New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Welcome to Trailer Hitch, BOP's look at the latest movie trailers to hit the Internet. This week: Philadelphians cook up healthier alternatives to the cheese steak, Bruce Willis gets to the bottom of a robotic conspiracy and Rob Marshall embarks on another Oscar pillage.

Pressure Cooker – Opens Friday

Pressure Cooker's underlying message – practicing dedicated, hard work to earn a new lease on life – may be inspirational, but it doesn't clearly come across in the trailer. In its place is the overbearing, obnoxious teaching style of the documentary's star, Wilma Stephenson. (Think Simon Cowell. Check that. Gordon Ramsay, since we're talking about a culinary arts class here).

I've gotta say, however, that the woman is quite entertaining – even if the movie itself looks to be just okay. She's one of those hardasses who doesn't take a lick of lip from anyone, for anything. You mess up a necessary ingredient and she'll be on your case faster than you can say (or spell) ratatouille.

Grade: C+
Also expected to be released on this date: Up, Drag Me to Hell, The Maiden Heist, Departures

In the Loop – Opens July 17th

If Monty Python ever took a stab at the United States, the U.K. and the war in the Middle East, the finished product would presumably look a lot like In the Loop. Based on the 2005 BBC TV series, The Thick of It, In the Loop takes a behind-the-scenes look at government officials from both countries who must go about promoting a war or preventing it after one such official mistakenly states that a proposed war is "unforeseeable."

The trailer is witty and fun, and explores the mishaps, missteps and miscommunications that often go into important government decisions (and actions).

Grade: A
Also expected to be released on this date: (500) Days of Summer

Surrogates – Opens September 25th

Surrogates is for sure a summer movie. So what the hell is it doing in theaters at the tail end of September, Touchtone? Holy god, someone(s) at that studio should be fired. Stat.

In the movie, starring a Bruce Willis whose dreadful quaff makes him look nearly as awful as Tom Hanks did in The Da Vinci Code, humans solely interact with one another through robotic bodies. Everything's hunky dory until several surrogates are murdered, leading Bruce (who plays a cop) to investigate the mystery behind the crimes.

It's good to see Bruce acting again, though not in a movie like Surrogates. The drama here is laughable at best. It attempts to cash in on the Terminator/Transformers/robot craze and appears to fail miserably. Next!

Grade: C-
Also expected to be released on this date: The Invention of Lying, Fame

The Road – Opens October 16th

No, no, no, no, no! Cormac McCarthy's masterful, yet simple The Road has been tragically turned into generic, hyper-stylized Hollywood trash.

This upsets me greatly.

You see, I became familiar with McCarthy's genius while reading No Country for Old Men. From there I next read The Road and considered the book unadaptable. Unless, of course, the Coen brothers were attached to write and direct.

The trailer makes The Road look like everything McCarthy carefully tried to avoid in his storytelling. I'm all for movie adaptations modifying and/or expanding on a novel's original premise. But this is just too much flashy badness to ever be taken seriously.

To think The Road won the frickin' Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I'd be surprised (based on the trailer) for this one to even earn an Oscar nod – let alone a win.

Grade: D
Also expected to be released on this date: Where the Wild Things Are, The Stepfather

Nine – Opens November 25th

Typically I don't give a damn when a movie musical is released. Chicago. The Producers. Dreamgirls. Mamma Mia! Whatever. They can sing all they want and I'm still not gonna watch. Yet there's something about Nine that has me intrigued. So much so that it earned a significant B+ mark here on Trailer Hitch.

Perhaps it's the cast – Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Kate Hudson, to name a few. Or perhaps it's the dazzling song-and-dance numbers, which I can confidently claim are certified eye candy.

Perhaps it merely looks like a lavishly fun flick.

Whatever the case, I'm there, which as I said doesn't happen often. (At least on film. In the real world, I enjoy my musicals in the comfort of an actual theater).

Grade: B+
Also expected to be released on this date: Old Dogs, The Box, The Princess and the Frog