Matt's Rantbox: Movie Trailers

Or: Skip the Trailers, Just Play the Damn Movie

Movie trailers can be a terrific thing. If there’s a certain movie that you’ve been looking forward to for a long time, a preview offers you the first real glimpse at how the movie is coming along, and whether or not it's meeting your expectations. Trailers also help to introduce people to films that they might not have heard of otherwise. Of course, sometimes a trailer can be just plain annoying, a constant reminder of a movie that you don’t care about, or even worse, absolutely abhor.

Lately I’ve been finding myself in the latter group with most trailers, and there are a few particular things that have started to come up that have really gotten on my nerves. Firstly, the semi-documentary film trailer. You’ll see these trailers for movies like Taking Woodstock (you know, the one with Demetri Martin) and Pirate Radio. Where the film is based on true events, and really plays it up. And I mean, REALLY plays it up.

Notice how, they don’t quite say it, but they might as well be screaming “IT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT EVER HAPPENED EVER.” It seems like a lot of documentaries take this approach. Sure, I understand that it's important to showcase your film and you want to highlight the importance of the events you are portraying, but let’s be realistic here. Not every movie about some hack artist no one’s ever heard of can possibly be “THE MOST IMPORTANT MOVIE ABOUT ART EVER.”

Another thing that I’ve started to notice is movie trailers that are specifically ambiguous, or even worse, change depending on what movie you’re seeing. Let’s take a look at the trailer for the new Scorsese picture, Shutter Island. Here’s the version of the trailer that I saw before Paranormal Activity.

Notice how it builds a tense atmosphere, portraying the movie as a psychological thriller/ mystery. The type of film that someone going to see Paranormal Activity might enjoy. Now lets look at the trailer I saw before Julie and Julia (Yes, I saw Julie and Julia. What can I say, I’m a sucker for food.)

Sure, the movie still has a tense atmosphere, but notice how the trailer seems to play up the lead actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, more than the previous one. There was one scene in particular that caught my eye, mostly because it was altered in the version screened before Paranormal Activity. There’s a scene where Leo Dicaprio is holding a woman, and that woman slowly fades away. If you look at that same scene in the "scary movie" trailer, you'll notice that the woman turns into ash and crumbles in his hands. A far more graphic depiction. Why the drastic change? Even more, what's the version that they plan on using in the movie itself?

Well, at the very least, there are people out there who are taking old trailers, and spicing them up, maybe even making them better. Even if they don’t quite advertise what they’re supposed to.