Saturday, September 8, 2018

The Top 10 Best and Worst Trailers of 2017-2018


You'll never guess where Toy Story 4 lands.


Dearest readers, I come bearing tidings that will prove debilitating, if not to many others, then certainly to me. One of the most cherished traditions at the Files has been our semi-annual trailer update, in which I render pithy takes and take-downs on all the film previews I was subjected to in my excursions to the cinema. Unfortunately, because of either a Word malfunction or my own negligence, I have lost the document containing all of the trailers I logged between summer 2017 and summer 2018, a list I could try to reconstruct from memory at the unavoidable expense of omitting those movies I’ve entirely forgotten.

While I was looking forward to revisiting a hundred-odd advertisements and writing blurbs for every one, no matter how punishing to myself, I do perceive one upside to this travesty, that being I have an excuse to revamp the trailer update into a more clickbaity, digestible listicle format. Downsizing is en vogue right now; just ask the Academy, amusingly convinced that their plummeting ratings are due mainly to a 3-hour runtime.

I have accordingly condensed our own ceremony down to 15 trailers, the ten best and five worst I saw between June 2017 and 2018, because as sweet as revenge is, we want to keep a more positive vibe on this corner of the web.

WORST 5. Annihilation
It’s only a matter of time before Paramount goes belly-up and Disney controls half of the film industry. The only reliable IP they can turn a profit on is the Mission Impossible franchise, and even those are laden with expensive location shooting and low merchandising value. The Transformers flicks are keeling over in America, and I give Viacom five years until they sell their dud machine to Disney.

Let’s talk about this trailer. I don’t have so little faith in American consumers as to think them fundamentally averse to a movie like Annihilation. Granted, as movie tickets rise in price, we are living in an increasingly event-based, disparate market, with the ten highest-grossing movies devouring more than 30% of market share, but I have to believe that demand persists for artistic and thought-provoking sci-fi. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina made more than $25 million in theaters, and his sophomore feature isn’t that slow or challenging by comparison. Annihilation packs one of the most entrancing and theatrical finales since 2001: A Space Odyssey, so why couldn’t Paramount just advertise it as the cerebral and psychedelic horror that it is? Instead they tried to seduce viewers with a shoot-em-up romp through monster-infested swampland, when guns and monsters constitute about four minutes of the film.

It goes without saying that viewers didn’t take kindly to the lies.

BEST 10. Downsizing

I can’t for the life of me comprehend how this movie was misinterpreted so vastly by so many people. Popular consensus latched onto what the movie seems on its face to concern, i.e. the existential perils of global warming and overpopulation, and willfully ignored all the nuances in its weighty and speculative script, which satirizes Generation X’s egoism and elitism better than the Oscar-winning Get Out. Even the casting of outspoken environmentalist Matt Damon seems purposeful in a meta, facetious way. The film isn’t great by any means, but it is in dire need of re-evaluation.

Anyway, Damon was on a roll with the trailers for last year. Half of my love for this particular one owes to the fantastic and relevant invocation of Talking Heads, while the other half owes to the great special effects and production design on display. I also have to thank the editor for not disclosing the entire plot, which ironically led to a chorus of angry YouTube comments shouting the trailer down as “false advertising” for the “worst movie ever”, when another edit would trigger just as many complaints of, “I feel like I just saw the whole movie, lol, saves me from buying a ticket.”

BEST 9. The House That Jack Built

I will admit my partiality towards this preview. Ask me what film I’m looking forward to the most that I’ll probably have to drive 50 miles to see, and the answer is The House That Jack Built. Yes, Lars Von Trier has been on a losing streak, bottoming out with the risible Nymphomaniac, but my inability to predict his next move keeps his artistry exciting. Judging by this trailer, which would doubtless make David Bowie proud, I expect his first film in five years to proffer more pessimistic ruminations on man’s depravity and the problem of pain, although Von Trier’s religious views are splattered so across the map that I could be completely off base—I did write a long paper on that subject, which may or may not resurface at some point. Regardless, it is fitting that the trailer for Jack should break the typical rules of composition, considering that its filmmaker has constantly strived to do the same with his craft, for better and for worse.

WORST 4. The Shape of Water
While we haven’t strayed too far from the topic of showing too much in advertising, this trailer spoils basically everything short of the last three minutes of its associated movie. The Shape of Water isn’t exactly intricate or daring in its narrative, but flashing this spot in front of unsuspecting audiences waiting for their movie to start borders on criminal harassment. I can say that because we live in a Relativist society where “harassment” means anything I want it to mean.

BEST 8. Suburbicon

I can already assure you I’m in the minority for heralding this trailer, as Suburbicon charitably vied to give a more embarrassing theatrical performance than Luc Besson’s galactic bomb Valerian. Not even leftist critics condoned George Clooney’s outdated, anti-racist “satire”, slapping it with an impressively awful 29% approval rating. Apparently making fun of white suburban communities can only get so much comic mileage in 2017, when we’ve already seen countless, oh-so-funny Subversions of the pristine nuclear family Mythology.

I deliberately avoided supporting Suburbicon in theaters, which wasn’t a hard endeavor for the short two weeks it played, but I do find it admirable how the trailer editor managed to rein in and obscure the more untenable or patronizing dimensions of the plot. There’s almost no way to glean from the advertising that the movie’s actually about racism, and I’d wager that some naïve seniors wandered in expecting a morbid Coen-esque comedy along the lines of Burn After Reading. The trailer is funny and propulsive thanks to the track by Run the Jewels, who are fast usurping Kanye’s throne as the most valuable names in movie trailer scoring. For the span of what felt like an entire summer, I somehow encountered this preview before every remotely adult-oriented movie, and yet I never grew tired of reciting it from memory.

BEST 7. First Reformed
I have mixed feelings on the marketing endeavors of A24. On one hand, they have mastered the discipline of compressing their movies down into singular, two-minute short films, each conveying the theme or mood peculiar to the whole. Even when their trailers turn out to be flagrantly misleading, as in the notorious misfire It Comes At Night, A24 tend to give a sharp and accurate taste of the kool aid that they’re selling. I have already praised some editors herein for their dastardly Achievement in Tricking People, but I can also appreciate the clarity and honesty with which this left-wing indie distributor presents most of its productions.

Nowhere are these principles more evident than in the trailer for First Reformed, which filled me with awe every time I had the luxury of taking my seat in time. Many of the more striking shots are taken out of context, suggesting a more fantastical plot than in the actual movie, but the melancholy and apocalyptic tone of the trailer ultimately stays true to Ethan Hawke’s despondent priest. One consistent strength of A24’s trailers is sourcing their music straight from the film, and the choral backing here is especially haunting. I liked those Suicide Squad trailers as much as the next DC fanboy, but those didn’t count for much when the songs were cut out of the movie.

So what are my grievances with this marketing style? Frankly, I’d be a lot more inclined to A24 if they weren’t so damned inclined to methods that can only be described as cheating. Almost every one of their trailers plucks a handful of quotes from toxic or useless tech blog critics who echo the Tomatometer 90% of the time and vainly correlate their ideology with art. If I wanted to read an adulatory review from a bastion of cuckoldry like The AV Club, The New Yorker, The L.A. Times, or Indiewire, I would do a search for those, not seek out a trailer. More often than not, leaning on such journalists’ talking points has exacerbated backlash against A24’s product; would general audiences have hated Hereditary so much if the trailer hadn’t boldly sold it as “this generation’s The Exorcist”? Likewise, how does reducing First Reformed to an “update of Taxi Driver” do it any favors when the two films have almost nothing in common, style- or narrative-wise?

I adore the last 40 seconds of this trailer, a purely visual glimpse into my favorite film of the year, but citations in marketing are a fallback for the lazy or logically impaired. A24’s snobbish culling of the critical intelligentsia is the film industry equivalent of celebrity endorsements for deodorant, cars, soft drinks, or Xbox’s, and should be treated with the same scorn we levy at all those other offenses.

WORST 3. Venom
Several months back, a Pepperdine friend acted appalled when I admitted that I hadn’t yet seen the trailer for Sony’s Venom stand-alone movie. “It looks so good,” he exclaimed. “You’ve got to look it up right now.” Now believe it or not, I had initially planned on waiting to catch the Venom trailer on the big-screen, where I could experience the anti-hero’s origin in all its glory (again). Based on this recommendation, though, I made sure to watch the trailer at work that very night, and I dare say none of it was lost on my 20-inch monitor. Imagine how crushed I was to see that Sony’s CG quality control has actually declined since 2007, or that Tom Hardy had agreed to besmirch his nearly speckless resume with such an odorous pile of black goo.

Hope for the superhero genre is a mistake.

BEST 6. Mission Impossible: Fallout
Imagine Dragons have to be my least favorite band of all time, so I’m really saying something when I call this virtuosic preview one of the year’s most best. The remix of “Friction” with the Mission Impossible theme is perfectly aligned with every punch and collision for maximum impact. The trailer shows off just enough of the action to pique one’s interest without spoiling everything (unlike those Dark Knight trailers that just couldn’t resist the flipping truck), and Henry Cavill’s reloading shotgun arms will be enshrined in the annals of action movie history.

BEST 5. Under the Silver Lake
Violent Femmes deserve to be used in more movie trailers. I have but the foggiest notion what this movie is about, but it sure looks vibrant, sexy, and off-kilter, and in today’s climate of slapdash, mundane franchise fare, that’s enough for me. It’s a shame A24 elected to shelve it for six months after a handful of bad reviews from the notoriously thin-skinned attendees of Cannes. If that move was a matter of maximizing returns by skirting around summer blockbusters, then I can see their rationale, but if it’s a matter of re-cutting for a better reaction, then the decision reeks of a company betraying its mission statement.

It Follows definitely sits atop the mound of throwback horror movies overhyped by insecure horror and arthouse fans, so I have faith that director David Robert Mitchell and Andrew Garfield can deliver another hit.

WORST 2. Peppermint
“Social media has lit up with support for her.”

Female-centric action movies need to be retired in America. Name a less intimidating vigilante or revenge movie hero than Jennifer Garner. I’ll wait.

BEST 4. BlacKkKlansman
Whatever team concocted this trailer deserves an Oscar, because they clearly understood better than Spike Lee how to tell such a compellingly odd story. The trailer takes lines of dialogue that aren’t funny in the film and injects them with hilarity through the power of editing, while also omitting (most of) the nauseating anti-Trump posturing so as not to alienate a third of the film’s potential audience. It nobly recasts a tonally-confused and morose diatribe as an undiluted farce, which is what the movie should have been along, considering that nothing of consequence happened in the real Ron Stallworth’s investigation.

It takes restraint and a modicum of discretion to edit a trailer as enticing or deceiving as this, both attributes in which Lee is sorely lacking. The title cards themselves are a riot, promising, “DIS JOINT IS BASED UPON SOME FO’ REAL, FO’ REAL SH*T.” Incredible.

BEST 3. Isle of Dogs
One of the few reprieves for a long time that made waiting for family movies a bearable exercise, the Isle of Dogs trailer impeccably balances the whimsy, adventure, and overflowing love for Japanese aesthetics that would come to distinguish one of Wes Anderson’s most divisive pictures. In long-form trailer fashion, the three-song structure imitates the rising action of an actual film, and a cascade of timpani drums at the end ensures that viewers will be crushing their armrests in anticipation. Yes, the unveiling of the cast has an aura of snootiness to it (“Check out all the famous actors I sweet-talked into voicing my movie! I’m a celebrated American auteur and can cast whomever I want!”), but cinephiles like me are honestly fickle in such matters, and Wes Anderson has earned the right to brag.

Get ready to jump.

WORST 1. The Darkest Minds
I’ll give this trailer some comedy points for laying bare the blasé detachment of some Hollywood executives in their 40s or 50s trying in vain to relate to teenagers. It’s an irritatingly embarrassing showcase of a cynical, money-grubbing product that’s arriving at least three years too late. Lionsgate can’t even afford to finish its Divergent series because people are so burnt out on YA twaddle, yet Fox has the arrogance to think it can turn a profit on a flagrant X-men rip-off, colored with some one-dimensional personality types and violent, youth-led resistance against the big bad government. Hell, they even cast an actress from The Hunger Games as the lead, because why would you take a chance on someone new when you can simply take the road more traveled?

Didn’t someone give Fox the memo that Gen Z is the most conservative audience since the Silent Generation? This uninspired garbage would barely break even in 2014, so their insistence on releasing it theatrically in 2018 confounds me. If anybody in the United States was really hankering for another of these properties, they’d be more compelled to seek it out on Hulu, next to media darlings like The Handmaid’s Tale. The convenient advantage of streaming services is that users will gobble up sub-par entertainment because those publishers operate on a sunk cost subscription model; people don’t feel as cheated if they watch a trashy movie or TV show because they’ve already paid their $10 for the month. Then again, there’s a reason why more people pirate Game of Thrones than pay for it, and there’s a reason why Fox is being absorbed by Disney, which remains better at responding to market cues despite the company’s antipathy to art.

BEST 2. Bad Times at the El Royale
For my money, one of the best genre trailers since Prometheus. It isn’t bound to spawn a lot of copycats, but that’s mostly because the format is built so firmly on the actual content of the film. Whoever edited this clearly studied up on trailer crutches—taglines or critic quotations that describe the subject matter, actors’ names popping on screen after their close-ups, trendy or ubiquitous pop songs that aren’t in the movie, jump scares, etc.—and made a concerted effort to walk without them. The song that carries it appears to originate from the film itself, characters get surprising and memorable introductions, and the mid-trailer tonal shift highlights the dark comedy that director Drew Goddard (of Cabin In the Woods) will probably bring to the table. I especially like the quickening of the cuts right before smashing into a wide tracking shot of a woman fleeing the hotel, as the vocal soundtrack gives way to frantic drums. That’s how you send chills up the spine and feet running to the multiplex.

BEST 1. mother!
The version of the teaser I’m reviewing sadly appears lost forever, although the official trailer is a fair substitute. If you had the fortune of seeing Dunkirk in its first week or so, then you may have gotten an early look at mother!, or listen, more precisely. The teaser itself consisted of nothing more than a black screen, harried dialogue, alien, indescribable sound effects, a momentary close-up on Jennifer Lawrence’s eyes, and the revelation that a new Darren Aronofsky film was coming out in less than two months’ time. It was the most disarming example of minimalist, guerilla film marketing I’d ever seen, and it’s nowhere to be found online.

Bravo, Paramount. Katniss Everdeen fans may not have bought into your elusive, go-for-broke ad campaign, but I sure did. Even your poster designs showed real audacity, for what other company would proudly flaunt and own their negative reviews?

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