Ok, they’re neither of them drastically different, and one is almost exactly the same, but two trailers have arrived for two films we’re greatly anticipating, from two different markets.
Let’s start with the slightly fresher U.K. trailer for “Moneyball.” Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Bennett Miller (2005 Best Picture nominee “Capote“), this sports drama centers on former Oakland As GM Billy Beane who changed the game, and challenged the conventional wisdom of baseball by ushering in an era of sabermetrics thinking; a metric that put a premium on on-base-average and putting players in scoring position, rather than on high batting averages and RBI numbers.
Played by Brad Pitt, Beane was initially the laughing stock of baseball for trying out this ridiculed “fantasy-baseball”-like method, but soon had the last laugh whem he turned his misfit, bargain-basement level team into championship-level winners. With a script co-credited to Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, “Moneyball” also co-stars Jonah Hill (as a Paul Podesta surrogate), Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright and Chris Pratt. The film will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, before opening on September 23rd, just as the the baseball season will be winding down and playoffs get underway. This U.K. trailer isn’t super different, but shows off a few notes we haven’t seen yet, and every trailer not aimed at ESPN is focusing the message on a humanistic story of overcoming odds rather than pure sports lore. Whether this one has Oscar legs remains to be seen, but if it can make audiences and critics stand up and cheer, don’t count it out.
Next up is the domestic trailer for David Cronenberg‘s “A Dangerous Method” which is frankly pretty much the same as the international versions you’ve already seen, but minus the spanking, and the only reason it’s worth flagging again is to remind readers of its stellar cast which includes Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen. The drama centers on the rivalry and friendship of two famous men in the field of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung (Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Mortensen), with the former getting into a sexual relationship with his patient, a woman suffering acute hysteria (Knightley).
Premiering in Venice this week (you’ll see a review on Friday), rumored for Telluride and slated for TIFF and NYFF, the picture is dated for a November 23rd bow. This one is another awards-season question mark and our gut tells us the best it will do is acting noms — Cronenberg films tend to be a little odd in tone for Best Picture and some of the kink hinted at in the others trailers might be a little too strange for the more conservative Academy members. Either way, we’ll find out soon enough. Awards-bound or not, both films rank high on our list of most anticipated movies of the year. [MSN/Apple]