let’s call it a failer
It was going to be a movie review. It really was. I shushed the people beside me and concentrated hard. I didn’t buy popcorn lest I chomp my way through a pivotal piece of dialogue and miss it entirely. If my first Culch post was going to be a movie review, then it was going to be damn accurate.
Sadly, after twenty minutes of trailers it seemed that there was something more important to say. Namely, what the hell is with twenty minutes of trailers? I am not that old, but I can remember a time when a trailer was a teaser, the merest tantalising glimpse of what a movie might be. Snippets of dialogue. A five-second, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flash of some vital scene. Not a hint at the twist, just the implied promise that there was one. An actor’s name in block text. A date of release, miles in the future. A hushed conversation with your fellow cinema-goer, “We’ll go to that, that looks good”.
I don’t really believe movies aren’t as good as they used to be. A lot of movies are awful, yes, but then, we make a lot more (and by ‘we’ I don’t at any point mean me or anyone I know) and quantity dilutes quality and all that. There are still a lot of fantastic films about. It’s just difficult to enjoy them when you saw the Cliff’s Notes trailer two months ago at the start of something else.
“All the best bits were in the trailer” seems to a phrase that’s really doing the rounds of late. It’s not untrue, but if the trailer is going to be five minutes long then that’s kind of understandable.
I’m beginning to develop a liking for the idea that I might start arriving to the cinema post-trailer to watch films I have read and seen nothing about. Maybe others don’t need to do that because they have bigger, better sources of excitement in their lives but me, sometimes I start a book without reading the blurb on the dust jacket and that my friend is walking on a nerdy wild side.
Am I wrong? Is everyone else enjoying the condensed movie?
This post was brought to you by the letters t, r, a, i, l, e and r and the sound grrrrraaaaahhhh.
Too many trailers these days. I can’t count how many times I’ve rushed to the screen at the time stated just to find that that’s when the trailers are starting and we’re still half an hour away…
Hmm…I dunno. I try to avoid the trailers for a lot of the major films, but I love catching trailers of ones I’m less likely to hear about. I’ve discovered some great films that way.
I both love and hate trailers, I hate when they ruin the entire movie, I especially HATE when ALL of the funniest moments are condensed into the trailer. (i.e Sideways, possibly the biggest waste of my time ever ever ever…)
But I do love sitting in the cinema and turning to my cinema partner and saying “YES!” (I will see this) or “NO!” (I’d rather pull my own teeth out than see this movie). And like Darren, sometimes trailers are a gateway into a movie you wouldn’t necessarily think of going to see.
Ah love hate love hate love hate.
@Chris yesss! Cudmudgeon bandwagon!
@Darren You’ve got me there, I do like random trailers for itty bitty productions. The blockbusters wreck me.
@Sinéad love love love love love (you that is, not trailers).