TEASER: STAR WARS — THE FORCE AWAKENS
It’s been a decade since the last Star Wars film (Revenge of the Sith) and fans of the cult franchise have ensured that teaser #2 of Star Wars — The Force Awakens has gone big... 43,730,882 views big! Set 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi (1983), the 1:59 teaser is a Star Wars fan’s delight. “The Force is strong in my family. My father has it,” booms a voice as the teaser focuses on a melted Darth Vader helmet. “This Christmas,” promises the teaser as we are taken on a roller-coaster ride of familiar Star Wars faces and motifs. The big moment? That last shot of Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca... “Chewie, we are home!”
TRAILER: BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
The most awaited trailer of the year hit YouTube this week. Running into 2:13, the trailer of the Zack Snyder superhero blockbuster opens with Superman (Henry Cavill) as a fallen hero labelled as “false god”. Cut to a shot of a weary and angry Batman (Ben Affleck), described as “powerless”. As the two heroes (or are they villains?) face off, Batman asks Superman: “Tell me. Do you bleed? You will!” The trailer has met with mixed reviews, with most fans slamming it for being “too dark”. For now, it has 28,827,650 clicks on YT.
TRAILER: JURASSIC WORLD
The 2:40 trailer of Jurassic World is a fun ride from start to finish. Releasing June 12, the trailer focuses on Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) expertly managing a group of raptors at Jurassic World. But all hell breaks loose when the team at the park, in its bid to attract more visitors, creates a genetically modified smart, powerful and totally out of control Indominus Rex that gobbles up anything in its path — animals to humans to even its own kin! What we loved in the trailer? So much more of Chris Pratt than in the first teaser and that last shot of the raptor leaping up to swallow a huge bird. And no, there still isn’t any sign of Irrfan Khan! Total claps and cheers: 11,294,382.
CALBUCO ERUPTS
A jaw-dropping 0:22 clip of Chile’s Calbuco volcano erupting after 42 years has gone viral. The video, taken from a high-definition camera, shows the volcano belching out clouds of smoke and fire, so strong and powerful that the blue sky turns bright orange in a matter of seconds. The video has been watched and rewatched 3,327,419 times.
IRON MAN WALKS OUT
Channel 4 reporter Krishan Guru Murthy — known for rubbing his celebrity interviewees the wrong way — has done it again. After Quentin Tarantino stormed out of his interview a few years ago, warning Guru Murthy with, “I am shutting your butt down!” it was the turn of Robert Downey Jr who politely pulled off his mic and walked out after Guru Murthy insisted on asking him about his past (read: drug abuse and prison stint), even as RDJ insisted he was only interested in talking about Avengers: Age of Ultron. “You getting a little Diane Sawyer in here,” RDJ scoffed at the anchor before walking out. The video has generated 2,948,896 hits.
TRAILER: TOMORROWLAND
The trailer of Brad Bird’s futuristic sci-fi biggie starring George Clooney, Hugh Laurie and Britt Robertson has just dropped and rounds off the YT Top 6 for the week. Playing out over 2:27 minutes, the trailer focuses on Clooney as Frank Walker, a former genius inventor who joins hands with teenager Casey Newton (Robertson) to journey to a futuristic alternate world. Scheduled to hit screens on May 22, the trailer has 888,277 thumbs-ups.
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
YESTERDAY ONCE MORE
This is as heart-warming as it can get. When 102-year-old Alice Barker lay in a hospital bed with multiple complications last fall, little did she know something special was being lined up for her. Filmmaker Mark Cantor and a team of volunteers pulled out all the stops to dig out some videos of Alice from the 1930s and ’40s — as a dancer in New York nightspots Cotton Club and the Cafe Zanzibar where she was part of chorus lines that entertained alongside the likes of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Frank Sinatra. A clearly overwhelmed Alice — seeing herself on film for the first time ever — simply blurted out: “It’s just fabulous!” The video, now gone viral, ends with the line: “Alice is still alive and well.”
Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bktozJWbLQg
