By Jay A. Fernandez

Quick quiz: Watch these two trailers — of upcoming summer action comedies with similar set-ups — and see if you can determine which one has actual actors/movie stars and a talented director:

By Jay A. Fernandez

The SXSW Film Festival kicks off next Friday with some high-profile screenings and sneaks — “Kick-Ass,” “MacGruber” and “Predators” among them. But here are a few trailers for some of the lesser-known offerings this year:

By Jay A. Fernandez

And now … for some nudity. Or nakedness. Depending on your prurience meter.

By Jay A. Fernandez

I had the pleasure of running into filmmaker Hilari Scarl at a cocktail party up at Sundance last month, and she had me captivated while talking about her documentary “See What I’m Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary.”

By Jay A. Fernandez

The “Cop Out” red-band trailer broke out today, and now it’s looking more like a Kevin Smith movie.

That ridiculous PG version Warner Bros. ejected first just about torpedoed everyone’s interest in sitting through the film. When it comes to Kevin Smith, no one wants to be invited to a whorehouse with a promise of seeing good card tricks, you know? Give us the money shots or we’ll just go rent “Clerks” again.

Anyway, here are Tracy Morgan, Bruce Willis and Seann William Scott acting like regular ol’ profane action-movie grown-ups. Some of it’s even funny.

One observation: The profanity zeitgeist seems to have shifted from the cringy thrill of watching old ladies like Betty White throw out f-bombs to young kids spewing curse words like little machine guns on a sugar high. “Role Models” got the movement going, and this year’s “Kick-Ass” has teed up a few choice raunch-zingers viewable in the latest international red-band trailer (also below – wait around for the last line).

Well, here we have… Eh, just watch it.

By Jay A. Fernandez

IFC Films has up a new trailer for “Red Riding,” a trilogy of gritty British noir films from three different directors (Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker) that IFC Films will roll out in American theaters and on VOD in early February.

I saw the first film up at Telluride last year and have been itching to see the rest of the films. They’re for anyone who loves “Silence of the Lambs” and/or “Chinatown” and the doomed pursuit of institutional corruption that uncovers the even more startling rot at the heart of the human souls behind it.

Ridley Scott is producing a trio of remakes with Steven Zaillian writing the adaptations at Columbia.

By Jay A. Fernandez

Well, you knew it was going to get a title change. “A Couple of Dicks,” while a bullseye for the typical Kevin Smith crowd, wasn’t going to draw anyone else to his attempt to break out of the Kevin Smith box.

So here we have “Cop Out,” and its newly released trailer:

While I like that Warner Bros. is playing off its own storied cop/crime film legacy, this project hits a little too generic in contrast (starting with the meaningless punny title). Like Chris Tucker, a little Tracy Morgan goes a long, long way. And though this is Bruce Willis in his element — and he had mad chemistry with Sam Jackson in the third “Die Hard” — he looks kind of neutered here.

And in a strange new trend, this trailer doesn’t say a thing about the plot. I’m the first to gripe when a trailer unspools the whole freakin’ storyline, but can we get some hint of what the challenge or thematic throughline is for these characters you want us to come spend time with? The fact that you think they’re funny together (of which there isn’t much evidence here) is not nearly enough.

Sadly, this new title will be its own tempting bullseye for those Smith fans who will see this film as just that.

By Jay A. Fernandez

The trailer for “Sex and the City 2“ is over at Moviefone. It’s excruciating to sit through, even as it assures us of the “amazing things” that will happen in this follow-up to the $401 million-grossing first feature.

What those things are have not been included in the trailer, nor is any hint at a plot. Oh, except a shot of the four ladies striding in line up over a dune in the Moroccan desert. Huh?

To me, this smells like the second “Bridget Jones” movie, when they shipped poor Bridget off to Thailand for no good reason. That the place where the production was filmed was later destroyed by the southeast Asian tsunami not long after should serve as a warning to anyone who contributed to the filming of “SATC2.”

It’s clear that Warner Bros. and the filmmakers expect you simply to swoon at the very sight of the SATC girls’ fabulousness trotted back onto the big screen. Good luck with that.

You have been warned.