A word on "trailers"

My friend Suzanne's (gradgirl) very excellent rant about movie previews:

If I'm not looking forward to a film, the previews/trailers are a fun way to pass a few minutes (Mission Impossible III?). Or after I’ve seen a movie, it is occasionally fun to watch and recall its highlights on the
DVD commercials.

But for frequent movie-goers like myself, previews are spoiler-infested ads that make the joke stale or the emotional moment empty when you see the movie itself – the real experience we pay for. I concede that previews are how most people learn about what to see. But all we really need to know is who the big stars are - do they look good? And, what’s the mood and tone? That’s it. Weddding Crashers was clearly irreverent,
fast-talking fun with two good-looking guys. Enough for me! Inside Man stars Denzel, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Spike directs, so it’s interesting and suspenseful but not dark. I’m there! People go to promising movies they’re in the mood for. Previews tell us the look & feel. More than enough.

Alas that’s not enough for the marketing department. In last year's Rumor Has It Jennifer Aniston sleeps with Kevin Costner, the guy seduced by her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine), she figures it all out but is attracted
to him anyway & disgusted, and the grandmother tells off Kevin Costner. No, I haven’t seen the movie. Rom-coms are perhaps the worst offenders: previews for both Bewitched (2005) and A Lot Like Love (2005) show the meet-cute, the misunderstanding/insult, and the make-up. What's left, I ask you? The finale of A Lot Like Love shows him serenading her with a guitar on the balcony because she could only ever love a guy who plays guitar, even though Ashton does this badly. No, I haven’t seen the movie.

A quick theory. The worse the movie, the longer the preview and more intense the marketing campaign. Don’t believe me? Think about the Star Wars trilogy. One preview was a black screen and only Darth Vader’s breathing in the background. Perfect. My kind of marketing team.

If A = the preview and B = film-going experience --- anything that enhances A diminishes B. I’m all about B. I'm greedy for the whole experience. Don’t ruin it for me! The preview for Reindeer Games (2000) reveals the woman Ben Affleck runs away with is the sister of the ex-con who’s chasing him. Major plot point. Why would director John Frankenheimer go along with this? Answer, he probably didn’t. Previews belong to the marketing dept, movies to directors. I’m sure really feisty directors have more say. For his lastest movie, Ang Lee did a brilliant job of showing sheep ambling along the mountain path and showed Health Ledger standing in front of a firework display. Perfect: mood, tone, scenery. That’s all we need. Isn’t it???

Movies used to build an audience and stay in theaters for many weeks. There seems to be no time for that now. Opening weekend is what counts and the preview is the tool to make this happen. The preview = get
butts in seats, not optimize the film-going experience. Why do we have this opening weekend dilemma?

Yes, I do love movies. Let’s show them in the theaters!