Trailer Stash: Antichrist, The Girlfriend Experience, Harry Potter 6, more

And now, a look at some notable trailers lighting up blogs and message boards:

Antichrist
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg    
Release Date: No American date yet (expected to play Cannes)



Lars von Trier, the director of Dancer in the Dark, Dogville and other brilliant and hateful movies, has finally submitted to his most obvious inspiration: the devil. Based on this trailer, it’s paid off. The movie is about the loss of a child, but as the scenes shown here indicate, it will explore the nasty moral recesses that all of Trier’s movies do. And, yeah, that part with the tree and the hands and the sex is pretty awesome too.

The Girlfriend Experience
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Sasha Grey
Release Date: May 22



Steven Soderbergh’s most-anticipated movie in years, probably because it features a 21-year-old porn star, follows a top-dollar New York hooker and her exploits just before the 2008 presidential election. As this leisurely trailer points out, the movie is one of Soderbergh’s no-budget experiments, which can be hit or miss (and the Sundance buzz says “miss”), but it's poised to be a minor indie event when it opens next month.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Director: David Yates
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Jim Broadbent
Release Date: July 15



The new trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrives with some enhanced FX shots, a more coherent picture of the story and the news that the movie will open (gasp!) two days earlier than expected, on Wednesday, July 15. It’s a solid tease for fans, and even comes with a pseudo-timely pitch for hard times (“times like these—dark times—they do funny things to people"). Now release the thing already.

Cherrybomb
Directors: Lisa Barros D'Sa, Glenn Leyburn
Starring: Rupert Grint, Robert Sheehan, Kimberley Nixon
Date: No American date yet



Oh, no. While we’re on the subject of Harry Potter, we’d better address this. Rupert Grint, better known to you as Ron, made Driving Lessons a couple of years ago, an English farce that nobody saw. Meanwhile, Daniel Radcliffe paraded around naked on stage, and the world swooned. In an apparent response, we get this movie, which features our lovable sidekick as a hard-charging teen who competes for a girl’s affection through booze, drugs and various felonies. The tagline is “Two guys. One girl. Game on.” Ugh.

Public Enemies
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Channing Tatum
Release Date: July 1



One would think Public Enemies would be the easiest movie in the world to market. A four-time Oscar nominee directs Johnny Depp as a bank robber and Christian Bale as the fed determined to take him down, with a flashy period setting, prim Fourth of July release date and major-studio budget. And yet here is another too-much-information trailer that feels an hour long. Michael Mann’s first movie since his cruelly underrated film version of Miami Vice is probably the most anticipated of the year (or at the very least No. 4). It’s time to show us why.