The second trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV

The first trailer for David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises," starring Viggo Mortensen

Last week, within roughly 24 hours of one another, Yahoo! posted new trailers for two separate works about crime. First up was "Eastern Promises," David Cronenberg's first film since his acclaimed "A History of Violence." The second was for Grand Theft Auto IV, the eagerly awaited next generation debut of the Rockstar Games hit franchise. We couldn't help but notice a few similarities between the two trailers, most notably the similarly named protagonists Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV) and Nikolai Luzhin ("Eastern Promises"); their shared Russian origins; and the two immigrants' shared penchant for violence in their adopted metropolises of Liberty City and London, respectively. The two trailers even have a similar visual tic, saturating the screen with light at key moments. Follow the links below, take a look at the two trailers and see. And if the Housers should ever hire Cronenberg to direct the inevitable Grand Theft Auto movie, we hope they'll consider throwing a finder's fee our way.

For the Grand Theft Auto IV trailer, click here.

For the "Eastern Promises" trailer, click here.

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and MTV News' Stephen Totilo at Rockstar Games' offices in New York City on June 22, 2007

Note: This email exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo ran on N'Gai Croal's Level Up and MTV's Multiplayer blog, in three separate installments, from June 25th-27th 2007. We now present it here in its entirety, under a single permalink, for easier printing, emailing and archival purposes.

1. EGO...trip: "Punks pay dues/Not me, I pay attention"
2. WAK...Football games: 60 fps on 360, 30 fps on PS3
   
3. YOU...better work: fanboys play dress-up
   
4. OY!...Battlefield: Vietnam pops up in murder case
5. HMM...Blog ratings: Joystiq (G), Level Up (PG), Game|Life (PG-13), Dubious Quality (R), Jaffe's Game Design (NC-17)
   
6. RND...Old school to new: class is in session