movie trailers

It’s been at least five years since the last great Pixar film (or more, depending on your feelings about Toy Story 3). In the interim, they produced a series of sequels — some quite entertaining, but few as transcendently beautiful as the original concepts that turned the studio into the most dependable brand in all of Hollywood. Their latest effort, Inside Out, isn’t just a return to form; it surpasses almost all of their previous classics. It is, from start to finish, one of the best films Pixar has ever made.

Everyone knew that Jurassic World was going to open big, but no one saw this coming. The fourth film in the beloved dinosaur-centric franchise had the second biggest domestic opening of all time, the biggest June opening of all time, and, with $511 million worldwide, the biggest international opening of all time. It also broke a bunch of records that we’ll get to in a few minutes. This was supposed to be the summer of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Unless something goes horribly wrong, this is officially the summer of Jurassic World.

When all you care about is money, bad things happen. That’s the message of Jurassic World, where greedy theme-park executives hoping to spike attendance engineer the “Indominus Rex,” a genetically-modified dinosaur that immediately turns on its creators and runs amok. Designed as a cautionary tale about the dangers of building a meaner, badder monster purely for the sake of profits, Jurassic World works equally well as a cautionary tale about doing the same thing in movies. All of the rationalizations provided by Jurassic World’s employees — “Consumers want them bigger, louder, more teeth.” “Somebody’s gotta make sure this company has a future!” — could have been taken directly out of the mouths of the studio executives who approved this gene splice of a reboot and a sequel. Their creation — the Indominus or the movie, there’s basically no difference — is as advertised; huge, mean, and visually striking. But this experiment is not without consequences.

Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig’s forthcoming Lifetime movie A Deadly Adoption has had a winding road to completion, first leaking to the press, then (jokingly?) canceled over the report, then back on. Now, there’s no stopping A Deadly Adoption (or a speeding truck) as Lifetime releases the first dramatic footage.

If The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 left you wanting more, the wait for the final installment in the Hunger Games series is almost over. You still have a few more months left to go, but today we have the first official trailer for Mockingjay - Part 2 and it’s everything you wanted and needed.

The film, written by Diablo Cody, will hit theaters August 7.

Hollywood has seen its fair share of movies where man attempts to conquer nature, only to find himself thoroughly humbled. Everest looks to continue that trend, putting one of the best ensembles in recent memory smack-dab in the middle of Mother Nature’s wrath. As the title implies, the film deals with an expedition up the world’s tallest mountain going oh-so-horribly wrong. As the trailer shows us, an Everest expedition going wrong looks like an incredible movie.

When Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg last made a war film, they produced Saving Private Ryan, which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and features what’s widely considered one of the greatest battle scenes ever captured on film. They’ve worked together since, including on Catch Me If You Can, one of the best movies of either man’s career, but Bridge of Spies might be considered a kind of spiritual sequel to Ryan. That was Hanks and Spielberg’s World War II picture. This is their Cold War one.

What at first seemed like a silly idea for a reboot/sequel has already proven itself as incredibly promising with just a couple of trailers — a new trailer for Vacation has arrived, and it’s just as funny as the previous ones (although it features less of Chris Hemsworth’s, um, area). A new generation of Griswolds hit the road for Walley World, and the results appear to be even more disastrous than the original gang’s vacation attempts.

The new Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation trailer doesn’t offer up anything drastically different from the usual Mission: Impossible movie — Tom Cruise, shadowy government agents, an elegantly dressed woman kicking ass, insane stunts, an improbable task — but it does all those things (and does them all so well), it’s hard to not get excited for the upcoming fifth installment.

Like all of Pixar’s teaser trailers, the first preview for The Good Dinosaur is all about mood, emphasizing a distinct feeling over characters and plot. But as the title implies, it’s really all about dinosaurs. Colorful, adorable dinosaurs who, thanks to director Peter Sohn and the Pixar braintrust, aren’t wiped out by an apocalyptic asteroid 66 million years ago and live on to have all kinds of adventures. Take that, science!

In 1996, Rolling Stone sent journalist and author David Lipsky to travel with David Foster Wallace for the end of his book tour publicizing his great novel Infinite Jest. Lipsky and Wallace spent five days traveling together, and the transcripts of their conversations eventually became the basis of Lipsky’s book Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace