Trailers: Zero Dark Thirty, Gangster Squad, Cloud Atlas

My understanding is that, while casting still isn't complete, they have started filming some of the battle scenes for the second installment of Thor: The Dark World, and Chris Hemsworth was slightly injured.

I decided to wait and see the box office results for the weekend before posting on Argo (Taken 2 still held onto the top position over this week's new releases with $22.5 million over Argo's $20.1 million, which actually surprised me and speaks volumes about Americans' view on our position in the Middle East; so, I will be getting Argo up today).

A teaser shot of what Tony Stark has been working on for Iron Man 3.

Big news for Marvel fans: both Thor 2: The Dark World (release date November 8, 2013) and Iron Man 3 (release date May 3, 2013) will be released in 3D! Given the effects in The Avengers were done so artfully and, let's be honest, worth the extra money, we can only hope these next two will be as thrilling (the second Captain America: The Winter Soldier appears to be in regular 2D to be released on April 4, 2014 [yes, that's right, 2014]; sorry, Chris Evans' fans!).

Out on DVD and Blu-Ray this week, HOORAY! Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (I can hardly wait to see it again!). This is a solid capitalist film so if you missed it in the theater, try to see it because it is well-done (please see Trapeze Americano: the Capitalist Circus & Madagascar 3). Also out this week is Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. If you are a fan of The Royal Tennenbaums and The Life Aquatic, you will probably enjoy Anderson's latest film which is a support of socialism, so on the opposite side of Madagascar 3 (please see Moonrise Kingdom & Communications Technology, especially the comments section below the post where I added more commentary).
Now for trailers.

Poster for Zero Dark Thirty employing methods of erasure, discussed in Without Baggage: Erasure & Identity In The Cold Light Of Day. Perfect example of how the different sides of the political debates going on in the country employ the same method while conveying radically different messages and how the same ideas are always a part of the current artistic scene, regardless of how similar or dissimilar they may appear to be in subject matter and technique.

Opening December 19 is Kathryn Bigelow's newest (The Hurt Locker); this is the first trailer released months ago, but if you read my post on The Cold Light Of Day, look for the "erasure" and what you think it means!

In this trailer, we didn't see any faces, no one we recognize (the opposite of what trailers typically do, they give you the A-List star to tease you into wanting to see the film because you have seen their face). This is the latest trailer for Zero Dark Thirty:

One way of understanding the erasure is in terms of the figures in the trailer above cloaked in the black robes, that the traditional dress of the Middle East is itself an "erased identity" intentionally created for political sabotage; but who are we kidding? We know Ms. Bigelow is a liberal, as well as Jessica Chastain and Joel Edgerton, although it is possible that the hunt for Bin Laden and the methods utilized by his "army" of supporters carry a greater political weight in terms of philosophy rather than cultural orientation. Well, we don't have long to wait to find out, it opens December 19.
Denzel Washington's Flight opens November 2:

I saw my mom one day and she told me she had seen this trailer and she starting getting all upset: "It's obviously about Obama and the economy and how everyone thinks he's the only one that could save us, and the ship being the Bush economy everyone thinks was in such bad shape!" and I was really proud of her for being able to see that! The key to the film will probably be the last five minutes, which has been called "messy" and filled with "platitudes" by mainstream critics in New York, but could make me very happy; the key will be if the pilot on alcohol and cocaine ("drunk on power" and napping in the cock pit) goes to prison, that will be the political cincher there.
Here is the second trailer for Gangster Squad, opening January 11, 2013:

The most important detail regarding this film is a detail not in the trailer, but which I snooped out: 1949.
On the brink of the 1950s and mass consumerism in America post-World War II, Gangster Squad looks to be rooting out all capitalists who consider themselves God and destroy their employees, like the opening seconds of the trailer above. When Nick Nolte's character says "This is enemy occupation," Gangster Squad echoes Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and all the Time Burton films which suggest that America was intended to be a socialist country, but the likes of such rogues as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Patrick Smith, and, above all, Alexander Hamilton, turned the country from wholesome and socialist, to corrupt and filthy capitalist. This is just the trailer, and I could be wrong, but we can see Josh Brolin's private squad as a group of "communists" during the 1950s McCarthyism that was trying to uproot capitalism.

Permit me to start with the good news.
Cloud Atlas undermines a Darwinian universe in support of a chaotic universe (specifically dealing with "patterns" and changes or initial conditions); why is this such a big deal? In a Darwinian universe, there is no possibility of God existing, nature is the author of humanity, not God; in a chaotic universe, there is an understood "equilibrium" or "zero balance" which holds everything together mysteriously (and which means the strongest or best adapted do not always survive; there is actually more archaeological evidence in support of this than in support of Darwin's theories, however modified they have become). Anyway, with films like Men In Black III and The Avengers, the chaos model is better for Christians like myself; now the bad news. Obviously, the film is based on re-incarnation, like we just saw in The Master, which is not good for Christians like myself and, rather like Gangster Squad above, is probably going to suggest that, in one life, America was capitalist, but in our next life, we should be socialists.
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner