Entertainment Weekly has 21 supposedly exclusive pictures from 12 of 2009’s supposedly big movies. I say supposedly on both because I’m pretty sure their Comedian photo from Watchmen has been around for months (and if not that shot, one from the same scene or photo shoot), and they include films like Obsessed, a B-movie starring Stringer Bell from The Wire (make no mistake, I have nothing but love for Idris Elba), Beyonce Knowles and fucking Ali Larter. This is not one of the ‘big’ movies of 2009.
Anyway, EW has put these photos into one of those annoying slide shows, so to see all 21 pics, you have to click 21 times. I know that this increases traffic, but fuck you. We cut up very long articles into pages, but we never do shit as egregious as that. In that spirit, I have taken the most interesting pictures and will comment on them below. If you feel like you need to see the rest of the pics, click here and prepare to keep clicking through. There are about 30 pictures of Christian Bale at that link, if it helps.
This first picture is from the remake of Taking of Pelham 123, a movie that will almost certainly be terrible. The new version is directed by Tony Scott and keeps to the original plot (as far as I can tell) of some guys hijacking a NYC subway train. The original film gave the Mr. White/Mr. Green/etc naming convention to Reservoir Dogs. How likely is it that this film will be bad? John Travolta plays the bad guy role originally essayed by Robert Shaw. Yes, Quint from Jaws.
By the way, note the two cowboy hatted dudes in the picture above. How much you want to bet that a) the hijacked train is like a subway car version of the bus from Speed, all filled with ‘types’ and that b) there’s a Brokeback Mountain joke in there?
Here’s a second picture from Pelham. This is Denzel Washington as the hero – the guy played by Walter Matthau in the original! The character is supposed to be a dude who is not only not heroic but would rather not be involved in this bullshit. To Denzel’s credit, he looks mad paunchy here.
Here’s a picture from Pixar’s Up. It comes from the beginning of the second act, when the grumpy old dude and the possibly Down Syndromed Boy Scout land in a lost world in South America. They can’t get back up into the house, which is being held aloft by helium balloons, so they must tow it to the spot on a cliff where the old man’s wife dreamt of one day living.
This image from Land of the Lost doesn’t look at all like a still from the movie but rather a rejected poster design. Considering what they went with, maybe they shouldn’t have rejected this.
Speaking of rejected, whoever OKed the release of this publicity photo from X-Men Origins: Wolverine should be thankful they have a job in the morning. What the fuck is this, Ethel Merman’s Mutant Water Follies? Jesus Christ, this looks like an ad for a rough trade bath house.
This image from Angels and Demons shows a priest strung up by his wrists. How much cooler, tough, would it be if this was a priest in a wireworks wushu leap about to land on Tom Hanks’ chest? Now that would get me psyched for the sequel to The DaVinci Code.
