living. It's more like a behind-the-scenes clip, and it doesn't show much, but it will test your curiosity factor. Me, I'm wondering what the hell it's all about. The film's website has a number of stills as well, with pasty-looking people, so I can't help but wonder if this is some sort of zombie film too. Or, maybe it is a Swedish film version of Six Feet Under. The film will premiere at Cannes this May, so I'm sure things will become clear soon enough.
• Lastly, we've got some television. Last summer, Martha Fischer shared that Jake Kasdan's The TV Set was picked up by THINKFilm. The movie goes through the Mike's (David Duchovny) struggle to maintain the integrity of his TV pilot while it goes through the process of being made -- casting, production and airing. The movie will finally be released next month, and Moviefone has a trailer up for you to follow the struggles of maintaining sanity when execs say things like: "Frankly, 'original' scares me a little," and "Suicide is depressing to like 82% of everybody." In other words, one of those things you could laugh at, but would never want to experience.
  

We've been raving about the Canadian zombie comedy, Fido, on Cinematical for a while now. After a great premiere at TIFF, the film is slated for release on June 15th, and we've finally got a teaser for you to sink your zombie-yearning teeth into. It's quite brief, and doesn show much, but that might be best. Like any comedy, the laughs are best the first time around, and this teaser does a good job of showing the gist without revealing the gusto.

If you've missed our news on the servant zombie flick -- take some post-war "troops-yay!" propaganda films, add in some Donna Reed home life in full, vibrant technicolor, add a bunch of moaning, partially-decomposed zombies and blend them all together to get Fido. The film centers on a post-zombie-apocalypse paradise called Willard, where ZomCon gives out special collars that make flesh-hungry zombies into docile servants. Beyond the walls of the town, zombies moan groan and exist in a wasteland -- think of the future earth in the 80's camp tv show, Buck Rogers. Within the walls, people blissfully let zombies do almost everything, which usually amounts to daily chores and menial tasks, but they can also perform carnal pleasures, the likes of which Timmy's neighbour delights in.

However, unlike the zombie-loving people around him, Timmy wonders about the truth behind what a zombie is and what he/she can feel. This inevitably leads him to befriend his new zombie help, Fido (Billy Connolly). You should check out the teaser now, and the film this summer, if for no other reason than to see the Scottish comedian go through an entire feature with nothing but grunts, groans and facial reactions.

The popular -- yet still very "indie" -- San Francisco IndieFest kicks off its 9th annual festival with David Lynch's Inland Empire. It will be the first time Lynch's new film has screened in the Bay Area. The festival begins Thursday, February 8 at the Roxie Cinema, the Victoria Theatre, The Castro Theatre in San Francisco and the California Theatre in Berkeley, and runs through February 18. At first glance, the new festival offers a puzzling lineup, with no "name" directors (other than Lynch) and few stars. But a deeper look reveals some potential treasures.

I saw Kumakiri Kazuyoshi's Green Mind, Metal Bats, a bizarre kind of baseball black comedy about two washed-up players. One -- who was beaned in the head by a stray pitch -- has spent the years practicing his swing while working in a convenience store. He meets a sexy, drunk girl who suddenly moves in with him. The other, a pitcher with a bum elbow, has become a contemptuous bicycle cop. The film ends in the expected showdown between pitcher and hitter, but until then it wanders through all kinds of fascinating, deadpan territory.

As an insatiable horror freak, I maintain a strong affection for both Lionsgate and Bloody-Disgusting.com, so imagine my delight when the two combined for a tantalizing peek at next year's horror slate! Yep, it seems that BD.com does a "horror preview" for each studio every December -- and they logically chose Lionsgate as the first distributor to earn a few spotlights. Nobody snatches up grass-roots film-fest horror titles like Lionsgate does, and I can personally assure you that a good portion of the upcoming genre flicks are actually quite good! Well, a few of 'em, anyway...

Aside from the well-established and obvious titles (like Hostel: Part 2 and Saw 4), Lionsgate will unleash a virtual torrent of horror-style offerings next year. Not to steal any thunder from the BD.com boys (cuz they've done a fine job with their research!), but here's how I break down next year's LG offerings:

• Borderland -- Sean Astin and Rider Strong star in a tale of human sacrifice. I know next to nothing about this one.
• Boy Eats Girl -- Been waiting a while for this one. Love the title.
• Bug -- Saw it at Fantastic Fest -- and was really surprised by how much I liked it. This Shannon guy is a force of nature.
• Catacombs -- Wow, I almost forgot about this one! It's been sitting on a shelf for what, three years?
• The Eye -- Another Asian horror remake, this one allegedly starring Jessica Alba. Pass.
• Fido -- All the Cine-staffers who saw it agree: Fido is fun!
• Isolation -- Saw it at Toronto '05! And I definitely look forward to seeing it again. It's creepy.
• Right at Your Door -- Missed it at Sundance. Heard mixed things. Dig the concept.
• Skinwalkers -- Another one that's been "coming soon" for quite some time now. Still fairly psyched to see it...

(And this isn't including the deluge of After Dark Horrorfest titles that LG is releasing (to DVD) next March! Or their as-yet-undetermined parade of low-low-end DTV titles. Heh)

Well, wow. That's pretty disappointing.

I speak of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival "Park City at Midnight" selections. In previous year the PCM program introduced me to the wonderful horrors of The Descent, Hard Candy, High Tension, May, Saw and Three Extremes.... But next year's line-up seems alarmingly short on the scary stuff. Obviously I cannot make any judgments about the program before I see the films, but going only on the genres and the plot synopses, it seems that next January's Midnight picks are much more comedic in nature. Well, comedies and general weird stuff is what it looks like. Here's the breakdown:

Fido -- Andrew Currie's "Romero meets Sirk" farce earned a small amount of positive buzz at Toronto, which is where James and I sat together and had a really good time with the flick. (Kim liked it too!) Lionsgate is currently preparing a release date for the film, but now we know why they were taking their time on that front.

Finishing the Game -- A mockumentary about the guy called in to "replace" the legendary Bruce Lee on Game of Death after the star passed away. From Better Luck Tomorrow (and, ugh, Annapolis) director Justin Lin.

It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! -- Director Crispin Glover returns with a follow-up to his certifiably insane What Is It?

The Signal -- "A mysterious signal is being transmitted from all media devices in the city of Terminus, provoking murder and madness within the psyches of its inhabitants." Sounds promising. And check out the trailer!

Sk8 Life -- Apparently it's a Can8ian indie about a bunch of sk8ers who band together to save their beloved hangout from dem0lition.

Smiley Face -- Anna Faris stars as a girl who eats some crazy pot brownies and has a day full of wacky Araki misadventures. And check out the cast!

The Ten -- Some of the old State members got together to do a comedy anthology based on The Ten Commandments. Again, the cast is absolutely jam-packed with colorful folks.

We Are the Strange -- Apaprently someone called it "Monsters Inc. meets The Nightmare Before Christmas inside of a retro Japanese video game." Hmm, OK. The trailer certainly promises something ... yeah, strange.

So there's one I've seen already, two promising comedies, an animated brain-twister, an indie that uses 8s instead of As, another piece of brain-rust from Crispin Glover ... and a Gregg Araki ensemble comedy? Which leaves The Signal as my one small beacon of late-night horror. Ah well, a cool-looking line-up all the same, even if it's not as blood-drenched as I'd hoped it would be. (Plus there's always a few genre titles mixed in amidst the more "highbrow" programs.)

All is well in the peaceful town of Willard, where life seems permanently stuck in the 1950s. The sun is always shining, the flowers are always blooming -- and zombies handle most of the more mundane tasks, thus freeing up the good citizens of Willard to enjoy their lives. You see, several years back, space dust fell on the earth, causing the dead to rise and become flesh-eating legions of the undead. There were the terrible Zombie Wars, when mankind fought not to be cannibalized by the rotting corpses of friends and family, and then came ZomCon. ZomCon invented a security collar that, when attached around a zombie's neck and activated, it turns a vicious, flesh-devouring monster into a productive member of the community. Thanks to ZomCon, zombies deliver mail, take care of the trash, and do countless other menial tasks, and the living citizens of the community are safe -- so long as the collars work.

It's my third consecutive visit to the Toronto International Film Festival, although I'm finding myself a bit more distracted than during previous trips Why? Well, because I have four of my Cinematical pals up here to hang out with, three amigos from Rotten Tomatoes, and a whole bunch of random friends that I get to see ONLY at film festivals. And if I have to choose between a 2.5-hour tearjerker from Romania, or having a semi-swanky meal with Rocchi, Fischer, Voynar and our new pal Alexia (videographer extraordinaire) -- well, that's not much of a decision, is it?

Which explains why I've only seen four films since arriving Thursday afternoon. Of course, three of those four movies hail from the Midnight Madness selection -- because that's my bread and butter, baby. Here's the scoop so far:

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan -- OK, so the initial public screening had some serious glitches (check out Kim's fantastic breakdown right here), but there was a press screening earlier this afternoon, and let me tell you fine folks something: I'm not prone to tossing out wild superlatives and giddy bits of over-praise, but wow -- this thing is easily one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Seriously. Equal parts silly, sly, satirical and stunningly bizarre, this is a comedy that's going to be quoted and re-quoted for the next 15 years. Brazen, ballsy and absolutely brilliant.

The Host -- Action, horror, comedy, adventure, sci-fi and drama all rolled into one (kind of overlong) package, The Host is a huge salad bar of a treat for the genre fans. It's about a giant tadpole-ish beastie who (literally) leaps out of Korea's Han River, chomps down on a few hundred people, and (allegedly) comes bearing a really nastily viral side effect. If Magnolia Pictures can find 20-ish minutes to chop out of this movie (and I'd happily tell them which scenes I think could be jettisoned), it'll be a cult classic before the end of next year.

Fido -- Whoops, my bad. Although it's definitely the kind of movie that would normally make Toronto's Midnight Madness line-up, this '50s-era zombie comedy falls under the Canada First designation -- because it's Canadian. Kim dug the flick just as much as I did, what with its crazy Zombie Knows Best approach and stellar cast. (Rocchi nailed it when he turned to me after the screening and said "It's George Romero meets Douglas Sirk!") Kim will have a full review up soon, and Lionsgate will be releasing the flick (relatively) soon, but so far the domesticated zom-com has earned three strong seals of approval from the Cinematicaleers.

Coming up: Black Sheep, Sheitan, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, and a whole bunch more.