First off, let me just say that I am very much looking forward to Rent in a few weeks. I saw the play when it was first here in Chicago and loved it. I listen to the soundtrack every now and again and I’ll definitely be there when the movie opens.

Anyway, every once in a while when I start ranting about the lack of adoption by movie studios of blogs, RSS and such someone will leave a comment about the Rent Movie Blog. I’ve been reluctant to mention it and certainly do not think it is exemplary of blog adoption. First, it has no RSS feeds. Secondly, the “posts” are by the characters from the movie, a tactic which I’ve discussed before. Lastly, all the “posts” are in the form of video clips from the movie. The actors (or a marketing person posing as the characters) couldn’t even be bothered to create original content for the so-called blog.

Putting up a micro-site and stocking it with video content does not make it a blog. It makes it an extension of the “Videos” section of the standard website. Let’s not have set a precedent here where any website with the word “blog” tacked on to the end all of a sudden fulfills the obligation – yes, an obligation – by the movie studios to change their “push” thinking into “pull” thinking and embrace new media technologies in a meaningful way.

“Johnny Depp in a powdered wig.”

I’m sure at some point that sentence was uttered during a pitch meeting for The Libertine. I have to say that despite my misgivings toward costume dramas (lately they’ve been very bad, substituting today’s moral climate for an accurate historical presentation) the trailer looks pretty good. The poster – pictured at the left – works fairly well, too. I like the darkness of it, how it doesn’t look like it’s trying to be all fancy and funny and such.

Beautiful with lush scenery and an emotional undercurrent (no pun intended) this trailer for Water actually made me run to Netflix to see if I could find the rest of director Deepa Mehta’s “Elemental Trilogy”. You really need to watch this trailer, telling the story of a widow who defies tradition in India in the early part of the last century. Such powerful acting and seemingly a heartbreaking story.

Part satire, part drama, and looking very much like a David Lynch-type flick, I Love Your Work seems interesting but flawed, at least based on the trailer. With it’s ensemble cast and patchwork structure it was hard for me to get my head around the trailer with any sense of understanding. There seems to be a movie star who is being stalked but is also stalking someone himself. It’s almost a case of too many characters being thrown at me without enough of the sinnew of the story being explained.

Until I watched the trailer for Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World I don’t think I quite got that Albert Brooks was playing himself. He’s contacted by the U.S. government to go to the Middle East to find out what makes the population there laugh as a way to better understand them. That’s a great plot device and it looks like it’s very well executed. There’s bound to be something in there to offend everyone. Definitely want to check this one out.

Queen Latifah continues her quest to become the next Sandra Bullock by appearing in The Last Holiday, another middle-brow comedy about a woman who finds herself because of ______. The trailer is so incredibly unremarkable it’s ridiculous. Watch it and then see if you can remember anything – I mean anything – about it five minutes later. Other than the fact that LL Cool J is looking larger and larger every passing year there’s nothing in there that will stick with you. It’s like eating a McDonald’s cheesburger and then taking an Ex-Lax. Nothing of value went in and it’s not sticking around for long.

As funny as I thought the poster for Final Destination 3 was, the trailer is even more so, if only because it takes itself so damn seriously. Another group of young adults (though it looks like Ali Larter came to her senses and got out of the series) is missed by and then stalked by Death or someone. Quite frankly I don’t care and really neither should you.