I’m in a movie-mode these days – OBVIOUSLY. I was telling my Dad the other day that since I have just completed a big project (having to do with putting pen to paper, and huddling over my desk every morning) – I feel much relief with having it DONE (at least for now) – and so I feel entitled to some leisure time. I’m kind of a Puritan about that stuff. I need to “earn” the time to just kick back and chill. As long as I had the deadline hovering over my head, I felt guilty about … not focusing on it, I felt guilty about not sitting down to work.
Came across this very interesting article about the art of making a trailer for a film. It is considered an “art” to such a degree that they have awards for it: “Golden Trailer Awards”.
I feel rather vindicated because the preview for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is up for “best” trailer … and I called that one. I didn’t say it should be given an award, but I did say it should be studied in film school. In a class called: “How to Make a Good Trailer”. It is one of the best previews I’ve ever seen.
It created an expectation for the film. It also got you moving in your seat, with the music. It gave you snippets of imagery, it did not really tell you the plot, it told you very very little about the movie.
To my taste, once I saw the movie – the preview made even more sense.
We all know those previews that give everything away. You see the entire plot. “Well, no need to see that now!”
So obnoxious.
“Eternal Sunshine” went another way. It was like a music video, or a collage – with inexplicable images bombarding you … It made me think: I MUST see it.
And I did.
Again and again and again and again ….
My version of Casablanca has the original trailer for the film attached to it. It is SO melodramatic, and SO enjoyable to watch. Rick is described as “THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ON THE PLANET” … Er – he is?? But still, it creates a mood – an expectation of intrigue, romance, mystery.
Examples of good and bad movie-trailers, people? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Or: how about:
Great trailers which hid a terrible movie?
Or misleading trailers? I can recall the trailer to Wonder Boys which was a turn-off. I had read the book, loved it, and the trailer didn’t seem to have anything to do with that great book. Then, when I SAW the film, I realized: the studio (or whoever) did not trust their material. It is a relatively unclassifiable film, and so they tried to “position” it …The movie is GREAT. The trailer was confusing, tried to make it seem like a madcap comedy.
Trailer-talk. Let’s go.
One thing that comes to mind: The trailer for Troy was SPECTACULAR. At least, the earliest ones. Where all it was was the slow slow camera pull back showing the thousand ships in the blue sea. Stunning.
Apparently, the movie sucks, and I haven’t gone to see it. But that image was amazing.
I saw Troy this weekend and didn’t think it sucked, for what that’s worth.
That’s cool. That image in the preview was so amazing you could hear the whole audience reacting.
“Wow”, etc
“Troy” was middling. So good stuff in it, but about 45 minutes too long.
My friend from high school was in this weekend, he works out in Hollywood doing post-production stuff for Technicolor. We were sitting in a bar and every time a movie commercial came on he said, “oh yea, we cut that.”
I remember the trailer for “Reservoir Dogs” blowing me out of my seat. I wasn’t familiar with Tarantino as a director yet, and didn’t know what to expect. The opening looked almost like a comedy with happy bouncy music:
Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi: How about I be Mr. Purple?
Joe: No, You can’t be Mr. Purple.
Mr. Pink: Why not?
Joe: Someone on another job is Mr. Purple!
Mr. White (Harvey Keitel): Who cares what your name is?
Mr. Pink: Oh yeah that’s easy for you to say you’ve got a cool sounding name. How about we trade, OK? You’re Mr. Pink.
A few moments later, about 88,000 guns are being blasted across the screen by a variety of very desperate and violent men, with blood, gore and snappy one-liners mixed indiscriminately in an orgy or death and betrayal. It was totally unexpected and totally cool.
I don’t even remember what the feature was that followed. It didn’t matter.
How about bad trailers for bad movies? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Core. The premise is that the Earth’s core has stopped spinning, which is the cause of all sorts of disasters like lightening destroying to Colosseum. (Wha?) I’m sorry but trailers for a disaster movie should not cause gales of HOWLING laughter.
And just last week, I learned this movie is even worse than I’ve been lead to believe. VH1 did this show on disaster movies and The Core was one of the ones featured. During this show, I learned that the ship that drills down to the core is made from “Unobtainium.” (Huh?!) Also, at the end, when the ship is stranded at the bottom of the ocean after successfully saving the planet, friendly whales helpfully lead the Navy to the rescue. (Oooookay….) This movie has become so stupid, I now MUST see it.
“friendly whales help the Navy”???
Jesus. That sounds so stupid.
Wasn’t Reservoir Dogs Tarantino’s first? Nobody knew who he was then!! So exciting – I don’t remember the preview, but I remember watching the movie itself, thinking: “This. is. sheer. liquid. joy.”
I loved the LANGUAGE most of all. The SCRIPT seemed to be another character in the film. LIke it used to be in the good old days.
The “To Have and Have Not” days – (or whatever) – where the acting is really good, but you also cannot help but notice: “Damn, the WORDS they get to say!!”
I love Tarantino’s films for many reason – but I love him most of all for that reason.
At least it wasn’t dolphins. I think if dolphins saved the navy, it would make me puke.
God, I love the internet! I found the trailer for Reservoir Dogs online (linked to name). It is really THAT cool.
And your right, red, that was Tarantino’s directorial debut.
It’s kind of hard to remember good trailers, or in many cases judge them. Do I like a trailer because it’s well done, or is it just because I like the particular scenes shown in the trailer? There were a couple of trailers where they showed a scene that I thought was edited better in the trailer than the actual movie, but I can’t remember them offhand.
Anyway, remember this trailer?:
(Cars stuck in traffic)
“You know the accident up there?”
“Yeah?”
“The lady… she broke her neck.”
“Oh my god! Where is she?”
“Standing next to my window.”
You can see it here. And here’s a funny trailer for a different movie.
Ah yes. The Sixth Sense!! I do remember that moment in that trailer. It was … oddly terrifying …
Oh wow, look at this. I’ll probably be spending the rest of the day looking at these trailers.
The trailers that make me mad are the ones for comedies that are so bad, the trailer includes the only one or two funny parts from the entire movie.
I’d give examples but I see that although I used to be a HUGE movie buff, I haven’t seen a lot of the movies mentioned here over the past couple of days and I’m kinda too embarrassed to admit some of the movies I HAVE seen in recent years.
One thing though, I have a brand new list of movies to watch when the opportunity for me to do that comes up again.
Oh…and I guess some people liked this movie but “Gone in 60 Seconds” trailer was so dumb…soooooo dumb that I refused to watch the movie.
The trailer for “Soul Plane” doesn’t look very good, and it’s been inflicted on me three times already.
I remember the trailer for “Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo” and thought it was funny but that it probably contained all the funny bits in the film so there would be no reason to see the whole thing. But the movie itself has a real charm to it – Deuce is just so nice to all those social misfits. But the Tourettes Syndrome bit in the car is a scream… “no, you can hardly notice”.
I remember watching the trailer for Van Helsing and just thinking “Nuh-uh.”
Janeane Garofalo–who I’ve always had a little bit of a crush on, despite her politics–had a nice little riff on movie trailers. (I wonder how many trailer narrations really do start with “In a world…”).
Late to the discussion as usual, but I think that the trailer for Star Wars Episode 1 was fantastic. It showed the promise of a film that was everything you would want a new Star Wars film to be. Sadly the film didn’t at all live up to it.