Director: Liam Lynch
Cast: La’vin Kiyano, Bob Odenkirk, Brian Posehn, Laura Silverman, Sarah Silverman, Brody Stevens
Release: November 11, 2005
Synopsis: Narrative digressions on sex, race, politics, and more from comedienne Sarah Silverman.

Prognosis: Nothing but love… I loathe it, I personally dislike it in ways that are severe, when people use the word edgy. The word has lost its cache and meaningfulness yet people who possess a modicum of talent seem to think it connotes a real deep insight into a piece of work. It doesn’t because usually anything called “edgy” isn’t. This trailer is edgy.

I’m going to go ahead and say that if you are anywhere near someone who gets offended easily, moderately or even difficultly do not play this trailer within ear shot. This is perhaps one of the truest and bravest pieces of marketing I have ever seen. The fact that to put together this reel took balls and that the balls of the person who did it doesn’t have balls I think says a lot.

That said, there is no way in hell you’ll be seeing this in front of any movie in the theater or in commercials between Scrubs and ER on NBC should you find yourself at home watching Must See TV one Thursday night.

“I was licking jelly off of my boyfriend’s penis and all of a sudden I’m thinking ‘Oh my God, I’m turning into my mother,’ you know?”

I remember seeing snippets of Sarah Silverman perform the song which plays throughout this trailer a while ago. The fact that it is the base for this trailer is wonderful as there isn’t any outside influences diluting what the finished product of this movie is all about. It’s all about Sarah and it shows.

“I love you even if it’s not hip…I love you more than black people don’t tip…”

30 seconds are spent showcasing the variety of things going on inside the contents of this movie. What’s apparent is that Sarah isn’t going for the straight I’m-here-performing-and-this-is-all-about-my-comedy-act. She steps outside of the norms of what’s expected in a full-length feature and there is a nice blend of actual stage performance and sketch comedy.

When we break away from the musical montage there is a nice extended moment when Sarah explains that she wrote a show to a couple of friends of hers. It’s one that deals with the Holocaust and AIDS but, as Sarah hastens to add, it’s funny. The moment is quickly captured and as we roll on even further into the depths of what will, most likely, draw ire from those who feel her type of humor is crass, debased and devoid of anything coming close to comedy, depending on shock value for her share of giggles and guffaws, I can only say that my interest level only rises.

Sure, there could have been other ways one could have shaped this trailer to make it more consumer friendly but in an age when ribald humor is finally getting its due, thanks in part to the wonderful press THE ARISTOCRATS received as of late, I can’t say enough about a trailer that finishes with such aplomb.

There is not much you can put into words about what’s funny about this little piece of promotional material but even though what’s funny to one and what’s funny to another is debatable there is no way in hell anyone could go away from this without feeling something.

Director: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
Cast: NA
Release: November 30, 2005 (New York)
Synopsis: On September 12, 2002 twenty “at risk” 12-year-old boys from the tough streets of inner-city Baltimore left home to attend the 7th and 8th grade at Baraka, an experimental boarding school located in Kenya, East Africa. Here, faced with a strict academic and disciplinary program as well as the freedom to be normal teenage boys, these brave kids began the daunting journey towards putting their lives on a fresh path.

“The Boys of Baraka” zeros in on kids that society has given up on – – boys with every disadvantage, but who refuse to be cast off as “throw-aways.”

View Trailer:
* Medium (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Positive. There’s something that changes you when you step foot off American soil and you find yourself many thousands of miles away from your comfort zone.

It’s a transformation which requires you to find new ways of communicating, understanding, interacting and it demands you either do as the Romans do or find yourself labeled as an Ugly American, one who wants to bend their will against the wills of those in a house which is not yours. I think that’s why I find this trailer oddly compelling.

We open up without a real indication of where the narrative is going. On the outside it feels like it’s just another episode of Undercover America on HBO, looking at the drug trade on American streets, this time in Baltimore, Maryland. We see some guys pushing each other in front of a house, prelude to a fight. A cop rolls down a street as music plays in the background. There is no voiceover.

We see a young man walk up a flight of steps alone. He sits on a windowsill and looks out onto the street. He says he stays inside the house most of the time. You look at him and he exudes a loneliness which is honestly heartbreaking. He understands that his peers are drug dealers who deal in the kinds of activities that explain why some young men don’t make it to their twenties.

The odd thing is that you don’t yet get the point of what’s happening in this film. You that it has something to do with looking at the effects of violence but you don’t know what it is going to be set against. That’s where I think the gradual take-off of this trailer comes when we see some of the very same lonely boys being gathered at the local airport. They’re literally leaving on a jet plane, one of them in tears, and leaving the country for a little while.

The destination ends up being Africa but I’m innately curious as to what the point is to shipping these boys off to another country and then I see it: they’re going to school. Although, since this is a documentary, this is going to be more than how well they learn the proper way to conjugate a verb.

“I have a feeling you’re going to find a whole lot of things different here than they were in Baltimore…”

Another part that’s intriguing about the trailer is that these boys have a moment in front of the “Confessional” video camera to send a postcard of sorts back home. Most of the boys express their desire to come back home. They’re not enamored with the possibilities that Africa has to offer. One boy lists the treats he wants sent to him but we get the point: no one wants to be here. The rhetorical statement which is asked of the audience, whether 10,000 miles can make a difference, is one that piques my desire to know if it has. I am sure that some aren’t, international travel isn’t a cure-all, but I am interested to know if it worked for those few who could’ve been another victim of inner-city neglect.

Director: Renee Chabria
Cast: John Leguizamo, Elizabeth Peña, Ana Claudia Talancon, Nestor Serrano
Release: September 30, 2005
Synopsis: A Mexian immigrant new to Los Angeles enters into a love triangle with two very different women.

Prognosis: I’d dip in corn meal, fry it and hit it two times while dancing to a meringue beat. I like it a lot. Sra. Ruiz will always go down as the woman who gave me one of the only C’s I ever received in college.

It was Spanish 202 and this class was representative of the 3 years of Spanish language classes I took in high school and the 2 years I had to take in college. I went through all of that and I still couldn’t get my shit together by the end. I homogenously sucked ass, this much I admit, but I just could not get a good grasp on the whole conjugation thing. And there is also the Latina I dated in high school (Veronica Arreola, represent! wOOt!), who will go down as one of two women that I use every once in a while to brag about my racial blindness; whether people just chalk it up to adolescent horniness is another matter entirely. What these two seemingly divergent interests should show, if nothing else, is that the Spanish/Mexican vida has always been an interest for me. I may not ultimately get it but trailers like this one that show me why my passion for it has never waned. This trailer lingers with you like a slow Spanish guitar, plucking strings at just the right, mellow, pace.

This picture crackles with ingenuity.

John Leguizamo thankfully takes the responsibilities of voicing the trailer’s narration as we get a peek into what brings us to his backwater home which is located south of the border. We don’t spend a lot of wasted time getting to know John’s character and we’re seemingly pushed into the middle of his exposition about how he landed in Los Angeles. This could be a bit jarring for some but not a moment is wasted and a trailer maker who understands the economy of time really cuts things to the quick. The film appears normal enough but things take an LSD induced turn to the right when John talks of his old village elders which, I guess, have cartoons jutting out of their chests like a fire hydrant of Technicolor on a pretty conistent basis. It’s weird, yes, but I appreciate the attempt to briefly contextualize John’s experiences and it only adds a certain flavor to the trailer when he see him in his new life, north of the border, in a crap job, Mickey Dee’ing it. The accompanying music in the background, the animations which move it along, just fit in nicely to the gritty, real vibe of this movie.

John wants to be a musician and the little moments we get of him practicing, slumming it wherever he can to get a little exposure, a little attention.

We get a little clichéd with the set-up of the snotty neighbor who doesn’t want John playing his guitarra till all hours of the night and, who we find out, secretly used to sing, gave it up for some “unknown reason” BUT who will regain her passion because of John and his trusty six string steed. It’s all well and good and touchy-feely but as soon as I think this is where it all begins and ends we get ourselves a love interest. I dunno what her name is, I don’t know what her role will be in John’s life but I do know John wants to hit that and I would have to heartily second that hitting. The romance is quickly established and run through and this is the reason why the trailer catches my attention. You have two seemingly diverse interests at play at the same time but we’re not very clear on how they will either miss each other or collide.

I like that kind of uncertainty in the trailers I watch.

The music and tempo change and even though we get another cliché with John saying how one needs to grab their dream when it comes along or else you’ll regret burning in a hell fire of your own making, blah blah blah, I still believe in the appeal of this movie. This honestly looks like a film where not only could it be one of those feel good pictures where something good comes out of a struggle for something important there also seems to be an element of meticulous filmmaking. The direction and the visual flair could make it worth the price of admission alone. And how the hell can you go wrong with Nestor Serrano, the man who completely dominated the MONEY PIT with Tom Hanks in his portrayal of Julio?

Director: Liev Schreiber
Cast: Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, Boris Leskin
Release: September 16, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: Based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, “Everything is Illuminated” tells the story of a young man’s quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather in a small Ukrainian town that was wiped off the map by the Nazi invasion. What starts out as a journey to piece together one family’s story under the most absurd circumstances turns into a surprisingly meaningful journey with a powerful series of revelations — the importance of remembrance, the perilous nature of secrets, the legacy of the Holocaust, the meaning of friendship and, most importantly, love.

Prognosis: Erring on the side of negativity. I can’t be sure if I like this trailer.

I am a fan of odd things but I am thoroughly confounded at the weirdness this trailer stirs in me.

Let me see if I can’t break this thing down in a meaningful way: Elijah Wood is a collector. The strange thing about his collecting is that he seems completely indiscriminate about the things he obtains. We see a shot of this massive wall with items all tacked on the wall, a lot of things, but there’s nothing really defining what these little baggies of odd things means to anyone.

Cut to Elijah sitting next to his dying grandmother who gives him a black and white photograph of his grandfather standing next to a strange woman. Without so much as thanking the old bag the kid asks who the woman is in the picture; too late to get an answer, though, as the grandma dies right there.

What’s a boy to do? Road trip.

The plane flight arrival, the oompa-loompa Germanic beer band music welcome wagon is a bit absurd, as is the quirky local translator, but the point of going to find the woman who saved this young man’s grandfather in World War II is an interesting premise if not foolhardy.

Right when we get going a little further into the narrative we get our quirky translator to explain that the Yugo mode of transportation is being driven by a man who thinks he’s blind, but isn’t, and has a psychotic seeing-eye dog which tags along with him. It’s a bit much for a film that I am thinking is trying to be meaningful but its quirks are beginning to overshadow its aims. I am especially reminded of this when, after a long day of travel, Frodo looks at his singular bed in a very wide, very long room. His translator friend asks him to secure his door as there are people who like to steal things from Americans, as well as kidnap them.

What’s the thrust here? Is this a comedy or is Elija’s straight man routine a juxtaposition against an insane reality which doesn’t really exist in real life? None of these questions get satisfactorily answered as the strangeness continues. The not-funny exchange between the translator and Elijah about what it means to be a vegetarian drags me even further into a state of malaise about something which should really be interesting.

This is not to say there isn’t any hope, however. When we finally get to an honest exchange of ideas between these two guys, the translator and Elijah, the trailer does elevate itself to a place where I feel like I connect with it. When asked why Elijah does the things he does he says it’s because he doesn’t want to forget. The ensuing musical interlude gets even more poignant when we see a line of five Jewish men lined up against a wall. They all wear yellow stars, indicative of the Nazi regime’s agenda of ethic cleansing, and, as the camera pulls back, we see that they’re about to get shot. It’s eye-popping and it sobers one up to where we’re going with this story.

There are a few more plot points which are revealed in the span of the remaining moments of this trailer but it really does pull up on the controls for what could have been a straight drop to the earth from earlier indications.

I can’t say for sure who this movie best appeals to but I think that’s one of the worst things a trailer can leave a person thinking. I’m not sure I would spend money to see this in the theater but I can see myself splurging on a rental to see what this quirky comedy/drama/oddity is all about.

Director: Rob Marshall
Cast: Ziyi Zhang, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Koji Yakusho, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Tsai Chin
Release: December 9th, 2005
Synopsis: This is the story of Nitta Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang), sold to a geisha house at the age of 9, the training she goes through to become a geisha, and the life she leads as one. Based on the popular novel written by Arthur Golden.

Prognosis: Positive. This movie seems to star a veritable who’s who of Asian cinema. This is quite delightful when you realize that Ziyi Zhang takes the role of the voiceover duties when we open on a steep and chilly looking mountain, talking about how this is a story that needs to be told. Of course it does, otherwise why would Hollywood wait so many years to adapt a bestseller that millions of people already have read? Never minding the grandiose hyperbole which overstates the importance of this flick we are treated to the obviously manipulative tactic of showing how our Ziyi was wrenched away from her family in order to be sold into child slavery. We, as an audience, have to immedietly ally our sympathies to the girl, of course, and so every moment here on in is tinged with the feeling that we have to pity Ziyi. I don’t think it’s really right or wrong to go for the easy buy-in but for the adult audience this flick is aimed at it’s probably the best method to use.

“I certainly wasn’t born into the life of a geisha…”

So, the montage continues with a lovely classical music suite as we show how young Ziyi is taken from her home, taken in by a Carol Burnette clone a la ANNIE and is put through her paces as a young indentured laborer, probably in more ways than one, before a smiling Ken Wantanabe takes a shine to the girl. Now, I have never read GEISHA but I can’t for the life of me determine whether his sinister grin means “I think you’re a delightful sprite” or “Have you ever heard the saying ‘If there’s grass on the infield…’?” Now I think it means the former but you’re never quite sure in this age of books where the shocking is just taken as the norm but here’s to hoping that Ken keeps it wrapped in his pants.

Ziyi, though, is selected to become a Geisha. There is a sub-montage of the training she has to go through in order to become a sexualized object of patriarchical desire. It’s way hot.

I freak, though, when Ziyi puts on a whole lotta white face. Her black eyeballs make her look like a Great White ready to devour any approaching life force. Yeah, it’s scary until we see our young protégé and Yeoh without shirts, having a giggle. I’m energized and riveted by the prospect at some full-on Asian loving. I know only too well that the PG rating will shoot down that prospect and I will have to defer to the plethora of Internets which will satisfy that curiosity.

What happens next is an oddity to me. I know it may not be for some who find history of the geisha movement interesting reading but I never knew that geishas were, themselves, showgirls of sorts.

The tempo changes, we get a little more speed built up in the quick cuts used to show Ziyi’s quick ascension as a top billed act. All is not well in paradise, however, as there is some jealousy between our lady and some jealous ho who wishes she was all that and a bag of Kashi . The covetous bitch even tries to pull out a mini knife, much like the one used by the dude/chick, I still don’t know, honestly I don’t, in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM when he/she tried to dispense of Short Round after using he/she’s voodoo knife on a scarecrow looking Dr. Jones. A catfight ensues, much to my delight, again making a mental note to defer to the Internets for a more “comprehensive” compendium of full-on chick combat, and we eventually get it that Ziyi is whisked away from this brutish life by Wantanabe.

He seems to treat her right, there aren’t any signs he’s using her in any manner unbecoming of a gentleman but there is trouble in paradise as Ziyi wants to exert control over the situation she’s in. I’m not sure where this tale of female empowerment eventually leads us but the pandering moment of bombastic protestations of how Ziyi wants her own life and how she’s her own woman is a bit much. I realize this is important but it’s used to sell me on the idea of the movie and I don’t think it’s needed here.

The resulting montage of clips that really don’t have anything to do with the cohesion of the narrative, and it’s frankly disorienting, seems a bit lazy and unfocused. I’m not sure if this adult approved will even be worth to see but the three things that make me think I may venture forth is that I liked CHICAGO and I like Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang even more.

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