Weekly Trailer Roundup - 11/17/14 Thru 11/23/14

Greg Rodgers November 24th, 2014 - 8:10 AM

Welcome to the Weekly Trailer Roundup, where we count down the top five trailers released in the past week, “top” being defined any way we want to at the moment…exciting, ridiculous, best, worst…

These are the trailers that, for one reason or another, you should be paying attention to.

Perhaps it’s all of the well-crafted, serious-minded, awards contending movies that has put us in a snobby mood. Maybe it’s the stress of the holidays. Maybe it’s just simply the endless march of time that has made us realize that we need to make every minute count. Whatever the reason, this week brings a batch of trailers that make us shake our head in disgust and wonder aloud, “This actually got made?”

#5 – The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death

A sequel to a reasonably well-crafted but ultimately derivative and somewhat forgettable horror movie from a couple years ago. That’s not so bad, is it? But wait – not only are none of the actors from the first movie involved, but neither is the director, or even the same production company or distributor. This has a distinct Blair Watch 2: Book of Shadows stench to it.

#4 – The DUFF

Sure, this movie looks like harmless, well-intentioned fun. And it probably is. But how many times can we watch the same ugly duckling who was never really ugly gets a makeover (translation: life sucks unless you’re attractive) story repeated? Also, actress Mae Whitman is 26 in real life. She’s currently playing a 20-something pregnant woman on NBC’s Parenthood. Andrea Zuckerman was a more convincing high school student.

#3 – Strange Magic

Remember when the last batch of Star Wars movies came out and we all sort of started to suspect that George Lucas had become – or had always been – a weird, unimaginative hack, who will probably spend the rest of his days crafting uninteresting stories about fairies and goblins and such? Yeah.

#2 – Lap Dance

This movie features Carmen Electra. It’s called Lap Dance. Wait, why isn’t it getting more Oscar buzz?

#1 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Never mind the thought that there are people out there – potentially millions, in fact – who will voluntarily plunk down money to see this movie. You know what’s really scary? Many of these same people will be voting in our next election.