Though “Grindhouse” died horribly at the box office, “Machete” has been made into a feature-length film that’s due this August. And my creeping fear that it’d lose that “Grindhouse” anti-aesthetic appears to have been unfounded. Much of the footage from the trailer looks like it was culled directly from the original trailer. The cast has swelled with the likes of Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal and Robert DeNiro. One of my current obsessions, Michelle Rodriguez, lends her beauty and talent to the production as well. The movie is nothing if not populated with an interesting lot. Danny Trejo, character actor and seasoned badass, plays the titular long knife enthusiast.

Robert Rodriguez is a director I speak highly of around these parts. His kiddie fare took a steep nosedive in quality after the first “Spy Kids” movie, and his actioners are hit or miss. Still, he’s a talented filmmaker, able to shoot the shit out an action sequence. I’d love to see him take on something mainstream and commercial and soar like Sam Raimi post-”Spider-Man.” But I’m definitely looking forward to his latest stab at directing.

-Brad Lohan

I’m not thrilled about a “Nightmare on Elm Street” reboot. The thing about slasher films is that the sequels are almost always beat-for-beat remakes anyway. It’s rare that the survivors of one film will appear in a follow-up. If they do, they’re usually snuffed in the opening minutes. At any rate, a remake of an ’80s slasher is redundant. Virtually every Freddy movie retcons his origin, giving him the most complex backstory of any character in modern cinema. So…why are they redoing “A Nightmare on Elm Street” instead of just knocking out another sequel? Who knows?

I’m an easy mark for these types of films, so of course the trailer looks like it hits all the right notes for me. Thing is, that’s pretty much true of any Platinum Dunes remake. I was sold on last February’s “Friday the 13th,” and ended up being the first and only Jason movie I ever hated with every fiber of my being. Platinum Dune remakes have a polished turd-like quality to them. And I’m almost always sucked in.

That being said, does Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy work for you? Check out the trailer from MySpace.

A Nightmare on Elm Street in HD

-Brad Lohan

That said, some trailers set up a movie that’s infinitely better than the one you ultimately see. A trailer’s primary function is to sell you on the film. Whether or not the movie is actually worth watching is beside the point. Most films aren’t even completed when the trailer is cut together. Even so, a trailer’s quality isn’t necessarily going to be on the same level as the film itself. Trailers might not even be an accurate representation of the film, not when they’re trying to look as commercial as possible. Dramedies might be sold as laugh riots, like with “Home Alone;” psychological thrillers might be sold as actioners, like with “Se7en;” turds might be sold as blockbusters, like with “Godzilla.”

For the first installment of this column, I’ve selected Danny Cannon’s “Judge Dredd.” Released in the summer 1995, during a period when comic book movies were few and far between, “Dredd” was presumably going to be a franchise-starter for action superstar Sylvester Stallone. The Judge Dredd character was (and probably still is) fairly obscure to American audiences. Dredd first appeared in the UK comics series “2000 AD” before getting his own self-titled book. He’s basically Dirty Harry in the far-flung future in a biting satire of American crime and punishment. That isn’t to say the character isn’t any fun. I’ve read a few Dredd comics, the ones where he teams up with Batman, and I got a kick out of his ultra-conservative hamminess.

The movie, however, stinks. I’ve read about the behind-the-scenes battles that took place while the film was in production. Cannon and Stallone didn’t share the same vision for the character. For one thing, Dredd is never seen without his helmet in the comics, but for the bulk of the film, Stallone is helmet-less and wearing blue contact lenses for some damn reason. Rob Scheider was needlessly cast as the comic relief because the film came out when a small segment of the population (apart from just Adam Sandler and my dad) thought he was funny. Perhaps the most stunning bit of filmmaking idiocy comes from Armand Assante’s villainous character, who also happens to a clone of Judge Dredd. Read that shit again. Armand Assante plays Sylvester Stallone’s clone in the film. Both of them evidently have a fondness for blue contact lenses in their DNA. Beyond that, I don’t see much of a resemblance. Wouldn’t it have been better to have had Stallone play Dredd and the heavy if the two men are in fact clones? Oh, now that’s crazy-talk!

Setting all that aside, the trailer for “Judge Dredd” is insane. It hits on all the major story beats in the film without having to provide the connecting tissue, which is where the film completely falls apart. Jerry Goldsmith’s music also enhances the visuals considerably, giving them an intensity that’s lacking in the movie. And there are the perfunctory one-liners and stabs at comic relief between shouted lines of dialogue. Even that jibberish is more palatable because it’s brief. The trailer’s exhausting because it’s so overstuffed, but that’s what’s so great about it. Unlike the film, it’s brimming with action and what seems to be an interesting hook: the greatest lawman of the 22nd century is sent up for a crime he didn’t commit. If that’s not enough, there’s Mean Machine and the ABC Robot for Dredd to contend with, not to mention DIANE LANE getting above-the-title billing in all caps.

And so, without further ado, the trailer for “Judge Dredd.”

-Brad Lohan