Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis get naked, have casual sex

Screen Gems have released the first trailer for their upcoming sex comedy Friends With Benefits, starring pop star-turned-actor-guy-in-heaps-of-movies Justin Timberlake and Meg Griffin’s voice, Mila Kunis.

Not sure what to expect? I wasn’t sure, either. I can tell you I didn’t expect this snappy little trailer to be as sexy as it is, nor as funny. Yeah, funny– it actually looks like it might play out as one of those easy-to-kick-back-to films, one where getting deep and technical about the film will be a waste because it’s only out to achieve three basic things:

1. Look sexy
2. Be funny
3. Make money

Also, it appears there’s a decent little support role for good ol’ Woody Harrelson. That guy is crazy.

Friends With Benefits will be released 22 July 2011 in the States. No Australian dates have been announced yet.

A young female headhunter (Mila Kunis) in New York convinces a potential recruit (Justin Timberlake) to leave his job in San Francisco behind and accept a job in the Big Apple. Despite an attraction to each other, both realize they’re everything they’ve been running from in a relationship and decide to become friends… with benefits. It’s the perfect arrangement–until they realize there’s no such thing as no strings attached.

First trailer for the Farrelly brothers’ HALL PASS, with Owen Wilson and some other guy

Like it or not, Judd Apatow single-handedly changed the face of male-centric romantic comedies over the past decade. The days of lightweight, formulaic stuff like There’s Something About Mary, Me Myself and Irene, and Shallow Hall are slipping away like a teenage celebrity’s dreams of staying famous into their 20s.

So it’s hard to greet Hall Pass (directed by the Farrelly Brothers, who directed all those movies I just listed) with much more than wariness, but the trailer does have a few laughs. The plot: a couple of unappreciative and misogynistic husbands are given a one-week hall pass by their (presumably) annoying, nagging wives to have sex with whoever or whatever they can. On paper, it sounds really depressing, but with Richard Jenkins making an appearance, it can’t be all bad. Can it?

Hall Pass is due in the States on 25 February 2011. It stars Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis (who?), Christina Applegate and Jenna Fischer.

Watching the BIG MOMMAS: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON trailer is like shooting fish in a barrel

Big Momma’s House is a fundamentally bizarre movie. It is, essentially, an excuse to get another shrill over-the-hill comedian to dress up as a fat woman. Because, I dunno, the shame of being seen as an obese old lady in today’s society is, I suppose, hilarious?

Fastforward to 2010, and Martin Lawrence returns to crank the shrillness to eleven for Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. This time Brandon T. Jackson (from Tropic Thunder) has been roped in to don another fat suit. Because one fat suit wasn’t funny enough. I wonder if Martin Lawrence actually enjoys doing this, or if he’s just killing time until Bad Boys 3.

Big Momma 3 is due on 18 February 2011 in the States.

First full trailer for SUCKER PUNCH: what the hell am I watching?

I like video games. I like movies. I do not like video games that try to be movies, or movies that try to be video games. Sucker Punch‘s trailer plays like a bad Japanese beat-em-up: the juvenile misogyny is there in full force, there’s a lot of weightless CGI violence, and there’s even a Zelda-esque mythical-item fetch-quest thrown in for good measure.

As always, I’ll try to reserve judgement until the film itself is released, but trailers like this do little to inspire faith.

Sucker Punch is due on 25 March 2011 in the States, and is directed by Zack Snyder. Expect lots of punching, a fair amount of suckering, and way too much slow-mo ramping.

First pictures of Spielberg and Jackson’s TINTIN rear their uncanny heads

The trouble with adapting popular things from people’s childhoods is that you can never do nostalgia justice. The best you can hope to do is generate fresh nostalgia, like what Michael Bay miraculously did with his Transformers flicks, or you risk alienating the audience.

I was never super excited for a Tintin movie in the first place, and these motion-capped pics do little to instill anticipation. I don’t know what it is about the pictures — maybe I was expecting a more faithfully-cartoony visual style — but they seem to come across as something interesting shoehorned into something crushingly familiar.

Tintin is a collaborative project between industry juggernauts Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. The first film, due late next year (2011), follows the plot of the book (comic?) The Secret Of The Unicorn. I’m pretty sure I read most Tintin books as a kid, but the only one I remember distinctly is the one with giant mushrooms that land on an asteroid, or something, so don’t ask me to summarise the plot.

It stars Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) as boy wonder Tintin, Andy Serkis (Gollum from The Lord Of The Rings) as Captain Haddock, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson, Daniel Craig as Red Rackham, and Cary Elwes in some kind of bit-part.

So here we have the first few images from the project. Make of them what you will. They come courtesy of Empire magazine (buy the next issue for more, etc.).

The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn (another franchise with unwieldy titles, neato) is due on 28 December 2011 in the States. We’ll probably get a Boxing Day release, something we’ve come to expect from Jackson’s films over the years.

Pictures of Joe Johnston’s CAPTAIN AMERICA confirm shield, pecs of steel

I know next to nothing about Captain America. Coming from that small place outside of America called The Rest of the World, I don’t really care, either. A superhero that stands for and protects one country to the exclusion of others? What a jerk.

On the other hand, I like a good superhero movie about as much as anyone possibly can, so I want to give Captain America a chance. It’s directed by Joe Johnston, who did the pretty-mediocre Jurassic Park 3, Jumanji, and Hidalgo, and it’s starring Chris Evans, of the pretty-terrible Fantastic Four movies and the pretty-amazing Sunshine, so I have no idea what to expect. Patriotism and pectoral muscles, I guess.

Captain America: The First Avenger (ironically the last to get a film release) is due on 22 July 2011 in his country of origin. Check out more pictures here.

No really, Christopher Nolan’s third Bat-film will be called THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Batman Begins. The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight Rises. Huh. I guess it’s a fitting title for a third act, but somehow I envisioned something a little less… samey.

In related news, Christopher Nolan has confirmed that neither the Riddler nor Mr Freeze will be in The Dark Knight Rises, which narrows the list of potential Bat-villains down to approximately one billion. I don’t really care who the villain is, as long as the acting and direction remains as solid as it was in The Dark Knight. (That is, the first Dark Knight, the one where he just sort of wallowed about, as opposed to, you know, rising, or anything.)

Nolan doesn’t want to shoot The Dark Knight Rises in 3D, but he is pressing studio Warner Bros. to let him shoot (or at least release the film) in Imax. Good to see someone in Hollywood sticking to their guns.

Oh yeah, and Tom Hardy (Eames from Inception) has been cast in The Dark Knight Rises. Make of that what you will.

The Dark Knight Rises is due 20 July 2012.