movies I'd like to see

I'm constantly combing through the Apple.com/trailers site to watch movie previews. I admit it: I love previews, and very often, I love preview trailers more than I love the actual films. Most of the time, when I'm watching the trailers, I give the films nothing but thumbs-down: as I get older and crankier, fewer and fewer films are of real interest to me (which is why I'm thankful for preview trailers: I can nibble the hors d'oeuvre instead of wasting time gorging on the entire meal). But every now and again, some movies come along whose trailers succeed at piquing my interest, and that seems to be the case right now. Apple's site is currently dominated by Halloween-themed horror offerings, but among the latest group of movies to show up on Apple's site are the following:

1. "The Forbidden Room": I can't make heads or tails of this psychedelic film, but I definitely want to see it. Plus, it's got the bulgy-eyed Udo Kier, master of the pervy role.

2. "Extraordinary Tales": this seems to be a compendium of creepy, animated films featuring the voices of Sir Christopher Lee, Guillermo Del Toro, and others.

3. "Shelter": a gritty drama starring Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Mackie. Looks good. Doesn't look typical, and I've enjoyed Mackie's work in the superhero genre (he plays Falcon opposite Captain America in the Marvel universe).

4. "Janis: Little Girl Blue": there's only one Janis, of course, and that's Janis Joplin. As you can probably guess from the film's title, this is a documentary about the famous singer who revolutionized the music industry for female performers. Joplin died at 27 from a lethal combination of alcohol and heroin, so this train-wreck aspect of her life makes this film a must-see for me.

5. "Hail, Caesar": a Coen Brothers film starring many A-listers: Ralph Fiennes, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Jonah Hill, and Channing Tatum. It looked, at first, like some sort of parody of the life of Cecil B. DeMille, but as the trailer went on, it turned into that Coen Brothers staple, the kidnap comedy (cf. "Raising Arizona"). I laughed during the trailer, and this is probably the movie that I most want to see, of all the movies on this list. And since when did Clooney become a Coen regular? He's featured in several of their films, now.


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