In case your wondering I'm talking about the 1971 classic and Viggo Mortensen made for TV re-make which I have not seen and pretty much have no interest in seeing either. Having just watched Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (A film which I like), it was time to throw on Vanishing Point (A film I love). Vanishing Point is another film with a simple premise, but one which is given a near perfect execution. Barry Newman (City on Fire, The Limey) stars as "Kowalski" (No first name is ever used). Kowalski is a man who has had a varied career from military service in Vietnam, a cop, a speedway motorcycle rider, a NASCAR driver and now he delivers cars across the states.

Arriving in Denver with a car to drop off "Kowalski" decides against the advice of the guy at the depot to pick up another car and drive right back to San Francisco. The car he chooses is of course an iconic white 1970 Dodge Challenger. Just before he leaves Denver "Kowalski" drops by a speed dealing friend to pick up some amphetamines so he can keep those nasty slices of death known as sleep away. He bets that he can be back in Denver in record time or will double the price he pays for the drugs at his next purchase. Wired on uppers and sitting on several hundred horses of American muscle car "Kowalski" starts his run and nothing will stop him from reaching his goal ... nothing.

On his high speed limited time journey "Kowalski" is chased by the authorities almost from the start when he fails to stop for some motorcycle cops. How ever he is aided by various outsiders and members of counterculture, 1% bikers, drug users, an old hermit and maybe most importantly blind radio DJ Super Soul played by Cleavon Little (Greased Lightning) who is best known for his role in Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles. As the film moves along Kowalski becomes a kind of hero for those who believe in true freedom and in turn he becomes a deadly pariah to those who would keep order. Although in reality his "crime" is nothing more than a simple mistermeaner, his refusal to stop (and the failure of the establishment to stop him) becomes an insult those who believe respect is bestowed (In this case with a badge and a gun) and not earned. "Kowalski" though is no simple hippy maniac giving a finger to the man; he was a cop who stood up when his partner did wrong and a decorated war hero. No doubt these things were included in the characters back story to make it less easy for certain viewers to dismiss. Unlike Dirty Mary Crazy Larry which is really just an excuse to drive cars around having fun (Nothing wrong with that) Vanishing Point is more complex, it’s a look at American culture as the innocence of the 60's is lost to the escalating backdrop of the Vietnam War and the changing times. "Kowalski" is a much a visual representation as an idea or a theme as he is a character. He is in the words of Super Soul " ... the last American hero, the electric centaur, the, the demi-god, the super driver of the golden west!"

The thing I like about movies like this is they know they won't resonate well with everyone. It really depends on your mind set. For some people while they may enjoy the fast cars and naked girl on a bicycle they will be thinking "Why doesn’t he just stop when they ask him to". The rest of us however will be right alongside Super Soul cheering on "the last American hero" and personal freedom. No nation no matter its history is more synonymous with the motor car than America and Vanishing Point is a great slice of America on film. This is a road movie and thriller with very few peers and one rarely bettered.

Trailer for the re-make of 1987's The Stepfather which was directed by Joseph Ruben and starred Terry O'Quinn (Lost). The remake see's TV director Nelson McCormick take the rains and Dylan Walsh of "Nip/Tuck" fame take the O'Quinn role.

Elias Koteas look-a-like Christopher Meloni also stars along with Amber Heard (Zombieland), Sela Ward and Penn Badgley of "Gossip Girl".

It's doesn't look to bad from the trailer as remakes go, but the director, cast and look of the thing make me think TV movie.

welcometothefamily.com

Trailer for Pandorum, a terrifying thriller in which two crew members wake up on an abandoned spacecraft with no idea who they are, how long they've been asleep, or what their mission is. The two soon discover they're actually not alone -- and the reality of their situation is more horrifying than they could have imagined.

Christian Alvart who directed Antibodies takes the directors chair. Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue and martial artist Cung Le star

Pandorum - Poster

www.pandorummovie.com

First trailer for Guy Ritchie's take on the classic detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film simply titled Sherlock Holmes is due for a boxing day release.

This adaption see's the titular hero revamped in a vain similar to the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Sadly the film version and not Alan Moore's fantastic comic. The reactions across the net for this trailer have been very positive. I personally don't feel that excited, sure Basil Rathbone style fog and deerstalkers has been done to death and would not fly today. However I'm a bit surprised Richie and the screenwriters have taken it to such safe blockbuster action comedy ground. One would have hoped for a little touch of snatch / Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels infused to give it just a little more edge. After all Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell are meant to be taking on the roles of Holmes and Watson in a still "Untitled Sherlock Holmes Project", which one imagines will touch the comedic itself. Many feel it has a similar vibe to Pirates of the Caribbean, which was a fun franchise, so its probably going to fairly good popcorn munching fun.

Detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his stalwart partner Watson (Jude Law) engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England.

Joining Downey and Law in the cast are Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, James Fox and Rachel McAdams (sporting a rather fetching corset in the trailer)

You can download an HD version of the trailer from Yahoo! Movies

In a dramatic and highly physical opener, a SWAT team swoops on wanted man Gabriel Engel. Captured after a reign of terror spanning more than six years and thirteen young male victims, it seems as though the cops finally have their man. Meanwhile, cop-cum-farmer, Michael Martens, is continuing to aggravate his townsfolk and further alienate himself by his obsession with the unsolved and brutal murder of a girl in his own village a year and a half ago. Will the capture of Engel bring closure for Martens, or will it in fact be just the beginning of a new and horrifying chapter? One thing’s for sure, Engel will shake Martens’ beliefs to their very foundations.

In one throwaway reference, Antibodies acknowledges the film to which it owes a considerable debt. Though Antibodies lacks the taught class of The Silence of the Lambs, and, indeed, much of the ‘horror,’ it does replicate the psychological mould of the interplay between killer and cop to good effect. Minus the charismatic charm of Hannibal Lecter, Gabriel Engel is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. And Martens, the Clarice to Engel’s Lecter, has a dour priggishness to replace her checked vulnerability. Like its better-known counterpart, though, writer-director Christian Alvart’s film pushes the psychological aspect of the serial killer sub-genre as well as the boundaries of our detecting protagonist.

Antibodies is more grit than gloss and following Engel’s goadings and revelations, along with Martens’ moral decline, is as grubby as it is expected. Alvart clearly seeks to implicate a link between sex and moral decay, which is fine but for the eve-increasing dominance of the religious overtones. His theologising descends from the sublime to the ridiculous and, whilst tackling such enormous subjects is undoubtedly admirable, his handling of them is not. You can’t help but feel that he has bitten off more that he can chew, that at only his second directorial feature, he has yet to develop the skills to engage his subjects with sensitivity and subtlety (if you’ve not picked this up by the heavy-handed channel-changing splice then there’s a good chance this will all slip by unnoticed anyway).

What he does have the skills to do, though, is create a decent if run-of-the-mill thriller. Following a tried-and-tested formula, Alvart does keep you guessing and works a twist well. Though you get the feeling that he has his head just above water with his ability to develop fully the magnitude of the issues he’s taken on, he does mesh nicely the opposition of small-town moral paranoia’s with seedy big-city strife. It’s hard to say if it’s Wotan Wilke Möhring’s performance as Michael Martens or his pious character that’s a trifle irritating, but again he works well in opposition to worldly-wise big-city cop, Seiler (Heinz Hoenig). It’s Hauke Diekemp’s rightly award-winning performance as Martens’ troubled son, Christan, though, which threatens to steal the show. Similarly show-stealing are the beautiful shots of rural Germany and the industrial score. It’s touches like these which flesh out the by-numbers plot.

Good, but not quite as good as it thinks it is. Fans of the serial killer genre will find the body-count low, but it’s well worth a watch for those partial to a psychological thriller

First Trailer to James Russo's and Tracy Coogan's "Dark Woods"

A young married couple moves to a secluded area to cope with the wife's terminal illness. As the wife's condition gets worse, the husband's growing detachment from her forces him into a tumultuous relationship with a local teenage girl whom he rescues from a sexual assault.

www.darkwoodsmovie.com | www.tracycoogan.com

Trailer for the movie See Saw starring Aimee Muschamp, Michael Graves, Mike Digiacinto, Lou Martini Jnr. From director Tom Muschamp.

"A woman with no memory of her past utilizes the eyes and ears of New York's surveillance empire in a quest to find out who she is."

There is no release yet, but the trailer looks fairly strong for an independently produced thriller.

Trailer for Jeremy Alter's The Perfect Sleep which is set "against the backdrop of a noirish dreamscape, a tortured man returns to the city he swore he would never return to, in order to save the woman he has always loved yet can never have"

The screeplay is by Anton Pardoe who also stars along with Roselyn Sanchez (Without a Trace), Patrick Bauchau (Chrysalis, Carnivàle), Peter J. Lucas (Inland Empire)

www.theperfectsleep.com

Korean language trailer for The Truck , directed by Hyung-jin Kwon and starring Goo Jin and Hae-jin Yoo.

Chul-min is a simple truck driver whose usual cargo is liquor, vegetables and other necessities. When his daughter is diagnosed with congenital heart disease, he scrambles to borrow money from friends to pay for the operation. Unable to raise the necessary funds, he tries his luck at gambling. When he loses everything, the gang boss who runs the gambling house gives him an unusual job: to deliver some freshly stabbed corpses to a faraway province. On his nerve-racking journey carrying dead bodies in his truck, Chul-min turns to the radio for company only to hear about a serial killer on the loose. After spotting a car that has fallen into a ditch, he is flagged down by a policeman who is heading to the same province. When Chul-min unravels the real identity of his passenger, his nightmare really begins...

I rather like this UK quad poster for the Liam Neeson thriller Taken. The trailer looks brilliant to. I normally don't attend any preview screenings, but I have an invite for this and I might actually make the effort to go.

www.takenmovie.co.uk

Pediatric Alex Beck (François Cluzet), still devastated by the savage murder of his wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) in the early days of their marriage eight years ago, receives an anonymous email.

When he clisks on the link he sees a woman's face standing in a crowd being filmed in real time - Margot's face. Is she still alive? And why does she instruct him to 'tell no one'?

Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne) is released in UK cinema's June 15th 2007.

www.tellno-one.com (Check out the trailer here)

Today sees the release of a sequel which has been in the pipeline for well over a decade now, which gives me cause to wonder, amongst other things, what the point is. Basic Instinct 2, previously going by the working title appendage of Risk Addiction, has already been unanimously panned by critics prior to its big screen release today in both the UK and US. But is this a case of the critics having a love-in on the bandwagon, or do they know something I think we all suspect?

Paul Verhoeven's 1992 original, which enraged the gay community with what it saw as an offensively negative portrayal of homosexuality, brought us some of the most enduringingly sexy scenes in cinema, and raised Sharon Stone's profile from star in limbo to fully fledged A-lister. With a worldwide gross of $350m, Basic Instinct rightfully cashed-in on its seductive formula, that of the highly eroticised femme fatale. Though, plot wise, it was flawed and sensationalist, the world was introduced to the irresistible character of Stone's Catherine Tramell, who embodied all that was dark cinema's 'fatal woman', but with a delicious modern spin. She was highly intelligent, dangerous, beautiful, sexy, complicated, mysterious, manipulative, aloof and wealthy, but she was also bi-sexual, highly sexual, wore no knickers and liked to be watched.

Though the Thriller is, like the Comedy, or Romance, cinematically a pretty steady genre, Basic Instinct was, like all cinema, a product of its era. Like 1987's Fatal Attraction, and 1992's The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Verhoeven's thriller made good use of the single white female. A new breed of predatory woman was stalking the urban streets and this meant danger for all concerned.

Cinema is one of the most widely accessible and exemplary forms of enforcing, questioning, and documenting changing social norms and values, and the sexual woman is no different. Post-sexual revolution where corporate dreams were thriving, 80's cinema reflected the worries the implications of this. 1987's Baby Boom, for example, is now an almost quaintly transparent big screen representation of the Daily Mail ideology - former career gal obtains baby and finds what really matters in life - which is very blatant in its message that, in an age where women were, rather worryingly it would seem, choosing careers over settling down, this spelled social catastrophe. It's ok, though, because Diane Keaton was on hand to show you the error of your ways, that true female fulfilment lies in domesticity, and anything else makes you look like a cold, materialistic bitch. You may have success and sex for pleasure only, but you're not really a 'woman'.

The knock-on effect of this came with this new trend in Thrillers – the threat of the independent, attractive, single, working woman. What did she want and why wasn't she conforming? Of course it wasn’t just women who were cinematically reprimanded, men had the moral lesson, too. And what was the lesson? Unattached women who like sex and are willing to use it are deadly in society, and guys need to keep it in their pants or else very bad things indeed will happen. Yes, these women were loose and libidinous on the streets and coming to a scene of domestic bliss very near you.

And so what does this all mean for Michael Caton-Jones risky sequel all these years later? Clearly, this film is riding on one thing and one thing only: that Sharon Stone is still fucking sexy at the age of 48. However, I think we've moved on and accepted female sexuality enough to feel less threatened by it now. The implications of this type of female figure are not what they used to be. Where Tramell liked sex and liked it with men or women, this is no longer as threatening or titillating as it once was. Basic Instinct 2 is clearly treading the same tracks as the original, or at least attempting to, with, apparently, no consideration of what it means to have 14 years pass between them. In this case, and without yet seeing the film, I'd have to at this point put my faith in the critics. I'm sure this film will function passably enough as a watchable film in its own right, but not as a sequel. It just cannot pack the sexual punch of the original.