Posts Tagged ‘Movie Marketing’
Just days after the full trailer for Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways slipped out across the web, here comes a music video showcasing Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart as members of the titular band - you can see it for yourself after the break. I don’t know if I’ll like this film or not, but I’m thinking the cult of celebrity will help turn it into a monster hit.
The song’s performance appears to be credited to Fanning, “featuring” Stewart and Sigismondi is credited as the director, but I’m not clear yet if that’s just because the whole thing is made up of footage from the movie.
For an audio comparison of Fanning’s performance with the original recording, I refer you back to a previous /Film story. I’ve embedded the higher-quality MTV premiere version of this video as well as a works-worldwide YouTube rip below.
We’ve been hearing for a while now that Disney executives are so excited about the upcoming sequel Tron: Legacy that they are planning to give it a big presence in the company’s theme parks. We’ve heard rumors of a Flynn’s Arcade in Tomorrowland, a revamp of the people movers and even a new Tron Legacy ride. These are just rumors, and I’m sure there might be more.
Disney Parks has revealed that the Monorail Trains are being skinned to advertise the new film. The art, as you can see in the above concept images, makes the mororail trains appear to be a lightcycle from the world of tron, complete with a trail of colored light. According to the report, the transformed trains will be visible on the Epcot monorail line as early as this month.
Lionsgate has released a bunch of new outdoor art/posters/banners for Matthew Vaughn’s big screen adaptation of Kick-Ass. Check out the digital images in high resolution after the jump.
New Official Synopsis:
“How come nobody’s ever tried to be a superhero?” When Dave Lizewski – ordinary New York teenager and rabid comic-book geek dons a green-and-yellow internet-bought wetsuit to become the no-nonsense vigilante, Kick-Ass, he soon finds an answer to his own question: because it hurts. But, overcoming all the odds, the eager yet inexperienced Dave quickly becomes a phenomenon, capturing the imagination of the public. However, he’s not the only superhero out there – the fearless and highly-trained father-daughter crime-fighting duo, Big Daddy and Hit-Girl have been slowly but surely taking down the criminal empire of local Mafioso, Frank D’Amico. And, as Kick-Ass gets drawn into their no-holds-barred world of bullets and bloodletting with Frank’s son, Chris, now reborn as Kick-Ass’s arch-nemesis, Red Mist - the stage is set for a final showdown between the forces of good and evil - in which the DIY hero will have to live up to his name. Or die trying… Directed by Matthew Vaughn, from a screenplay by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, and based on the comic written by Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr. Lionsgate and MARV present a MARV Films / Plan B production.
Lionsgate has released a bunch of new outdoor art/posters/banners for Matthew Vaughn’s big screen adaptation of Kick-Ass. Check out the digital images in high resolution after the jump.
New Official Synopsis:
“How come nobody’s ever tried to be a superhero?” When Dave Lizewski – ordinary New York teenager and rabid comic-book geek dons a green-and-yellow internet-bought wetsuit to become the no-nonsense vigilante, Kick-Ass, he soon finds an answer to his own question: because it hurts. But, overcoming all the odds, the eager yet inexperienced Dave quickly becomes a phenomenon, capturing the imagination of the public. However, he’s not the only superhero out there – the fearless and highly-trained father-daughter crime-fighting duo, Big Daddy and Hit-Girl have been slowly but surely taking down the criminal empire of local Mafioso, Frank D’Amico. And, as Kick-Ass gets drawn into their no-holds-barred world of bullets and bloodletting with Frank’s son, Chris, now reborn as Kick-Ass’s arch-nemesis, Red Mist - the stage is set for a final showdown between the forces of good and evil - in which the DIY hero will have to live up to his name. Or die trying… Directed by Matthew Vaughn, from a screenplay by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, and based on the comic written by Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr. Lionsgate and MARV present a MARV Films / Plan B production.
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
L’Immortel (22 Bullets) Trailer
I never really understood how pop stars that sing in English can be so revered in countries where English is not the primary language. Further, I am mystified at how these very same audiences sing back in perfect harmony. After watching this trailer, you see, I wouldn’t mind learning French.
You’ll have to excuse the fact I don’t speak the language of love, and you’ll further have to excuse the fact that this trailer isn’t translated, but this deserves a couple of minutes of your time, no question about it.
I mean, how can you not be at least giddy at the thought of Jean Reno and Luc Besson reuniting once more for a movie about hitmen, revenge, tender mercies of the heart, and violence of the bloodiest kind? I’ll answer that for you, you can’t feel anything less than hope.
The trailer opens with the most delicate soundtrack, a tune in the operatic vein that stands in stark contrast to the bloody bullets that sit in a metal pan. A mother and child lay in a bed. While I don’t know what’s being said, again, the contrast makes an impression on me. It’s all very serene and surreal.
It’s easy enough to infer what’s happening on the screen just by watching what’s being told through the pictures. Reno looks like he’s recovering from being riddled with gunfire while we also flash back to a simpler, quieter time of his life. What’s more is that even though I don’t speak French I do know enough that an interstitial that states this movie is “Inspire de faits reels” means that what we’ve got here is an inspired tale of realism and, for that, I love that Besson can’t get absolutely nutty with the story.
Wherever the truth lies I have to say it at least warrants hearing it out. How could you not be intrigued by a hitman who leaves killing behind, starts a new life, a few years later finding himself on the wrong end of a phalanx of bullets, and then living to tell about it? There is much talking going on in the middle of this thing which I obviously can’t infer, there is subtlety I wish I could understand, but all you need to know is that he had a kid, had a life, and had it all taken away at about the one minute, thirty second mark. It’s about here that we see a brilliant
Don McKay Trailer
This is a joke, right? A farce, perchance?
There is no way this could be anything else but a Tommy Wiseau inspired kind of film because the intended effect this trailer should have had, I believe, is supposed to make me think this is a sultry story of misdirection, misinformation, and the dark secrets we keep from one another.
Um, no.
I honestly don’t mean to be harsh but this trailer utterly fails to stoke the embers that a good, cerebral, Hitchcock-ian thriller ought to do. First time director/writer Jake Goldberger delivers on setting up a promising story but it simply collapses as every frame unfolds.
I sincerely love the beginning of this thing. I do. I was hoping to extol the thunderous powers of Thomas Haden Church, as he just has that presence about him, but as we see the twilight that’s falling on a sleepy hollow, him standing on a doorstop introducing himself, it’s the old sea hag who reiterates his name at the door (Melissa Leo) that just pushes this trailer in a downward direction, waterboarding it completely.
From the way it opens, I was hoping this was a story about a guy who has come back to slaughter a small family in a murderous rage, a prisoner who has come back to kill! Instead, I get Elizabeth Shue. Writhing, no less, on a bed in a negligee, asking whether he got her letter? Whaaa? What letter? Why are you twisting around in your underthings like that? It looks like these two were old boyfriend/girlfriend from high school but it’s all very weird in the way its executed.
In what sums up the oddity that is this trailer, at one point Church is standing behind Shue and he tells her, in a lecherous strangler voice, how beautiful she is…as she curls her hair. Then you get Leo putting on this affect of some strange school marm as she talks and it all comes off as trite.
Further, Shue can’t seem to be clothed in anything less than the back catalog of Fredrick’s of Hollywood and, in a pièce de résistance, you’ve just got to watch as Church says the line, “You’re lying to me.” Dare I say it tops, “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” but I honestly think it does.
I don’t care about this movie as not only does this trailer completely give away his hand, ensuring I really only need to watch the last ½ hour of it, but it just doesn’t inspire confidence or clarity. Pass.
A Film With Me In It Trailer
This is a classic example of when seemingly interesting movies get saddled with poor trailers.
What I enjoy most of director Ian Fitzgibbon’s, who is also bringing us this year’s Perrier’s Bounty, telling of a tale of a guy who just happens to be in the proximity of three people who randomly all die around him is the way the trailer just flows. I realize that it’s a lot to take in with a plot as complex as this as you watch it but the trailer paces itself appropriately and it comes off very, very funny.
The angles used, the shots that sort of linger on the decedents as the confusion and consternation grows within our protagonist Mark (played by writer of the film, Mark Doherty) and the comedic relief in his buddy Pierce (Dylan Moran) who does a smash up job laying out everything that we’re thinking and plays the fool to his role as serious straight man.; the two of them click in the grand tradition of comedic teams like Pegg/Frost. To wit, we see a chandelier fall on a guy, we see a man get a tool stuck in his jugular as he bleeds out on the kitchen floor, and a woman who eats it after falling on a sharp object on her way down from fainting at the sight of a dead man under a chandelier.
It’s all very amusing in how quick we get to this point, and how this trailer just zooms along in establishing the problem our heroes face, but the one and awful issue I have to take contention with is the wretched guitar music driving it all. Was there no one who could hear that what we are seeing on the screen doesn’t necessarily match up with the generic, stock a-chords wailing in the background? It’s obvious there wasn’t and the trailer merely ends with a whimper as it should have been energizing because of the restraint shown in keeping things vague to the viewer.
Overall, by the end of this I know generally what’s happening but it’s not really clear what is going to occur when people find out about these deaths. I think I could have been more excited for a movie that at least looks like it could be a rather funny yarn but, instead, I’m just thankful when it ends.
Salvage Trailer
I’ll state that this looks like genuine fun.
Not only does this trailer hit the right notes with what you ought to do in order to generate some interest in your movie but it tantalizes you with with its opaqueness, not revealing anything that might reveal too much, and has you guessing throughout its running time. That’s also its greatest strength: you have to keep watching to try and mentally put together a puzzle that seems to be right there in front of you.
Is this a zombie movie? Is this a Red Dawn kind of film? How can you have zombies in a Red Dawn kind of film? All these kinds of questions bubble up but it shows a complete sense of restraint on the filmmakers’ part in not just spilling everything in order to generate buzz and for that I am impressed.
How this trailer accomplishes greatness really is attributed to the first 25 seconds. It’s a microcosm, really, of how it ought to be done for all films where confusion and disorientation are at the crux for a film’s plot. Writer/director Lawrence Gough should be proud for slapping the wrist of any money man who wanted desperately for him to reveal what was going on.
You have a good score that instantly makes you feel on edge, uncomfortable; you have no voiceover, no interstitial, to spoon feed your mind about what you’re going to see; quotes from people who have seen it and liked it thoroughly; and just a hint, a smidge, of the plot. These four things at the outset of a trailer will work every single time in order to get people to stick with the trailer long enough to get you through the next 25 seconds and it does so with this trailer fantastically.
The next 25 are filled with guys armed with machine guns who are breaking down doors, people who are getting shot, bloody hands smearing across glass, women freaking out everywhere, and I have not one iota of insight into what’s ultimately happening here. I think it has more to do with an assault of a small community that anything else but since everyone is covered in gore I could care less. I’m in.
This trailer paints this as a movie that moves quick, has some good production values, and at least has the pull-quotes in order to stick it squarely on my radar as a movie I’d like to more about. Successful trailer any which way you look at it.
How I Ended This Summer
What I appreciate about this trailer is how it eases you into its world.
There is nothing wrong with being launched from a supine position straight into the air at a 100 miles an hour as you get detail after detail about what a movie is about but this one wants to put your slippers on, put a hand under your elbow, and assist you out of bed gently.
Director/writer Aleksei Popogrebsky evokes a sense of isolation and bareness with the opening shot of this trailer which, no doubt, will prove to be a theme explored later on as who shows a desolate land only to have a movie filled with cherubs and BJs.
Oddly, the tone is upbeat when we meet our headphone festooned interloper, star of the film, who is spending some time with the men who man a station that seems to track and report on weather patterns. Who knows what they report on but the mood is jaunty as we watch this guy milling around the site just exploring the area and kicking back. Somehow he messes with the natural order of things and really changes the mood.
The kid is smacked around a little bit and the whole trailer just devolves into a series of quick cuts. Cuts that don’t explain why the leader of these guys just has a mental collapse but his meltdown is my enjoyment because the way things are communicated in the last third of this trailer it compels you to watch. You don’t know what is going to happen, whether there will be a wholesale slaughter of everyone, and you sure don’t know how this kid is going to escape a madman who’s armed and ready to mow down a few people.
In all, this is a thrilling trailer that tantalizes you with the promise for something wicked and even gives you a little something to show you a load of seriousness is about to be delivered to the middle of nowhere.
In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week:
Editor’s Note: Disney has released a new photo from the upcoming movie trailer (above, click to enlarge), which will be attached to Alice in Wonderland in theaters on Friday, and will debut online probably sometime next week.
The mousemaniacs at Blue Sky Disney have filed a report on the studio’s apparent plans for Tron, Tron and more Tron. This might fan spirits after the weekend’s “special event” saw unreasonable efforts rewarded with just a few minutes of material.
Disney’s biggest projects would be a third and even fourth movie, which Blue Sky describe as being part of a new trilogy of films “that start with the word Tron and end somewhere else… Legacy is only the beginning. Further to this, there’s talk of a computer animated TV series that will hit screens ”by late 2011/early 2012″ and hopefully keep interest levels high between big screen outings. The other spin-offs would be Tron rides and events at Disney themeparks, ranging from a fully fledged ‘experience’ a few years down the line, to more modest, and easily implemented retrofitting, such as a Flynn’s makeover for the arcade unit adjacent to Space Mountain.
As long as I can get the original film on Blu-ray before too long, I won’t be complaining.
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
American Grindhouse Trailer
A good documentary ought to be a blend of information and context with all the proper elements of good filmmaking. A trailer for a documentary, by default, ought to show whether there is something worth being educated about and whether you could be properly entertained by its message.
This trailer makes me wish I would’ve taken a class in Exploitation Cinema.
I am thrilled by the beats this takes right from the opening in that it deals with the subject matter from a proper baseline. It doesn’t care that some guy watching this knows all about Truffaut’s influence or what soviet bloc country put out the greatest minimalist, post-op tranny dramas in the late 60’s. The trailer just gives everyone a common starting point and, for that, I appreciate the quick lesson in what we’re about to see.
Watching the file footage of New York’s 42nd Street, lined with cinema after cinema, you get the vibe of the era in the 70’s. Interviews with guys like Joe Dante (his story pretty much sums it all up) and William Lustig buttress interview snippets from a whip smart film historian like Eric Schaefer. But, what’s more, I was intrigued by the explanation of the gradient difference between grindhouse and exploitation film. I didn’t know such a dichotomy existed but this trailer just establishes parameter upon parameter, without you even realizing, that what’s happening is they’re defining the boundaries of what’s going to be explored.
Great praise and exultation should be heaped on the trailer at about the two-minute, thirty second mark where all these elements of exploitation and grindhouse coalesce into a visual and auditory barrage of clips from this time. It goes on for a while in this regard and it’s brilliant. You get these small glimpses into the films that defined an age that not many who’ve spent time outside of a screening room who’ve consumed these works can fully appreciate.
Without question, this is one of the most anticipated documentaries I want to see this year. Director Elijah Drenner seems to have created a film that is not only going to be filled with teachable moment but looks like a wild ride to the dark side.
Cargo Trailer
A little Aliens, a little Sunshine, a little Hunt for Red October, and mix vigorously.
I like high concept films that want to push their ideas out as far as they can. Whether or not this actually results in something enjoyable remains to be seen but it is interesting, nonetheless, when the trailer jumps right out of the gate with information and not superfluous padding.
Right away we figure out that we’re following someone who applied for a job to spend eight years in space as a medic. Alone with six other people who seem to have an extreme sense of shift work, these people slog away for eight and a half months alone. Another observation: what is up with the dark conditions? Seriously, can no one afford fluorescent lighting in space films? I get it, you’re creating a mood but, come on, fire up a torch or two, would you please?
What this is all about, how these people are in suspended animation for long stretches, is kind of irrelevant because it seems like it’s going for something more dramatic. All textured to evoke a sense of mood and style that is not your typical sci-fi, the trailer does a great job in setting up what triggers the waking up of everyone in the ship so that they’re all huddled together. But it does feel like we’ve been here before.
It’s classic stranger on a (insert vessel) but there’s always room to push the genre and this looks like it does try and do just that. I mean, yes, all the common tropes for what makes these so much fun at the movies is on display here but while the idea isn’t fresh I do like that the use of confined space and a heightened sense of tension that this trailer communicates.
The last third of this trailer gives us the usual things you want to have with a movie that looks like it will have more twists and turns than a Shining garden maze: weaponry, yelling, fighting, screaming, close-ups, string instruments that slowly crescendo to nothing but quiet.
Cue a soft voice, speaking in hushed tones.
I mean , you can’t fault someone for making a trailer that does as well as can be expected for a genre movie like this. As it stands, I want to see this movie simply based on what I saw; not only do I not know what is happening, mind you, but I also don’t have a clue which people are going to be done for by the end of it. A little lack of information goes a long way with me.
Perrier’s Bounty Trailer
I’m not the only one who really enjoyed Intermission, right?
I realize no one really talks about it in retrospect as being anything special but I was a fan of the talent and of the story that it told. Kind of like a little girl who sees a pony under the tree on Christmas morning, I have to admit I was delighted to see that here was a movie that was written by the guy who penned that film, and starring some of the biggest names from the Emerald Isle.
The trailer, graciously, doesn’t dally a moment with its opening. There is no fumfering around, no wastes of anyone’s time. Cillian Murphy owes money to a gangster and has four hours to come up with a grand. That’s it. End of story. All that in under twenty seconds, too. Not only does this help understand what’s going on but it hits the right beats with introducing us to Murphy, his pretty neighbor who offers to help him out with this debt, and the two henchmen representing the gangster who look like unintended comedic relief. And they are funny.
I’ll also have to admit being utterly delighted upon seeing Brendan Gleeson pop up on the screen; say what you will about Colin Farrell but Gleeson helped make In Bruges such a good comedic romp. I lit up at the sight of Jim Broadbent slithering on the screen as Murphy’s crazy, disheveled old dad who believes that the next time he falls asleep he’ll die. He has a few moments in this trailer that show he knows what kind of role this ought to be and he’s playing it for all it’s worth. Pack on the moment when Gleeson declares a bounty on Murphy’s head and you pretty much guess where things are going to go after that. A cavalcade of oddballs who are no doubt going to be in the hunt for the guy all come out of the woodwork. It’s a little old hat but this looks like it has the promise of being something good.
The remaining third of the trailer does a solid job in doing what it ought to do: throw up a fistfuls of quick clips that have no context whatsoever.
We do get an insight into the snappy character of Gleeson who very well may match Brick Top from Snatch for sly witticisms while also possessing a furious sense of power. The end result for all of this is a movie that looks like it will be a fast paced film that will hopefully take us all over Dublin with strong performances all around if this trailer is any indication.
Give Me Your Hand Trailer
Now this is an interesting trailer.
Filled with a little bit of strangeness coupled with a storyline which defies normal standards with regards to the conventions of what a “road trip” movie is supposed to be, I am befuddled to try and wrap my head around what I think this movie actually is or is not. It’s just flat out weird.
I mean, we’ve got two brothers, twins, traversing the countryside. The soundtrack is just clutch, any way you slice it; a jaunty Parisian number with a little bit of jazz smokiness, as we try and understand why these two men are hitchhiking. I think they’re deaf mutes because none of these boys can utter a word yet one manages to pull a little bit of side action and impress a lady on this journey of discovery. How he does this is beyond my ken but the graphic imagery we get tossed in our faces just make you realize how open other countries are about nudity in general as this girl and dude just start pounding.
The twins seem to hate one another with no plans of being nice to one another. I mean, they don’t seem to be very in love with each other’s company as they look like miserable twits on a journey to nowhere. At one point they start beating on one another and I am screaming out in anguish, wanting to know what in the world is their problem.
I think one has a thing for guys, much to the disappointment of the other brother, and I believe this raises some concerns, perhaps, about the nature vs. nurture argument with regard to homosexuality. The other brother even pulls a prank on the other one, offering his brother’s backside to a stranger who thinks he’s in for a quick bathroom stall hump.
Overall, I’m confused, disoriented, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing when you consider that they’ve managed to reveal not one, simple plot detail.
A Somewhat Gentle Man Trailer
How would you feel about a trailer with Stellan Skarsgard, master of the morose, cut to a soundtrack with a beat so peppy you swear you could dance to it? If it’s nothing less than excitement you’re just not right.
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for the man to even crack a smile in films, lest his face crack from the hard set marble it seems to be made out of, but this trailer was all kinds of funny in ways that translate quite well. Who knew Stellan could be such a nutty guy?
I appreciate very much that (and this is brilliant) we don’t go backwards to find out why Stellan is fresh out of the joint at the beginning of this thing. No narration lets us know why he was there or the circumstances surrounding his release. Instead, we get him standing in a diner, wondering why no one came to pick him up when he was let out. The way the camera is set up, and the way Stellan’s approach to playing this man who seems to have learned whatever lesson prison was supposed to teach him comes across, the mood is set perfectly. This looks like a trailer filled with rubes and characters of the silliest type but it works.
What’s more is that the story just goes forward, either you’re with it or against it, forsaking any oportunity to put into context what “score” needs settling as Stellan seems to be a heavy of some kind. It never says why he is sitting in a hotel room with a little person showcasing a bevy of guns but, at the minute mark, the funniest line of the trailer is said and it kills.
It’s all a rush and a blur from here.
We see Stellan try and get back in touch with his son, who knows how long they’ve been separated, see him pull the Kingpin trick in order to knock a few kronor off his monthly nut (literally), albeit in a much more graphic fashion, and watch as he gets back into the trouble that no doubt sent him to prison in the first place. The subplot of him wooing a lass from his workplace is a nice touch.
Now, are there any readers out there who can place this film within director’s Hans Petter Moland oeuvre as something he’s always done or this is a new direction from a director who looks worthy enough to go pillaging his back catalog? As far as I’m concerned, this guy had me laughing through the whole thing.
In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week:
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
When You’re Strange Trailer
Bruce McCulloch of The Kids in the Hall did a sketch about The Doors that really put things in perspective to me as a listener of the band. I was a listener, sure, but I don’t think I understood. It was a comedic goof on the fanaticism surrounding the band but, as with a lot of comedy that works, it had some truth to it.
Sometimes it takes a different interpretation to flesh out a subject when you’re talking documentaries and I think this trailer shows you an angle you never considered if you were a casual fan like I am. Take I Am Going To Break Your Heart, the Wilco documentary by Sam Jones. It was a documentary that contextualized the band’s musical process but it also gave the group some distance by playing through some of the musical numbers. It stands, in my mind, as one of the most solid musical documentaries and raised the bar for how others use the documentary medium to tell a musical tale.
Enter this trailer into the fray.
Director Tom DiCillo gave us the Brad Pitt epic Johnny Suede, the genuinely good film Living In Oblivion starring Steve Buscemi, and, now, curiously, a film that looks to take a direct look at The Doors. Yes, Oliver Stone gave us Val Kilmer’s best performance on film, second only to Real Genius, but watching Jim Morrison walking slowly on the horizon with Johnny Depp narrating in the background with the fuzz of a guitar playing threateningly underneath it all? Electrifying.
Flash from Morrison walking on an open road to flipping out inside a car. The music rages as we move on. Morrison philosophizes on the nature of stardom, his face looking serene and delicate, before we see him just flopping on the ground in front of thousands. The era of rock was now and Morrison is the center of the attention. From news footage of some fuddy-duddy declaring war against Morrison to Jim getting arrested, there is electricity surrounding this band’s acceptance that comes across. To put it another way, there doesn’t seem to be another band today that could both fuel the ire of law enforcement but be so beloved by thousands. (Insane Clown Posse come close, though, so my apologies to Juggalos everywhere)
The last third of this trailer does exactly what it should and that’s to showcase the music. From the performances, to their antics off stage, to the blizzard of fandom that followed, the scenes cut together with the music just works wonderfully. I was only a marginal fan before seeing this trailer but, like great trailers are able to do, watching this engenders excitement to see if this will tell a well-rounded tale that will leave people with a better understanding of a man who burned out too soon.
EV Trailer
There is a lot to be mined with regard to figuring out how reality television is changing our media landscape.
From a show about chubby people crying and letting their man boobs flop wildly for our amusement, to a program based on a guy where he can road test handfuls of women as we look on in amazement by the mentally shallow women who couldn’t care less, there seems to be an endless pocket of virtual oil, reality television programming, to be pumped out for every major network. For first time filmmakers Alper Ozyurtlu and Caner Özyurtlu there seems to be something that’s invading the zeitgeist of many countries, namely Turkey, where these gents are from which has spawned this film.
The concept is obviously novel if not timely: a gunman storms a house being used for a reality competition and holds everyone inside of it hostage for all the world to see and witness. But the trailer also does a superb job in laying the foundation quick and ramping up the fear factor almost immediately.
It’s the opening sequence that really hooked my attention. You have a reporter asking the latest reject tossed out of a house, a la Big Brother, the superficiality of it all captured perfectly, before a shot rings out. It gets exciting quite fast as people fan out, the gunman walking into the home where our reality stars reside. The guy storms the house with his gun, the editing on this trailer mimicking the confusion and chaos on the screen with solid synchronicity, and this is where the trailer excels even more.
Unless you’re one of those people who are part of the hoi polloi and twist your nose up at even familiarizing yourself with a show like Big Brother, we’ve all seen how the cameras are set up. Remote cameras from dozens of vantage points on a swivel capture everything that’s happening in the home 24/7. I think that’s the draw here in that we have a movie that will use the uninspired, utilitarian camera movements to not only mimic the reality experience but will push our expectations of movies where the words “found footage” accompanies any movie’s description where it’s supposed to have the affect of real life.
The tail end of this trailer just explodes with a hushed violence as the guy who will be our hostage taker for the evening has a deranged, yet completely believable, sensibility about him. This is the real marriage of good editing and releasing only a modicum of information with regard to how the film’s narrative will go that make this trailer sensational.
(Thanks to Quiet Earth who had the exclusive on this trailer)
4 3 2 1 Trailer
Funny thing, talking about the effect of Kidulthood with British film goers last week. I asked about its effects in the UK and whether it could make a film like Shank more marketable or if it was like an albatross around its neck, a surefire indicator of its terribleness. This week I find a movie co-directed and written by the guy who wrote Kidulthood. Again, is this like realizing Adam Shankman is directing the next Batman installment?
I am sure there will be one nerdish gasp at the admission I haven’t ever watched the new Doctor Who series (I never watched the old series, either) but it looks like an actor, writer, director for Adulthood, Kidulthood and Who, Noel Clarke, is your modern day renaissance man with the way he can jump from behind the lens to in front of it. Mark Davis, a man who seems to also enjoy performing multiple roles in film production, shares directorial duty with Noel for a movie that feels utterly vibrant and full of life.
Sometimes you can’t help but endear yourself to certain film scenes and James Spader’s opening moment in the trailer for 2 Days in the Valley, in which he holds up a stopwatch to someone’s face as he dons rubber gloves, is one I won’t forget. Its immediacy was thrilling and that’s what I feel when this trailer begins. Much like the trailer for 2 Days (I can’t even remember if I liked the film), this begins with a countdown with no background, no plot information, no narrative structure.
I love it.
A fair, young lass is the one thing we focus on as we begin, looking straight at her as she stares into the camera saying that “you” are about to die. The stopwatch on the screen gives us thirty big seconds. The countdown is interesting as this gives the trailer maker the opportunity to throw in anything he damn well pleases to make this trailer sizzle. And I have to give him credit, because it does. Behind a subtle techno beat, people are running for their lives, samurai swords are being unsheathed, the same pretty lady from the opening now brandishes a gun, people are getting shoved, cars are squealing out of control, the movie’s title slowly wipes across the screen, and we get an amusing, if not old and busted, comment to end the sequence of shots.
The direction feels frenetic, the shots are really well lit, the colors just pop off the screen, and I feel genuinely excited by the end of this thing while also cursing my fate, being stuck all the way across the pond, unable to see pretty girls donning weaponry.
The Exploding Girl Trailer
You ever watch something that just makes you think that what you’re witnessing feels like a window into someone’s life?
This trailer evokes a feeling of tenderness, or at least ought to, as you watch two young folks who obviously like one another as friends. It should, if all movies like this go in the direction it usually does, follow that the two of them end up coming together. This all, honestly, sounds like a film we’ve seen before but, I don’t know, there is something here I found endearing. Director/writer Bradley Rust Gray ought to give a high five to whomever created this trailer because its opening just hits the right beats both tonally and musically.
A killer bass line plays just beneath the action on the screen which is, essentially, a girl picking up a guy she knows from someplace far away and you can tell they’re close. The relationship isn’t defined but the direction and cinematography push any confusion aside because it feels rather intimate.
There is nice shout out to this movie making the Berlin Film Festival (always get those kudos in early, people) as well as the praise that goes to Zoe Kazan for being named Best Actress at the Tribeca Film Festival. Zoe shines as a girl who seems aloof, yet vulnerable, as she navigates the relationship she has with her good buddy Al (Mark Rendall), a guy who seems to only think of her as a friend. The clutch thing about this trailer is that it doesn’t overplay its hand. Both sides seem like they could go either way with defining whether they are or aren’t boyfriend/girlfriend material.
It’s brilliant, actually. It just feels like a real relationship fraught with the weirdness that comes with understanding who you love and who you could love a little more.
The little details of showing her frumpiness, of some slight perspiration on her face in a scene or two, the way she talks, just astounds me with how vivid and real this trailer makes her look. Again, it’s like we’re peeking in on someone who we’ve all known growing up but now we seem to have a chance to just linger on her for a little while and drink it all in.
9 to 5: Days In Porn Trailer
I’m giving you kids a two-fer.
Last week it was Serbian Film, this week it’s about porn. And what would a trailer on the sex industry be without a little nudity? I don’t know why it’s a subject that has so long been maligned by the uptight citizens brigade that wants to bring morality to a land where free speech can takes all kinds of forms. but I’m hopeful for a documentary that can help break it all down. As well, since I’m not a prude and am not hung up on other people’s proclivities in the bedroom this kind of trailer fascinates me in a way.
However, it doesn’t help that this thing starts off with the kind of guy your mind’s eye immediately assumes loves porno: a little chubby, unshaven, slightly skeevy guy, oozing the kind of uneasiness usually reserved for those who snatch purses in movies. He makes an excellent point about the kind of money that’s involved with this profession and before we can reflect on his comments we are introduced to the players in this picture. Now, what really sets this trailer apart is that we do get a wide spectrum of people who this profession touches and we also get a feel for the culture that surrounds it.
I love the hard rocking attitude this puts out, the music is perfectly matched to what’s happening on the screen, and everything that pads the middle starts to lay the foundation that what we’re seeing really is a job for these people. It’s a job, if you can believe the voices of one of the people in this thing, that it seeps into their personal lives. What’s more is the toll that’s collected by those in this machine called pornography; the cost being, of course, the loss of normalcy in a business that is anything but. The level of earnestness and candor the performers and people who are in this kind of work is refreshing if not eye-opening when you consider what’s being done in front of the camera.
What’s amusing is that as we head towards the end of this trailer, after seeing people have various objects inserted in them, seeing women put in positions I didn’t think was physiologically possible, and at one point seeing a woman with a plastic dog cone wrapped around her head, we get Dr. Sharon Mitchell. Here’s a doctor who I’ve seen various times when commenting on the health issues of those working in porn and who is genuinely funny when she laughs out the line that there seems to be nothing else new you can have people do on camera that we all haven’t seen before.
Will this documentary talk about the proliferation of amateurs who are eating into the market share of big business porn outlets? Will it talk about how the industry will continue to evolve technology as it has over the years? I kind of hope it does as I think you can have a documentary on porn that is earnest in its quest to break down this industry without it devolving into something seedy.
In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week:
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
Some Days are Better than Others (trailer) from matt mccormick on Vimeo.
Some Days Are Better Than Others Trailer
Some mornings as I trudge into work, walking that Trail of Tears from the parking garage into the office, I wonder if it would help my day if someone were to take a pillow case full of a quarters and barrel it into the small of my back. I mean, everything to happen after that should be glorious if you were to front-load your day’s misery and, if it were to happen to random people walking into work, it would recalibrate everyone’s idea of what a bad day really is.
Not one of my more popular ideas that I floated during company meetings.
To watch a trailer like this you really do have to be in the right frame of mind of what a painful existence can be like. I think it would be easy to dismiss this as an exercise in whining. It’d be real easy, in fact. However, something happened when I watched this all the way through and I think it’s because it got the idea of misery and sadness telegraphed just right. This minute, thirty-five second trailer is cut well as writer/director Matt McCormick‘s pedigree in music video directing eeks through the details. Oddly enough, these video artists have a knack for knowing how to get maximum pop in these small bursts of time. Looking at (500) Days of Summer’s Marc Webb and the amount of success he had last year is reason enough to give the benefit of the doubt that music video directing is a solid proving ground for something longer.
Staying away from the film’s description, I just let the trailer play. Right away, and notably, we get Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein and James Mercer from The Shins taking the lead here and I think it’s a curious choice. I wasn’t sure what to expect but the opening sequence assuages any concerns about using rock stars as leads in your film.
Brownstein kicks it off with a near teary breakdown as she tries to navigate the nature of heartbreak. It borders on the maudlin, almost syrupy with the crocodile tears but it still works. Smash cut to a wet car, overlooking a beach and some surf. The scene is framed so well, and scored so minimally, that it’s hard not to be wowed by the moment.
Further into the trailer a sad old man talks about the loss of two women in his life. He’s just as bad as Carrie with the moroseness in his voice but it’s the story that’s pulling me in like some hankie tractor beam. The music is assaulting because it fits like a glass slipper around this whole thing; it’s perfectly chosen and, when the characters talk, it blends seamlessly into the background.
Mercer opens his yap as he talks about a feeling lasting forever but it doesn’t take a pack of rocket scientists to get what he’s selling. I’m already there, desperate to see how things turn out, because if this is going to be a movie about plodding through painful times in your life you only have two options: be a Debbie Downer of a movie that only pretentious art majors will want to see or craft something that might be inspiring to those who want a reason to believe that life can go on after something shatters your emotional insides.
Serbian Film Trailer
At the outset, please let it be known that you should not watch this if you happen to work for anyone other than Playboy, Hustler, Oui, Vivid Entertainment, Barely Legal, NAMBLA, the KKK, Buzz’ Porn Emporium, Barely Legal, drug dealers, meth addicts or in the business of kidnapping poor women for the international sex trade. Without question, this trailer is not safe for anyone’s place of business.
With that out of the way, let me say this is a fascinating trailer. One of the best trailers I’ve seen in a quite a while, in fact. And it’s not just because of the copious amounts of skin but, rather, it’s the content that keeps you wondering what it is you’re watching and what it, ultimately, all means.
When we meet the protagonist Milosh, the guy seems normal. Wife, kid, nice house, nice life, you wonder what in the world could make him seem interesting. Then we get a shot of him rhythmically pounding something (in the nude?) with blood on his face, his hand wielding a weapon of some kind like a latter-day Spartan who is engaged in a furious sexual battle with who knows what.
Downshift to him taking a leisurely jog like nothing’s wrong and, surprise, it’s mentioned that he’s a retired porn star. As if to provide some kind of wacky dichotomy we get the guy’s young kid doing voiceover duty while we see samples of said porn on the screen and, to make this an even more uncomfortable moment, the kid is talking about how he felt when he saw the skin vids themselves. I don’t know whether to keep enjoying or wonder whether Interpol is now monitoring my Internet usage after looking behind both my shoulders. Honestly, I was made a little uncomfortable.
Now, before you have the chance to think that this may be a movie where the old porn star starts to have second thoughts about his past indiscretions, and what it means to have this guy thinking to get back in, possibly in order to make ends meet, we’re told he’s in financial dire straits. The guy gets back into the biz of throwing around his money maker but the twist is that this isn’t your ordinary porno. Something truly bizarre is afoot and we, not even he, are let in on it when he makes it to the set.
In the most classic senses of the phrase, the proverbial wheels come off this thing. After being drugged and slapped around and drugged some more the production feels like an Aronofsky nightmare. Nude women in various states of duress pepper the screen, we see this guy’s crank at one point, and we see some of the most depraved imagery ever to be put in a trailer. I mean, when was the last time you saw a birth of a child and had it associated with a masochistic, ritualistic sexual encounter? None, I guarantee it.
Somehow, I think, the wife and kid get involved, our father/porn king pees blood at one point; the music devolves into Trent Reznor techno babble; our protagonist is shown ready to thrust a huge pig sticker into someone; we certainly see dad squeeze off a few shots from a gun; and there is no way I could tell you how this ends or what direction we’re headed with this narrative. Director/co-writer Srdjan Spasojevic has made a trailer for a film that both shocks and thrills me. Kudos to him.
Love In A Puff Trailer
I’ve never had much love for those who get to sneak away from their work in order to indulge, satisfy their drug habit multiple times during the day. Since I have nothing but contempt for these people it amazes me that I have such a strong, positive feeling towards a film that has smoking at its epicenter.
I may not know filmmaker Pang Ho-Cheung’s previous works but this trailer works for me in that it seems like it is a small film about two people who each share an interesting quirk. Not only that, and I have no idea how far our Stalinist government now goes in regulating the quantity of smoke you can have in an advert, there is at least a metric ton of billowing smoke oozing out of these people’s mouths.
Taking a page, ripped from the headlines, out of their pop culture, out of their news we get introduced to Hong Kong’s stance on smoking. They may be half a world away but in quick fashion we get the government’s stance on what they think of the cancer causing pastime. It communicates so much without saying anything. I get it.
Next, we are introduced to our boy and girl. Somehow they immediately click for me as there appears to be a mutual attraction between the two of them.
The music is joyous in a Parisian way, very light and lilting to the ear with music I half expect to be playing if I were to be eating a warm croissant and butter, as these two enter into what looks like a genteel relationship. The trailer then goes into a slow, delicious burn. The philosophical implications that the subtitles throw up about the girl (“She inhales not smoke but solitude”) and the boy (“He exhales not smoke but romance”) are endearing but don’t ever feel too arty.
It’s playful to see these kids romance one another, the camera work feels organic and not rigid, there’s even a nod to American Beauty’s floating bag moment that I feel absolutely encapsulates what kind of movie this is. There are no high-arching metaphysical conceits here, just two people who are coming together thanks to their addiction to nicotine. It certainly made this softie a little squishy on the inside.
Prince Trailer
Is it possible to be in awe, to gaze longingly at some lady bits, to have a good laugh, and be left with the sense you had no idea what you just saw? This trailer will make you do all of the above and it couldn’t be more welcomed as this trailer has a lot of heart.
Bollywood filmmaker Kookie V. Gulati, according to IMDB, hasn’t had any directorial features attached to his name before this one and I think it shows. It’s not a bad thing, per se, to have your first film be an action movie spectacle that incorporates a lot of what the movie going public has already experienced through movies like The Matrix and Crank but, and I would mount a defense in support of this theory, the guy has put his influences in a blender and mixed in some bikinis, bullets, and that undeniable swagger of a Bollywood production in order to make a movie that shows off what he’s learned from these movies. This trailer really is interesting to watch, no question about it.
You can’t get three seconds into this trailer without recognizing the auditory fingerprint of the wood instrument a lot of us who grew up on Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme films could pick out even if we were deaf. Smash cut. A guy base jumps from a tall building, clad in his super undercover brother garb, natch. Cut to him executing a sweeping leg kick in slow mo, cut to him feeling a building to a waiting helicopter, a la The Matrix, where bullets are nicking the water’s surface. Smash cut. This guy tarries in entering a car long enough on one of the emptiest streets I’ve ever seen in my life to take on a pack of guys all at once with some of the most awkwardly placed bullet time camera work I’ve ever witnessed on film.
The reason why I love this trailer is that it feels different than a wholesale rip-off. There are moments of this guy crashing through glass of a high office building, of him taking on armies of men all at once, of him flashing the high cheekbone Blue Steele in almost every shot, of him getting the girl. We find out that the guy only has six days to live, possibly from a parasite of some kind, who knows, and this is the day he dies (the convenience of it all!) but I don’t know why I can’t be harsher on this than I should.
Maybe it’s the music that makes me want to get up and dance, or the heart that I feel coming through, but from my perspective this looks like a great time that could be popped in the DVD player and enjoyed for what it is. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to blend all the action tropes from the past decade into one film. I think this one could show you.
Shank Trailer
I need to know from the UK readers whether someone hanging their hat on a movie like Kidulthood is something that helps or whether it hinders. This is director Simon Pearce’s first film so it stands to reason if one has anything to do with the other.
To me, I could care less if the distributor’s last film was Freddie Got Fingered but this movie feels like it could be something more than your usual teenage fare. In the U.S. we have Save The Last Dance, Fighting, Cradle 2 the Grave or any number of films that try and get to that young teen, young adult demo. This, however, feels a little more mature, a little more reckless, thrilling even and it’s something you don’t see a lot of in the theaters.
When we open up on a scene with a guy free running through the back alleys of a city street, trying to avoid being clipped by a maniac on a motorcycle (isn’t that always the way), we get that this is supposed to be London, 2015. It would be easy to start knocking this trailer for a lame premise but the editing is solid, as well as the musical selection. These two blend well with each other as we get to the emotional core of this story which seems to be two brothers who lean on one another to stay safe in this reckless, dystopian vision of the future. Well, things don’t go too well. The big brother gets shanked, imagine that, as the younger brother is pushed to some breaking point where he’s ready to throw down.
The music picks up, and the editing gets faster and more furious with the zigs and zags we take, but the tempo couldn’t be better suited to match the fury of this kid who wants revenge on those who killed his brother. The trailer genuinely engenders a feeling of excitement and interest as every little moment of this movie seems to build on the one that came before it. You feel like there is some real honest violence about to go down, you can feel the rhythms of the club where our boy is probably going to get his rocks off, and you should feel uneasy as you see all kinds of people swinging fists in what could be one of the more visceral teen movies to come out in quite some time.
Honestly, if you were to tell a producer or a director to make a contemporary Warriors-like movie, replete with gangs of nutballs who all identify with some crazy visual detail, this likes like the film that would come out the other end.
In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week:
Back in November, we told you that Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo would be reprising their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold from the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, but not for another big screen sequel (not yet, at least…). The Griswolds reunited instead for an advertising campaign for HomeAway launched during the 2010 Super Bowl. The television spot advertised a new Vacation “mini-movie” titled Hotel Hell Vacation, featuring Chase, D’Angelo, and an exact replica of the film’s iconic Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Here is the official plot synopsis:
Ride along as The Griswolds hit the road again. This time theyre on their way to see Rusty at his vacation rental. They stop at a hotel and typical Griswold madness ensues.
The 14 minute short film is now online, and embedded after the jump.
I could barely make it through this “short film,” and that is coming from a guy whp enjoyed most of the National Lampoon Vacation series (yes, even Vegas Vacation… but not the Cousin Eddie spin-off craptacular). I’ve said it before… John Hughes is probably rolling around in his grave.
