Last month I was the fill-in guy for Nancy on Weird News, today I am holding up the mantle for everyone's favorite cranky bastard, Mr. Daniel Bernstein. I've always enjoyed Trailer Trashin'. Furthermore, I've always enjoyed being something of a cranky bastard myself, so it makes perfect sense that when Young Daniel was unable to do what he does best, that I should be the one to fill those bitchy, acerbic shoes. In the realm of Hollywood, we are now moving out of the period that I lovingly like to call the Summer Wasteland - that time of big budgets and even bigger tits (usually attached to the skuntiest, most airbrushed of broads) - and can now perhaps enjoy seeing a good movie or two when we hit the cinema in the coming months. After all, Oscar-Pitch season is nigh, so there typically are at least one or two gems out there with a tearjerking performance by, oh I don't know, say Sean Penn or something that at the very least won't make you want to punch whomever might be sitting next to you, unexpectedly after a particularly gratuitous explosion which inexplicably saves the large-breasted heroine and also manages to eliminate the slasher. By and large, I'm sure people enjoy it the most when we talk about movies that are going to be terrible here, so I'll avoid talking too much about what actually might be good.

Sorority Row

I am just about to watch the trailer for what I have no doubt will be the most spectacular waste of my precious two and a half minutes that I could perhaps ever possibly conceive. All that one might need to know about this movie is right there on the poster. It involves hot bitches, all part of, you guessed it, a sorority that, no doubt, contains a dark and disturbing past, the secrets of which will be revealed over the course of what will largely be ninety minutes of said hot bitches attacking each other with machetes. "Sisters for Life... and Death," reads the poster while the profoundly generic hot bitches stand ominously in front of their ominous-looking sorority house. The best part of the poster - which I am forced to look at every day when I change trains at Spadina - is that the profoundly generic hot bitches are so outrageously and obviously airbrushed, that the poster looks more than a still from a video game than anything.

I will now press the 'play' button, may god have mercy on my soul.

The things I do for you people.

Well, as it turns out I was somewhat wrong about Sorority Row. Not about it being incomprehensibly stupid, no, I'll never get that time back again (sigh). No I was wrong about it being about the hot girls attacking each other with machetes. There's a slasher in this movie that picks them off one by generically hot one. Also Carrie Fisher's in it, which I think is weird. Is it wrong that I kind of hope that Carrie Fisher turns out to be the slasher?

Whip It

I'm going to keep going with this spin and talk about the posters before I watch the trailers; because there is no way I would have watched these trailers for any other reason.

Whip It, apparently the directorial debut from that tremendously gifted shining light of stage and screen, the star of such acclaimed and beloved films, Ever After, Never Been Kissed and Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle, Ms. Drew Barrymore and starring the leading lady of that precious "indie" it movie, Juno, is a movie about Roller Derby. I guess. Essentially, I'm imagining that this is going to be nothing more than your typical underdog sports film, however with a funky-kitschy twist to draw in those 18-24s. I assume that Ms. Page stumbles accidentally into a ragtag band of roller skaters, led by wise hard-ass of a coach that fights adversity and personal trauma to win the championship for the underdogs. Of Roller Derby. Or whatever. No doubt there will be a hunky and inoffensive stud somewhere in the mix and perhaps a fat roller derby-ist with a heart of gold lurking around somewhere.

Well, here goes.

Oh good. Jimmy Fallon's in this. Phenomenal.

And there's a disapproving mother and a father who doesn't get his daughter's love for roller derby initially, but learns to come around eventually. Surely he forces the mother to come to the final match where after seeing Page do whatever it is that she might be doing, breaks in to tears in the bleachers.

Also, I think that it has to be noted that Ellen Page, poor Ellen Page, has clearly been relegated to the same fate as her ever so sheepish Juno co-star, Michael Cera in that aside from the pregnancy, this is basically the exact same movie. Page and Cera will inevitably go the rest of their lives playing the same characters in every single film they attach their names to; Page the sassy/disillusioned girl next door and Cera the charmingly befuddled, sensitive leading boy. Wonderful.

The Box

Perusing the Apple website's movie trailers section, the sight of Cameron Diaz's face is one hundred per cent of the time, an immediate sign to not watch the trailer in question, however, in this one case, I will have a look at her latest orphanage fire. The Box. Let's see, it's a psychological-thriller, perhaps slightly on the supernatural side of things and it probably has a mysterious leading man who might not be all that he seems. This love interest is overwhelmingly likely to be involved in whatever the conspiracy happening here might be.

Let's give this one a - no. No. I can't do it. I just don't care, I'm moving on.

Where the Wild Things Are

This one I have seen the trailer for. Who hasn't by now? I don't want to talk about Where the Wild Things Are because I think that it's going to be particularly offensive, in fact I'm sure it will be perfectly okay. No, I'm more interested in talking about why it will no doubt come to annoy me thoroughly within the first three or four months of its release.

I'm going to be the bearer of bad news on this one.

I've seen the poster and trailer for Spike Jonze's third feature (and as much as I adore Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, I still find that unfortunate 'z' in his moniker to be nothing short of grotesque) plastered all over facebook, usually accompanied by the header "THIS LOOKS SO AMAZING!!!!!!!"  I've heard it being talked about in coffee shops, I've heard the Arcade Fire in the trailer and I've seen it everywhere on the blogs. The scene kids are foaming at the mouth for this one, folks. Yes, I'm afraid I'm going to go ahead and make the call, because someone had to.

It is my unfortunate duty to inform the masses that while Where the Wild Things Are looks pretty good (and I really want it to be good), it is without a doubt in my mind, destined to be this year's PRECIOUS "INDIE" IT MOVIE OF THE YEAR.

You all know those movies, none of them are in any way overly bad movies - in fact a couple of them are really good - but they are the films that become the stuff of insane hyperbole, they become unavoidable on a university campus, they become gossip, legend: it becomes an offense not to see these movies. They are whispered about in the halls, stores can't keep the soundtrack on the shelves and high school kids can't get enough of them. Where the Wild Things Are with its "Indie" soundtrack, whimsical dramatic/comedic narrative, sweeping, epic cinematography and general hype is a sure thing to follow in the hallowed footsteps of Garden State, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. No matter how good the movie may or may not be, it will never escape being one of "those" movies. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs will be unavoidable, it will win a Screenwriting Academy Award and even people like me who pretend like they don't give a shit will have seen it six times before it turns one year old. Just be prepared is all I'm saying.