Hey there all you flick lovers, Harry here with another installment of TRAILER MAN! Able to watch trailers days before mortal men, able to speak in concise soundbytes (but only when he feels like it), able to have green or red appear before him. Look up on the screen, it's a public service announcement, no, It's a sound system ad, no... it's.. it's... TRAILER MAN...
TRAILER MAN PREVIEWS One great, the others not, one blows it.
Well, isn't it a busy, teeth gnashing, keyboard stabbing, mudslinging, opinion slamming, finger pointing, compelling, enthusiastic, and revelatory kind of a week on AICN!......It's like living the studio life in LA all wrapped in one web site, well the view from here in the Big Apple is almost far enough... Let me see if I get all of this right...I am with a studio if I say anything positive and congratualatory conjointly engaging in guerrilla marketing tactics, single handedly subverting the essence and purity of AICN....no thats not it... if I SPELL correctly and use proper syntax, I'm the antichrist....no...lets see......if I admit to liking Blair Witch I suck, no no no, if I say I hated Blair I am saving the film industry as we know it from wannabees with a video-cam, a couple of bucks, and a dream...no wait if I happen to be listening to the theme from SHAFT while in the bathroom on the .. (no way, Harry, I won't even go there!).....no no no no got it now, if I get a bit more scruffy, sport a patch and spit out monosyllabic snarling utterances, I will rule as Snake Plisskin, the greatest anti-hero from the master genius of contemporary cinema; a pantheon graced only with the works of Kubrick, Spielberg, and Godard (for those that "get" him), none other than John Carpenter! but alas no one knows it except the geeks at AICN who as you read are lobbying for the director's director's, really final and digitally enhanced Special Edition DVD in DTS version of Big Trouble In Little China with all the missing footage including Goldie Hawn's musical production number that was only seen by the two of them in a private NY screening while the projectionist, who was blinded just prior with, an ancient Chinese dart to be released......hmm, allright..enough.....okay the pressure is just too much.......I'll confess...... I am the next Anakin Skywalker who will woo Natalie Portman into a blissful second episode since I love older women and my light saber is the envy of Doc Johnson..then only to screw it up by turning everything into a dark allegory worthy of David Fincher where Jar Jar Binks will be served at a Cantina Burger King near you, managed by a forefather of Hogarth and all of it jarringly shot on a hand held digital video camera that will be available at a discount with the purchase of two regularly priced adult admission tickets from Artisan-Blair Theatres...........cool.
Magnolia (New Line) The quasi-darling of "hot directors", Paul Thomas Anderson, delivers what has to be a very hands-on teaser of his new film mag-no'li-a. Thanks "p.t." (you'll see what I mean at end of teaser) for the hooked on phonics spelling.... save for those conceits, this trailer does exactly what it is suppose to do: it piques your interest...memorably. Tells you it's from the director/writer of Boogie Nights and then with a jazzy percussive beat camera shot tracks down a hallway of a run down apartment building, through a door where a noxious old woman stands with a rifle ready to fire at her (presumably) husband, missing, shooting out window behind him simultaneous to someone plumetting head first from a floor above in view through the same window (wow what was that?!) STOP forgot about the voiceover that waxes rhapsodic about "stories of coincidence and chance and intersections and strange things"...and now I am paraphrasing (sorry, it wasn't like I had a recorder)..."if it wasn't in a movie I would'nt believe it"...and then immediately, spectacular edits of the actors introducing their characters by name: a kid, somebody, then wait! TOM CRUISE, then more kids, more famialiar faces, wait! William Macy yes!, then oh that's whats her name , then another face or two then oh Julianne Moore, yes twice! and then a funny reptilian......intro a magnolia blossom and boom, over, done, your hooked. Uhhh then december 99 (wince). Teaser trailers........they are an art unto themselves...short, don't give out too much at all, WHICH IS GOOD SINCE WE ARE'NT ALL LEMMINGS......and create a variety of perceptions which turns to buzz which is its purpose in life. Very cool.
Anna and the King (FOX) A longer version of snippets seen on Phantom Menace but I don't think yet a regular trailer so a neo-teaser (?) anyway clearly selling gargantuan production values: Breathtaking vistas, clamoring Siamese, soaring temples, thundering elephants, intercut with shots of hoop-skirted Jody Foster and an imperial Chow Yung Fat. Footage coallesces easily to anyone who knows the book, or even more, the musical but clearly it is not a tuner. It's the woman's costume drama of the 40's and 50's, fully realized and sumptiously mounted. There had better be an audience come this Holiday Season........but Jody is as sure of a bet as anyone. Forget anyone under 20 unless a last minute cue is taken from the current Summer hit, American Pie, and Fat porks pud-thai....
Random Hearts (SONY) Actually, this trailer has been out a couple of weeks but I draw attention to it since Harrison Ford is certainly a favorite of Harry's and Kristen Scott Thomas is mine and this trailer commits the pervasive malaise in many previews today......it tells too much. Clearly a slick, glossy production from director and sometime actor Sidney Pollack (Tootsie, Eyes Wide Shut). Well I can't say how intrigued I was from the initial premise, Hard boiled Washinton DC police detective (of course Harrison) in a seemingly happy marriage, then whoa tragedy...... his wife was on board a plane that has plummetted into the Potomac (startlingly reminiscent of the Florida bound/Potomac Bridge crash filmed live) Then circumstances find that she was traveling with the husband of a Congresswoman (yep Thomas) and thus begins their search for circumstantial truth. Stop right there but no, no, no, no they get angry hurt then wham kiss hard like colliding buses....okay stop there that adds a bit of interest but goddammit no now they're in bed and oh no don't show me they're in love and the press is inquiring about their relationshipand yikes a comfy look I'm home shot at end and is there.........any more movie left? You had us at kaboom...................
And real fast, a couple of just ever so bubbly/precious romances to send you into anaphalectic shock Dog Park (New Line) and Drive Me Crazy (FOX) Okay, contestent number one.... even though your movie is about disenchanted-in-love singles who meet at a dog park sniffing each other's tails like their canine counterparts, searching for the love that elludes them in their ever so stylish lifestyles- why name your movie copy-slug-ready for mincemeat? Let's try a few right now! "'DOG PARK' SHOULD BE SENT TO THE POUND" "WATCH WHERE YOU STEP IN THIS PARK!" "'PARK' IS FOR THE DOGS!" "A SHORT LEASH TO THIS 'PARK" "THERE IS'NT A SCOOPER BIG ENOUGH FOR THIS 'DOG!'" and "LOVERS AT THIS 'DOG PARK' SHOULD ALL BE SPAYED". I could go on but another cinematic dog biscuit needs a bite....I am declaring now that Buffy and any of her blood suckers, along with Sabrina, swimming in Dawson's Creek with Felicity while totally Clueless to Moesha serving up a warm apple pie are screwing with an American Cinema tradition.......the life affirming, hurts so funny and totally real, TEEN FLICK. I offer to the courts Drive Me Crazy..........nuf said. (Molly where are you and why did you have to ever grow up?) (Election and Rushmore you give hope and inspiration, please move to the head of the class). Let the games begin...........cool.
