Spoiler for tomorrow’s review: Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, USA/UK 2014) is great–the best film I’ve seen all year.

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (Peter Jackson, New Zealand/USA 2014)

• I spent half an hour trying to find out what it was after, because I swear I know the music from this trailer, and I feel like it’s something I should know somehow. Maybe it’s just because Howard Shore is rather repetitive, but I sure felt like it was something I knew.
• The first review I ever wrote on this blog was of the first film in this trilogy, and it was so bad that I had no interest in seeing the second. I’m not watching this one, either. And The Hobbit is one of my top five favorite books ever.

Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott, UK/USA/Spain 2014)

• “From Ridley Scott, the director of Gladiator . . . ” another piece of facile pro-Christian propaganda? Yep, looks like it. It’s funny that this wave of big budget pro-Christian films has been coming out without him.
• Is Christian Bale descending into movie stardom instead of acting? Doing a Ridley Scott film suggests it, and it’s not refuted by following it with a Malick film (Malick, for all his pretentiousness, has always cast big stars in his films and never actually given them much to do.) and a children’s cartoon. I hope not–he’s a rare talent.

The Gambler (Rupert Wyatt, USA 2014)

• No idea what was going on in this trailer–it had “Gimme Shelter” playing, so I didn’t pay attention to anything else. And then I was mad that it cut off the song.

The Interview (Evan Goldberg/Seth Rogen, USA 2014)

• A running diary of my thoughts during this trailer: Who the hell is that curly-haired guy and why does he appear to be in every crappy movie? . . . And that guy with the weird accent looks familiar . . . Oh, it’s James Franco. It seems like he makes his role choices while high. Well, yeah, he probably does. . . . The CIA agent is pretty. Wow the trailer is dull if that’s all I’ve noticed. . . . This concept has no possible comedic value. . . . Can we just get rid of Seth Rogen (It said his name, so now I know it!) somehow? Put him on a tv show where he won’t have trailers or something?
• Somehow, I think I will be skipping this one.

Furious 7 (James Wan, USA/Japan 2015)

• I can’t tell the difference between these movies, The Expendables series, and all of Liam Neeson’s movies. I’m amazed that fans can tell the difference.
• One thing I find interesting about the way all of those films make trailers: they just show you who’s in the film. They tell you nothing about the film or even the characters they are playing. I’m not saying anything about that choice other than that it’s an interesting choice.

Selma (Ava DuVernay, UK 2014)

• Big problem: I had no idea what the title of the movie was. It showed the title in difficult to read print very quickly.
• The fact that a film this Oscar Bait-y is coming out in January is a bad sign of its quality.
• TIM ROTH SIGHTING! Doesn’t get nearly enough work.
• Doesn’t it seem like a biopic of Martin Luther King Jr. would be a really obvious way to get someone an Oscar? If Chadwick Boseman loses out (Likely to Michael Keaton. How weird does that sound??!!) this year, maybe some studio puts one together for him.