Trailers of the Week: Superheroes and Superegos

Captain America: The First Avenger

Normally I wouldn’t post the trailer for something that’s already been marketed to death like “Captain America,” but this final theatrical teaser hit a chord that none of the previous spots managed. Perhaps it’s the greater emphasis on the film’s impressive supporting cast, including Stanley Tucci, Tommy Lee Jones and Hugo Weaving; perhaps it just has more slam-bang action than any of the previous trailers. “Captain America” was perhaps my least anticipated film of the new Marvel canon up until now, mostly because I couldn’t see how a film could pull off a hero as jingoist as Captain America in this day and age; the studio and director Joe Johnston (quite familiar with cinematic Americana; he previously made “The Rocketeer” and “October Sky”) seem to have dealt with this problem by going balls to the wall with their protagonist’s gung-ho patriotism (“Heroes are made in America”). The WWII setting certainly helps us audience members feel a bit less queasy about all that. Anyway, I’m still not completely sold on Chris “Flameboy” Evans in the lead, but he looks at least passable here. Could “Captain America” end up being the truly thrilling ride that “Thor,” “X-Men: First Class” and “Green Lantern” all seem to have failed to provide?

A Dangerous Method

It was recently announced that David Cronenberg’s psychoanalysis drama will debut at the Venice International Film Festival in early September. “A Dangerous Method” seems to be getting advertised along the same lines as his two relatively tame previous features, “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises,” but there seems to be a lot more potential here for Cronenberg to tap back into the kinky psycho-sexual, pseudo-horror atmosphere that established him as a major player back in in the 80’s and 90’s, when he made films like “Videodrome,” “Scanners,” “The Fly” and “Crash.” Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen look great as Carl Jung and his mentor Sigmund Freud (not appearing particularly coke-addled here), but dear God, what is that accent Keira Knightley is using? Please tell me she’s not actually supposed to be Russian. I can’t believe someone actually cast this woman as Anna Karenina. Gag me.