The last couple shifts at work, I have been working door. That means I basically just stand there, take tickets, and watch looping movie trailers on the big screen in the lobby when we're dead (which on weekday nights is often). So I've gotten the enduring pleasures of the Arcade Fire drawing me into the sublime Where the Wild Things Are trailer. The incredibly stylish and catchy Nine trailer never fails to have me singing "Be Italian" for the next 26 minutes. Toy Story 3 gets me excited for next year and even harmless fair like The Lovely Bones and A Christmas Carol can be a welcome distraction. There are some, however that are far past cringe worthy. These are the most popular ones too. The ones that customers stop in the middle of the lobby, holding up traffic to watch and say with voices full of annoying ignorance, "That looks funny! We should see that! After all I loved Wild Hogs!" And these aren't the rare gem trailers that play once or twice over the two hour trailer loop. No, these are the ones that play over and over, back to back. Like they're taunting me. I've complied a list of the worst of them. They are as follows:
(these are trailers to films that have not yet come out. I'm not counting any horrible trailers from earlier this year)
#5 2012
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
The first trailer starts out good enough with an ominous subtitle that reads "Man kinds oldest civilization warned us this day would come." Awesome. Oldest Civilization on earth. I'm hooked. Oh, wait, the Mayan's weren't the first civilization? Oh! The first civilization actually beat this one by over 1,000 years and started in this little place we call "The Cradle of Civilization" which basically means 'where civilization started'. Well awesome, so at least the guys behind 2012 know what they're talking about. Moving on. Chaos reigns! The monotone guy on the the fake newscast is skipping like a record player telling us the world is going to end this year whilst the screen flashes scenes of the world ending and people looking scared. Also birds are flying away which, if you've seen the director, Roland Emmerich's previous "The World is Going to Destroy Itself and Humans Have No Hope" film, The Day After Tomorrow, you know that's BAD! Cut to John Cusack with his voodoo hands saying "What are the odds?" while driving his (presumably) daughter and son through the country in an RV. The odds apparently are that you're about to be attacked by hundreds of giant flying meteors. You'll be ok though! There are many more disasters awaiting for you throughout the trailer. Have fun. Then subsequently California starts to be destroyed. Firemen looks scared. Rome starts to be destroyed. The Pope looks scared. A giant building collapses on a bunch of people I guess, but it looks more like a movie of a giant building is collapsing and a bunch of people are running out of the theater. Maybe because that movie is 2012 and it's just that bad. Or worse, it could be 10,000 B.C.! (also Roland Emmerich). Destruction ensues for the next several seconds. Then suddenly hope dawns on the horizon! "The government is building these ships." Woo! There's hope for humanity. Hold on a sec though, let me make sure i heard you right, SHIPS?! As in space ships? "Oh sure! We can live in space! We've seen Wall*E! Don't worry! We're packing a giraffe!" What are they going to do when they get up there?! How do they sustain food? Water? Energy? Oh well, I guess they can just figure out all that stuff later. Directly after that we have the worst line of the whole trailer given by the usually very good Chiwetel Ejiofor (yes that's his real name). "Isn't it decided that people have the right to fight for their lives?!" He delivers it all with righteous fury and indigestion or whatever. Save it for the stand Tom Jane. Ok, well they definitely don't want to let the actors talk too much because they have to make people still want to see this movie. More action and destruction ensues for the entire minute that's left of the trailer. Cusack and his on screen family consists of divorced wife, Amanda Peet, boy who plays young Shawn in Psyche, and girl who I've never seen or heard of. Together they go through so much disaster, the only logical movie response would be for it to draw them together. The trailers ends, after the white house gets destroyed (AGIAN!?!!?!), with them hugging in life jackets claiming they'll always stay together! Whatever happens! I can't wait to see them try.
I basically just posted Trailer 2 to point out the part where they out run the effing world falling apart. Good thing no one's on the streets in California ever because that would make this whole escaping natures fury thing a little more difficult.
#4 The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Ugh this trailer is so emo! Bella's famous red truck pulls up. Edward and Bella show up on screen. It's Bella's birthday and all she wants is a kiss from her prudey vampire lover. Now for the record, I think Kristen Stewart is a very good actress and could have a great career ahead of her, but when she's asks for her kiss she does this weird cocked eyebrow thing that's more off putting than anything. Is that your sexy face bella? No wonder he's prudey. Moving on. "I love you" she says. "You're my only reason to stay..." pause for a quick and abrupt camera angle change and then fade in just in time to hear him say with all the teenage angst he can manage "...alive... if that's what i am." Stop being such a depressive emo girl Edward! Gosh. Then the birthday scene. While opening presents, Bella gets a little cut on her finger. This is apparently enough to make the weakest of the Cullens run at her like Seabiscuit. To protect her, Edward throws her into a glass table ripping open her arm. None of the other Cullens react to the copious amount of blood that draws. Thank God for continuity. Also props to Edward for beating down his woman and making it look like he was protecting her. Anyway, this scenario was just too dramatic for Edward so he takes Bella into the middle of the forest alone and dumps her. "I will never put you through anything like this ever again" he whines. "This is the last time you will ever see me." Hold on a sec. I can't help the emotions. Their love is just so right. Why can't he see that through this, and even through 3 more painfully bad books, their love will still prosper! Why?! Why?! You see! He's breaking up with her and leaving her BECAUSE he loves her! It's just so beautiful. I need a moment. I'm going to read the end of Breaking Dawn again just to settle my breaking heart!
Back guys. I ended up just reading all the books all over again. Works a little pissed I missed four days, but they have a Twilight amendment in the rule book so they can do nothing if i need me some Edward action! Moving on. Uh oh. Jamaican-y vampire is back and apparently he's a bad guy this time! He's going to eat Bella! Oh no! Edward where are you?!?!?!?!?!? But wait! Who's that shirtless guy who just popped up out of no where? Jake! What's he going to do? Run the other way Jake! That's a f***ing vampire! (awed pause) ... holy crap! He's a werewolf?! A good one? Well he can't be a bad one because all the bad guys in this series have red eyes and want to eat Bella for some reason. Wow. November can't come fast enough.
#3 Planet 51
There is a much longer, much worse trailer out there now and i do have to put up with all day too, but i don't have the energy to dissect everything terrible in that one so i'm doing this one. I love that whoever made this movie think they're so clever for making a movie about aliens who live just like us in the 50s only they look different! They're green! And there are, like circles everywhere! That's unique. But they all dress in American 50s fashion, speak english with american accents, and have things like barbecues and alien dogs that pee on stuff and it melts. I get it. The dog is the alien from Alien. The alien from Alien had acid blood. But don't you think that if dog's urine melted whatever you made street lights out of, you'd stop making street lights out of that?! Do they give any thought that the history of english is complex and intricate- that it evolved over hundreds of years to get to what we now understand as english. That that evolution was entirely influenced by our individual history of the human race and what cultures and people merged with others. No. These aliens are JUST THE SAME AS US. It takes any need for any kind of thought out of the whole process really. So that's good. Then something wild happens. A space ship lands. A man gets out. He thinks he's on the moon based on how he's unnecessarily hopping. He plants the american flag and then and only then decides to open his eyes. He didn't notice the last 60 seconds that he was surrounded by an unimaginatively reinvented suburban America. He had to step on the slightly distorted rubber ducky first! I get it! Then he runs away screaming. Hilarious. The character is voiced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and when has he never done something bad? I know kids will love this movie. Why? Because we think kids are idiots and so we dumb down movies to the lowest common denominator so they can enjoy it. The result is that we turn them into idiots. All except Pixar who consistently creates quality and intelligent art. You know what? Kids still love it. Because despite our efforts, they are not yet dumb enough to ignore greatness. Anyway blah. This trailer really annoys me.
#2 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.
I don't know how they do it, but they manage to make this 30 second long trailer the most annoying 30 seconds of my life. I mean I could have just told you the title and left it there. I'll elaborate a little bit more though. At least it's better (slightly) than the teaser trailer for the first one where one rodent eats the other rodents poop to cover for him. Hysterical. Once again, can we stop (figuratively) feeding crap to our kids and have a little faith in their intelligence. These are the people who are going to be paying my social security out of their tax money people. If we make them too dumb to work, I'm going to be mad pissed.
#1 Old Dogs
This is by far one of the worst things I've ever seen. And it plays like every five minutes at the theater. Not exaggerating. What annoys me most is that I know, like the talentless director's terrible previous film- Wild Hogs, this will probably do really well. This is what i'm talking about people! You keep making kids dumber, they're going to turn into adults that think this chont is comedy. Lets go through this trailer one step at a time. First we get to "Meet Dan and Charlie" played by Robin Williams and John Travolta. The very next scene is Dan accidentally kicking a soccer ball into a kids face. If you're too smart to get it, that is hysterical! The kid gets mad at him and he feels awkward. I'm sure the kid could have moved, but then we wouldn't get to see Robin Williams hit a kid in the face with a soccer ball. What's a movie without that?! This is also supposed to tell us that Dan is not good with kids. Ok, i'll bite, but i have a feeling that concept is going to pop back up later on in the trailer... Charlie then hits on a waitress. This supposedly means he has other interests. Other interests than what? Oh. Sorry. I'll stop. I just got told off for using my brain. Moving on. "Vicky is back in town." We don't know who Vicky is but charlie tells us that Dan hasn't seen her in exactly seven years. Also we see a cropped black and white photo of Dan and Vicky kissing which apparently means that they were a couple seven years ago. Ok. I'm with you so far and no! I'm not using my brain yet. It's turning into jelly just like they want. Anyway Vicky "doesn't know where to start, Dan." Uh oh, that can never be good for our swinging bachelor protagonist. Sure enough not even a second later, two little goons run in yelling "daddy." Dan sputters, "I have kids?!", laughs real hard, and then promptly passes out in his food. The natural man's response. Now lets dissect this for a second. Dan was with this woman. He got her pregnant. They broke up and she left town, never telling Dan he was a daddy to be. So then she had new born twins. Never contacted Dan for child support or help with the babies. Twins can't be that expensive or hard to take care of alone right? She couldn't have told him! I mean, if she had we never would have got to see him pass out in his food! No, it was definitely better not to tell.
If you don't know exactly where this plot is going by now, you're either asleep or someone who would probably like this movie. (That's not a compliment.) Dan of course has to take the kids even though we found out by the whole kicking the soccer ball to the kid thing, 'Dan's not good with kids'. What happens next? Presumably hilarity ensues. There's some drivel about a ultimate frisbee game where Dan and Charlie get beat up by the younger stronger people on the team. Ultimate frisbee is not a full contact sport just for the record. Why is it in this movie? Because then we can see Dan and Charlie get beat up! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! So genius. Remember that time Dan hurt his arm?! I couldn't stop laughing for weeks! That Matt Dillion is one tough ultimate frisbee player. And while i'm here, let me appeal to you, Matt Dillion. Why? Was it for the money? You've obviously smart enough to know this wasn't a good career move. Aren't you? On second thought, don't answer that. You did do Herbie Fully Loaded.
Then Dan has pills where the side effect is 'sudden loss of depth perception'. Guess what happens. Dan has sudden loss of depth perception. Loss of depth perception? Really? Is that a real thing or something they just came up with so they could make the camera look funny and so Robin Williams can run into things and get too close to an asian person? I'm betting you already know the answer. Sometime during all this fun, Seth Green gets hit in the balls and makes a noise like a woman. You know, Seth Green, I didn't know how your career could possibly go up after the Austin Powers films. You sure showed me didn't you?
The rest of the trailer all consists of one sequence. Apparently Dan's kids are in the zoo. But the zoo is closed. Now the kids could have been escorted out with the rest of the civilians when the zoo closed. But probably not. They must still be in there. Locked in. With no way out. Dan must rescue them. So they break into the zoo. Where do they end up? Of course the gorilla pen when the gorilla shows up and attacks. Charlie's hit with a tire hurled by the ape, Dan and Charlie jump over the side into water, and Seth Green makes more girl sounds (keep it up man, you're a genius). Dan and Charlie find themselves in the penguin tank. This is apparently a bad thing since the penguins start attacking them. Does that make any sense to anyone with half a brain? No. Moving on. Seth green make more girl sounds. The End. I wonder if it's too early to stand in line.
The thing that annoys me most about this is that Robin Williams is in it. C'mon man! Were you drunk when you said yes to this? You're a smart guy. I've seen your stand up. You're also very funny. It doesn't make sense to me why you would read this script and think, "Yes! that's what I need! A movie with John Travolta to boost my career!" But i think just thinking about that is more thinking that you ever did about this film. You're a great actor man! How about more Good Will Hunting type projects. Stuff where you're not required to pass out like a twilight fan meeting Robert Patterson. Anyway i'll stop now. I've written way too much but hopefully it's been entertaining enough not to want to kill yourself.
Rad
P.S. A good relatively painless way to die is to watch these trailers over and over in a loop. You're brain will think you've given up on life and just shut down.
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