Viewer Discretion Advised OR It's Time to Stop Spoiling Movies with Movie Trailers

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

I'm addicted to movie trailers. I suck up any 2-3 minute montage of footage I can find for all of the big movies I keep on my radar. Additionally, sometimes movie trailers show up in front of movies or on-line for projects I had no previous knowledge of, and grip me with the promise of something big. Case in point: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Amid the already huge roster this year of Oscar-worthy trailers to buzz over, some of which I'll mention in this article, Mitty played in front of an end of the summer film I caught about two months ago, and very artfully and powerfully played out partly like a National Geographic promo, with countless landscape shots and partly like an Indie-Smash ala the style of Spike Jonze. The trailer advertised the film using only the powerful images of Ben Stiller traveling through his own fantasies without addressing any huge plot details or spoilers accompanied by an almost perfect use of the song "Dirty Paws" by Of Monsters and Men.

I'll stop geeking and get back to my point. Movie Trailers are an art in and of themselves. They're mostly in the hands of the marketing departments for each film, with help from the directors. They're used to hook audiences into seeing films dependent of the use of posters, on-line promos and TV spots. Sometimes a movie trailer in the theater is either the nail in the coffin or the only push needed to win over someone into seeing your film. So it's really important not too screw them up! If there were awards for best trailers of the year (and there probably are) I'd probably give first place to Mitty. And I haven't even seen the movie yet! But will I?

Duh.

Which brings me to my criticisms. A bad movie trailer has the potential to throw off viewers or even ruin a movie. OR EVEN SPOIL ONE. This happens way too much, and needs to stop. Some people (myself included) have acute image memories. If a trailer even flashes a one second image of its protagonist covered in blood, or something memorable to that effect, I'll remember it. Dammit, if the protagonist is covered in blood because he/she dies or is somehow hurt in the third act that's supposed to shock or surprise us, well thanks a lot.

Prisoners

EXAMPLE: (SPOILERS AHEAD) Prisoners is a difficult movie for me to review. I saw it a few weeks back and was perplexed by the amount of twists and turns the film had in store which almost justified the two and a half hour running time. The best thing the movie had going for it was its performances which were on full display in the movie's trailer, but the trailer didn't hold back in it's reveal that the suspected villain of the film (played by Paul Dano) would get kidnapped and tortured by the grieving father of the film (Hugh Jackman). Even when I first saw that in the trailer I knew the film had spoken too much of itself, and when I finally took myself to the film, I had no reaction to that reveal at all. Sure the film has many more twists in the final act of the movie, but had the movie advertised itself with more discretion, I would've been gasping throughout the entirety of the film. I still have fundamental issues with Prisoners, but in case you read this far, I'll keep it at that. (END OF SPOILERS)

So what makes a good trailer? I've mentioned a few aspects already, (powerful imagery, good soundtrack and discretion. Now I'll break it down further with more examples of my favorites (and a few duds). I'll put it in list form, breaking down some rules for each of the genres. From now on I'll be speaking directly to the Editors, Directors and Promotional folks in charge of cutting trailers together. The following are some

Universal Genre Rules         

COMEDY: First of all, your trailer can never be funnier than your movie, or you'll end up with disappointment. Don't ruin your best jokes!! Have a good lead-in, and an even better closing gag. Keep the pace quick! Imagery is usually less important here than dialogue bites, a nice song or soundtrack to back it up, and it's usually good to tie it up at 90 seconds.

Be like The World's End. A nice buzz without being too intoxicating.
Don't be like We're the Millers. Really? A dick joke? Out of all the jokes in the movie, the trailer has to end with a dick joke?

The Brits win this one.

HORROR: Lot's of nitpicking here. Don't try to jump out at me too much. I get it, your movie is going to have jump scares. Any director with the use of soundtrack cues can make its audience jump. It's not that hard and I'm not impressed. Be legitimately creepy! Set up a nice story, with some impending danger foreshadowed in. Be discreet! Same rule for the full length movie, don't show the monster too early. Don't show it at all in the trailer! Use the soundtrack to build tension in your favor.

Be like Insidious, the first one. Say what you will about the final film, the trailer used incredibly done scare tactics including the ticking of a metronome and tight shots of the family in peril without revealing too many of the scares. Don't be like The Conjuring (trailer, not the movie). The movie turned out to be great, but thanks to my decision to avoid trailers like its chosen one, which showed almost every monster and scare in a more gimmicky approach than the film took and lasted about thirty seconds too long.

Nightmares for life.

DRAMA: This is a bit more basic, and an effective trailer can be done right most of the time. The problem is there are a fuckton of dramas out there, so the use of an effective song can literally be the difference between a memorable trailer and a dud. Discretion is still important, don't reveal anything from the third act if you can help it. Up the ante with some star appeal if you got it, and don't go light on imagery for the sake of giving too much plot detail. Less is always more.

Be like Out of the Furnace. If there's one complaint, it's a little under discreet. Outside of that, it's solid gold. I seriously get chills every time I hear "Release" by Pearl Jam come on.

Don't be like Captain Phillips. Tom Hanks doesn't get any time to shine in this trailer that tries to remind us how crazy it was that Somalian pirates actually overtook a ship for the first time in who cares how many years. We get it's a true story! Show us more Tom Hanks! You literally named the film after his performance!!

Don't you ever release me, Mr. Bale.

I don't have too much more to say on the subject that hasn't already been said. I also know that it's not always in the hands of the creative directors and writers of each film on how their trailers are made. But it should be up to the director to okay any final cut of the trailer, and not the team involved with advertising for the film. I'm not saying we should put movie marketers out of work, but I am shaking my fist at every trailer that's ever ruined a movie for me. I go to movies partially for the trailers, I like that part of the experience. And in the case of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I left feeling better about that trailer than the movie I saw with it. And that really says something.

Hello, Welcome, Bienvenue, Namaste.

I'm new at this blogging business, and I don't particularly like the idea of posting all my inner-thoughts and opinions online, but I'll do my best to follow blog regulations when it comes to posting. I can't promise posts each and every day but to abide by my decision to write every day, I'll try to promise frequent content for anyone who might be reading (like I'll get readers anyway). Also I'll do my best into working a common theme into my blogs. As of now I'm going to try to make this a movie/movie theory blog, and if I deviate from that topic I'll try to connect it to the original point of the blog. As for the title "Dirty Deets" credit goes towards some friends of mine who coined the nickname for me, and I'm also using this as a pun for all the film related details you'll get from me.

As of now I'm going to get started on my second post, but thanks for reading! If you're interested, add me to your circle, leave a comment, or e-mail. And if your all just lurking and reading and enjoying my content, well thanks! I'll do my best to keep things interesting. :-)

Gravity OR How Alfonso Cuaron Saved 3D Movies at the Theater

"My God, it's full of stars." - Dave Bowman 2001: A Space Odyssey

"This is a movie for movie theaters. This is a film that cannot be appreciated to its full extent off of the big screen. Gravity is why movie theaters exist." - Matthew Razak, Flixist

As most of you might already know, I'm always going to the movies. Seeing a movie at the movie theater is an experience I wouldn't equate to much else outside of live music or theater. While I've familiarized myself quite a bit more with catching films that fly too far under the radar on DVD or even better Netflix, I always prefer to catch a film's first run. Even so, I understand that the trip to the theater can be the expensive way of seeing movies, and there's always too much to see to make it often enough. What's worse is the sweep of 3D films that advertise themselves as the technologically superior more fun way to see each film. It's exhausting. But I'll defend the theater to the end and today I saw a movie that made a better argument than I'm going to ever make for the theater experience.

Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity is hands down the best film I've seen all year. It's a visual masterpiece and beautiful story with the gravitas of an Oscar attender (pun intended). Sandra Bullock has never been better. I might go out and say this is her best performance ever. It's full of gasp-worthy moments and incredible tension, only later to be countered with deeply profound moments of beauty. There's a handful of shots that pull of beautifully symbolic messages about life and death that I've ever seen on the big screen. I'm also intentionally being vague on my favorite aspects because about everything that can be said already has been said about the movie. What I want to break down is why I think Gravity is transcending the movie-going experience altogether.

Be ready for lots of spinning.

Gravity deserves to be a 3-D movie. It's earned basically ever frame of film it exhibits and when it come to the option whether or not to dish out the extra bucks for the 3-D glasses, there's really no reason not to. And it's been a bad year for 3D. The expensive option for movie-going is being passed up for the cheaper 2D alternative. Animated films and superhero flicks can be fun when seen in 3D, but at least for this viewer, sometimes it's a little disorienting to wear 3D glasses for zippy, full-length films that don't even take full advantage of the 3D technology (or rely on it for exhausted gimmicks). I've been to too many 3D movies where I got more of a kick out of the cartoon intro that tests whether your glasses are properly synced or not.

So Gravity invokes the use of 3D for it's entire 90 minute running time in the least gimmicky most elegant way possible. People float gracefully in and out of the theater screen in the brilliantly structured intro. Debris flies right in front of your face even before the characters on screen are aware of the threat. And in one of the most emotional moments of the film, tears float around in Zero-G. Alfonso Cuaron seems to be playing with the audience's suspension of disbelief, constantly wowing their expectations for what will happen next.

Our protagonist floats fetal inside the safe womb of a station. If you don't think that's the tightest shit get out of my face.

Not only does Gravity manage to pull of the rare feat of making 3D relevant, it also manages to pull off a different kind of movie theater experience altogether. Throughout the course of the film I managed to forget I was even sitting in a theater during multiple sequences. The movie practically puts you in space. Some of these are POV (Point of View) shots of Sandra Bullock's character as she is spinning, drifting or being pulled into danger. I felt giddily stupid during a couple of scenes where objects in space almost collided with the protagonist and I raised my arms up to avoided being hit in the face. And those moments of cerebral beauty I mentioned in between the tight action sequences? Well I wouldn't be the first to make this comparison, but try imagining how Dave felt in one of the final sequences of 2001. 

Pictured: Me

I certainly wasn't around during the hey-day of movie theater popularity, but I can definitely vouch for the kind of nostalgia this movie made me feel from the time I was a much younger kid and in awe of how big the screen could get and how much bigger the movie felt being on it. I definitely grew up closer to film than some of you may have, and I'm not trying to argue that everyone should go to the movies every week. But I will say that every movie deserves its theater showing, and while the computer or TV back home may be the easier way to access some of these films, Gravity makes a pretty damn convincing 90 minute argument to see it on the big-screen. Matthew Razak of Flixist's review makes the argument best, "Gravity is why movie theaters exist." Maybe Gravity won't make as much money as I predict, and maybe it's 3D doesn't end up buying everyone over, but I'll equate it to the following. Gravity is a roller coaster ride in the theater, and seeing it in 2D instead of 3D is like choosing to sit in the back of the ride instead of front and center.

Don't be chicken. And buckle up.



Referenced: "Review: Gravity" by Matt Razak, Flixist
http://www.flixist.com/review-gravity-216590.phtml