Reviews of Previews

Doubt 
This preview is probably better than the movie. The movie, to judge from the preview, looks much better than the play, which I thought was a conventional piece in no way deserving of all the prizes, despite some terrific acting from Cherry Jones and Bryan F. O'Byrne. The preview of Doubt shows La Streep in all her icy glory, it has a nice taut pace and it gives you a hint of the moral dilemma. And it makes you want to watch the movie, but mostly because it happens to have Meryl Streep playing a nasty nun. Streep v. Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I bet she kicks his ass.I have been watching this preview for so long that I swear the first time I saw it, the footage had not been color corrected. The color of the walls was like Pepsodent. Now they have a nice, dark green. Go Roger Deakins!
Revolutionary Road
In contrast, this much hyped film by Sam Mendes, whom I adore, with his wife Kate Winslet and Leo Di Caprio, has probably one of the worst previews in history. It looks like the climax of a Mexican telenovela but with blond people. There are just too many scenes with people crying their eyes out, and almost tearing their hair out. La Winslet keeps looking better and better, more alluring, mature and sexy. Di Caprio, sorry to say, still looks like a kid. He is a very resourceful actor but I wish he lost the baby face. My friend Katya says the pic is good, despite the preview.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
You know how I feel about Holocaust movies that are made expressly to win Oscars. They should be illegal. We are meant to believe that a little Nazi spawn and a Jewish kid on the other side of the barbed wire become friends over a game of chess. Not even David Thewlis can dignify this crap.
Deception
I was so busy staring at Clive Owen and Julia Roberts and their charming chemistry in the preview, I originally didn't catch the name of the movie, except it was written and directed by Tony Gilroy, he of Michael Clayton, and it looks like a more fun version of that film. The two stars seem to be having fun (Clive Owen always does, bless his soul). Bonafide movie stars having a ball. I would see it.

Reviews of Movies I Won't See.
Zack and Miri make a Porno
I don't get Kevin Smith. I don't get why people think he is such a genius and I particularly don't get that everybody is saying that Judd Apatow owes him his very existence in a Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence kind of way. Like without Clerks there would be no Superbad. Whatevs. Apatow, in my view, is much more talented and sophisticated than this lazy slacker with his lazy slacker films. I saw Smith talk at the IFP project last Summer and he is very funny, but his movies suck.
Australia
I didn't love Moulin Rouge. Absolutely nothing in it made any sense or had any meaning beyond decoration. I found it extremely vulgar. Over the top extravanganzas of kitsch are not for me. So this extended commercial for Down Under, with its two most handsome exports, I have absolutely no interest in seeing. I hear it is terrible too.
Quantum of Solace
A title that sounds like a metaphysical treaty. And we love our Daniel Craig, the long suffering, humorless spy who looks like a million bucks in swim trunks and tuxedos. But endless explosions bore me to tears and not even Matthieu Amalric as the meanie makes me want to bother.