FilmRoar

Last year I watched Harold and Maude (1971) with some friends. The DVD included a very curious theatrical trailer for the movie . The trailer was shot in a style that was popular in the ’70s of just showing seemingly random scenes from the movie without trying to add commentary or say too much about the movie’s plot. That preview style is one that usually does not work very well for me, but in this case it worked very well. It got me thinking about what makes a preview work.

Trying to figure out what makes a preview good is not quite as easy as thinking about what makes a preview bad, so lets start there:

* Any preview that gives away the ending. I seem to remember that the previews cut for Sleeping with the Enemy (1991) did this. Saw the preview and pretty much knew everything that was going to happen.

* Previews that show you the best scenes from a movie. I cannot think of a specific example for this one but I have had plenty of moments of ‘oh man, I should have saved my money and watched the preview again… that pretty much had all the good stuff in it!’

* Previews that show you scenes better than what is in the movie. An odd duck, but yes I have actually seen previews that included deleted scenes that looked better than what was in the movie.

* Previews that misrepresent a movie. Grrr… these are the worst. Someone makes a flick, then some marketing exec decides that movie will not sell so they go and make a preview that spins the movie as something it is not to try and sell it! A good example of this is probably a movie I did not see called Renaissance Man (1994). I remember the movie was originally released under a different title, then pulled and re-released with a Dead Poets Society spin. Sneaky shit if you ask me.

* Previews that spin the same movie in four different ways. Even worse than the case above, I only know of one clear example of this and could barely believe my eyes when I saw no less than four distinct previews pushing Armageddon (1998) with four different spins all showing at the same time. There was the ‘Liv Tyler Romantic’ trailer for the female 18-50 audience, the ‘our good old boys, American flags slowly waving in the background’ trailer for the war vets, the ‘exiting thriller with strong dramatic close-ups of Billy Bob Thorton and Keith David’ for the edge-of-your-seats crowd and then the ‘big explosion, big music, more explosions, fast action punctuated with explosions’ version for the fuck-the-plot, show-me-some titties, popcorn crowd. There was absolutely no subtlety about it, it was pure and unadulterated spin doctoring

What about a good preview? Well it is hard to put your finger on what makes a preview good just at it is hard to put your finger on what makes a movie good. Here are some criteria that might help though:

* Previews that have artistic value in their own right. There are a few films such as The Sweet Hereafter(1997). Delicatessen (1991) and Blue (1993) that I remember having trailers so beautiful they were simply enchanting and worth watching in their own right.

* Previews that give us a realistic view of the movie we are about to watch. It does not need to make the movie look good, just be true to the film. You know those sample carts they have at the grocery stores on weekends? I love those! Most of the time I hate the food they give out, but I am grateful that I find out the food is crap off a cracker at the store instead of from a package I bought and took home. Same with a preview to a crap movie, if it shows me exactly what kind of Hollywood blockbuster bullshit the movie is, I am grateful for the warning and count that as a good preview.

* Previews that let us into something we did not know existed. I do not know if this warrants it’s own category, but one of the most exciting moments for me is seeing for the first time a preview that lets me into a movie I had no idea existed. This can be true for movies-of-a-different-nature like Delicatessen (I had never seen a trailer nor a movie like that before) as well as for those favorites they manage to sneak up on you (such as the first teaser trailer for Terminator 2 which I had not heard about until that moment).

The Trades put up a list of the best and worst trailers of 2002. I don’t agree with their selection, but still think it is worth checking out:

The Trades - The Best Trailers of 2002

The Trades Presents - Worst Trailers of 2002 (www.the-trades.com)