After the jump, I’ve got the new red-band trailer for Attack the Block (“Inner City vs. Outer Space”), a British comedy about an alien invasion that strikes a group of adorably British street toughs in South London (they make up for their lack of guns with rhyming slang).  Directed by Joe Cornish and executive produced by Edgar Wright, it’s been playing to rave reviews among film dorks and finally hits the US (in limited release) July 29th.  If you read my Super 8 review, you probably know that I’m not the best audience for cutesy kid humor and campy aliens (which fanboys love), but I am kind of gay for Edgar Wright and awesome sideways brohawk haircuts. The first time I called it that, someone told me it’s actually called a “Gumby,” but shut up, I like sideways brohawk better.

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We’ve been hearing about The Adventures of TinTin: Secret of the Unicorn (directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson) for what feels like decades, and finally, the first teaser is here.  Based on the beloved Belgian comic strip I’d never heard of before this, the 3D, motion-capture project “stars” Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jamie Bell, and Cary Elwes.  As far as I’m concerned, the most interesting thing about it is that Edgar Wright co-wrote the script (with Steven Moffat and Joe Cornish).  Seriously, did you guys see Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s last movies?  Anyway, now that the first footage is here, it sure looks… uh… motion-capturey.  Although it may have broken the record for most dramatic music ever set to footage of a guy staring at a toy boat.

[HD Available at Apple]

Here’s Jackson’s explanation for using motion-capture to Empire Magazine back in November:

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Get out your clippers, it's sideways brohawk time

I wasn’t able to attend SXSW because one of my stupid friends got married like an idiot, but virtually everyone I heard from who saw Attack the Block, the Edgar Wright-produced tale of an alien invasion striking a South London housing project, said it it was the movie of the festival.  At the time, it didn’t have a distributor, and there was even talk of possibly adding subtitles to make the British slang and accents more comprehensible to American viewers.  (Also, can you make them look fatter in post?  Otherwise I fear people will be confused.).

If you know anything about headline-question-mark etiquette, you already know we don’t have an answer to the subtitle question, but we do know that Screen Gems will handle theatrical distribution.

Sony announced today that they have picked up the film and that Screen Gems will distribute it; there’s no release date yet in place, but it sure seems like a good late-summer offering to me. Here’s what Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper had to say about the film: “Steve Bersch screened this film for me and I fell completely in love with it. The film is, at once, charming, scary, funny, hip, clever and completely hits its mark. I hope this is the beginning of a long relationship with these incredibly talented filmmakers.” [CinemaBlend]

It seems the sideways brohawk rally helmet I’ve been wearing has worked.  And I should hope we won’t be needing subtitles. I understood everything in the trailer fine.  I mean, it’s not like they’re speaking Scottish.  I would, however, welcome seeing an American film translated into Cockney gibberish.  “Oi, da puntah’s quaffed da wicket, ‘e ‘as!  Fetch da bobby’s knickaz, blokes, we’s snoggin’ lorrie crisps tonoight!”

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Not to excuse indifference to bloggerly responsibilities on my part, but Paul is the kind of movie that isn’t a lot of fun to review.  It’s not terrible, there aren’t any glaring inconsistencies, but it just doesn’t quite work.  It’s just not that funny.  It’s usually cute, but not quite laugh-worthy, and occasionally obnoxious, but not quite grating.  The word that most comes to mind is “thin.” It’s trivial.  It’s the acquaintance you always tell yourself you should call more but don’t, and deep down you know exactly why.

It’s a bit of a blue-ball dry rub considering the people involved.  I loved director Greg Mottola’s last two movies (Superbad and Adventureland), and getting the double-team from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (who also wrote the script) is almost always a good thing.  The plot, two nerds find a wacky alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) and have to help it escape the US government that wants to study its brain and harvest its penises for fuel or whatever, is cribbed from the standard 80s-alien-movie formula (ET, Mac & Me, etc).  But rather than the clever genre homage seen in the Pegg co-written (with Edgar Wright, whose influence might have been needed here) Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, or the glowy, rich nostalgia of Mottola’s last two movies, what we get instead is just a series of throwaway references to every 80s alien movie, like they wrote it by going down a checklist.  Reese’s Pieces reference goes here… okay now what?  Not homage, not parody, just, as my co-viewer Brendan from the Frotcast put it, “one long wink.”

Winking at the audience can be fine, but… you should probably tell a joke first.

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Here we have the trailer for Attack the Block, opening this Spring in the UK (no release date set in the US yet), which is basically Shaun of the Dead, but with aliens instead of zombies, and a group of black kids instead of Simon Pegg. (Think of how much Run Fatboy Run could’ve been improved using the same method!)

The story is, aliens attack a housing project in South London, and the street kids who live there (including Frost, who plays a drug dealer) have to fight back.  It looks promising, mainly because there was a kid with this haircut, and it was nothing short of a revelation:

Is that… a sideways brohawk?  That is… incredible.  That is the new coolest haircut of all time. Friends, I write a popular movie blog. I wear fashionable clothing. I use only the freshest colognes and body sprays.  I generally like to think I’m pretty cool.  But I know one thing for certain, and that’s that, as cool as I might be, I will never be “sideways-brohawk” cool.  Aw, man. I just got really depressed.

[via Empire]