Mission: Impossible Trailer Breakdown

Empire Online has a really good frame-by-frame(ish) breakdown of the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol trailer with some good screengrabs and snarky analysis.  It's worth a look.  You might catch some things you missed in the quickly-edited teaser!

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier... Trailer!

This is the big one, 007! This is what we've been waiting for! (And yes, thank you, I'm fully aware of the irony of making a James Bond reference in a Le Carré story.) The Guardian has posted the first teaser trailer for Tomas Alfredson's upcoming spy movie Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, starring Gary Oldman and based on the seminal John Le Carré book which, for my money, is a very strong contender for the best spy novel ever written. The fact that we're seeing this trailer the same week as our first glimpse at the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol trailer not only delivers spy fans an abundance of riches; it also highlights the wide spectrum of story that all fit within the overall spy genre. M:I-GP is pure action stuffed to the brim with stunts, whereas TTSS is all intrigue and atmosphere (though they do manage to stick in a shot from just about every scene involving a gun, which is appropriate for a teaser!).

As expected (but it still comes as a relief), I love this trailer.  I love the tone, I love the music, I love the hints we get of the performances, I love the cinematography, I love the art direction, I love the Seventies fashions and hairstyles; I love pretty much everything about it.  This is exactly what a spy movie of this sort should look like! I can't wait. Please note, the release date listed at the end is the UK release date. As previously reported, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will be released in America by Focus Features on November 18.

Official Mission: Impossible Trailer

We had the low-quality version of the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol trailer in French this weekend, but now there's no reason to watch that anymore. (Well, unless you're French, I guess, but I'm betting there's a higher quality version of the French trailer out now too!) Paramount has released a high-def official version of the trailer in English. It will be attached to Transformers 3 this week, but if giant robots aren't your thing (and they aren't mine), then here it is. Have at it!

Mission: Impossible Trailer Leaked

The trailer for Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (aka Mission: Impossible 4) will debut later this week on prints of Transformers 3. No doubt it will also be officially posted on the web even sooner - maybe even tonight or tomorrow - in a pristine high-def English language version. But if you're anything like me and you absolutely can't wait for that to happen, then head on over right away (before it gets removed) to the French language WhiteBlog (via AICN) and check out a low quality, cammed version of the French trailer for "Mission: Impossibel: Protocole Fantôme." Tom Cruise and Tom Wilkinson (I don't think I even realized he was in it) and Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg and that cool BMW hybrid are all dubbed in French, so unless you speak the language, you won't know what's going on, but the good news is... it does look cool! Like all the movies in the series (as opposed to the TV show that spawned them), the emphasis is definitely on action over intrigue, but it looks like Brad Bird has captured the same spy atmosphere that Brian DePalma tapped into in the first film. There's some wretched music, but overall it looks very good. I can't wait to see the official English language version, which you can bet I'll post here as soon as it goes up.

Covert Affairs Season 2 Campaign Ramps Up

I was very pleasantly surprised to spot the first bus stop poster I'd seen for the second season of USA's Covert Affairs while driving home the other day.  In addition to the posters, Deadline reports that USA is making a big push in movie theaters, running this spot for Covert Affairs and White Collar before big summer movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and X-Men: First Class.  I know, I know; where's the news in that?  I see ads for USA shows before the trailers every time I go to an AMC theater.  Well, though the article is vague, I think the implication is that this will actually run with the movie trailers, and not with the pre-trailer advertisements.  The spot, unfortunately, doesn't reveal any new footage from Season 2.  But it does serve as a good introduction to the series for viewers who have never seen this smart, compelling CIA dramady starring Piper Perabo.  Covert Affairs returns on Tuesday, June 7.

Read my review of Covert Affairs' Season 1 pilot here.

Person of Interest Trailer

CBS has released a short preview (via io9) of their freshly picked up J.J. Abrams/Jonah Nolan show Person of Interest, which stars Michael Emerson (who was so great as Benjamin Linus on Lost) and Jim Caviezel (who was so bland as Six on the disappointing remake of The Prisoner).  Caviezel stars as a presumed-dead CIA agent recruited by a reclusive billionaire (Emerson) to use his spy skills to wage a vigilante war on crime in New York... before it happens. Up until that last Minority Report twist, it basically sounds like The Equalizer (ex-spy uses skills to fight crime in NYC) meets Batman (self-financed billionaire wages war on crime). The Batman connection is no coincidence, either. Person of Interest comes from the team of J.J. Abrams (Alias, Mission: Impossible III, Undercovers) and Jonah Nolan, brother of Christopher and co-writer of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.  The pre-crime aspect seems from the clip to be an expansion of a concept Nolan first explored in The Dark Knight: the use of a network of security cameras to invade citizens' privacy for their protection.  It's a theme also explored on contemporary UK spy series like MI-5 (aka Spooks), as CCTV cameras are a way of life in Britain.  It's hard to get a sense of a show from these partly behind-the-scenes upfront clips, but the premise and the people involed have me intrigued. My primary misgiving, though, is Caviezel.  In The Prisoner, he just proved too dull to be a leading man.  Hopefully he approaches this character differently.  Personally, I would have rather seen Emerson paired again with his Lost co-star Terry O'Quinn as ex-spies in Odd Jobs, but sadly NBC didn't feel the same way; the new regime pulled the plug on that potential Abrams show.

First Glimpse of Page 8 in BBC Promo

Amidst clips of the (awesome) new season of Doctor Who, upcoming episodes of Luther and lots of other BBC programs, this BBC Original Drama trailer offers spy fans a tantalizing first glimpse at David Hare's upcoming spy movie Page 8, starring Ralf Fiennes, Bill Nighey, Michael Gambon and Rachel Weisz.  As we first heard late last year, Page 8 follows Nighy as an MI5 ­operative who believes Weisz's character represents a threat to him. Gambon plays the Security Service's Director General. With a cast like that, I'm really looking forward to this.

Colombiana Trailer

Here's the trailer for the newest neo-Eurospy movie from Luc Besson's action factory, EuropaCorp.  "Neo-Eurospy," I should clarify, in that there's Gaul money behind this Olivier Megaton-directed actioner, not in that it's set in Europe or even that there are necessarily spies in it!  It's a close cousin of the spy movie, the professional assassin movie, and it's set in exotic South America.  But neo-Eurospy, like Eurospy, is to me more of a tone than a genre, and this one looks like it will fit right in with Besson's Transporter movies and Taken.  Plus, surely that tight black catsuit qualifies it automatically for all sorts of spy genres!  Colombiana, starring Zoe Saldana and Alias' Michael Vartan, is written by Besson and his Taken collaborator Robert Mark Kamen.  Megaton directed the neo-Eurospy flicks Transporter 3 and Hitman, and is slated to next direct Taken 2 for Besson.  Oh, and Colombiana looks pretty awesome!  Check it out:

Age of Heroes Trailer

With a big tip of the hat to The Book Bond (the foremost site out there for news on the literary 007, by the way, and an absolutely required daily visit for me as we enter the home stretch toward the publication of Carte Blanche), here's the official trailer for that movie about Ian Fleming's 30 Assault Unit we've been following here since its initial announcement last year.  I have to say, I think it looks fantastic. It may not look particularly big budget, and it might use a questionable font, but that trailer pushes all my movie buttons--from its Ian Fleming-meets-The A-Team opening to the awesome action of a snowbound commandos in white camoflage.  Evidentally, it will receive theatrical release in Britain on May 20--though it's bound to be a limited engagement, since it's already been announced for DVD release in June. Neither venue seems particularly likely right now in America, which is too bad, because I am dying to see it! Age of Heroes stars former Bond villain Sean Bean, and James D'Arcy plays Commander Fleming.

Nigel Small-Fawcett Reborn!
First Trailer For Johnny English Sequel

Here's our first real look at Rowan Atkinson's eight-years-after-the-fact spy parody sequel, Johnny English Reborn... and I like what I see!  I was a big fan of the first film, which I enjoy more than any of the Austin Powers movies as far as spy spoofs go.  Bond regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade co-wrote that one.  They're not back for Reborn (though their original collaborator William Davies is), but there are still plenty of Bond alumni involved.  Die Another Day's Rosamund Pike goes from Bond Girl to English Girl, and various websites (including the IMDb) list Pierce Brosnan as cameoing as a character named "Ambrose" (though there's been no official announcement to that effect).  He doesn't turn up in the trailer, but it has plenty of other things to offer (I love that gag with the chair in the briefing!) including our first glimpse at Johnny English's new wheels.  He kept up with 007 in the first movie by driving an Aston Martin; this time he's got a Rolls Royce.  Johnny English Reborn opens in Britain on October 7.  As far as I know the US release date hasn't been announced yet, but hopefully we won't have to wait too long... 

New Hanna Trailer

Joe Wright's Hanna is the next major studio spy movie on the horizon, and there's a new, action-packed international trailer out now that reveals a bit more than the teaser or the very cool poster. We may have seen this plot before (a highly-trained assassin tries to live a normal life, only to have nefarious forces from the past come to find them), but never with a fifteen-year-old girl! It really does look like Bourne with a kid, which is pretty cool. I like seeing a hardcore kid spy. Cody Banks this ain't, apparently.

Trailer For Network's ITC Blu-Ray Collections

Network posted a trailer on YouTube last week for their previously announced upcoming Region B Retro-Action Blu-ray collections, which will contain sample episodes from a whole bunch of Sixties and Seventies ITC spy/adventure series including The Saint, Return of the Saint, Danger Man, The Persuaders!, The Champions, The Prisoner and more.

I love it!  I love it, I love it, I love it!  This montage not only shows off what you'll get on these releases, but captures everything that I love about Sixties ITC adventure series.I could watch it all day.

Tradecraft: Mirren Spy Movie The Debt Gets Distribution

Deadline reports that The Debt finally has a distributor.  I know I covered this movie here a long time ago, when it was first announced, but I can't find that post.  Suffice it to say, it was completed a while ago and has been a victim of Miramax's uncertain future, sitting on a shelf despite a very fine pedigree.  Now the Miramax situation has been resolved, and Focus Features and Universal Pictures International will release director John Madden's espionage thriller on August 31, 2011.  The story of The Debt, crafted by screenwriters Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class) and Peter Straughan (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) and adapted from the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov, unfolds in two time periods: the Sixties and today.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I love spy movies set in the Sixties?)  Spy veterans Helen Mirren (RED), Tom Wilkinson (The Ghost Writer) and Ciarán Hinds (Munich) play a trio of retired Mossad agents in the present, while Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington and Marton Csokas (The Bourne Supremacy) play the same characters in 1966, when they were active operatives tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal (Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace's Jesper Christensen, who certainly looks the part!) in East Berlin.  "At great risk, and at considerable personal cost," according to the Focus press release, "the team’s mission was accomplished – or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations."  The rather awesome trailer has been out for a while:

X-Men: First Class Trailer

Fox released the teaser trailer this week for X-Men: First Class.  If you're wondering why that bears mention on a spy blog, read up on Matthew Vaughn's Avengers and James Bond-inspired, Sixties-set superhero movie here and here so I don't have to recap it all again!  This teaser doesn't wallow in Sixties period detail and style quite as much as I would have liked, but it does give a good sense of the tone of the film... and I like it.  Can't wait to see more! (There is one brief shot of January Jones' Emma Frost in her sexy White Queen costume inspired by Diana Rigg's famous Queen of Sin outfit from the Avengers episode "A Touch of Brimstone," but be sure not to blink or you'll miss it! Pause the video right before she uses her mutant powers to turn into diamond.)

Superseven: Cool Fake Eurospy/Costumed Adventurer Trailer

Remember that Costumed Adventurer Week I did a few years ago examining that curious subgenre of Eurospy movies in which the spy heroes wear tights? Of course you do! (And if you don't, you really ought to check it out, here.) Well, Eurospy Forum member Bob Griffith has put together a trilogy of trailers for a fake Costumed Adventurer (or fumetti/fumetti neri) character called "Superseven" using cleverly selected clips from real Eurospy and Costumed Adventurer movies. Check out the latest one, Superseven in 8 Spies Too Many, here—and then poke around and watch the previous ones. See how many clips you can identify. Some of them stand out a little too much, like the iconic bikini/speargun scene from Deadlier Than the Male, but others are much harder to place. You'll probably recognize a lot from the Superargo movies and maybe a few from OSS 117 films, but my favorite is the climactic helicopter scene from the Roger Moore film Crossplot. There are dozens more. Check it out! All that reminds me: I really need to do another Costumed Adventurer Week...

Hanna Trailer

Here's the trailer for Hanna, the spy/assassin movie from Atonement director Joe Wright that we've been hearing about since last year, starring Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana. Call it La Femme Nikita meets Leon or call it Bourne with a 15-year-old girl or call it Modesty Blaise: The Really Early Years; any way you put it, it adds up to cool.  Especially with a red-haired Blanchett playing the Joan Allen role of a vicious CIA bitch hunting our heroine.  (Judging from that shot of Blanchett with the silenced pistol, though, it looks like she gets her hands a bit dirtier than Allen does in the Bourne films.)  This is one of two high-profile female assassin movies from directors better known for artier fare in the pipeline for 2011. The other, Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, seems likely to be more low-brow. (Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you!)

Pixar Does Spy Cars

Hm.  The first Cars was one of the few Pixar movies I never saw.  The trailers and the basic concept just didn't really grab me.  But the trailer for the sequel certainly does, for obvious reasons!  Pixar has decided to introduce spy cars into the mix.  Michael Caine plays Finn McMissile, a superspy car who looks kind of like James Bond's classic Aston Martin DB5.  (None of the cars of Cars seem to actually be based on real makes or models, though.) This could be fun, and will definitely spawn some very cool toys.  (After all, spy cars are the coolest toy cars!) Dark Horizons reports that Jason Isaacs and Emily Mortimer also join in on the fun as spy jet Siddeley and spy-in-training Holley Shiftwell, respectively. The animation definitely (and unsurprisingly) looks better than that in the upcoming Sean Connery CGI movie, which also features an animated spy car.  Pixar regular Randy Newman scored the first Cars, but from the look of this one, I really hope they tap their other go-to guy, Michael Giacchino (The Incredibles, Alias, Mission: Impossible III), to score the sequel!  Spies (and presumably their cars) are certainly in his wheelhouse...

Then We Take Berlin: Another Liam Neeson Neo-Eurospy Movie!

Actually, I can't really tell from the trailer if the conspiracy in Unknown turns out to have spy overtones or not, but it definitely looks likely.  Either way, this Dark Castle film is clearly capitalizing on Neeson's success in the EuropaCorp neo-Eurospy hit Taken (review here), and after that I'm definitely game to follow the actor back to Europe as he tears up another city–this time, Berlin! (Is he going to threaten to tear down the Reichstag if he has to?) Blondes Diane Kruger and January Jones are the latest Eurospy babes, and Frank Langella rounds out the cast–presumably as a baddie. I'm pretty sure this is the film we heard about earlier that's co-written by John Le Carré's son, although then it was called Unknown White Male.  Check it out:

Tourist Trailer

Yahoo! has the trailer up for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's long awaited follow-up to 2006's Oscar-winning The Lives of Others.  We've been following the long and circuitous development of this film for quite a while (it was once set to be a Tom Cruise/Charlize Theron vehicle; now it stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie), and I'm excited to see it finally coming to fruition.  It certainly looks nothing like the serious Lives of Others; this is a very different type of spy film: light and fluffy, taking obvious cues from the likes of Charade and North by Northwest.  Personally, I love this trailer (even despite the two leads' oddish, iffy-sounding accents), though I suspect a lot of people won't.  This type of film hasn't been successful lately, but hopefully the two biggest movie stars in the world can change that trend.  It's got beautiful European scenery, beautiful people, trains, gunfights, rooftop chases, boat chases and General Orlov himself, Steven Berkoff.  What's not to like?  Best of all, the film also has Timothy Dalton, though I didn't spot him in the trailer.  The Tourist is a remake of a 2005 French film called Anthony Zimmer starring Bond Girl Sophie Marceau.

Trailer For Doug Liman's New Spy Movie, Fair Game

Yahoo has the trailer for Fair Game, the film The Hollywood Reporter said "might be one of the best spy movies ever." And so does YouTube!  The trailer seems to confirm that while clearly in a different league from his earlier spy films, The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith,  Doug Liman's latest is clearly a spy film, and not mired in political diatribe as some had feared.  To me, Valerie Plame's story (an intelligence operative exposed and hung out to dry at the whims of politicians in her own government) sounds like it could be ripped out of a Le Carré novel.  It may have gotten lost in the ensuing blather of political pundits on both sides, but at its heart this is a great spy story, and it looks like that is the aspect that Liman has chosen to play up.  Judge for yourself: