Like its predecessor, the second theatrical trailer for The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones makes good use of Jared Harris's voiceover skills and John Murphy's score to Sunshine, while also incorporating the courageous warble of Thom Yorke.

Like its better-known sibling Comic-Con, WonderCon is ostensibly a comic book convention, but has grown to encompass so much more than the adventures of spandex-wearing superheroes.  Films that aren't based on comics and don't involve giant monsters fighting, for example, are showcased in Anaheim.

One such film at this year's con is The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, a fantasy-drama based on the young adult novel by Cassanda Clare.  As part of the Sony Picture presentation on Saturday, WonderCon's arena hosted a panel presentation promoting The Mortal Instruments, with Clare in attendance alongside stars Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, and Kevin Zegers.

Not only did the panel show off a new trailer for attendees, but a pair of new character posters bring home the fun for fans unable to make it Southern California this weekend.

Everything about The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, from the colon in the title to its elaborate supernatual mythology the young adult novel on which it's based, indicate the movie aspires to franchise-dom.  Seven brand-new images from City of Bones highlight a sprawling cast of odd supporting characters presumably recognizable to fans of the six books in the Mortal Instruments series.

The first trailer for The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has arrived online, and it teaches us two important lessons about putting together an effective trailer.  The first: make sure you've got Jared Harris to make any exposition sound magnificent.  The second: use John Murphy's Sunshine score to give the whole thing a sense of awe and coolness.

The stovepipe hat.  The humble log cabin.  The beard.  The fateful trip to Ford's Theatre.  These are all elements of a our mythic image of Abraham Lincoln, a view of the sixteenth U.S. President as an idol, a remote figure of unapproachable greatness who can all too easily eclipse our regard for the man himself, a gifted leader with flaws, grit, intelligence.

Lincoln, opening in selected cities this Friday, November 9th before expanding nationwide a week later on November 16th, aims to present a vision of Lincoln that is immediate and human.  It does so not by immersing the audience in the details of Lincoln's comprehensive biography, but instead by presenting four months of political maneuvering and emotional turbulence in the midst of the Civil War.  Specifically, Lincoln follows the efforts of the President and his political allies to ensure the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing slavery in the United States.

The film is a meeting of two of the most respected figures in movies, as Steven Spielberg directs Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role.  Though Day Lewis leads Lincoln, Spielberg assembled a remarkable ensemble cast that includes Sally Field (Norma Rae), Tommy Lee Jones (No Country For Old Men), David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck), Hal Hobrook (Into the Wild), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Looper), James Spader (Sex, Lies, and Videotape), John Hawkes (The Sessions), David Oyelowo (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Lee Pace (Ceremony), and Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen).

At the Lincoln press conference, both Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis graciously answered questions from the assembled entertainment press, discussing their personal awareness of Abraham Lincoln prior to the film, the mythology surrounding Lincoln, the President's sense of humor, the process of developing the script, convincing Day-Lewis to join play the character, and the timing Lincoln's release.

With just a few days until Lincoln makes it debut in limited release on Friday here in the States, a new international trailer has appeared online, and it gives the best idea so far of just what this particular historical drama actually is.

What if Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis, arguably the finest living director and actor on the planet, showed up on your doorstep saying, "May we please come inside to talk about our upcoming movie Lincoln for about forty-two minutes?"  You'd invite them in and offer up a plate of your finest crackers and cheese, right?

Well break out the Triscuits and jarlsberg, because Spielberg and Day-Lewis are discussing the Civil War drama in a jumbo-sized video Q&A.

Steven Spielberg explicitly stated that Lincoln's release date would follow next month's presidential election in order to avoid become politicized.  So we won't be seeing the movie until November 16th, but the marketing effort is escalating, and it's certainly putting Lincoln in proximity to real-life politics.  Following last night's polito-taining presidential debate, ABC, CBS, and CNN all aired a huge two-minute TV spot for the historical drama.

As promised by the teeny tiny glimpse on Monday, the full theatrical trailer for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln has arrived online, and it is just as classy as one would expect a trailer for a Spielberg-directed Abraham Lincoln movie to be.

The first proper trailer for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is set to debut online this Thursday, September 13th at 7 pm Eastern and 4 pm Pacific time.  In order to ensure that we're all paying attention this Thursday, DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox have unveiled a very teasery teaser.