The first trailer for Mark Steven Johnson’s action thriller Killing Season is now available.  Starring John Travolta and Robert De Niro as two military veterans, the movie pits them against each other in a test for survival when past grievances bubble to the surface.  This one came completely out of left field and this trailer hints at just why that might be.  I have no idea why De Niro or Travolta signed on, unless it was to take another crack at an action film, but this first look doesn’t exactly promise the best work of their careers.  At least Travolta has another bizarre style of facial hair to add to his repertoire; this iteration might top Battlefield Earth and Swordfish.

Also starring Milo Ventimiglia, Killing Season opens July 12th.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer.

Sony Pictures has released a new trailer for District 9 director Neill Blomkamp‘s sci-fi film Elysium.  The story takes place in 2159, and two classes of people are divided: the wealthy live on a man-made space station called Elysium, while the rest of the humans inhabit an overpopulated and ruined Earth.  Matt Damon plays a desperate man who must reach Elysium in order to find a cure that will save his life.  Running at over three minutes long, this trailer does an excellent job of clearly setting up the film’s premise while also teasing a fantastic-looking sci-fi film in the process.  It’s great to see Damon playing a character with a bit of an edge to him, and Blomkamp’s world-building and visual effects are as exciting as ever.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  The film also stars Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Wagner Moura, Diego Luna and William Fichtner.  Elysium opens on August 9th.

The Weinstein Company has released the first incredibly captivating trailer for director Shane Salerno’s documentary Salinger.  As the title suggests, the film centers on the enigmatic life of Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger, who mysteriously stopped publishing in the mid 1960s and retreated from the public eye.  The documentary attempts to unravel the truth behind Salinger’s childhood, work methods, marriages, private world, and secrets, as it includes interviews with a number of colleagues and members of the author’s inner circle of friends who have never before gone on record about the figure. The trailer plays almost like a thriller, and as someone who has been fascinated by Salinger’s life ever since I can remember, I’m incredibly eager to see what insights are gleaned in the full film.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also features interviews with Edward Norton, John Cusack, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Danny DeVito, Martin Sheen, Robert Towne, and more.  Salinger opens in limited release on September 6th.

A new international trailer for director Robert Schwentke’s (Red) supernatural action-comedy R.I.P.D. has landed online.  The film centers on dead cops who work for the “Rest in Peace Department,” with Ryan Reynolds as a newly deceased cop, and Jeff Bridges taking on the role of his partner, a seasoned R.I.P.D. veteran.  Their job is to track down souls that have escaped judgment.  The Men in Black vibe continues in this international trailer, and we see a few bits of new footage involving the film’s set pieces and action-oriented sequences.  The creature designs continue to impress, and I’m eager to see more of the interplay between Bridges and Reynolds.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Kevin Bacon, Mary Louise-Parker,Stephanie Szostak, Marissa Miller, and James Hong.  R.I.P.D. opens in 3D on July 19th.

The first trailer for director Noam Murro’s sequel 300: Rise of an Empire has been released online.  If you loved the first movie for all of its oiled-up muscles, slow-motion battles and endless bloodletting, then it looks like the sequel is going to be right up your alley.  The trailer, expertly narrated by Lena Headey during what appears to be the aftermath of 300′s ultimate battle, reveals that the look and tone of Rise of an Empire appear to be quite consistent with the original.  This time around, however, we get new looks at Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) on his home turf, General Artemisia (Eva Green) in all her fury and leagues upon leagues of sea battles.  And if I’m not mistaken, is that some dialogue from Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan) we hear?

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  Starring Sullivan Stapleton, 300: Rise of an Empire opens on March 7, 2014.

Roadside Attractions has released a trailer for Lake Bell‘s comedy, In a World…  Bell stars as Carol, a voiceover actress who feels marginalized both by the sexism in her profession and the success of her father (Fred Melamed), who is famous in the voiceover profession.  When I saw the film at Sundance, I enjoyed it despite some glaring flaws, and this trailer gives an idea of what a better movie would have looked like.  It streamlines the themes and the plot of the picture, and wisely leaves out the distracting subplot involving Carol’s sister Dani (Michaela Watkins) and her boyfriend Moe (Rob Corddry).

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Ken Marino, Lucy Punch, Nick Offerman, Eva Longoria,, and Demetri Martin.  In a World… opens in limited release on August 9th.

Earlier this month, we saw the red-band trailer for The To-Do List, and now the all-audiences trailer has been released. The film stars Aubrey Plaza as a sexually inexperienced teenager with a type-A personality who decides to engage in numerous sex acts before she goes to college.  This green-band trailer is basically the red-band trailer but with all of the R-rated material removed.  There isn’t much in the way of new jokes, and the ones that are there are kind of disappointing.  Perhaps I’m just missing the humor in her ignorance of common sexual terms (it takes place in the 90s, so Urban Dictionary doesn’t exist), and the old joke about someone losing their bathing suit in the pool.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The impressive cast also includes Alia Shawkat, Bill Hader, Donald Glover, Rachel Bilson, Andy Samberg, Johnny Simmons, Connie Britton, Clark Gregg, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Scott Porter.  The To-Do List opens July 26th.

A new international trailer has been released for James Mangold‘s The Wolverine.  The film finds Hugh Jackman’s titular character isolated in modern day Japan where he faces his ultimate nemesis “in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed.  Even though this trailer goes further than the previous ones in showing the details of the plot, it’s also my favorite trailer thus far.  It shows off Wolverine being a bad-ass, but also retains some fun comic-book elements like Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who has a much bigger role than I suspected, and the gigantic Silver Samurai who comes down like a boss fight.  Hopefully, Mangold has found the right balance between Wolverine’s serious side and the fun comic book elements of good summer blockbuster.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Will Yun Lee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Brian Tee, Rila Fukushima, and Tao Okamoto.  The Wolverine opens in 3D on July 26th.

Universal has released a new international trailer for Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, and it’s loaded with new footage.  The film follows the journey of a young martial artist (Tiger Hu Chen) who’s lured into an underground tournament run by an unsavoury chap (Reeves) dead set on corrupting him.  Joining Chen and Reeves in front of the camera are Simon Yam (Ip Man), Karen Mok (Black Mask), and The Raid: Redemption star Iko Uwais.  Former stunt man Chen first hooked up with Reeves while working on the Matrix series, as did the film’s action choreographer, the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping (also of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame).  While the trailer definitely gives away a lot of the film, I don’t think anyone is going to see Man of Tai Chi for the story.  All that matters are the fight scenes and with Reeves previously saying it’s got “18 fights and roughly 40 minutes of fighting time,” I’m sold.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  Currently Man of Tai Chi doesn’t have a release date, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and then open soon after.

With eOne Films Diana getting released in the United Kingdom September 20th, we’re finally getting our first look at the movie in the form of a teaser trailer.  Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) and starring Naomi Watts as Princess Diana, the story focuses on the final two years of the late princess’ life, specifically centering on her secret affair with heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Kahn, played by Naveen Andrews (Lost).  The Stephen Jeffreys‘ (The Libertine) script, based on the book Diana: Her Last Love by Kate Snell, also follows Diana’s life as she transitioned her fame toward becoming a global campaigner and humanitarian.

As you’ll see in the teaser, which interestingly has no dialogue, Diana will definitely showcase Watts acting chops, but I really hope it’s more than just a TV movie on the big screen.  Also, while the film is based on a book which featured “extensive interviews with close friends and confidantes,” all too often these kinds of films gloss over the facts to preserve the perfect image of their subject.  It’ll be interesting to see if they show any side of Diana besides a perfect image.  Hit the jump to watch the teaser trailer and for a few new images.

The first trailer has been released for Bong Joon-ho‘s sci-fi thriller, Snowpiercer.  The story is set in a new ice age caused by a failed experiment to stop global warming that killed virtually all life on the planet.  The sole survivors live on a train called Snowpiercer—powered by a perpetual machine—who struggle with the class system implemented on the train.  The trailer showcases a lot more action than I was expecting as the lower-classes, led by Chris Evans‘ character, attempt a revolution by taking control of the train’s engines.  It looks exciting, although I had some difficulty making out Tilda Swinton‘s dialogue partly because of the character’s accent and partly because of the heavy, operatic trailer music.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars The film also stars John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Alison Pill, Ed Harris, Ewen Bremner, Octavia Spencer, Kang-ho Song, and Ko Asung.  Snowpiercer opens on August 1st in South Korea, but no U.S. release date has been announced yet.

Square-Enix finally revealed two long-awaited games as yesterday’s E3.  One was Kingdom Hearts III.  I really dig Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, but have ignored all the filler games except for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which was the reason I ignored all the other games.  Still, I’ve been holding out hope for the true sequel, but now that it’s actually happening, I’m conflicted.  Will I have to play 358/2 Days, Birth by Sleep, Re:coded, and Dream Drop Distance to understand the plot of KH 3?  Also, after not having played KH 2 since 2005, I wonder if I’ll still be enchanted by the franchise.

Then there’s Final Fantasy XV, formerly Final Fantasy Versus XIII, a game that was announced seven years ago, and apparently stuck in development hell forever.  Instead, it was being redesigned for the next generation consoles, and looks just as silly as any other JRPG.  I mean that in a complimentary way.  I used to straight-up love JRPGs because of Final Fantasy VII, but now I enjoy them for their exaggerated worlds and overly-wrought melodrama.  Going by the trailer, it looks like XV involves warring kingdoms and magical crystals, which is great because it’s not like Final Fantasy has done that 6 or 7 times.  Hit the jump to check out both trailers.  Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy XV will be released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for director Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  The film is a continuation of the story that began with last year’s An Unexpected Journey, and this trailer gives us a pretty extensive peek at what’s in store for the second installment in Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy.  In addition to the return of Orlando Bloom‘s Legolas, we get a look at the new characters played by Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel), Lee Pace (Thranduil), and Luke Evans (Bard the Bowman), as well as a nice tease of the titular dragon Smaug.  I may be misremembering just how CG-heavy An Unexpected Journey was, but there appears to be a rather exhaustive use of the technology here in Smaug.  Hopefully some of the more spotty-looking shots can be cleaned up in time for December, when audiences will once again be given the opportunity to see The Hobbit at 48 frames-per-second.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer, and click here to check out 8 high-resolution images from the pic.  The film also stars Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, John Bell, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Graham McTavish, Michael Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Ken Stott, and Aidan Turner.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens in 2D, 3D, IMAX, and HFR on December 13th.

Sony Pictures has released the first trailer for writer/director Sebastian Silva’s psychological horror film Magic Magic.  The pic stars Juno Temple as a young girl who starts to lose her mind while vacationing with friends in Chile, with Michael Cera taking an incredibly dark turn as an acquaintance of Temple’s character who has a rather peculiar fascination with the girl.  The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year to mostly positive reviews, and while audiences sparked to the unsettling nature of the film, it’s not exactly a highly mainstream concept.  As such, Sony decided to go direct-to-DVD with the pic.  Nevertheless, this trailer is certainly tantalizing and the pic looks to be worth seeing for Cera’s performance alone.  Silva and Cera also have another collaboration that premiered at Sundance called Crystal Fairy, and that film is slated for a theatrical release later this year.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer for Magic Magic.  The film also stars Emily Browning, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Agustin Silva. 

I’m rarely at a loss for words on this site, but today’s new trailer for Wayne Kramer’s Pawn Shop Chronicles has managed to scramble my brains.  The R-rated action comedy has plenty of drug use, gun play and strangeness, but … I just don’t know what the hell is going on here.  You’ll have to sort this one out for yourselves.

Starring Paul Walker, Norman Reedus, Matt Dillon, Elijah Wood, Vincent D’Onofrio, Thomas Jane, Lukas Haas, Brendan Fraser and DJ Qualls, Pawn Shop Chronicles opens in limited theaters and on demand staring July 12th.  Hit the jump to watch the first trailer and check out the film’s poster.