This post is dedicated to my friend Emily Knittle, who has always been a fan of the vagina dentata.
The best thing about this trailer–besides the fact that it’s for a movie about a murderous vadge–is the text: “Something is WRONG with DAWN O’KEEFE…Every rose has its thorns.” I really just like that big, all-caps “WRONG,” as in “NO DUDE SERIOUSLY HER VAGINA HAS TEETH.” I don’t get the erratic cuts to black in the first minute or so; seems like a cheap horror movie trick, but hey, there actually is something kind of awesome about the audio-only moment where they gynecologist accusingly asks, “What did you put in here?!” and then proceeds to be attacked by a pair of ornery labia. The fact that we can’t see it only serves to make us curious about how exactly a man’s arm being consumed by a vagina might look. In this respect the trailer has loads going for it. The element of mystery–by sheer fact that you can’t exactly show the money shots in the advertising–adds a ton to the experience. Otherwise it’s just a rather shoddily assembled series of pre and post-coital reaction shots strung together amidst quick cuts to black (again, for no discernible reason other than to create a false feeling of suspense). But regardless of any flaws it may have formally, this trailer will forever be deemed worthy by virtue of its superior content. Who can argue with a villainous vagina protagonist? You don’t even need a trailer to sell this shit.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Edward Scissorhands, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Nightmare Before Christmas, Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton
Well folks, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m going to have to exorcise my Tim Burton trailer demons sooner or later, and I may as well do it while I can simultaneously acknowledge Sweeney Todd’s advertising schizophrenia. In regards to Burton trailers in general, the beaten path involves repetitively capitalizing on his magical worlds and imagination in what is probably an all-inclusive attempt to figure out a target audience. So, here we go:
1. There are 3 or more successful music shifts in each trailer. This may be due to the introduction of the Edward Scissorhands score as a standard trailer music choice, a la 1 minute into the Nightmare Before Christmas trailer. His trailers often feature the music from a previous movie, which is a somewhat unique attempt at building up a coalition of a director’s movies past the good old, “From the director of..” title card. Notwithstanding some of the corniness in this (open your mind..), and the extreme praise (is the world really full of wonder?) the story and visuals are undeniably trailer-worthy and solid, like Jack in front of the moon or falling into Christmastown, and it leaves me completely unannoyed. Not to mention, “What’s This” being so damn loveable.
2. A tendency to kind of give far far far too much away. This could easily cut off at the Edward/Kim dilemma, shift into montage mode, and call it a day. The last section of this trailer is not horribly done, but it just feels at that point like squishing too much information into a small space, and giving away pretty much the entire movie. Also, the “Hold me..” “I can’t” is possibly my favorite trailer finish, heart-wrenching Scissorhands music and all.
3. The really crazy thing about the Sweeney Todd trailers (of which this is the first) is that it fell into a gap that Nightmare avoided by being Disney. Torn in a seemingly unmarketable area between horror and musical, some executive or another (I always like to imagine every decision in Hollywood being made at some sort of meeting around a big rectangular table) decided, hey, the Sondheim freaks will already come out, so let’s just not let anyone know this is a musical, they’ll figure it out 30 seconds into the movie. It’ll be great. In that way, this trailer, and even moreso the second trailer, attempts to completely deceive the public as to what they’re actually going to see, choosing to focus all their energies on the Tim Burton half of it. It’s almost freaky how few people I’ve talked to knew anything about Sweeney Todd’s Broadway nature from the trailers. This one is more representative of the movie (featuring a snippet of music) so I should have posted the second one, but let’s face it – I really can’t part from the shot where he says, “I want you bleeders”, nor “The years no doubt have changed me”. This also features one of my favorite moments of deceptive editing – the peephole shot where Alan Rickman sees Sweeney walking toward him with a blade. As a sidenote, there’s a “make your own trailer” feature on the Sweeney Todd website, may you come to a conclusion of how you feel about that far better than I.
And so, with that, I lay down my Tim Burton trailer sword.
There are some things that are just perfect in their existence, and when you see them, you thank the world at large for having the humor and initiative to make them happen. This, for any trailer devotee, is one of those things. The script and music are smile-worthy (when Don LaFontaine leans forward and says, “Mine,” you know you’re going to be in for something great), though a part of me thinks that since this will probably only happen the one time, I wish the video quality was better, and the whole thing generally less hyperactive and award show video-y. But I suppose it’s not about the video anyway, when one is busy indulging in hearing superhuman vocals adopt trailer-esque speech patterns. Oh Don LaFontaine..the things resonance can do.
ps shoutout to matt porter for bringing this to my attention.
pps don lafontaine has been known to take requests for voicemail messages..sign me up?
Sometimes at my job I have the distinct pleasure of working with Gawker media’s finest video dude, Alex Goldberg. Alex is a recent film school grad and shamelessly (in a good way) asked me if I’d feature the trailer for his senior thesis film, Waiting in Abandon. I was not put off by this because I know Alex to be a nice, funny, patient soul who never gets openly irritated with me for being a crap interviewer or for not knowing how close to hold the mic to someone’s face. And on top of that his trailer is actually pretty good! He himself describes it as “super emo,” which it is, in that Funny Ha Ha/Hannah Takes the Stairs kind of way, but I can already tell just from the trailer that it’s superiorly scripted and shot on a higher quality camera, so I bet it’s way better than those movies! And don’t even try to tell me you don’t get super emo yourself sometimes. Just go with it.
Here’s what I like: whiny guitar music stops abruptly for a montage set to the Strokes. Is that one of the songs off their first album? Anyway, it’s good. I like when trailers do that abrupt music/tone change. The montage is appealing, though the return of the mumbly guitar song worries me. I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t make any real judgments here, but I’m going to go ahead and put you on Braffwatch, Alex. This trailer leads me to believe that the John Darnielle-looking main character is somewhat of a sensitive, yet oddly self-centered pout monster who can’t decide for the life of him what the hell he wants, much to the dismay of the bewildered females in his life. But aside from some questionable content, it’s a very impressive trailer. Gives just enough story information, dutifully includes a montage, makes us wonder, “What did this bitch ass do to screw up so badly that he ‘can’t fix it’?” And kicks out at least one decent jam. Job well done!
Update: Alex informs me that this movie “is actually 50 percent breakup and 50 percent I think I might have AIDS so it’s not all crying about unimportant stuff.” So now much of what I said can be construed as very insensitive. That’s about par for the course, I’d say.
The purely visceral experience that masquerades as an Arnold-starring Christmas movie almost goes without advertising – either you’ll see it and love it, or avoid it like the plague. Therefore, any trailer would have done the job, but the strange, uber-christmas-y, lyric-synopsis approach was an interesting choice. I can’t say that I’m a fan of the trailer, I would have preferred perhaps a booming announcer’s voice telling the same summation instead of the annoying, ad-like song. Just imagine: “In a world..where Turboman is king, one man must race against time..” As it is (and this is difficult to wrap my mind around), it almost treats the movie as….too stupid. It’s as if you’re channeling the trailer editor, who after combing through the movie thousands of times, is liable to reach breaking point at the next sign of tinsel, and goes home to mock the movie to his (or her) family. Regardless, it’s as good of a use of 2 minutes as the movie is of 2 hours, take that as you will. And to sum it all up into a holiday lesson, when I saw the trailer, before the movie was released, I declared, in all my 13 year old snobbery, that I would never see that heinously stupid movie. And here I am now, with an annual tradition of rejoicing in its glory. So let’s all learn to give all things a chance, and welcome, with open arms, extremely stupid things into our lives. Merry Christmas.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Holiday, Jim Henson, Muppet Christmas Carol
When I was younger my favorite trailer was the one for The Muppet Christmas Carol because it was on one of my most watched VHS tapes (probably Home Alone or Homeward Bound, and I always watched the previews). I liked it when the little window washer rat said “Thank you for makin’ me a part of this.” I can’t really explain why, but when I was about 7 that was the funniest thing in the world to me. I didn’t even quite understand what he meant, but I loved it. Anyway, that trailer is unfortunately not on YouTube, so you’ll just have to settle for the excellent Scrooge song:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, The Other Boleyn Girl
Not having had extended my wikipediac knowledge of Elizabeth I into deep Boleyn investigations, I was unaware of the treasure trove of incestuous historical drama preceding her reign. The academy award nominated writer of “The Queen”, however, pounced, adapting what appears to be yet another, “wait..check the wikipedia page..” decade-compressing period piece. I cannot even truly begin to describe how much this trailer blew my mind. Not, per se, in a good way, but in a way that it assaulted so many senses simultaneously. My retinas quivered fretfully at the near-fluorescent costumes and clean-cut headdresses. My ears anxiously attempted to detect a lightening in the intense, straight off the shelf, catastrophic historical music. And most of all, deep internal alarms were activated at being presented one over-blown scene after another (“the king! the king! THE KING!”), featuring an array of the most attractive stars available (lest they exclude an ugly-fied historical Scarlett). Wikipedia says that Boleyn sisters were not close. Scarlett’s Mary Boleyn says they are sisters, and therefore one half of each other. Attempting to recover my senses, and presented with battle-ready tunes, a mish-mosh of sororicidal snippets, a completely unrealistic relation between Portman and Johansson, and hot historical sex featuring both, I’m just going to step away from this 2:34 mindfuck, accepting the exchange: “we’re sisters!”…”and therefore born to be rivals”.
sidenote: A suggestion to the filmmakers – to make at least one aspect more realistic, such as genetic similarities between the sisters, how about Tia and Tamara? That would at least ease my concern at my newfound desire to end every phrase directed at my sibling with an ominous and meaningful, “Sister.”
Marie Antoinette: The trailer that intrigued a million hip, young history buffs. To be honest I actually liked this movie, though it was at times about as exciting as watching a very pretty balloon drift across an overcast sky. It was generally panned, probably because the trailer was just so promising, at least for people like me who love both history and pop music in equal measure. The color scheme is glorious, and when paired with Gang of Four’s kicky “Natural’s Not in It” and New Order’s aching, epic “Ceremony” expectations are bound to soar. There’s nothing too special about the editing, though I do like the placement of the stirring balcony scene towards the end. Perhaps a more accurate trailer for this glorified music video of a movie is this:
Which is itself…a music video
