Tuesday’s Top Trailer: Take Shelter

Welcome to a weekly feature here at Movies with Abe, Tuesday's Top Trailer. One of my favorite parts about going to see movies is the series of trailers that airs beforehand and, more often than not, the trailer is far better than the actual film. Each week, I'll be sharing a trailer I've recently seen. Please chime in with comments on what you think of the trailer and how you think the movie is going to be.

Take Shelter – Opening October 7, 2011



I saw this trailer before a showing of “Midnight in Paris” at the Clearview Chelsea and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. Part of what makes this trailer work so well is the creepy score that narrates its main character’s descent into madness, but it looks like a damn good film all by itself. Michael Shannon, who earned an Oscar nomination for his bit part in 2008’s “Revolutionary Road,” is skilled at playing lonely, socially inept characters, as he did in the starring role in “The Missing Person” and in his ensemble part as FBI Agent Nelson Van Alden in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” Here, as a man who sees vision of terrible storms approaching and starts building a tornado shelter in his backyard, it looks like he’s found a role that really suits his particular talents. Jessica Chastain, who is going to be huge this year after “The Debt” and “The Help,” has proven that she’s able to play a long-suffering wife in “The Tree of Life,” and this is sure to be a complex and challenging role. Performances aside, this looks like a fascinating film with a truly engaging and compelling story. I’m somewhat worried that it might border on horror at times as Curtis lets his imagination get the best of him and hallucinates something truly awful, but I think it should be more than thrilling and powerful enough to legitimate a few small scares. I definitely want to see this, and I’m hoping it will be just as good and intense as it looks.