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What a difference two weeks can make here at the Trailer Park.
A couple of weeks ago I was name-dropped and put in The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage of The 35th annual Key Art Awards. It was such a delightful and satisfying thing to be recognized in one’s chosen field of media expertise that I was asked to judge the trailer competition alongside notables as, “the Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt and Anne Thompson, the Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan, Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum, the Washington Post’s Desson Thomson, AdWeek’s Gregory Solman,†and, “the Associated Press’ Gary Gentile.†It’s one of those little things in life where if you do something because you love and have passion for it there is something intrinsically validating about an external nod of affirmation to keep on doing what you believe you can do well. I’m here because I can’t imagine not writing something new every week of my life and because I want to see this site to become more than just a footnote in the vast history of the Internets. There is talent here brimming from all sides and it feels good to know that the site gets recognized along with me. I’m not a huge believer in all that corporate claptrap about no one being more important than the whole but I believe it here. So suck it, haters.
Along with that mention from the Reporter I was interviewed for a good 15-20 minutes last week with a reporter from The Washington Post on an article they were creating about movie trailers in general. (Yes, you have to register to read it but try this “authentic†NAME and PASSWORD: bill7000@msn.com, Password: bill) It was an excellent talk about movie trailers in general and, really, marked the first time I’ve ever discussed what I’ve done with someone at any great length. Most times at cocktail parties I just drop my day job and leave it at that because I’ve learned that watching movie trailers doesn’t really translate well to long, enriching conversation when you have to explain the ins and outs of deconstructing these little things. It’s only really interesting to me, I assume, so I try to bring it up only when pressed by other people to bring it up. I am disappointed, though, that I was reduced to a fraction of what I told the reporter if for the only reason that I had an epiphany while talking to her and came to the conclusion that watching trailers is still a very solitary experience. You can see the amount of traffic QuickTime gets from people looking at the new trailers that come out but where’s the dialogue? Where’s the break-down of what’s to come? The trailer for SPIDER-MAN 3 looks insanely good, even though it starts out a bit rocky, but where, besides message boards, are there people whittling these things down to their essence?
Nowhere is the correct answer.
Nowhere but here and it isn’t so much that I am happily boasting, I’m not, but I would visit *other* sites if someone else were to do it if they were examining these things critically. I’d like more peers in this segment of entertainment. I was a huge fan of literary criticism when I was going for my master’s if for the only reason than, as a consumer, you’re free to make any assertion you want about anything as long as you can back up what you’re saying. You think “Othello†is really a parable of homosocial relations between men? Fine, but prove your point (and big ups to Eve Kosofsky who made me see Shakespeare in a completely different context). And I’ve since learned that since not everyone wants this, and that everyone here merely wants to be entertained before going on to Fark.com or Digg.com, I like to couch everything I say with a mellow bent on things.
It makes me proud that I am a “31-year-old self-declared ‘fanboy’ and ‘geek’ from Arizona†because there’s an honest representation of why trailers matter. These things matter and, as readers, you matter. So many people say this is the best part of going to the movies and they are. I’m just glad to be one of the only people out here talking about them every week for your personal amusement. So a compliment for me is a compliment for you. Huzzah.
That said, let me now rip a new a-hole through prose to the buttfaces who were giving me jive for ordering some Child sized popcorn at the local theather. If any of you have had the same resistance I am sure you can relate to what I would like to put on fancy paper, put in a parchment envelope and sealed with a waxy clasp to the person in charge of these young’uns who are no doubt just doing what they’ve been told.
“To whom it may concern,
While I understand the need to up sell me when I visit your lobby to get myself some treats, as the talking popcorn admonished me to do in ONE CRAZY SUMMER, right before George Calamari does that funny thing where he scares Hoops McCann, do you have a clue that as a grown man I know what I’m getting myself into when I ask for something?
To wit, I visited your Harkins Scottsdale 101 location on two different occasions in the past week. Once was to see MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3 (Yeah, I know. Cruise is batshit crazy but the din was impossible to deny from those who saw it and gave it a favorable mention) and the other was to see THE BREAK-UP (Yeah, I know. But, seriously, the wife really wanted to see this movie and I made it a point to make sure we saw this on the first opportunity we had as I am a huge John Michael Higgins fan and he was just spectacular. Now I look like a champ, I got what I wanted and now it’s my pick when we’re allowed to leave the sanitarium which is my household.). I went to your amply stocked snack Valhalla and ordered a Child sized popcorn. While taking in your other menu choices (A dill pickle on a stick? Who the hell is ordering this that warranted a vendor to help you stock a vat of dill pickles on sticks?) I was asked by your just-older-than-Malaysian-child-labor employee working my order the following question:
‘Are you sure that’s going to be enough?’
I was taken aback. I don’t think I was shocked more than I was a little reflective on the suggestion that maybe I hadn’t properly thought out what I might be able to pound down my gullet. I’ve never had someone question my ability to consume and, having an athletic build, maybe I looked a little emaciated and this hourly liege was just offering their professional opinion; Lord knows these kids nowadays can consume pure food poundage faster than the money being spent in Iraq on a daily basis.
And then it struck me as they started to tell me that I could make a much larger selection of popcorn for just….
‘No. I want the Child size, thank you.’
I don’t know why I added the thank you. I shouldn’t have if for the only reason than when I visited the same location, seven days later, and ordered it again because I found the portion size to be just perfect, I was given the same response by a girl who could barely get the sales pitch out due to the impedance of her rubber banded braces. I really, and honestly, should’ve called “shenanigans†on this bull-shiat tactic that you’re teaching these kids but I didn’t. I know it’s just something you’re doing because the snack bar is the one place where, like our modern rock stars and their $45 dollar t-shirts being sold across at mega arenas, you see profits. These kids are just unwitting pawns of your crap training scheme. Do you have sales material that explains that these kids should question the tolerance of people who order popcorn or fountain drinks? Do the people who order the biggest size in both these categories get serviced with a smile and “Will do!†chop-chop-iness? Have you thought about whether you’re partly to blame about why Americans are seeing their waistlines burgeon to alarming sizes?
As a sales guy myself, I can respect the fact you want to make more. You want to stay in business and up selling is all a part of the game we all know about when we go into the theater. However, don’t question my tolerance for the amount of popcorn I want and whether it’s going to be satisfactory to satiate my appetite. It’s just one more excuse why people might not be so hot to come to the theaters. If you’re not giving them sticker shock at the ticket booth then being harassed at the treat counter isn’t doing you any favors when thinking about the diminishing window between theatrical and home video release dates.
Now, I’m not about to make some threatening claim about not patronizing your establishment as you’re, really, the only drug dealer in town who can give me what I want the most but I am letting you know that I know that we all know what’s going on behind that counter of yours. I might start using my college ID from ten years ago to get a discount as recompense for my trouble but my beef isn’t with the studios. If you don’t want people buying the Child size then stop selling it next to your pickles on sticks.
I mean, good God, man, who are buying pickles on sticks as a snack to eat while watching a movie? I can’t think of one viewing for ABOVE THE LAW where the Vlasic stork and Steven Segal seemed like a pairing made in heaven.
Sincerely,
Christopher Stippâ€
Yeah, it’s been a roller coaster of a couple weeks…
Director: Ivan Reitman
Cast: Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Anna Faris, Rainn Wilson
Release: July 21, 2006
Synopsis: When a regular guy (Luke Wilson) dumps a superhero (Uma Thurman) because of her neediness, she uses her powers to make his life a living hell.
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Prognosis: Why God…Why hast thou forsaken me? I’m not a huge fan of the American-ized The Office series on NBC.
It has nothing to do with my fondness for the UK version but, I feel, the series tries too hard to be amusing and it only feels like a forced display of how this little company of chimpanzees can fling their poo amusingly at the camera. That said, I am a fan of Rainn Wilson.
“Ooo…Check that out…Uptight librarian on the outside, ready to rumble on the inside.â€
The trailer opens great, I’ll give it that much. Rainn does his dependable duties as the second banana by peeping Uma Thurman on a subway, makes his above comment and, oddly, we’re allowed to proceed to the next portion of this movie’s introduction without so much as a practiced voiceover from some kind of “wacky†perspective.
Luke, who really is an actor that seems to believe there are no small parts and is grossly underrated, does his best to impress Uma and, color me amused that she has the ability to be funny, shoots our man down ingloriously when he tries to nonchalantly pick her up for a date.
One of the problems I stumbled over, though, is I don’t know how we get from Uma being this cold, standoffish woman when he tries to ask her out to there being an extended scene here where the two of them are going at like crazed mules on Spanish Fly. She, of course, has super powers and rips off Luke’s clothes with savage aplomb.
There is some awkwardness in trying to get from her blowing him off, to the two of them doing it, to Luke navigating himself through a series of odd moments where Uma plays the part of the needy, psychotic girlfriend.
I just don’t get it. There’s no flow through any of these scenes. I’m all sorts of turned around and I don’t understand if it’s Luke that’s the rube, Uma the one who deserves to be dumped or if the two of them are somehow to blame for there being such an ill fit with regard to the relationship. I’m pretty sure it’s Uma who is to blame but, the trailer being so muddled, I can’t say for sure and that’s a problem when you’re trying to create some real regard for your characters that you hope people want to know more about and get to know. This trailer is having a personality disorder.
This when we get a useless tirade, a real time waster, from Rainn about how to break up with his lady friend which only drags my attention down with it. After the eventual “break up†happens it is now time for Uma to unleash her superpowers for us to witness.
I’m not sure if it’s the awkwardness of the trailer up to this point or if it’s an indication of something more serious to do with the movie but the displays of her abilities are kind of old and busted. We see her zipping around really fast, we see her using her super strength to do really bad things to Luke’s car, using her crazy vision to flash fry the fish in Luke’s tank (I think) and we get it all set to the modern sounds of Fine Young Cannibal’s “She Drives Me Crazy†(Awesome choice there, Trailer Maker! What was the runner-up “Girl You Know It’s True†by Milli Vanilli?).
Wanda Sykes is here to add to the racial tension of the movie as is her want in most everything she does, we get some really really bad effects of Uma tossing a shark into Luke’s bedroom as he’s trying to woo some young woman and, to end it, we have the two of them sharing a meal with Uma saying that she knew they’d be back to together and that’s why she didn’t kill him. Huh? I thought everyone determined she was some crazy broad who deserved to get punted yet Luke still goes back to her by the end?
This trailer is confusing, lame and does so many other things wrong that it should be sent back to the plant for some Quality Control testing. Where’s a thick slab of Kryptonite that could smother this thing when you need it…
Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Michael Peña, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Release: August 11, 2006
Synopsis: Director Oliver Stone tells the true story of the heroic survival and rescue of two Port Authority policemen – John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno – who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after they went in to help people escape. The film also follows their families as they try to find out what happened to them, as well as the rescuers who found them in the debris field and pulled them out. Their story shows how the best in people rose above the tragic events of that day.
View Trailer:
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Prognosis: Negative. I was sitting in grade school, math class, when one of the octogenarians who passed for a comprehensive disseminator of information to our nation’s youth busted into our discussion of fractions to say the Challenger had blown up.
Without the Internets in 1986 I had no way of really contextualizing what that moment meant until I went home and had it replayed for me later that day. Fast forward to 2001 and I was just getting into my lat routine in the very tiny country club workout room when the singular television in this 20’ x 20’ space filled with the announcement that some ‘tard had flown his tiny prop plane into the WTC. The news chopper CNN was using showed the image and, honestly, on television, it didn’t look bad. Economies of scale, I guess. It wasn’t until a few more minutes before the scope of what happened was realized: I watched the fast moving second plane slam into the side of the other WTC.
Is it too soon? Do we really need this movie? Can you really make an honest movie that doesn’t feel fabricated or false?
All these questions are valid but I think this is really a matter of whether this movie can be made well. If you can be respectful of the material, more power to Oliver and Co. The trailer gets some of the things right while, I think, in some areas plays too heavy on the schmaltz.
The opening is damn near requisite: you’ve got to have everyone waking up to a Folgers morning, everything crisp and in place. You’ve got the WTC delicately shown in the way way back in a shot of the New York skyline, you’ve got Nic Cage kissing his wife (Schmaltzy Moment # 1) while it’s still dark out, in their bed. I don’t about the rest of you married dudes but I usually don’t get a smiling wife first thing in the morning when I leave for work; I usually have to slide out of my bed like a ninja so I don’t wake her and am usually pushed away for a kiss in the morning because of my dragon breath.
I like that the voiceover for roll call at the NYPD is Nic doing his best to affect an accent that seems trapped between Brooklyn and The Jerky Boys. Kudos to the use of a fast moving shadow and the sound of a jet plane to establish the effect of how many would’ve come by the experience of what happened this day; the ZOOLANDER billboard in the background of one of the shots is oddly memorable.
We’ve already got the drama cranked up to a Lifetime Television level when Nic really pushes the moment as he and another popo are on their way to the WTC, Nic saying, “We’re prepared for everything (dramatic pause) Not this (another dramatic pause) not for something this size…There’s no plan…â€
The violins are threatening to turn this trailer into something else besides a promotion for a movie and as Nic, at ground zero, asks for volunteers to go evacuate people the moment seems stuck as no one wants to volunteer and you’ve got a real cheesy thing happening when one guy does it and declares that he’ll do so and then another. Seems fabricated, not really in the realm of verisimilitude.
Cue Nic and a slo-mo moment as he yells “Run!†in that sort of John Rambo lip thing where it tries to be full of impact but looks like someone’s trying hard to evoke emotion out of me.
You’ve got Maria Bello sniffing the sheets of where her husband once slept (SM #2), you’ve got slo-mo of a mother hugging her daughter (SM #3) , you’ve got one of the trapped popo’s involved in a flashback with Maggie Gyllenhall as he’s spooning her and then as he’s writing I [heart] U on a piece of scrap paper (SM #4) and, again, what is being sold? Is it the idea of a dramatic piece or is it a truthful rendering of the events that transpired? I’m not quite sure but the marketing is all over the place on this and the tag line that “The world saw evil that day…Two men saw something else†is enough to make me scratch my head like an ape, wondering what in the hell they’re talking about.
If I was the teacher I would give it back and ask Oliver to work on it some more and give it back to me by next Monday because, as it stands, this is just not a very compelling trailer.
Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Cast: Owen Wilson, Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson, Michael Douglas
Release: July 14, 2006
Synopsis: The story of a newlywed couple (Hudson, Dillon) whose relationship problems boil over when the groom’s unemployed best man, Dupree (Wilson), moves in with them for a brief period and seems to have no intention of leaving.
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Prognosis: Positive. So, I can relate to this.
Having a tenuous grasp on a job is just commonplace here where I live in the Southwest. Not only do I have to contend that since I live in a state that says either myself or my employer can terminate employment at any time for any reason (“Did I wear too much Aqua Velva today?†“Is the color of my Swatch watch going to be the beginning of the end for me?) I had a boss who once called me at home after the birth of my second child not only asking where I was but, after calling in to reiterate what was common knowledge, was given a lecture that even though my newborn was fragile his business interests were fragile and if I wanted a job I would recognize that. I didn’t stay there much longer. It is this reason that I can see why Owen “The Buttercup Stallion†Wilson would find himself in such a dire situation after being canned to attend Matt Dillion’s wedding. I don’t think I’d fall that fast, that quick, but this looks like a fun slip n’ slide ride at the theater.
The trailer, initially, goes through the motions of setting up the premise of the flick. Voiceover Guy does his due diligence in really hamming it up when we see the lush Hawaiian setting that is Matt Dillion and Kate “Overreact To Act†Hudson’s nuptials. You’ve got the word “perfect†tossed around here, there and everywhere before you almost feel you want to shout “I got it already!†before it moves on to establishing how Owen fits into this “perfect†situation.
Now, I wasn’t that plussed with STARSKY AND HUTCH and was marginally satisfied with his performance in THE WEDDING CRASHERS (It was really Vince’s movie to steal) so I am hopeful when Owen recounts what has happened to him since being canned for going to his buddy’s wedding. His protest to Dillion when asked if he’s living in his car is comedically rendered when he says he has a 10 speed and then gets hit by a car.
I think it’s important to state, however, that after we’re rushed to the moment when Hudson is told that Wilson is going to move into their house for a few nights, knowing full well that this wouldn’t be a movie if it were just for a few nights, it is Wilson’s holding of a mounted moose head as he thanks her which I think is a nice, humorous touch.
It is Wilson’s movie, though, as Dillion seems to just be the straight man in this vehicle and the gags keep coming when Owen barges into the room where a love is about to be made, sending Kate barreling onto the floor in surprise as Owen chants that the toilet downstairs is “on the fritz†and then follows that up with opening the bathroom door whilst on the bowl saying, “We’re going to need some matches.â€
And, the capper, involves Wilson placing a tie on the doorknob of Dillion’s house as Kate, incredulous, ignores it and lets herself in the front door only to scream, leave, and then announce, “That butter dish was a wedding gift, Carl.â€
It’s not as wild as Dillion’s THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and it feels little more tame than MEET THE PARENTS but I think this movie will do well with the middle-of-the-road audience and, I would assert, means some nice profits to come.
Director: Richard Linklater
Cast: Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Ashley Johnson, Greg Kinnear, Avril Lavigne, Esai Morales, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ana Claudia Talancon, Wilmer Valderrama
Release: Fall 2006
Synopsis: A dramatic feature based on material from the incendiary novel “Fast Food Nation,” a no-holds-barred exploration of the fast food industry that ultimately revealed the dark side of the “All American Meal.”
View Trailer:
Prognosis: Positive. Fecal coloforms?
I read this book and have to tell those who have not that not only does this look into fast food consumer culture provoke an especially appropriate debate but it is a whole lot of funny to know that vegans who would only eat the fries were really eating slices of potato fried in beef tallow.
One of the other things about this book is that is tries to be as nonfiction as possible. Whereas SUPER SIZE ME really mixed in fact with slanted science this book tries to be even handed. However, why would Linklater turn this decent examination into fast food into a drama? It confounds as it confuses when you try and reason the thought process on this one. Even the trailer sheds the serious tone of the book somewhat and it nearly feels like a sanitized version of what Schlosser tried to bring home.
“Millions of families…Millions of immigrants.â€
The initial shots of this trailer play out in a nearly disconnected, rushed showing of the book’s main points. We, as Americans, love to consume our burgers and fries while we are blissfully ignorant of our local yokel immigrant population quietly braving the sinister conditions of meat processing plants so you can have it your way.
Does the trailer get this message across? No, you’ve got some Soccer Mom serving slop to their kiddies while some immigrant is flashed some money to, no doubt, be yet another casualty of the underpaid underclass who take jobs in processing plants because no American in their right red, white and blue hearts would have anything to do with these places. Yet, here we are, the trailer just glossing over these things in lieu for some teenagers dropping a frozen patty on the ground only to put it back on the grill. Thanks for visual. If this was 1984 and you were the first person to make light of this it would be amusing but like all sub-par comedies before this flick we’ve all been desensitized, I posit, to the notion that when crap hits the floor there is a full-on 10 Second Rule in full effect. Nice try, though.
And then, of course, we have to get the greedy bastards in corporate, played deftly by a pack of aging white men that is always a spot-on stereotype, dumbasses, commenting on how they’re really sticking it to their consumers by knowing how much allowable fecal coliform is in their product; I had a biology teacher, come to think of it, who discussed this very issue, a one Randy Shietzelt, a genuinely smart cat who I still admire, discuss how much you can have in a given body of water before it becomes dangerous to even wade through. It’s nice to know this trailer tosses out common knowledge like a discussion of coliform, I’m sure there are heads nodding all over this great land when they hear this portion of the trailer.
If it sounds like I’m being tough on this piece of advertising, I’m glad. This book is a serious indictment of an entire industry, which goes beyond the bush league histrionics of Morgan Spurlock and his documentary, but I am genuinely pleased by how this thing ends. We’ve got Greg Kinnear, playing one of the evil corporate suits who will no doubt be playing the part of the rube who will be the filter through which some of the book material be flowing, standing in a lab and tasting a small stick. The stick has a liquid on it which mimics the taste of real food. One of the biggest of these flavor savor companies, International Flavours and Fragrances, right off the New Jersey Turnpike, adjusts the taste on a hellacious number of things you stick in your mouth and consume. I really like how Kinnear is amazed, as you should be, that this mere liquid disguises itself into anything you desire.
I’m not convinced that this movie has done a service to the book by making it into a pseudo drama but I am hoping, at the very least, this once again raises awareness of how your corporate overlords are taking care of you as a consumer of their products. This trailer needs more focus on the reality and less on the dramatics.
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