G-S-T Trailer Roundup: Alien Conformity, Hot Guidos, & Psychotic Hobbits

So many trailers, so little time. Truthfully, enough teasers and preview clips have dropped this week that I could fill out three different roundups and still have some leftovers; sometimes, studios just want to inundate the web with their collective chunks of promo footage. Marketing’s gotta market, after all. The good news is that there’s so much to choose from that sheer variety alone makes the effort of gathering and watching each spot worthwhile (and if there’s one thing we appreciate here at Go, See, Talk!, it’s variety). Comic book flicks, retro sci-fi throwbacks, gruesome horror remakes; even a concert movie made the cut here, and that’s saying something, since everyone tends to ignore those as a rule.

That brings us to our first entry in today’s trailer collation, Metallica: Through the Never. Frankly, people are going to totally overlook this thing just because it focuses on Metallica, a band whose star plummeted in the mid-90s and hasn’t bothered to resurface since; forget the fact that it’s a recording of one of their live shows. Except that it’s not just that, because it apparently also revolves a street war fought between riot cops and rioters while a dazed Dane DeHaan stands stuck in the middle. I’m not even sure what’s going on here – fires blaze, and at one point a man rides a horse across the screen- or how DeHaan’s material meshes with Metallica’s display of precise musical thrashings, but this is off-kilter enough to immediately grab my attention with its weirdness. Could this be a concert picture worth attending? (Zing.)

Speaking of portraits of the apocalypse, how about that latest The World’s End trailer? We’ve already seen an international bit for Edgar Wright’s final entry in his Blood and Ice Cream trilogy, which handily sets the stage for what could easily be one of 2013’s best releases; the new clip, boasting an introduction by Wright himself, expands on the film’s central conceit as well as the invasive extraterrestrial elements. That “golden mile” looks awful long, especially when every turn is plagued by aliens, though the footage confirms that our heroes- Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, and Rosamund Pike- will tangle with robotic drones (and a nasty-looking tripod) rather than possessed humans as originally assumed. Whatever the truth behind the antagonists may be, this Wyndham/Siegel/Kaufman riff looks like a fitting end to the series that started with Shaun of the Dead nearly ten years ago.

If one movie featuring interloping aliens isn’t enough for you, try this absolutely incredible Man of Steel teaser on for size instead. It took some time, but the promotional spots for Zack Snyder’s attempt at rebooting the Superman mythos have really won me over and gotten me giddy with excitement over it; that’s saying something, as I tend to be cold towards comic book movies as a general rule (if only to temper the dangers of superhero burnout). I know that I frequently rail against movies recycling plot details from classic releases, but somehow Snyder has gotten me totally invested in the idea of seeing Kal-el do battle with Zod once more; chalk it up to great casting and what looks to be a fresh take on their conflict. I’ll watch Batman fight the Joker a thousand times if each clash feels individualized, and that’s exactly what Snyder appears to have done here.

On that note, IFC has unleashed a green-band teaser for Maniac that manages to be incredibly disturbing and creepy despite being safe for work; again, there’s nothing wrong with retreading old ground if you bring a unique perspective to it. In the case of Maniac, the perspective happens to be first-person. Franck Khalfoun shot most of his film from the point of view of Elijah Wood, once the savior of Middle Earth and now a deranged murderer with severe mommy issues; it sounds almost like a cute trick, but early word on the picture is so strong (particularly in regards to how that technique impacts the viewing experience) as to suggest that Khalfoun has a real horror gem on his hands. Maniac hits VOD June 21st; we’ll see for ourselves then if the film is really as good as genre outlets are making it out to be.

Last but not least we have the very first trailer for Don Jon, a Jersey Shore joint starring everybody’s favorite Third Rock From the Sun alum who isn’t John Lithgow. Of course, that’s a reductive introduction, because Joseph Gordon-Levitt isn’t just the star of Don Jon (formerly Don Jon’s Addiction before the title got truncated for whatever odd reason), he’s also the whole creative force behind it, serving as writer, director, and lead actor. We’ve all known about JGL’s massive talent since 2005, but he’s really come into his own lately with a nearly pristine body of work and an endless list of smart career moves since returning to practice his craft in Rian Johnson’s debut film, Brick. Early response on Don Jon has run hot and cold, but it’s really Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s ambition that has landed this guido-fest on my radar.

That wraps us up for this roundup, people. Which of these upcoming films are you anticipating the most?