Trailer Trash

There are two times of the year where I begin to slink into cinematical depression :
1) the end of February-to-early-May post-Oscar-honeymoon period, and 2) the September-to-late-October back-to-school schlock period. It’s during these times when award-worthy brilliance and summertime laughfests lead to half-baked romantic comedies and inane pseudo-dramas.

Let’s take for instance, 2004, where “Lost In Translation” led to “Along Came Polly” and summer blockbuster “Spiderman 2” gave way to “The Forgotten.”

See what I mean? Depressing seasons.

It was with little surprise then that I watched the following (ahem, terrible) trailers and knew that the fall movie mourning period was upon us.

Exhibit A) 3:10 To Yuma
For the record, I am not saying that this is going to be a terrible movie. In fact, I’ve watched the trailer a couple of times and – well, I have no idea what is going on. See if you can figure it out:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/310toyuma/small.html

Tagline (which I am not making up): “Time Waits For One Man.”

Exhibit B) War

http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/war/war_qt_sml.html

There are only three words that come on the screen during the TV commercial for this film: Sex, Violence, and Action. Apparently Plot Development, Moralistic Allegory, and Analysis Of The Human Condition may not have made the final cut.

Of course, there are many other examples I might point you toward – If I have to see another trailer for “The Game Plan” starring The Rock I’m going to gag myself – but instead, let’s take a moment to think about subtlety:



Right.
November can’t come soon enough.