The Gangster Squad gets a second silly trailer along with some very Caucasian character posters.

This still looks like a bunch of kids playing dress-up and acting out juvenile cops-and-robbers fantasies.  Think Bugsy Malone remaking LA Confidential.  Maybe it's the weirdly 'let's appeal to the kids!' rap song on the soundtrack.  Maybe's it's Sean Penn acting as badly as he can.  Maybe it's the marketing department trying to sell the idea that we're supposed to *care* about the forbidden romance between Emma Stone (as "the girl", I hope merely as a favor to Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer) and Ryan Gosling.  But this frankly looks rather silly and, R-rating and apparent ultra-violence notwithstanding, like a stereo-typically CW-friendly remake of LA Confidential or Mulholland Falls (yes, I know the latter also starred Nick Nolte).  Anyway, also dropping over the last couple days are a bunch of posters.  The theatrical one-sheet is notible in that it resembles the cover of a low-budget straight-to-VHS gangster movie from the early 1990s.  Not *bad* so much as having a distinct 'B-movie' vibe.  The character posters are more disconcerting.  As you'll see after the jump, we've got nine actors getting billing and just five character posters.  Amusingly, the cast's lone African American castmember, Anthony Mackie, doesn't get his own poster, having to stand at the back of the proverbial bus behind box office dynamo Giovanni Ribisi.  What about Michael Pena?  Hispanics apparently don't get face time at all, as he, along with the very Caucasian Robert Patrick are completely MIA.  Stay classy Warner Bros, stay classy.

Scott Mendelson

The Gangster Squad gets an awful trailer, looks like L.A. Confidential performed by and for children.

You'll find few who enjoyed Zombieland more than I did.  I put it on my best-of-2009 list and called it perhaps the best zombie film ever made.  But Ruben Fleischer's third film (following the underwhelming but interesting 30 Minutes Or Less) looks frankly idiotic.  Sean Penn is overacting to the point of obnoxiousness.  Ryan Gosling is once again presented as God's gift to women.  Emma Stone is once again paraded around as a piece of ass.  And the film feels like a rehash of any number of 1940s LA crime pictures.  Anthony "I'd be a big star if I wasn't black" Mackie can't even get billing in the trailer, but his presence is appreciated amid the admittedly terrific cast (Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Patrick, Michael Pena, etc).  Stone's apparent role as the forbidden fruit highlights a certain sausage fest mentality ('manly men doing manly business while hot women wait on call'), while Mireille Enos's seemingly token appearance highlights the 'TV is better for women than movies' cliche.  On television, Enos is the lead in AMC's The Killing.  In movies, she plays Josh Brolin's wife.  The use of contemporary hip-hop song (Jay-Z's "Oh My God") to sell a 1940s period crime drama reeks of demographic pandering while the trailer sells the film as a slightly more adult-skewing version of the 1991 flop Mobsters (L.A. Confidential for kids?).  I'm all in favor of all-star ensemble films and/or period crime dramas.  But putting aside the 'cool cast' factor, this frankly looks awfully silly.  As of now, Warner Bros. has not given The Gangster Squad a release date, so it's likely that the reception for this trailer will be used as a measuring stick of sorts.  Anyway, as always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson

Review: Warrior (2011) takes well-worn sports-film tropes, adds engrossing drama, fine acting, terrific dialogue, and an uncommon intelligence.

Warrior
2011
139 minutes
rated PG-13

I cannot count how many times I have watched a sports-related drama and thought to myself "How much better would this movie be if the main opponent wasn't a two-dimensional villain?".  Whether adult-aimed Oscar bait (Cinderella Man) or family-friendly faith-based dramas (Soul Surfer), any number of underdog sports movies have dramatically shot themselves in the foot by feeling the need to make the opponent into a vicious, selfish, and occasionally murderous antagonist who 'must be taken down'.  There are exceptions (Akeelah and the Bee, Miracle), but the majority of sports films feel the need to pander to the audiences' baser instincts by not just making the big game about the triumph of our hero, but about the defeat of a genuine villain.  Writer/director Gavin O'Conner (who directed the aforementioned Miracle) finds a neat way out of this contrived set-up, and I'm a little shocked that no one thought of it before.  Instead of focusing on one underdog who must triumph in an athletic event, Warrior focuses on two would-be athletic opponents, giving them both equally valid reasons to want to succeed and refusing to give either of them the moral advantage.  This is just one of a handful of thoughtful choices that O'Conner makes in shaping Warrior into a top-notch entry in its respective genre and an all-around fine character drama.