Tag Archives: iTunes Movie Trailers

Summertime and the Movies are Geeky

It’s not global warming, but the traditional action-movie season felt like it began to heat up way early this year with those DC Comics stalwarts in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice blasting into theaters on March 25. Of course, the arguments about that film’s merits (or lack thereof) were still going on when the next big comic-book flick opened earlier this month: Captain America: Civil War.

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Marvel’s Avengers reunited on May 6th  and while Civil War got better reviews (and more love from the fandom), it had less than a month to bask at the top of the box office before The Angry Birds Movie took the top spot this past weekend.

So, here we are on the edge of Memorial Day Weekend 2016, the traditional start of the summer science-fiction, superhero, bang-bang-blow-’em-up season of cinema. If you want to create your nerd-flick reminders now, here are some of the films headed to theaters over the next few months.

This weekend: Marvel strikes again.

• X-Men: Apocalypse. This ninth chapter in the overall X-Men film series is already open overseas, and has already gotten mixed reviews. The plot concerns with the ancient mutant Apocalypse waking up and deciding to take over the world. Familiar mutants played by Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and the usual crew join the fray.

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• Alice Through the Looking Glass. This surreal adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic also opens May 27th and stars Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway, Sascha Baron Cohen and the voice of the late Alan Rickman.

Moving into June:

• Warcraft. Angry Birds can’t have the video-game-as-a-movie market to itself this summer. The film version of the World of Warcraft MMORPG arrives June 10th.

• Finding Dory. It wouldn’t be summer without a Pixar offering. This animated sequel to the 2003 hit Finding Nemo opens June 17th.

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• Independence Day: Resurgence. Will Smith gave this one a miss perhaps to go do Suicide Squad, but Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman and Judd Hirsch are back in a sequel to the original 1996 Independence Day film about aliens invading the Earth. In this sequel, the aliens try again. The film has a separate promotional site at Warof1996.com to get you up to speed if you forgot what happened 20 years ago — or, you know, you weren’t born yet.

After the July 4th weekend, we have:

• Ghostbusters. The 1984 hit gets a 21st century reboot courtesy ofKristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy and Leslie Jones all donning the familiar brown jumpsuits. Dan Ackroyd, one of the original crew, was an executive producer this time around. The film opens on July 15th.

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• Star Trek Beyond. This third film in the modern-era film series stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana and the gang — and also brings along British actor Idris Elba as the villain. Simon Pegg pulls double-duty playing the part of Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott and co-writing the script. The movie arrives July 22nd and adds to the ongoing celebration of the 50th anniversary if the original series debuting on television in September 1966.

• Suicide Squad. Batman v. Superman was not the only movie in the DC Comics inventory this year and Guardians of the Galaxy proved you could have a lot of fun with minor characters on your comics universe, especially in a late-summer release when expectations are kind of low anyway. The film follows a team of imprisoned supervillains — Harley Quinn, Deadshot, the Joker, Katana, and others — on mission for a clandestine government agency. Jared Leto plays the Joker, Will Smith is Deadshot and Margot Robbie takes on the part of cosplay idol Harley Quinn. That movie rolls in August 5th.

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Plenty of other flicks are landing this summer as well, so if you want to get your calendar locked and loaded, check out the iTunes Movie Trailers site or similar one-stop shop for upcoming film previews. And, as we noted last year, it all helps pass the time until this year’s installment in the Star Wars franchise arrives in December.

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Trailer Park

The heart of the Geek Movie season traditionally runs from late spring through the summer, with the superhero films and action flicks rolling into theaters for the warm-weather months. There are exceptions, however: The adaptation of the final installment in the The Hunger Games series arrives later this month and there’s a little flick called Star Wars: The Force Awakens that opens in mid-December. Still, the last two months of the year traditionally see the serious films, aiming for Oscars and more viewer attention span with people taking time off around the holidays. If you’ve lost track of what else is on the way to your local cineplex, here are a few sites to keep you in the loop.

ComingSoon.net not only features trailers for a huge selection of upcoming theatrical films headed your way, you can get sneak peeks for upcoming TV episodes, home video releases on DVD and Blu-ray and even videogames. ComingSoon.net also has the latest Hollywood box-office figures as well as industry news and is really a one-stop shopping trip for entertainment information. Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and RSS feeds keep you up to date.

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imtApple’s iTunes Movie Trailers collection focuses mainly on theatrical films, but also sports exclusive clips and early previews. The site also has a Twitter feed and RSS to alert you to new material, plus a Top 25 list. You can view the trailers on the Web, but if you have an iOS-based gadget, you can use the official iTunes Movie Trailers app. You can also watch through the Apple TV’s app. Both feature a calendar view that places each trailer on a grid, which can be helpful for planning your weekends.

YouTube, repository of almost all online video, has a trailers section with links to a lot of clips – and YouTube channels from other trailers sites.

If your tastes run toward more independent efforts, check out the IndieWire site. It does cover the mainstream movie and TV culture, but gives the smaller productions a bigger share of the spotlight.

And if you’re feeling nostalgic and have a few hours to kill, visit the Archives at Movie-List.com to see many of the Generation X Classics as they were first presented in trailer form. Airplane!, Escape From New York, Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, WarGames…they’re all here in one convenient place, waiting to take you back to the 1980s, when movie tickets were cheap and a bucket of popcorn was affordable.

And with the trailer buzz for Star Wars: The Force Awakens still echoing, how about a nostalgic trip over to the trailer for the original Star Wars from the mid-1970s? It certainly had a more low-key unveiling back in its day, and it and perfectly illustrates the power of the John Williams soundtrack — by not actually having the iconic score rumbling around in the in the background.