My Five Year Plan

I’ve always been a huge fan of the art of the trailer, that bizarre intersection of editing prowess and commercialism that derives from montage aesthetics and can articulate the mood of a work, sometimes better than the actual film itself. Today I’d like to talk about five trailers for high-profile American releases that I think are interesting.

Shortbus

While I certainly don’t dislike it, I don’t care that much about Hedwig, so I haven’t really paid all that much attention to the pending release of John Cameron Mitchell’s artporn Shortbus until now. But really, forty-five seconds are all I need to get me really excited - gliding camera, artificial staging and lighting, weirdly self-conscious moments (the Asian woman turning her head to the camera), those weird CG moments over Manhattan, and above it all, that perfectly chosen mood-setting Hidden Cameras song. This is my favorite trailer of the moment.

More after the jump…

Charlotte’s Web

I think this trailer is a load of crap, personally. I hate hate hate hate hate hate what Walden Media does, hate how they turn beloved children’s literature into glurgy, overblown pieces of shit, and particularly hate this trailer’s (and film’s) insistence on polluting Charlotte’s Web with sub-Shrek children’s comedy (farting cows!) and hell, appropriating Saint-Saens to do it pretty much insults me as well. Also, what is up with those intertitles? SOMETHING UNEXPECTED. UNFORGETTABLE. Listen, Walden. You don’t need to come up with your own blurbs for ad copy. I’m sure the critics of America will bend over to praise Dakota Fanning and your awful CG that reminds me that the absolutely indispensible Babe, a decade old, remains the gold standard of talking-animal special effects (that shot of Wilbur doing a backflip makes me wince).

Oh, but the worst thing about this trailer is the stomach-churning exploitation of the book’s theistic overtones into a full-on post-Narnia glurge-fest ready for the Fox News crowd. “This Christmas… Help is coming from above” the trailer screams out, betraying the film’s neoconservative foregrounding of the book’s understated spirituality. We get it. Charlotte=Jesus=Get Ready for the Arachnid Rapture.

While we’re addressing new God movies, can we take a moment out to say that Catherine Hardwicke, whose Thirteen is miraculous for not only being absolutely terrible but for betraying some pretty racist narrative assumptions (black and Hispanic people are dangerous and will only lead to the corruption of studious white girls; Asian girls, by turn, are docile), is the last person I want to see make a movie about the Nativity? Especially one with flowing robes and ‘tasteful’ iconic silhouettes of Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary?

World Trade Center

This film isn’t really upcoming, seeing as how it’s going into wide release tomorrow, but I feel the need to address this trailer anyway. Quite simply, the biggest and most unintentional LOLfest I’ve seen on the screen in quite some time. For months, I only knew this trailer from its apple.com appearance and an amazing series of screencaps posted all over hipinion.com’s venerable message board. Upon seeing it on the big screen for the first time, I was simply astonished by the spectacular badness of it all, an over-the-top melodramatic grandeur that almost seems more honest than the ‘realism’ of United 93. In fact, it’s led me and my friend Tyson to speculate for months that World Trade Center might be Stone’s bid at garish Sirkian satire and the conflation of the action spectacle and the conservative appropriation of American tragedy in the post-9/11 era. Early reviews, however, are not promising, guaranteeing Stone’s understatement and uplifting message.

Rocky Balboa

As much as I hate to admit it, I really like this trailer. When I heard they were doing a sixth Rocky movie, I couldn’t expect them to throw together a plot that actually almost makes sense. The editing here is perfect, elliptically lending weight to the sort of gritty low-contrast blue-toned visual scheme we see. There are a few choice LOL moments: “Let’s build us some HURTIN BOMBS” in particular brings some giggles, but I can’t help but think that this is going to be significantly better than the critics are anticipating. The new Rambo on the other hand…

Flyboys

“Academy Award-Winning Director Tony Bill presents…” wait. Who? I had to look this up on IMDb to make sure they weren’t yanking my chain. Sure enough, Tony Bill has won an Academy Award. As a producer. Of The Sting. Thirty years ago. No mind - this sure-to-fail picture seems like it comes from an earlier moment in American film, with its unblanched melodrama and its insistence on the spectacle of WWI-era biplane warfare. There are two moments in this otherwise baffling (why was this made?) trailer that completely sell me on it though and make sure I’ll be in line opening day. First: the total wtf-worthy shots of a man outrunning a massive fireball erupting from the zeppelin he’s running on top of(!). Secondly, the stunning shot a few moments later of aerial targets from above erupting into flames. In a year that’s already given us a few films that are entirely refreshing in their markedly old-fashioned refusal to kowtow to the American audience’s desire for irony and distanciation (Find Me Guilty, Something New), here’s hoping that Flyboys makes for a trifecta.