Hey, fellow movie nerds. Sorry it's been so long since our last post and even longer since the Spoiler Crew has graced the interwebs with a new podcast. Rest assured, faithful listeners, a new podcast is "in the can" as we professionals say and almost ready to be unleashed upon your patiently waiting ears. As for our delay, I can only blame the wicked amount of partying we've been doing with our favorite professors.
While I head back to Hogwarts to get my party on, check out this list of Brandon's favorite trailers, and, as always, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
-K
Brandon’s Top 5 Movie Trailers
(Excluding The Dark Knight, b/c I feel like I talk about that movie enough):
Phenomenon:
From the easily graspable premise, George Malley sees a light in the sky and then can learn Portuguese in 20 minutes, to its likeable star (Travolta, still in his “Thank God Tarantino plucked me from obscurity, I’m happy just to be working!” jovial best), this trailer went fast and furious. The townspeople (basically out of Central Casting) are a pretty predictable lot, but George’s inner circle of friends, from Forrest Whitaker as the best buddy to Kyra Sedgwick (Kayla Kaiser) as the love interest, show that he’s got a real heart and that we will like him as much as they do. However, it was a little song from Enya, “Book of Days” that carries this trailer from simple movie fair to greatness on the wings of its quick pacing and great vocals.
Three Kings:
If ever there was a trailer that used the smash cut to perfection this was it. From its glaring opening to the final shot, almost the entire story arch and character development was shown in two minutes. Clooney and the gang (including Mark Walburg, proving that Boogie Nights wasn’t a fluke) take off for gold, grab some refugees and become real people, all set to the redo of “There’s Something Happening Here”. By the end of this thing, you know that this is going to be a very different kind of film. Bonus points for the dialogue during the actors’ individual shots: Clooney defiantly demanding of his superior, “Tell me what we did here!” and Walburg’s pitch perfect, “You choose who we take, and you tell the others that its not convenient and they’re just gonna have to die.”
Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace:
Despite the fact that this movie went on to become the cautionary tail for any director who believes they can come back to the well and pick up the money years after the fact (Wes Craven, I’m talking to you!), there was a moment in 1999 when a trailer made you get so giddy that you couldn’t stand it. The lights dimmed, the beginning of John Williams too-bitchin-for-words score begins and then you hear Vader’s respirator and all of the sudden you’re a kid again. And okay, if you looked fast enough, you began to see the beginnings of Lucas’ obsession with CGI and how it will ruin his legacy, but at that moment the pod race looked cool, Neeson and Portman looked like they belonged in that world, and best of all they nailed, NAILED the look of the previous Star Wars films. If only…
Sonny:
I’ll give you a minute to quit hyperventilating.
(BEAT)
Okay, like before, forget the fact that this film was absolute crap on film. And I mean it, in no time in my life have I actually TRIED to give away a film as hard as I tried to chuck this sucker, so I know how bad this movie is. But this list is about trailers and there is one very good reason why I saw a movie about a male prostitute (eww) staring James Franco (who I couldn’t stand at the time) directed by Nicolas Cage (who I still loath). That reason is this trailer. Beginning with a redo of “Ring of Fire” we meet Sonny, his mom, the ladies around town who can’t wait to sleep with him, and then Mina Survari as the potential love interest. With three or four poignant moments in the trailer (including what I still consider a great line, “I just don’t want to get old and have nothing to show for it.”) you get the sense that these are real people; and by the time “Take a Walk On the Wild Side” begins, you’re enthralled with this guy’s story and the redemption that he is about to go through. It would have worked too, if Nic Cage wasn’t such an idiot and hadn’t have really just wanted to direct a straight-to-video soft porn so he could just revel in the vice.
Ransom:
Totally forget Mel Gibson’s current status as an insane scumbag, and remember that this was a post Braveheart time where he was still the bitchin’est guy in Hollywood. We get this snapshot of successful Tom Mullen with his wife (Rene Russo, yay!) and son, and their affluent but loving life in Manhattan. And boom goes the dynamite. “I have your son.” Suddenly Ron Howard directs action flicks, and we get Mel going postal on the people that stole the one thing you don’t steal from him. And then the twist, Mel goes on television and offers the ransom money as a bounty on the kidnapper’s head. This trailer was a marvel of suspense, every line blended into the next shot perfectly, and it never let up (which was kind of a let down during the actual dialogue heavy film). Bonus points for the raw vulnerability of the characters during the beginning as Gibson and Russo are both shown losing it to the authorities several times. And the pitch perfect ending, with Mel Gibson screaming into the phone (and we all know how scary that can be), “GIVE ME BACK MY SON!”
