I find movie trailers absolutely amazing. They are often better than the movie itself. Trailers are an art form that has emerged over the past 10 years and are truly a great piece of entertainment. I'd like to take this blog moment to recognize my favorite trailers over the past few years.
- Star Wars: Episode I – No trailer has never gotten me so pumped to see a movie as this one did. My senior year in college, working on my final CS project, i played this trailer repeatedly in anticipation of Darth Maul kicking ass! Seriously, it is just a well crafted trailer, giving you a great crecendo of action right until the end. I know i'm a nerd, no need to say it out loud.
- Garden State – a great trailer and one that Matt Lewis obsessed with for a good 2 months. He even hit the chat rooms based soley on this trailer.
- Jarhead – the Kanye music and the oil scenes make this movie look like this this generation's Apocolypse Now. The movie didn't deliver on the promise, but the trailer still gets you.
- X-Men III, which is coming out soon has a great trailer. The final confrontation between mutants and humans couldn't look any cooler, and all the character building they've been doing in 1 and 2 look like they'll pay off big-time in this one.
- The Vanilla Sky trailer got me really pumped up when i saw it as Cameron Crowe films are always great (Fast Times at Ridgemont, Almost Famous, Say Anything) and he always uses music so well in his films (Say Anything – Lloyd holding the stereo, Almost Famous' classic Zepplin and Elton John bus scene), so when i heard the Peter Gabriel music and Penolope Cruz in this one, i thought i was going to be quite a modern classic. Oh well.
- Sliver – it's actually a sucky movie and a horrible trailer, but i just wanted to see if you were still paying attention. I'm putting it up here just because Sam Lewis said he loved it and i want us all to mock him. You should check it out still, it is pretty comical.
- ADDED (5/5/) Mock Trailers – they're all good. My personal favorite is Brokeback to the Future, but i think Big is good and the Shining (thanks Walker) is not bad either.
What sucks about alot of these trailers (Vanilla Sky for instance) is that they often tell the entire movie – i mean the entire plot. I hate that. But, i have to admit, it makes me more likely to go to the movie, but it does make the viewing experience much worse – i guess that's what the trailermakers care about – getting the audience, not necessarily enjoying the flick.
