Why wait to review the movies when we can grade the teasers?

Why wait to review the movies when we can grade the teasers?

The Departed
You know you’re in Scorsese-circa-GoodFellas territory when you hear ”Gimme Shelter” as Jack Nicholson strolls by. And so it’s all cops and criminals and shoot-outs as both Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon wonder if they’re in too deep. Sweet. B+

Borat
British comedy is the comedy of embarrassment — has been for decades. And so ”Kazakh newsman” Borat — Brit comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in a crazy mustache — finds new ways to make us feel uncomfortable. If the trailer’s this funny…egads. A-

Catch a Fire
Derek Luke stars in this based-on-fact story of the making of a South African revolutionary. The heady spot bravely asks the question: When you are fighting for what you know to be right but authority has labeled wrong, are you a hero or a terrorist? A

Man of the Year
The most egregious thing here is not that the film is about a political funnyman à la Jon Stewart who runs for president, or that Robin Williams is in full-on annoying-shtick mode. No, it’s that the trailer gives away that he wins. Idiots. C-