Paul,
Couldn't agree more with your little rant about movie trailers. I
thought the same thing about both Cast Away and What Lies Beneath.
Weren't they both directed by Zmeckis? Maybe this has something to
do with him?
At any rate, what I call it is the continued pussification of the
american movie audience. People are so lame now a days and
their lives are so overburdened with bills, kids, crummy paying jobs,
bad relationships with their wives, etc, that I feel the movie
industry is saying to them, "Here - look, come to see this movie!
It's good, it's fun. We promise it will have a happy ending so
you'll feel better! Look, we'll even SHOW YOU that it has a happy
ending, just so you'll know ahead of time and won't leave depressed!"
This is something that I've seen for years and years with a lot of
kid's movies. It's like they have to explain the whole thing in the
trailer and tip you off to the outcome of the ending so that parents
will know whether or not this is a movie they should take little Cody
and Tiffany to. "Gee, I don't know hon, a dog movie might be kind of
sad - what if he dies at the end, what kind of effect would that have
on little Amber here?" "Don't worry, dear, look, the dog lives!
They just showed you in the trailer." "Okay, okay, but maybe we
should just wait until it comes to video. I don't want to deal with
actually driving my car someplace with the kids and spending money to
go see a film I can watch in six months for $3 on our 19'' TV!"
...And I think THIS is why it has now migrated from kids movies to
adult. More and more parents wait for movies to come to video, but
if Hollywood wants to get middle-aged adults with children to get a
babysitter and actually leave the house to come out to the theatre to
see a movie, well dammit, it better be good. What better way to
prove that you'll like a movie than to tell you the whole freakin'
thing in the trailer? "Gee, my life is crap, I'm so stressed out, I
just need to get out of the house and away from the kids for a night.
Let's go to the movies, but I want to see something that will take me
away from my lousy life and make me feel good. I hear Traffic is
supposed to be good..." "No honey, how about that nice new Tom Hanks
movie - he's such a nice young american actor - and look, oh how
romantic, he actually gets back to see his long lost love again! How
sweet! Let's go see it!"
I truely believe that this is the kind of shit that goes on with
people, and that Hollywood is catering to it. What's wrong with
people? Don't they ever want to be surprised by films anymore?
Can't they ever accept a film that doesn't cater to the masses? Why
does everything have to be happy and why do they always have to show
us that it ends happy in the trailer?
This is why it's refreshing when a movie like Traffic comes out. I
know a number of people who didn't like it because they said it was
depressing. Well, no shit! How can you do a movie about the
drug trade that has a happy ending? If it's going to be real, it
ain't going to have Bruce Willis blowing away the head drug lord at
the end and saving all the children from ever being threatened by
crack again! I really hope that movie does well. It's gotten a lot
of critical acclaim, but I think the critics are on our side when it
comes to this stuff. Show us something different! That's a common
thing with them. I believe that when you see 1000 movies a year the
only ones that really stand out and effect you are the ones that took
chances, were daring, or that surprised you by going against the
grain and striking out in new ways. Too bad audiences just like to
be spoon fed so often.
I hope it changes. I don't know how it can get much worse short of
them putting up a little graphic on the screen with a breakdown of
the movie;
Act One: Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl get married
Act Two: Boy and girl have baby, boy discovers he has cancer
Act Three: Boy fights cancer, boy looks like he might die
Ending: Moments before boy's death, using an experimental operation,
doctor takes bone marrow from baby, injects it into boy, boy recovers
fully. Credits roll over happy family having picnic together in park.
When that happens I'm going to start bringing a walkman to the
theatre so I can shut my eyes and tune out the trailers until the
movie starts. In fact, I should do that now.
Another way this would help is if actors took different roles to
break out of the molds they're in. Wouldn't it be great to see Tom
Hanks play some loving father who deep down was a demented serial
rapist that preyed on little church going school boys? And it was
directed by Ron Howard? But the trailer made it look like some happy
family homelife film? I'd love to see the looks on the faces of
Agnes, Pearl, and Mom & Pop middle America when they walked out of
THAT one! Mix it up some! If the same actors and directors keep
making the same happy movies there's never going to be any surprises
in films anymore! How about Meg Ryan in a film where she's a
housewife who decides to go to work one day with a machete and
shotgun and starts shooting and hacking up the place because her boss
keeps sexually abusing her and posting nude photos of her on the
internet? New from Merchant Ivory.
I know, I know, it's never going to happen. So I guess I'll just
have to play it cautious like you until things change. It's funny
though...I have a bunch of movies on DVD from the early 80's or
earlier that have the original trailers on them. None of them are
anything like today's. Most of them are really short, very vague,
and tell you more about who's in them and who directed them than
anything else. (Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, 2001, Planet of the
Apes, to name a few). The advertising of films back then was so
different than today. True, it wasn't as elaborate and now there's a
lot more money riding on films, but in a lot of ways they were better
simply because they didn't give away a lot. They whetted your
appetite just enough to get you to go see it so that you could find
out what it was about. And that's a long way from getting you to go
by explaining the whole thing to you so you'll already know if you're
going to like it or not.
Tooch.
p.s. - the only movie trailer I can think of in recent memory that
was really good in that it got our attention, whetted our appetite,
and DIDN'T explain the whole thing away was The Matrix. Let's see if
they do that for part's two and three.
Paul,
You're absolutely right about the trailer to "Unbreakable" - I had forgotten
about that, but it's true, they only teased you about the set up and that was
it. I too had no idea about what the movie was actually about, and I was
surprised. I didn't realize that you hadn't seen Traffic, but don't worry, I
really didn't give too much away, other than the fact that Bruce Willis doesn't
save the day at the end, bummer :-) Let me know what you think. Jenn and I
really enjoyed it. Still looking forward to seeing Crouching Tiger. It opens at
the art house cinema here in two weeks, but I'm hoping it will come to one of
the big stadium seat mutli-plexes first. Planning on seeing State and Main
today so I'll let you know what I thought of that if we do.
Actually, lately I've been thinking that the total ruination of films is
not a bad thing-from an economic perspective. I see a preview -
essentially a commercial to entice me to see an upcoming film. If it tells
me the whole story, I no longer feel the need to see the film in its
entirety. This saves me 8 bucks per preview seen/film spoiled. If I were
to invest this "extra" cash into an account, the question becomes how many
films avoided/money saved to I need to do before I have saved up enough
cash to shoot a film on my own?
Answer: If I assume a dirt cheap budget of say: USD 100,000 divide by
8.00 Portland full price admission. That means I need to avoid 12,500
movies. If we assume in an average week a person sees three movies on a
regular basis and we assume an average of five previews per film that
gives us fifteen previews a week or fifteen movies avoided for a total of
USD120 per week saved. That gives us a rough total of 833.33 weeks,
divided by 52 weeks in a year gives us a little over 16 years until enough
money is saved. That gives you time to write a great script, assemble a
great cast, etc. etc. etc. Of course, if you invest this money wisely into
an interest bearing account the time needed until you've acquired a full
budget decreases.
Now Paul, how often do you go to the movies alone? If you were to utilize
the buddy system, the time until budget is acquired decreases drastically
again. If you and seven of your closest friends formed an independent
studio and followed these simple steps, your time drops to just two years
(less if you have a good savings program like a CD or something.) Oh sure,
you might miss out on some cinema, but if you budget (or just take some
money out from the interest earned on the savings account) for home video
or second string theatres at reduced prices, I think that you will find
that you lose nothing. And, in the process, you will have acquired the
reputation as a financial and commercial wizard, subsequently, the smartest
man in Hollywood.
So, do you need an accountant? I've seen The Producers. I know how to
lose money while earning a profit.
Until then, this is A. Liquid and I won't be seeing you at the movies!