The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: A look at three trailers
Posted Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 5:07 PM Central
Last updated Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 5:10 PM Central
by John Couture
With all due respects to Clint Eastwood, I think I'm going to borrow his movie's title for our weekly look at the landscape of movie trailers. We have been trying to come with an ongoing, weekly feature and I think I've finally hit the nail on the head.
It seems that every week, there's at least a few good and bad trailers that either capture your imagination or make you want to pluck out your eyes. In keeping with the theme of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, we will present three trailers each week that fit along those general guidelines.
I think we'll use the acronym GBU going forward to make it easy to identify these articles each week. It's going to be a work in progress and we always welcome your feedback.
THE GOOD
A couple of years ago, I became obsessed with something called the 11:11 phenomenon. Basically, I kept looking up at the clock at the same time (11:11) and it always struck me as odd. At the time, I thought to myself, "I bet this idea would make for an interesting movie."
I guess the same idea occurred to filmmaker Darren Lynn Bousman because he actually went out and made an 11:11 movie. Naturally, my interest in the subject waned over time (and less frequency in seeing that number), but it was piqued again today when I saw the trailer below.
Obviously, 11-11-11 comes out on November 11, 2011. How much you wanna bet that the first screening starts precisely at 11:11am?
THE BAD
I know it's only the first time we've done this little piece, but I just couldn't help myself in pulling the rug out from under your feet. I'm sure you're expecting to see a bad movie trailer, aren't ya?
Well, you are... because I think it's BAD ASS. That's right, depending on the week, THE BAD can refer to bad or good trailers depending on how the wind blows.
I know that filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is a divisive force with as many fans as enemies in the filmofile community (what is it about documentary directors?), but I personally think he's funny and makes movies that challenge some basic idioms.
This time, he's back showing the idiocy in the ever proliferating practice of product placement in POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Awesome, too bad I couldn't get that alliteration sponsored by Sesame Street or something.
Anyhow, I think you'll agree that this doc looks to be quite enjoyable.
THE UGLY
I know that I'm going to take heat on this one, but what good is a series called "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" without stirring up a bit of controversy every now and then?
I will state up front that I like both Tom Hanks and Julie Roberts, but sometimes the whole is much worse than the sum of its parts. In this case, I just thought that the trailer for Larry Crowne tried way too hard. And worse of all? I didn't laugh once.
That's not a good sign for a comedy.
Another trait in trailers that I despise is when they basically distill the entire movie into 150 seconds. In this trailer, I feel like I've already seen the movie as it's one cliche after another.
Finally, and this one was a subtle and weird thing I noticed. They actually used the exact same font for the title treatment that they used on Forrest Gump. I don't know why, but this incensed me a bit.
Anyhow, watch it and let us know what you think.