So my mom calls me the other day and says “I was a biker chick zombie in a movie.” Which a) shows how awesome my mom is and b) shows she knows exactly what I want to hear when I pick up the phone. Of course I get curious, how was my mom in a zombie movie? Well the answer lies with director/writer/actor Jeremy Gardner (the bearded one in the above cast/crew picture) who decided that he and his intrepid crew were going to take a DSLR, spend 15 days and only $6,000 and shoot what looks to me to be a fun zombie film. Normally I cringe at independent zombie films, but bolstered by my mom’s stories (I know I am a little biased here) of Gardner being nice to the extras on set and being a generally nice guy (always nice to see in a director) I decided to check out their newly released trailer. While really it is just a demo reel of film (set to an amazing soundtrack) I thought it was worth while enough to share here. This looks like a film that people put a lot of heart and soul into (much like my last Trailer Thursday pick) and I dig the creepy rural area vibe. Plus there is finally a zombie movie that was shot in the town I grew up in. The film follows two former baseball players Ben and Mickey on the road months after an outbreak. The film recently wrapped and is currently in post production and I am very excited to see what comes out, and not just because my mom is a flesh eating ghoul.

Also there are no fast zombies in sight.

You can check out their site here or follow them on twitter here. I will be keeping my eye on this as it develops and will share more with you as it comes! In the meantime check out the trailer!

One of the reasons James and I started cineAWESOME! was to talk about smaller films, the films made by blood sweat and tears (and lots of coffee) all over the world that get ignored or passed off as minor blurbs on other sites. All the better if they’re genre films. All the better if they look interesting or involve things that we think are awesome. Well I present to you the trailer for an upcoming Canadian (perhaps the grand capital of body horror?) flick about a girl and her tattoo: Comforting Skin (Derek Franson, 2011) An awkward, insecure girl named Koffie (played by Victoria Bidewell in her first starring role) is trying desperately to get her life together. However, it spirals ever further out of control (as life is wont to do) and she finds herself getting a new tattoo that comes to life as she tries to take her own. Tattoo (voiced by Bidewell) whispers and slithers all over her body and draws her into a world of skin and sensual desire, but how far down this rabbit hole will Koffie go? And how will it affect herself and those around her? I am a huge fan of body horror, tattoos, and self destructive spirals played out on celluloid. Shot on a budget of only $250,000 and featuring some rather virtuoso digital composting by Ollie Ranikin, this film is something we want to put on your radar. Produced by Justin James, Derek Franson, and Andrew Webber and lensed by Adam Sliwinski, this film looks amazing for the budget. I especially applaud the casting of Bidewell, who is beautiful in a way that is real. This is something that is missing in a lot of (okay almost all of) Hollywood Horror. I’m digging what I’m seeing so far and look forward to this film when it is done. This is a project that cineAWESOME! will keep on top of and support, and it would be really cool if our readers did as well.

So go check out their website, like them on Facebook, share this page, and support indie filmmaking. As a warning this trailer has a quick flash of some boob, so might be considered NSFW.

Comforting Skin Trailer from Justin James on Vimeo.

“Never repress anything.”

I’ve never been a huge “trailer” fan. In fact, I feel that most trailers are better than movie (in some cases) or only show the best parts of the film. However, a couple weeks ago a friend of mine showed me a trailer for David Cronenberg’s newest piece of art currently in production. Ever since watching this trailer I haven’t been able to get this film out of my mind.

Cronenberg’s new film, A Dangerous Method, takes a look at the two of the most influential minds in the world of psychology – Dr. Carl Jung and the infamous Sigmund Freud – as they dive head first into the dangerous world of the mind and body’s repressed desires ultimately forming the foundation for one of the most debatable approaches to psychology – psychoanalysis.

With an all-star cast including Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung, and Vincent Cassel and Keira Knightly filling the screen with their impeccable acting and Cronenberg behind the camera, I can’t foresee much going wrong in this film. Who better than Cronenberg to take the viewer on a journey into the depths of the complicated and enigmatic human psyche?

I have studied Freud’s highly debated and problematic psychoanalytic theory, and I for one cannot express how excited I am to have a film that has the potential to fully encompass the complexity of this theory and to put in visual form something that can barely be described in words.

Set for release in September 2011 at the Toronto International Film Festival and Italy’s Venice Film Festival, this film has the potential to make waves in the international film community – waves that I truly hope are felt here in America.

Watch the trailer. Pass the word. And remember, never repress anything.

Jeff Nichols’ debut feature Shotgun Stories (2007) is a modern American Masterpiece. Tense, tightly edited, and beautifully shot this rural family revenge film was on my must see list for over a year before it was finally released commercially. I cannot recommend this film enough, in fact it is on the future episode list for our podcast. Michael Shannon as Son Hayes is absolutely captivating, the music by Lucero and Pyramid is great, and Jeff Nichols is someone with tremendous talent that deserve to be better known. So go find this, buy this, rent this, and tell your friends about this.

One of my all time favorite films, Freebie and the Bean was a 1974 action comedy starring Alan Arkin and James Caan. Directed by Richard Rush, it is the film Stanley Kubrick called ‘the best film of 1974′. Impressive words for an underrated film. You can buy it right now from our friends over at the Warner Archive right now. If only I could get that new box to replace the old one.Tell them cineAWESOME! sent you.

Enjoy the trailer.

Confession: I ate marshmallows on my pizza because of the Turtles. My life as a young child pretty much revolved around Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and in 1990 something that would blow my young mind came to theaters. LIVE ACTION NINJA TURTLES. I was ready to shout cowabunga and slash my brother with cardboard tube katanas.

This movie was an epic event. Surprisingly it still holds up today, a serious film (more like the comics than the cartoons) done extremely well. The turtle effects were great and the story was well done. Plus Elias Koteas as Casey Jones pretty much rocked the screen. He is a cineAWESOME! favorite for sure. I am also convinced this film shaped our generation. You have video games, karate, skate boarding, punks, acquired lingo from various cultures, and total radness.

Feast your eyes on the greatest trailer of my 6 year old life.

Ahh, you cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers, how I love you so. A film that seriously took me by surprise when I first saw it on Channel 11, WPIX here in NYC in the late 80′s at an age I maybe shouldn’t have seen it, C.H.U.D. has always had a special place in my heart. It’s funny, the creature design is great and it stars the double whammy of John Heard and Daniel Stearn. Of course those are two names you don’t think of when you peruse a horror movie best of, but in this case it works so well.

It also taking place in NYC helps me love it even more, because I would actually believe these creatures, alligators and teenaged turtles were living below me. I always felt bad when going to the bathroom too. Yes, I had issues. But enjoy this trailer, especially if you haven’t seen the film. Now you definitely should. I also included the abysmal C.H.U.D. sequel, C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D. which was actually supposed to be Return of the Living Dead 3. Weird how Hollywood works sometimes.

When people ask me why I chose to pursue a career in cinema I always turn their attention towards one film…Halloween! No not the goofy, how-to-make-a-serial-killer remake by Rob Zombie; I’m talking about the original baby! I love this film because, in my opinion, it represents resourceful independent film-making that has left a long standing mark on American pop culture and the horror genre in modern day cinema.

From the late-great Donald Pleasence’s performance as Michael Myer’s creepy, obsessed psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis to Jamie Lee Curtis’s ultra sympathetic portrayal of innocent Laurie Strode, Halloween remains an ageless classic tale of the often unexplained evil nature within humans. Not to mention this movie gave us one of the most frightening, awe inspiring movie villains of all time: Michael Myers! Never has an ordinary, suburban kitchen knife looked so threateningly terrifying.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t born at the time of the trailer’s initial release, but even after seeing Halloween as much as I have, watching this trailer still gives me goosebumps!

I love dinosaurs. You could say obsessively when I was a kid. I even got to dig for dinosaur bones for three summers in Montana thanks to my grandparents. Somewhere right now in the Old Trail Museum in Choteau, Montana there is a Tyrannosaurus tooth that I found, dug up, put back together, and preserved. I devoured the book Jurassic Park in third grade, and while my parents were slightly worried I wouldn’t understand the book, I loved it. My dad asked me what I thought DNA was, and according to him I looked at him, sighed, and said “Come on Dad its the stuff we’re all made out of” and went back to reading. I was a nerd.

Then I saw this trailer. I don’t think I ever have or ever will be more excited about a film than I was about the first Jurassic Park. It was 1993 and I was 9. The excitement of a 9 year old boy about to watch dinosaurs in a film based on his favorite book is not something you want to get between or disappoint. I remember going to a dinky little movie theater to see it opening weekend with my parents, and a trip to the movies was always a big deal back then. I had a younger brother and two very tiny sisters at that point and time management must have been insane something I can only now appreciate so thanks Mom and Dad. I remember the line seemed to wrap around the building forever and was the largest line to anything I had ever seen. Most likely I bored my parents to tears with talk about dinosaurs fueled by 9 year old excitement.

It was everything this trailer made me hope it would be.

The web has been abuzz lately with the “leaked” (speculation is that Sony leaked it themselves) red-band trailer of David Fincher’s newest flick, The Girl with Dragon Tattoo (2011). Finally, the film’s official green-band trailer has hit the interwebz, proving once again that Fincher is the trailer king.

If there’s anyone that’s capable of producing hype around his films based on trailers it’s David Fincher (remember that amazing trailer for The Social Network (2010)?). And this trailer is no different. From the snippets that we see, it’s classic Fincher—the dark tones and the opaque colors reminiscent of Zodiac (2007), the fast pacing of Fight Club (1999), and the moodiness of Se7en (1995). More striking is Rooney Mara‘s transformation. Portraying tough chick Lisbeth Salander, she’s pretty unrecognizable from her previous Fincher film, The Social Network.

The trailer’s fast cuts and racy music fuel our excitement, but it entices us with a final branding of “the feel bad movie of Christmas.” Now who can resist that? See for yourself below.