"You know what I do first thing every morning? Read the sports page. You know why? Best part of the newspaper. Winners, losers, how it happened, score."--The Detective (Bruce Dern)
My last post was a review of a Walter Hill film, and the one prior to that focused on the trailers for two vehicular centric movies, so I thought I'd follow up with a post concerning a film that combines the direction of Hill with an auto themed plot, the 1978's badass minimalist piece, The Driver.
Before cutting to any footage from the film, the trailer opens introducing the characters, who all go by their occupation/description (keeping with the minimalist theme and the quote above which could serve as a statement of intention for Hill's film) with still images of the stars: Ryan O'Neal (The Driver), Bruce Dern (The Detective) and Isabelle Adjani (The Player)...speaking of which, how awesome were the 70's that Bruce Dern was ever a major marketing point of a film.
If you're a fan of the work of the crime cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Doulos, Le Samourai), Donald Westlake's Parker series written under the nom de plum of Richard Stark or the general 1970's American crime cinema aesthetic of the likes of Charley Varrick, you should add this to your must see list.
As a bonus, here's the trailer for what is currently my most anticipated film of the year, Drive, which netted it's director, Nicholas Winding Refn the Best Director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and me being so excited is saying a lot seeing how I wasn't even a fan of the only Refn film I've seen to this point, 2009's Bronson. But the buzz from Cannes was amazing and combined with a solid cast featuring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Catherine Hendricks, Ron Perlman, and apparently a great evil turn by Albert Brooks (!) and a stylistically direct crime story cut from the same cloth as the Hill film which I treasure, have amped up my desire to see this one ASAP.
Here's the Red Band trailer which just made it's internet debut this week and has got me all kinds of psyched.
The digital sign on the 134 informed me this afternoon that the 405 is officially reopened, and Los Angeles has survived it's closure, whose inconvenience was considered so severe and heinous it was named after a Michael Bay film, relatively unscathed. But before you hop in your car to celebrate the returning integration of LA locales, let's take a look at the trailers for two films which may give you pause, because they suggest some truly dangerous vehicular possibilities.
Duel (1971, Steven Spielberg)
The first feature length film directed by Steven Spielberg, scripted by the great genre author Richard Matheson (I am Legend) originally aired on television as a Movie of the Week, where it was so popular that it received a theatrical release in Europe and eventually in America. I notice a copyright date of 1972 on the trailer, so I am guessing this is from it's European release.
I know some might find this shocking, but after Jaws this is my favorite Spielberg film (emphasis on favorite over best). There's a basic primal aspect to the story and filmmaking that I really respond to, putting an everyman in a senseless terror ride. The primitiveness extends to the narration free trailer whose sixty seconds are action packed. Have fun counting the number of times the title of the film appears in this minute long trailer (I counted nine)!
The Car (1977, Elliot Silverstein)
The result of combining the ingredients of both Spielberg suspense films Duel and Jaws (the introduction to the lead, James Brolin, even features him being woken up a la Roy Scheider's Brody...but he has two daughters instead of two sons, so completely different) with a sprinkling of the devil based horror sub-genre that rose in the wake of The Exorcist (the film even opens with a quote from Church of Satan founder Anton LeVey), 1977's The Car is one of those enjoyable ridiculous films that were common in the 70's or 80's when studios quickly attempted to jump on a popular trend.
Similarly to the Duel trailer, The Car trailer heavily showcases the action sequences, but this time with a narrator informing us of the possessive power within, who ponders "what evil force drives...The Car!" (too bad they didn't get Percy Rodrigues) and the bellowing audio symbol of it's destructive urges...the ever threatening horn honk!
If you survived this weekend and find your appetite for vehicular mayhem whetted after these two films, I also recommend Race with the Devil (1975, Jack Starrett) where satanic cults chase after Warren Oates and Peter Fonda who are trying to enjoy a vacation in their Winnebago and Christine (1983, John Carpenter), the Stephen King adaptation where a boys first car has deadly impulses.
After finishing up my retrospective on the Death Wish series, I followed the last review with a post embedding the trailer for each film. So I thought I would do the same for the Psycho series, with a few extra Easter eggs.
Since I already did a post on the famous Alfred Hitchcock hosted original trailer a few years ago (link) I will instead focus this on the sequels and remake.
Psycho II Teaser Trailer
"It's 22 years later, and Norman Bates is coming home"
Much like the film itself, the trailer for the first Psycho sequel opens with the shower scene from the original film before the Bates Motel segues from black and white to color, and the poster art of Psycho II is recreated with Anthony Perkins walking up the stairs to his childhood home.
And who is that narrating? Why none other than our good pal Percy Rodrigues!
Psycho II Full Length Theatrical Trailer
"...and he's back in business"
This is the longer, more typical "compilation of greatest hits scenes" trailer for Richard Franklin's 1983 film.
Anthony Perkins interview circa 1983
Here's part one of a five part interview (follow the link for the other parts) with Anthony Perkins while he was promoting Psycho II. In this section he reveals he was in New York on a stage during the shooting of the original film's shower scene.
Psycho III Theatrical Trailer
"But mother's off her rocker again"
This trailer for the Anthony Perkins directed second sequel is pretty much half teaser (with extra footage shot for it) and half typical trailer with scenes from the film. The narrator here is a famous voice (whose name I am not aware) but has none of the gravitas of Mr. Rodrigues!
"Scream of Love" Music Video with introduction from Anthony Perkins
Here we have a music video for Carter Burwell's sax heavy pop song featuring the theme from Psycho III. Shot on the same locations as Psycho III and featuring a Diane Scarwid look-a-like and Perkins himself, as well as footage from the original and 1986 sequel, pay attention to the thin narrative which concludes with an Inception like dream within a dream finale.
Introduced from the MTV studio (back when MTV, you know, showed music video) by Anthony Perkins sporting a gold lame tie, fashionably tucked into his shirt. Rock on, Tony!
Psycho IV: The Beginning Trailer
"How did it all start?"
Since Psycho IV premiered on Showtime, it never had a theatrical trailer, but here's the preview that was placed on VHS tapes by Universal.
Psycho 1998 trailer
"Discover the world of Norman Bates"
And we conclude with the trailer for Gus Van Sant's infamous remake which is full of little lame music video type effects like the film burning and bubbling. Was anyone reminded of the drug PSA featuring the cracked egg after the first two tags "This is the Face of Norman Bates" and "This is the Mind of Norman Bates"? Personally, I was waiting for the final tag to be: "any questions?"
Well that's all for the Psycho series, I have plans for my next two series retrospective, one a low budget exploitation series (of which I've never seen any of the three films) and the other a highly successful but much maligned comedy series. Considering it took about a year for me to complete this, please don't hold your breath.
If you want to read my specific review for any of the film in the Psycho series, below are easy links to those:
Back in 1999 after seeing the forgettable Robert Zemeckis produced remake of William Castle’s cult classic The House on Haunted Hill, I wondered why the filmmakers, probably fully aware of the quality of the endeavor, didn’t try to make the film at least somewhat distinctive by paying homage to the gimmickry of Castle. More specifically, I thought, why not just make it 3-D? At that time it was well over a decade since a widely released American film used the process through the entire film, and heck, in this case at least it would garner some interest in an otherwise direly boring enterprise.
Flash-forward eleven years later and my idle musing turned out to be prophetic. With theatrical exhibition waning Hollywood is choosing to respond not by better quality (silly rabbit) but by embracing the third dimension (and the financial uprise in ticket prices that goes with the process). Today, if you’re releasing a horror film, large scope science fiction or superhero epic and especially a film aimed at children, there’s a 90% chance it will be in 3-D, including several films directed by the aforementioned Robert Zemeckis himself.
While some of these films have grand ambition, call me narrow mindedly old school but the most enjoyable experiences I have had wearing those clunky glasses in the last three years were the throwback horror “throw shit at the screen” stylings of the My Bloody Valentine and Piranha remakes, though even those have some murky cinematography. Screw “immersion” man, I want a detached eyeball flying in my face!
This weekend’s release of Tron: Legacy with its Digital 3-D effects and the inevitable recollection of seeing the original theatrically back in 1982 when the momentary 80’s 3-D boom was in full effect has me in a particularly nostalgic mood. So let’s put on those cardboard glass with the red and blue anaglyph lenses and remember a day when 3-D didn’t mean blue people plugging themselves into trees but rather Star Wars rip-offs, third entries in horror franchises, and, of course, lots and lots of stuff being pointed directly at the camera!
The film that kick started the 80's trend was the Italian western Comin' At Ya, which as a spaghetti western in 1981 and in 3-D, was a double anomaly, but ended up garnering a strong 12 million dollar cume in the US, which is a cool $40 mill when adjusted for inflation. Sadly, I could not locate a trailer online, so enjoy this poster:
About five months after Comin' At Ya's American release, the Charles Band directed horror film Parasite, featuring effects by Stan Winston, hit theatres. Featuring an ensemble cast with future star Demi Moore, Tom Villard (of Popcorn fame) and The Runaways' Cherie Curie, Parasite was able to ride the uniqueness of 3-D and garner $7 million dollars from a $800,00 budget.
Here's the trailer for Parasite which begins with our narrator explicitly promoting the 3-D process and then displays a bunch of parasites jumping out at you, the audience member.
"Be assured Parasite is the most gripping and frightening movie you will ever see...and in 3-D you will be part of the terror!":
You then had your wave of Part 3's.
Friday the 13th part 3 (in 3-D)
"Jason. You can't fight him, you can't stop him, and now you can't even keep him on the screen!"
The next two feature our good pal, Percy Rodrigues, as narrator. Jaws 3-D, the trailer of which contains a grand total of zero seconds of actual footage from the film (perhaps for the best).
"And for the first time the terror of Jaws won't stop at the edge of the screen"
Amityville 3-D, this explosive trailer also relies more on Rodrigues' sonorous voice as a selling point rather than actual footage of the film
"A new dimension in the technology of terror!"
Unfortunately, I was deemed too young to watch either of those films at the time by my parents, even though both the Jaws and Amityville sequels were rated PG, so I never had the opportunity to experience them theatrically (I did catch a revival screening of Jaws 3-D in 2002), however, I did see the two fantasy/sci-fi Star Wars rip-off films with really long titles that utilized the process.
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, which was produced by Ivan Reitman and featured a pre-John Hughes collaboration appearance by Molly Ringwald, was not a success upon it's release, probably due to the not so brilliant decision of having it open five days before Return of the Jedi. The film, which I have absolutely no recollection of, has been released on DVD, however no trailer (or very much footage of any sort for that matter) turned up in my searches, so enjoy the poster that tried to entice people away from the concluding chapter of the Star Wars saga, it's the first movie that puts you in outer space!
Released later that year, August 1983, Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn features a poster that should be instantly familiar to anyone who either read comic books that year or frequented the science fiction aisle of the video store during the decade. Directed by Charles Band, the James Cameron of the 1981-83 3-D craze, Metalstorm would gross a mere $5 million dollars that year, less than Parasite, and by 1984, it seemed the trend was officially dead.
Here's the trailer for Metalstorm featuring lots of items being thrown towards the camera ("...and they will do all of this for you in 3-D!"):
In 1991, New Line Pictures decided the only way to send off the franchise character that built the studio was to take things up a notch, dimensionally speaking. So Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare featured the character's onscreen demise (there would be two more sequels and a remake), which basically was a ten minute sequence, in 3-D, so you had to wait until prompted on screen. Being a teenaged horror fanatic at the time, I saw it opening day, and it was a bit of a let down, cluing me in that my affection for those previously discussed films were merely a factor of nostalgia.
Oddly, while the trailer shows the scene in which the 3-D glasses magically materializes on the protagonist's face, it makes no mention of the gimmick:
In 27 years (which judging from the gap between the original Tron and the sequel is when we can expect the release of the third film, Tron: Trinity) will the current trend have gone obsolete and returned? Will the likes of the Clash of the Titans remake and that owl movie be an obscure footnote comparable to Spacehunter and Metalstorm today? Who knows, look me up and we can discuss it then, I'll be the one with the cardboard glasses.
Remember in my Trailer of the Moment entry on Suspiria, how I mentioned that when presented with the difficult task of presenting to the audiences a completely original vision in trailer format that studios tend to either a.) de-emphasize the originality by editing the footage in a way that makes the viewer think they are about to watch something within a genre they are already comfortable with? or b.) embrace the new concepts. Well, Videodrome went all the way to option C.) fuck y'all, you will submit to the powers of our film whether you like it or not, fucker!
Any footage from the film itself is relegated to still images as the trailer for Videodrome, produced by Universal Studios by the way, is a minute plus of pop art imagery featuring state of the art (for 1983) computer graphics.
And, I am not sure if my ears are working properly, but that sure sounds like our pal Percy Rodrigues narrating, if so, it's a somewhat subdued voice-over for him. Though there is the wonderful line "Television can change your mind, Videodrome will change your body!"
It's always interesting to see the routes trailers go when try to entice viewers to take a flyer on an unique new film. There are typically two methods, one is to surmise the style to give audiences the head's up that, yes, this is something entirely new and exciting. Pulp Fiction's trailer is a good example of this. The other way is to mislead potential viewers by offering the film as just another example of the type of cinema for which they are already comfortable with. This year's documentary feature Catfish is a great example as the trailer with it's emphasis on one scene to try and fool people that they are in for a Paranormal Activity like thrill ride is particularly idiotic.
Dario Argento had already made a splash in Europe by the time Suspiria, his most visually audacious, received it's United States release, where he was far from the name he would become amongst horror fanatics. So it's interesting to look back at how International Classics, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, promoted it's American release. It actually straddles both of the above mentioned strategies, mainly because it's nigh impossible to show any scenes of the film without revealing it's bold stylistic differences amongst it's exploitation horror films brethren. So to make it more palatable they throw in a silly skeleton rhyming woman. But I don't know, I kind of dig it, and the advertisers should be proud of their Don Draper genius level tag line: "The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of Suspiria, are the first 92!" I also actually prefer the pulsating, living film titles used in the American print over the Italian cut's classier font.
So let's close out the Argento appreciation half-week with the trailer to Suspiria, the only thing scarier than the last seventeen seconds are the first sixty!
The week of April 12th, 1985, held three significant events for myself:
1.) April 12th was my ninth birthday.
2.) My parent's divorce became official on April 15th.
3.) The Lewis Teague directed, Stephen King anthology film Cat's Eye opened.
The first two require no explanation I imagine, so let me explain the importance of number three. It was the first "horror" film I was ever permitted to see theatrically, which probably was allowed due to the first two factors.
As I have described a few years ago on another blog, my first experience with a horror film came when I snuck out of my room late one night whilst my father watched Friday the 13th part III on Beta and caught a few minutes. Needless to say, I was instantly fascinated! As my father learned of my taste for horror, he started to tell me the plots of films whose video boxes tantalized me, but proved forbidden fruit because of my age (a discrimination that continues unabated to this day!), as ghost stories, these included Halloween and Psycho.
Flash forward to Spring 1985, my father or mother won tickets to a pre-release screening of Cat's Eye from a radio station contest [side note: this was a strangely prevalent occurrence in 1985, I got to see Back to the Future a few days before it opened wide, and my dad went to a pre-release screening of Porky's Revenge, which netted me a super cool extra large t-shirt with the film's logo on it, both via radio station call-in promotions], after an intense bargaining session where I promised my mother that my homework would be finished first, and I would have no nightmares, I was allowed to accompany my dad, thus becoming the first of many horror films I would see theatrically, a large portion with my dad.
To those who have seen it, obviously Cat's Eye is no great shakes in the annals of horror filmmaking. A triptych of short stories penned for the screen by King himself, two of the three stories would be more apropos of a Twilight Zone episode than say Tales From the Crypt. But the last vignette, featuring poor little Drew Barrymore being stalked by a nasty, wall dwelling, soul sucking goblin, actually was very effective to this nine year old child, and alas, I did have a nightmare that night (though I never told my parents) when I woke up and my poodle Sammy was breathing close to me, very similar to the tactics employed by Mr. Goblin.
To commemorate my twenty-five plus year appreciation of horror cinema, let's look at the trailer for Cat's Eye, which is heavy on King references (Cujo, Christine, The Shining and The Dead Zone all net a reference within the first thirty seconds) and lo and behold, who's that narrating, none other than our good pal, Percy Rodrigues.
If you can remember, I'd be interested in your first horror film theatrical experience, please share in the comments or if you have a blog, your own post.
When I was linking back to past articles from this blog that covered Jaws for my 35th Anniversary post on Sunday, I forgot one that covered a very vital component concerning the marketing of Jaws in 1975 (as well as it's first sequel), this one, dedicated to one of the all-time great trailer voice-over artists, Percy Rodrigues.
As a mea culpa, let's watch and listen to Mr. Rodrigues' narration in the trailer of Fred Dekker's 1986 cult favorite, Night of the Creeps, which finally made it's debut on DVD and Blu-Ray in a wonderful, extra feature leaden set last year (I got it for my birthday from my brother, thanks Sean!).
But before we get to the trailer, let's lament the short lived career, though he's still alive and working hard to get projects off the ground, of Mr. Dekker. Creeps, his directorial debut and his follow-up The Monster Squad, came out within a year of each other, while Dekker was still in his mid-20's. While neither set the box office on fire, they became favorites discovered on VHS and cable airings in subsequent years (I remember seeing Squad theatrically a few times as a 12 year old). Both films are loving and respectful homages to horror and sci-fi perennials while being utterly their own thing, and both are truly the work of a singular vision. The humor and care for the characters coupled with Dekker's impressive visual compositions make what seemed like pleasant enough larks in the mid 80's appear to be masterful breaths of fresh airs today when compared to the tone deaf modern genre filmmakers. While Dekker may have been a tier below the likes of John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Joe Dante on their best days, he's several hundred tiers ahead of the likes of contemporary directors like Marcus Nispel, Rob Zombie and Eli Roth.
After Squad, he wrote and directed a few episodes of Tales From the Crypt before being offered what probably seemed at the time like a surefire hit, Robocop 3. Of course, that experience was disastrous (I still have not seen it), the original script by Frank Miller was rewritten several times, Peter Weller dropped out of the role, the film was cut for a more family friendly PG-13 rating, and the studio, Orion, went bankrupt mid-production, causing the film to sit on the shelves from it's intended summer 1992 release to a early November 1993 one, where it made no impression.
Hopefully the long wait for the excellent special editions DVD releases of Monster Squad (debuted in 2007) and Night of the Creeps which lead to renewed discussion and appreciation of Dekker's career have reignited interest in this talented writer-director and he will get another project made and out of a very long stint in director jail.
And now, here's the trailer for Night of the Creeps:
In celebration of Clint Eastwood's 80th birthday today here's the trailer for thee film which inspired the name of this here blog, the second film of Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy, For a Few Dollars More.
Some interesting aspects concerning this trailer:
1.) The groovy red and blue font of the title and actor's names
2.) Pretty much no mention of any plot points, it focus primarily on action sequences
3.) Makes no reference to Eastwood's character as being "The Man With No Name" a major focus of United Artists' advertising strategy (see poster to the left)
4.) When A Fistful of Dollars was released many of the Italian names of the cast and crew were Americanized to hide the films European origins. After Dollars' overwhelming success, it seems like the ruse was no longer necessary so director Sergio Leone gets credited here both by the pseudonym Bob Robertson and his actual name as does actor Gian Maria Volonte who was credited in the first film as John Wells.
Here's the trailer:
If you happen to be watching Turner Classic Movies today, they are showing a selection of Eastwood films including his three collaborations with Leone.
As for the man himself, he shows no signs of slowing down, after directing five films in the last three years, he has another one set for release this year and is already in pre-production on his next project.
After finishing James Dickey's 1970 novel, Deliverance, I gave the Blu-Ray of John Boorman's 1971 film adaptation another viewing. The film, whose screenplay was written by Dickey himself, is extremely faithful to the source material save for one exception, an excised first chapter that takes place the day before the ill-fated canoe trip that provides the back story of all the characters and the history of their relationship to one another.
Boorman's (or Dickey's screenplay) decision to discard the opening chapter is actually a wise one as it results in the four men becoming archetypes of modern masculinity (circa the early 1970's) and blank slates to which the viewer can identify with in broad terms, be they the jokester, the overly machismo outdoorsmen, the sensitive type or the everyman, thus making the visceral experience when the shit hits the fan more powerful.
Interestingly, the trailer for the film actually includes a rather faithful presentment of the excluded back story and professions of the four men.
Here's the trailer, and did I mention that you got a pretty mouth?
Shivers, released in the United States with the more titillating title They Came From Within, may technically not be David Cronenberg's debut film, however, it is the first to have, to paraphrase the Coen Brothers, "that certain David Cronenberg feel". While his 1986 remake of The Fly is often regarded as an AIDS parable in its depiction of the desecration of the body, had it not predated the first noted case of the disease by a good half decade, Shivers could share a similar reading as it depicts the transference of a parasite through sexual interaction.
The film has similar stakes with George Romero's Dawn of the Dead; they both find characters fighting off zombified throngs in a confined space that represents luxurious excess, a mall in Dawn, an upscale high rise multi-use condominium on an island near Montreal here, and it's interesting to note that Shivers predated the Romero film by three years. Though Dawn may be the more accomplished film, only Shivers is brazen enough to end (SPOILERS TO FOLLOW, obviously) in a zombie orgy!
Due to it's low budget (the film was financed in part from a Canadian tax incentive) the film is a little rough around the edges, but Cronenberg's commanding skills of special effects incorporation and creating tension and unease along with the driving thematic element of "body horror" that would drive a number of his most celebrated works including The Fly, Dead Ringers, Crash and Videodrome, are all already on display. Future Ghostbusters director and fellow Canuck Ivan Reitman produces and Black Sunday's Barbara Steele co-stars.
The US trailer features a familiar narrator, Mr. Percy Rodrigues, who makes yet another one of his patented bold proclamations, this time it's: "If this picture doesn't make you scream and squirm, you better see a psychiatrist!"
The combination of purchasing a cheaply priced copy of Bernard Herrmann's score to Taxi Driver on CD and the constant barrage of advertising for director Martin Scorsese's latest film Shutter Island (as of this writing, still unseen by me) prompted me to revisit Driver for the first time in, yikes, over a decade.
Incidentially, Taxi Driver was the third film I ever purchased on DVD way back in 1999, just after Boogie Nights (the original version, which I have since upgraded) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a $5 public domain copy that went missing (note to self: pick up Metropolis when it hits Blu-Ray).
After my viewing of the film (still great yada yada yada), I watched the trailer and who's icy vocal intonations did I hear? None other than Percy Rodrigues, aka the only person who could make Scorsese's chilling masterpiece sound even more sinister!
"Now, Robert DeNiro creates a terrifying portrait of life on the edge of madness"
For more on Percy Rodrigues, here is my article on him from back in May 2009.
In honor of my completion of reviewing the entire Death Wish quintology, here are the trailers for the complete series followed by my personal rankings of all five films.
Death Wish (1974, Michael Winner)
"Enjoy a typical afternoon in New York City."
Death Wish II (1982, Michael Winner)
"It's about to happen again."
Death Wish III (1985, Michael Winner)
"In a world gone made, there's one law, His!"
Death Wish IV: The Crackdown (1987, J. Lee Thompson)
"The trap is set. The fuse is lit. Bronson is unleashed."
Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994, Allan A. Goldstein)
"This time he is not leaving until his wish is their command."
My top 5 Favorite Death Wish films
1. Death Wish II
The sleaziest entry in a series of films hardly lacking for sleaze. Michael Winner makes early 80's Los Angeles make mid 70's New York look like mid 50's Minneapolis. What I appreciated about the film is it's the only one to question Kersey's need for vengeance and show how it alienated him from others. (Review)
2. Death Wish IV
J. Lee Thompson takes over the reins from Winner and makes an even more over-the-top sequel than the ridiculous part III. For the first time Kersey is actually taking out the rich people who supply the drugs. (Review)
3. Death Wish
The original that set the template for the rest of the series and a rash of imitators. Suffers when Winner attempts any relevance and politically it's pretty rancid. (Review)
4. Death Wish V
Bronson's final theatrically released film is thankfully not an embarrassment. Follows the change in series tone established in part IV. (Review)
5. Death Wish III
This has become a cult classic in some regard, but Winner's indifferent work as director coupled with a cheesy even for a mid 80's Cannon action film sensibility left me feeling something's lacking. If you are in Los Angeles, you can actually catch this at the New Beverly on December 20-22nd in a double bill with the unquestionably awesome Rolling Thunder. (Review)
Let's take a look at the trailers for the three Halloween movies that John Carpenter served a major role in the production of, either as co-writer (all three), producer (II and III) or director (the original).
Halloween (1978, John Carpenter)
Two points of interest: 1.) Very spoiler heavy 2.) With one or two exceptions, pretty much cut in sequential order
Halloween II (1981, Rick Rosenthal)
You can tell the difference in the movement of Michael Myers in this film, after the original actor, Nick Castle, was not rehired. There's a grace and rhythm to his performance that's lacking in all the other sequels, especially lame is the little pirouetted jump in the early attack scene shown here. Curiously, Jamie Lee Curtis is relegated to a minor selling point in this trailer, not appearing until the final thirty seconds. Also, no hints at the eventual lame reveal of her character's relationship to Myers' twist. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, Tommy Lee Wallace)
I like that this trailer doesn't feel compelled to explain why part III doesn't pick up where the first two Halloween films left off, although ruining Cochran's scheme in the first seconds of the trailer is unforgivable.
Remember back on October 1st when I posted the trailer for Psycho and remarked that you would never see a trailer that sells the movie primarily on the pull of the director's fame? Well, I was wrong, because in 1986, first, and only, time director Stephen King introduces the trailer for Maximum Overdrive and after some kvetching over not having his work done right by other directors promises to scare the hell out of you, and that's a guarantee. If the hell is in fact scared out of you by Maximum Overdrive, and let me preface this by saying I hate to make assumptions about other people, you are a big ol' wuss.
Here's the trailer for Maximum Overdrive it's adorably goofy, much like the film. If the trailer's soundtrack sounds familiar, it's because it recycles the Alan Howarth/John Carpenter score from Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
And in case you have never seen Maximum Overdrive, the vending machine wrath scene, the highlight of this guilty pleasure, is included below to whet your appetite.
I apologize if this resulted in the hell being scared out of you.
This simple yet effective trailer for Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining is itself a piece of avant garde cinema. Can you imagine a film today with a star of Jack Nicholson's fame circa 1980 not even showing any scenes of the actor at work?
Then I see this alternate version of the trailer and I get the warm fuzzies.
Makes you wish Kubrick figured away to get Peter Gaberial's "Solsbury Hill" on the soundtrack doesn't it?
The endurance of the horror genre throughout the last century, from the silent era to today, owes more than a little to it's relation to some basic theological aspects: we are all sinners and unless we change our ways, we will be punished. Even someone like myself who grew up in a secular household knew enough about the proposition of going to hell to be scared into being a good boy.
It is obvious why religious themes seep into many horror classics (Frankenstein, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, et cetera) because what is playing god or false prophetizing but the ultimate sin against man and who is Satan if not the ultimate villain?
Of all the movies to delve into these themes of the good versus evil principle of the majority of your, let's say, more popular religions, none is quite as effective as The Exorcist. It's still hard to imagine that director William Friedkin and writer William Peter Blatty got away with so much here both thematically and visually, it's success proving just how tumultous and divisive the 70's were in America, specifically 1973-74, the height of the Watergate scandal and the continuing Vietnam War.
So how did Warner Brothers try to sell what would become a controversial smash hit? Hint: Not so much emphasis on crucifix masturbation.
Here's the trailer:
The Exorcist opened December 26th, 1973. Happy Belated birthday, Jesus!
Possibly the most famous trailer in cinematic history, the trailer for Psycho breaks all conventions. It's over six minutes long, compared to the 2-3 minutes standard length. It's hosted by the director himself, something I cannot imagine anyone other than Hitchcock at the height of his TV success as host of Alfred Hitchcock Presents could ever get away with; even today's most recognizable directors like Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino probably will never be tasked with being the sole marketing image of their own studio made films. And it manages to have no actual footage from the film (that's Vera Miles not Janet Leigh at the end) but is completely full of spoilers as Hitchcock in his usual droll gallows humor nature cheekily describes or hints at every sinister plot point.
And in case you're wondering about the end, where we're told that "no one will be admitted after the film starts", cinema goers generally came into pictures whenever they felt like it and would stay until they caught the rest of the film at the next showtime, then leave at the time. Psycho is often credited with changing the culture of how people watched films.
Now let's join the fabulous Mr. Hitchcock as he escorts us on a tour of the set of his new film, Psycho!
In the middle of the week, the internets was a buzz with the release of the trailers for two films whose reputations heretofore were dramatically opposed: the delayed and troubled remake of The Wolfman, whose original director Mark Romanek walked off before shooting began and was recently pushed from a prestigious Fall release to what appeared to be a February dump (a similar fate recently bestowed to Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, his first narrative film since winning the long coveted Best Director Oscar for The Departed) and the ten year in development, San Diego Comic Con hype machine approved, Avatar, James Cameron's historically expensive follow-up to the, well, historically expensive, yet highest grossing film of all time, Titanic.
Now that the trailers and actual footage for both films have been seen, it appears the tide has shifted and early anecdotal evidence suggests that The Wolfman is garnering positive word of mouth while Avatar is eliciting muted, if not downright hostile, reactions.
Before we precede, I must add an obvious, yet necessary caveat, trailers never tell the whole story. They are first and foremost a function of marketing. They may hint at the visual style, storyline and acting performances, but their primary purpose is to produce a compelling advertisement that will get viewers anticipating the product. I, of course, have an affinity for trailers, either as an artifact that shows the manner in which something we now know as a specific commodity was once promoted or for the rare trailer that transcends cliches and and is in and of itself a piece of art. A recent example of the misleading nature of the game are the trailers for Inglorious Basterds which focus primarily on Brad Pitt and his merry band of Naht-zee bashing men-on-a-mission, which in reality only constitutes a third of a two and a half hour movie. Jeez, I wonder why the marketers didn't tip the audience that over half the dialogue is spoken in languages other than English?
Another great example that displays the full capabilities of using actual footage to misled viewers is the fan created trailer of The Shining that is recut to make it appear to be a touching comedy about the bonding of a man and boy, a cutting satire on how one can recontextualize pretty much any images and provide an entirely different meaning. You can view it here.
With that said, let's look at the trailer for The Wolfman:
Some shoddy CGI and quick cuts* aside, I like what I see. The concentration on atmosphere as well as making it a period piece set in London is more in reverence to the classic Universal monster films than anything we saw in either Stephen Sommer's Van Helsing or the Mummy films. Plus the collection of talent is impressive, Benicio Del Toro is always a welcomed idiosyncratic presence, and even if director Joe Johnson doesn't exactly instill confidence, (he's a director for hire, he won't bring too much to the table, but if the elements are in place, he won't fuck it up either) at least he had the presence of mind to keep makeup artist Rick Baker on board after Romanek exited, Baker of course designed the greatest werewolf transformation ever put on film in An American Werewolf in London. (*Can't take the graphics in CGI too much to task at this point since they may not yet be fully rendered, and the editing of course may not be representative of the approach in the film, but just an easy way to throw out a bunch of enticing images).
Here's the trailer for Avatar:
Let me say that no matter what you think of the footage, this is a well-cut trailer. It displays a distinct sensibility and has a rhythmic energy, the rare time when a trailer lets the images mysteriously communicate the story.
Now as for the images...okay, another diversion, wherein I briefly discuss my opinion of CGI in this day and age: I am pretty much agnostic with a slight lean towards atheism on the subject. That's not to say I can't be blown away by it's usage, examples off the top of my head include Jurassic Park, the Gollum, David Fincher's Zodiac and Benjamin Button, and most recently, District 9 which was made for something like a ninth of the budget of Avatar. But I believe it should be employed only in service of the story and as seamless as possible, I was a bit bummed out when in Drag Me to Hell a scene that recalled many of the gross-out gags of The Evil Dead series used cheap looking CGI when the movies Sam Raimi made for a mere fraction of the budget in the 80's had homemade practical effects that looked better!
James Cameron though is one of the innovators in the field, the T-1000 in Terminator 2 was a revelation in 1991, and Titanic, for whatever you thought of the film, had an attention to detail that only a perfectionist like Cameron could produce. However with that said, the world and creatures he's spent the last ten years of his life developing to the most minute detail quite frankly look like a video game, and not a compelling video game at that. The design of the Na'vi looks like the brainchild of a Broadway producer attempting to combine the drawing power of Cats and the Blue Man Group and the world looks like the cover of a Dungeons and Dragons spin-off novel. Everything else looks superb though, and to damn with faint praise, it looks much more appealing to me than the "photoreal" crap Robert Zemeckis has been making the last five years (of which I haven't seen either).
While everyone should reserve judgment until they see the actual film (I know, get that logic shit out of here) and Cameron deserves the benefit of the doubt, the morale of the story thus far is if you are going to tout your film as a game-changer, make sure you are changing the game to something people are interest in playing. And so far, the jury's still out.
So are you planning on seeing either Avatar or The Wolfman? What did you think of the trailers? Did they persuade you one way or another? Do trailers play a major factor on whether or not you will see a movie? Leave a comment and let me know. I assure you I am not in marketing research.
Opening on June 30th, 1989, though not expanding to full capacity until July 21st (when it hit 534 theatres a relatively paltry count for a major studio film, even twenty years ago), Spike Lee's third feature, Do the Right Thing, stood out like a racially charged sore thumb from the likes of Batman and the myriad of returning franchises such as Indiana Jones, Karate Kid, Lethal Weapon, Star Trek, James Bond, and Ghostbusters, that were filling screens in the summer of '89. While the others outdistanced Lee's film in terms of financial success, if judged by the amount of press and notoriety, Do the Right Thing was the movie of the summer.
While the costumes and references may date the film (and I am of the mind that there's nothing wrong with a film being an artifact of its era) Do the Right Thing still resonates today both politically in terms of a reference in discussion of race relations (trivia: it was the first film the Obamas ever saw together) and cinematically as a stylistic influence due to a combination of Lee's narrative bag of tricks (most famously the racial epithet exchange) and cinematographer Ernest Dickerson's great work at visually evoking tension and the feel of "the hottest day of the year", something Southern Californians without air conditioning probably can relate to this week.
Equally complex, fascinating and frustrating, Do the Right Thing is undoubtedly a work of passion on the part of writer-director-producer and lead actor Spike Lee, but the film succeeds due to the dedication and talents of the entire crew from the aforementioned Dickerson, to the strong supporting cast that included veterans Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Danny Aiello, and a slew of up and comers (including Rosie Perez, John Turturro, Rosie Perez, Bill Nunn, Giancarlo Esposito, Martin Lawrence and Samuel L. Jackson) and to the musical involvement of Bill Lee who provides the film it's jazz based score that attempts to soothes the nerves and make sense of the proceedings and Public Enemy's contribution "Fight the Power" that acts as a counterpoint and theme for a revolutionary march, as appropriate a pairing of a song and film in movie history.
The best evidence in Lee's collaborative spirit is the fact that he allowed Danny Aiello to bring nuance and appeal to the character of Sal, the pizzeria owner, instead of reducing the character to a mere moustache twirling racist, making the final, when his prejudices fully come to light (as much to himself than anyone else) leading to violence, death and the loss of his business, a little harder to take and deeper than a simple proclamation of a take back the neighborhood call to arms it could have been in lesser hands.
Seeing the film theatrically at the age of 13 had a profound effect on me, as a suburban white teenager growing up in Silicon Valley, it forced me to examine some of the preconceived notions I may have had while at the same time opening up a world of cinema that was multilayered and not as easily digestible as the good versus evil battle going on in Gotham City.
Here's the theatrical trailer of Do the Right Thing, considering they had to sell the film to people who may have only know it from the pre-release controversies, Universal did a pretty good job of matching the tone of this film by displaying not only the underlining tension on the precipice of explosion but also the humor, and when it wants to be, Thing is a very funny movie. They should be applauded for not only financing Lee's personal vision, but releasing this thought provoking work at the time of year when people go to movies in hopes of avoiding the use of their brains.
