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Recently, IFC’s Evan Shapiro defended his company’s production and distribution of new chapters in R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet saga by comparing the “hip hopera” pioneer to postmodern trash god John Waters. Trapped, according to Shapiro, “challenges the traditional mores and sexual stereotypes of the current climate as boldly — and hysterically — as many films coming out of Hollywood or the indie movement.”

In the current climate of posture-as-polemic, it’s impossible to gauge exactly how seriously Shapiro intended us to take that provocation, but I certainly kept it in mind whilst watching Chapter 13 of Trapped (the first Chapter to be produced under the IFC deal), which premiered on IFCTV.com last night. New episodes are set to premiere every evening on the site for the next ten days.

From the first shot, it’s immediately apparent that Trapped’s production values have been elevated somewhat since Chapter 12 was released two years ago. The story has moved out of the closets and cupboards and kitchens of Slyvester and crew, and on to the streets of Chicago (or, at least, a decent facsimile thereof). There are sophisticated camera movements, and lush, dissolve-heavy montages. Whereas the soundtracks of previous episodes barely allowed Kelly the time to take a breath, Chapter 13 concludes with a musical interlude that’s actually about the passing of time.

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MTV’s Movie Blog is trumpeting two exclusive new trailers for Across the Universe, Julie Taymor’s big budget period musical starring a pre-Marily Manson Evan Rachel Wood and set to the songs of The Beatles. These trailers are super different from the film’s international trailer, which Sony implanted on YouTube a few weeks ago. Where s the international spot seemed to play up the film’s non-musical elements (epic scope, romantic and political subplots, Taymor’s patented baroque psychedellia), these new trailers seem squarely aimed at the High School Musical crowd.

It’s probably a smart move for Sony to hedge their bets like this: the new, music-video-on-crack trailers have a shot at reaching the kids who are currently pushing Hairspray to $100 million, while the international trailer might lure their Boomer parents. But the both sets of trailers would seem to give credence to an idea disseminated by the hatchet job Nikki Finke wrote on Taymor back in March: it now seems probable that the movie Sony is unveling at Toronto next month is very different from the movie they hired Taymor to make.

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Under discussion:

Conan the Barbarian  (1982)

Rambo [Film Series]  Production Year

• The lineup boasted a wealth of warmed-over Hollywood pics (1408, Planet Terror), but the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival went this weekend to Masahiro Kobayashi’s controversial drama, The Rebirth. The Hollywood Reporter’s Eric J. Lyman called the film “cerebral and weighty … one of the most talked about films of the festival, but it was not without its detractors, who were turned off by the film’s deliberately repetitive construction.”
• Millennium Films, the company that’s currently working on bringing the Rambo series back from the dead, will next concentrate on resurrecting the Conan series.  They’re planning “multiple pictures”, the first of which will go into production next spring.
• Sean P. Combs Esq. has signed on to exec produce that Biggie Smalls biopic.
• Ever hear of Movie Gallery? Yeah, that’s part of the problem. The long-shot competitor to Netflix and Blockbuster says it still hopes to launch DVD-by-mail and video-on-demand services within the next six months, despite admitting “substantial doubt as to our ability to continue” operating.