"IN A WORLD"
January 17, 2020 5:07 AM   Subscribe

 
Public Health Warning: Trailer should not be taken as indicative of film quality.
posted by biffa at 5:45 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


Well, if you're gonna go with that title, then you should at least include that trailer too. In a World
posted by gusottertrout at 5:47 AM on January 17, 2020 [8 favorites]


I had (maybe still have) a collection of trailers on Betamax. The best of which was, of course, the trailer for Psycho.
posted by giltay at 5:47 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


It always strikes me, whenever I'm looking at trailers from the 70s or 80s, just how differently the whole trailer idea was approached. Usually had a narrator, usually just said outright what the film was about, but didn't give away the whole plot. Very rarely too exciting.
posted by xingcat at 5:47 AM on January 17, 2020 [7 favorites]


Well, if you're gonna go with that title, then you should at least include that trailer too. In a World
posted by gusottertrout at 8:47 AM on January 17 [−] [!]


Also, too, Comedian
posted by ssmug at 5:50 AM on January 17, 2020 [10 favorites]


Christ, that Shining one is still so amazing. Kubrick could make 50 seconds of a static shot of a hotel lobby be terrifying. And then the blood.
posted by octothorpe at 5:59 AM on January 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


One of my personal favorites is for the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man. It’s a musical collage.
posted by acidnova at 6:12 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


Kubrick could make 50 seconds of a static shot of a hotel lobby be terrifying.

How much of that is the music? Music, as we learn in another Kubrick film, is a "useful emotional intensifier". Imagine the same trailer with sort of iPhone ad ukelele music, for example. When the blood arrives, you'd probably burst out laughing.
posted by thelonius at 6:22 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


Don LaFontaine is dead. What's the point of even making movie trailers anymore?
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:28 AM on January 17, 2020 [10 favorites]


I really liked the mini-movie trailer for Tenet I saw before The Rise of Skywalker. It wasn't trailer-y really, more like a short film, and only hinted at what the movie might be about. Now I see Michael Caine is in it, so...

(that means I'm definitely going to see it...)
posted by chavenet at 6:29 AM on January 17, 2020


MetaFilter: And then the blood.
posted by nubs at 6:29 AM on January 17, 2020


Marketing a film is far too important to leave in the hands of filmmakers these days.

The reason the Shining trailer stands out as a work of art in itself is because Kubrick was actively involved in conceiving and cutting it, and he concerned himself with every aspect of marketing and distribution for the films he directed/produced. There are a handful of filmmakers these days who can exercise that kind of control, but not many, and certainly not on the blockbuster films that dominate screens today. There's just too much money at stake.
posted by theory at 6:34 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


I still think this Rogue One trailer is my personal all time favorite.
posted by Alison at 6:36 AM on January 17, 2020 [6 favorites]




For whatever reason, the thing that has always stayed with me about the Citizen Kane trailer was the big dent in the microphone screen. I also like how there's not a single shot or line of dialog from the actual movie.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:59 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


xingcat, have you seen the the trailer for Queen of Earth? Its narration is jarring!
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:03 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


The original 1964 trailer for "A Hard Day's Night" is pretty remarkable. It was a music video before such a thing existed. There's not a single word of narration, yet it tells an easy-to-follow story that perfectly captures the experience of seeing the movie itself.
posted by jeremias at 7:10 AM on January 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


Public Health Warning: Trailer should not be taken as indicative of film quality.

See, e.g., the trailer for 300.
posted by schoolgirl report at 7:44 AM on January 17, 2020


How much of that is the music?

My work computer, for various reasons, often has no sound. I've watched a few trailers for upcoming movies now with no sound, just the visuals, and it is fascinating to me how little impact the trailers have. For example, I saw the first trailer for the new Star Wars film at work, and I wasn't all that impressed...that night, I watched it again, with sound, and could feel the emotional pull.

For a good discussion of the use of sound in trailers: Twenty Thousand Hertz The Booj which digs into the Auralnauts "How to make a Blockbuster trailer"

Patrick (H) Willems also talked about music in the Star Wars trailers, which really resonated (heh) for me, given my experience of watching the trailer for tRoS without sound.
posted by nubs at 7:51 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


This is cheating, because it's really a 6-minute short film aimed at internet buzz rather than being shown in theaters, but I still love the Cloud Atlas trailer. Not only does it perfectly showcase the best aspects what is an uneven film (and I say that as a massive fan), but it's an excellent use of "Outro" by M83.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:10 AM on January 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


The original Alien trailer still gives me tingles every time I see it. Best trailer ever. Second runner up - the first teaser for Independence Day. It put asses in seats.
posted by hoodrich at 8:11 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


The original There Will Be Blood trailer remains a favorite. The music and editing is top notch, and it always helps a trailer when the beginning narraion is of an in-film charasmatic pitchman.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:48 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


So The Shining came out in 80, I would have been 9-10. I definitely remember being deeply, deeply terrified by that trailer in the theater. I wonder what movie I was seeing that had a Shining trailer???
posted by emjaybee at 8:53 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


Other trailer (shown on TV) that gave me nightmares: It's Alive Something about the heartbeat and ominous feel would make me run from the room.

I had no idea it was actually a hilaribad film until much later in life.
posted by emjaybee at 8:57 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


I don't know how artistic the trailer for the movie Magic might be, but when I was little, it scared me so badly I ran away and hid from the TV whenever it came on!
posted by mittens at 8:58 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


Well, if you're gonna go with that title, then you should at least include that trailer too. In a World

How did I ever miss this movie???
posted by Thorzdad at 9:09 AM on January 17, 2020


From approximately 1929-1955(ish) the National Screen Service had a monopoly on the production of movie trailers, (literally), which is why most trailers from that time period use a familiar and unimaginative template.

Once the monopoly was dissolved, it still took a few years for production companies to take things into their own hands. The best way to see the shift is to compare the trailer for Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959), which uses the tired tropes of the past, with "Psycho", mentioned above. Only a year difference, but what a shift!

However it was Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove trailer that blew things apart (pun intended) and took advantage of the full creative freedom now available. Even by today's standards, the pace of editing is fierce and radical, I would love to have seen people's reactions to this in 1964.
posted by jeremias at 9:10 AM on January 17, 2020 [9 favorites]


Second runner up - the first teaser for Independence Day. It put asses in seats.

This ass, at least, had regrets about being taken in by the trailer. In defense of this ass, Emmerich had made Stargate two years earlier, which was a great bit of green filmmaking, being constructed entirely of reused bits of other movies.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:10 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


that Shining trailer. I have seen that movie a bunch of times and I just watched that trailer and I was completely engrossed and having chills from the incredibly disturbing atmosphere...before the blood even started.
posted by supermedusa at 9:14 AM on January 17, 2020


> I still think this Rogue One trailer is my personal all time favorite.

I was so excited when I saw that trailer for the first and it passed the Bechdel Test. A freaking trailer!
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:15 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


that Shining trailer.

previously

Is the Trailer for 'The Shining' the Actual Film?

posted by philip-random at 9:19 AM on January 17, 2020


> It's Alive

See also:

Alien

See also also:

Magic
posted by humboldt32 at 9:20 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]



How much of that is the music?

The Logan trailer feels to me like more of a good Johnny Cash video than a movie I'd want to see. Speaking of which, I don't think the movie Where The Wild Things Are came close to its first trailer, the one that was basically a music vid for Arcade Fire's acoustic take on Wake Up!
posted by philip-random at 9:25 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


I recall the first TV spot for JAWS being pretty effective. It got me into the theater opening night.
posted by philip-random at 9:36 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


I don't think the movie Where The Wild Things Are came close to its first trailer

This. There's a whole depressing family drama grafted into the movie for no good reason.
posted by sjswitzer at 9:40 AM on January 17, 2020


So The Shining came out in 80, I would have been 9-10. I definitely remember being deeply, deeply terrified by that trailer in the theater. I wonder what movie I was seeing that had a Shining trailer???

Same. So so same.

And the television ad for Alien. It would come on when I was in bed and I could hear it downstairs and I would have to ask my mother to come in and sit with me.
posted by 99_ at 9:48 AM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


So The Shining came out in 80, I would have been 9-10. I definitely remember being deeply, deeply terrified by that trailer in the theater. I wonder what movie I was seeing that had a Shining trailer???

Oh me too. I've wondered this so many times. I must have seen the movie more than once because I remember thinking "oh no, this is that scary thing again, I'm going to look away". I can still feel the visceral shock that young me felt. There was also this feeling that what I was seeing seemed so "adult" and that it conveyed something dreadful about what it meant to be an adult -- and that just filled me with such existential dread because I knew I would become an adult one day.
posted by treepour at 10:21 AM on January 17, 2020 [4 favorites]


I just watched the trailer for Aliens. I can feel my pulse up and I am breathing a little hard.
posted by Fukiyama at 10:23 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


I remember getting absolutely pumped about The Phantom Menace based on the trailer. Talk about overselling a movie.
posted by Chuffy at 10:24 AM on January 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


I remember seeing The Shining Trailer and I was 12 when it came out. It was absolutely terrifying! I was surely seeing something completely age-appropriate. Probably Empire Strikes Back? They were produced by the same studio and Empire was released the week after The Shining.
posted by drlith at 10:36 AM on January 17, 2020


...ah, should have read the previously. My guess appears to be correct.
posted by drlith at 10:38 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


Two Damon Lindelof joints really nailed home for me how vital music is to making a compelling TV/movie experience: The Leftovers and Watchmen. Not the artful use of contemporary songs (e.g. Reservoir Dogs, Weeds), but the basic soundtrack. Max Richter's music for The Leftovers still haunts me.
posted by PhineasGage at 10:38 AM on January 17, 2020


Really old and poor quality but for a specialized genre, the dance film: Blood Wedding.
posted by sammyo at 10:43 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


> I still think this Rogue One trailer is my personal all time favorite.
And I so wish both this and La La Land were as good as the respective trailers.
posted by sammyo at 10:46 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


a great bit of green filmmaking, being constructed entirely of reused bits of other movies

[Miss Scarlet voice] Who are you? A.O. Scott?
posted by Flannery Culp at 11:09 AM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


And who can forget the Minus Man trailer? (Link to a short article for some context but you can watch the trailer there too.)
posted by hapticactionnetwork at 11:35 AM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


The trailer for Delicatessen tells you almost nothing about the film but still makes you want to see it.
posted by YoungStencil at 12:01 PM on January 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


A Clockwork Orange
posted by Grangousier at 12:11 PM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


To break the awkward "wow that looks bad" silence after the breathless trailer for Terminal Velocity -- a pre-tiger blood Charlie Sheen vehicle -- I exclaimed, "Whoa!" and the entire theater laughed. Still a top-10 moviegoing experience for me.
posted by Lyme Drop at 12:21 PM on January 17, 2020


Oh, I made no commentary on the quality of the film Ricochet Biscuit but that teaser - no plot give aways, just that dude sitting in a traffic jam as people run screaming past his car, him stepping out and looking up at the approaching wall of fire. That was damn good marketing
posted by hoodrich at 12:28 PM on January 17, 2020


The Rubber trailer was also a special treat...
posted by Chuffy at 12:37 PM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


Imagine the same trailer with sort of iPhone ad ukelele music, for example

You mean, like this? Shining
posted by mach at 12:42 PM on January 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


The Shining
posted by RobotHero at 2:43 PM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


This teaser trailer for The Master wasn't very representative of the film, but I found it mesmerizing.
posted by straight at 3:21 PM on January 17, 2020


RobotHero, it is everything I had dreamed of! FaF.
posted by thelonius at 4:09 PM on January 17, 2020


the breathless trailer for Terminal Velocity -- a pre-tiger blood Charlie Sheen vehicle

Yeah, but it's probably the first movie ever to show direct physical interaction with a wind turbine, so there's that.
posted by biffa at 5:08 PM on January 17, 2020


I always loved the trailer for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013). The movie was alright but I like how the trailer tells its own little two minute story. Just a well done combination of music and video.
posted by good in a vacuum at 6:22 PM on January 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


Also I remember when I saw the trailer for The Fountain before another movie in the theatre. Afterward my thought was "Fuck whatever movie I just paid for, I want to see this movie instead." Especially since I was a fan of Aronofsky's Pi and Requiem for a Dream.
posted by good in a vacuum at 6:32 PM on January 17, 2020


No Buffalo '66 or Le Samourai? This list is invalid.
posted by dobbs at 6:39 PM on January 17, 2020


I remember getting absolutely pumped about The Phantom Menace based on the trailer. Talk about overselling a movie.

I still think this Rogue One trailer is my personal all time favorite.

I'm of the same mind when it comes to The Force Awakens teaser trailer. I like the movie, but I love the trailer. That moment when the Star Wars fanfare starts and the Millennium Falcon appears, with TIE fighter engine noises a moment later. I'm not even that big of a Star Wars fan but man, that is a great trailer moment when you put it into the post-prequels context of "will there ever be another good Star Wars movie?".
posted by good in a vacuum at 7:00 PM on January 17, 2020


*croaks yodishly* Favorite Rogue One trailers...there is...another...Sabotage!
posted by bartleby at 7:26 PM on January 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


The trailer for White Noise gave me the creeps in the theater and actually kept giving me the creeps in bed at night for a while afterward.

I love a good trailer.
posted by biscotti at 5:26 AM on January 18, 2020


The new wave was never newer than in the trailer for Breathless, "the best film around now."
posted by How the runs scored at 5:57 AM on January 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


I remember getting absolutely pumped about The Phantom Menace based on the trailer. Talk about overselling a movie.

I taped that trailer off of Entertainment Tonight (I think) but didn't watch then and then we had a viewing party with a bunch of friends. We were so stoked, I think we watched it five times in a row.
posted by octothorpe at 7:16 AM on January 18, 2020


Came for Rogue One Sabotage, was not disapointed.
posted by WacoKid at 8:27 AM on January 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


No Buffalo '66 yt or Le Samourai yt ? This list is invalid.

We really need to watch Buffalo '66 for FanFare.
posted by Fukiyama at 9:19 AM on January 18, 2020


Has no one linked Five Guys In A Limo yet?
posted by Chrysostom at 10:29 AM on January 18, 2020


Faaaaaak I love la la land.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:23 PM on January 18, 2020


Wait a minute. I thought there was a FA with a longer list, that I didn't bother reading. But no.
In which case I have to speak up for the trailer for suburban New England infidelity drama Little Children.
posted by bartleby at 2:32 PM on January 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


Bonus fanmade: spaghetti western version = Il Mandaloriano.
posted by bartleby at 2:39 PM on January 19, 2020


The Handmaiden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whldChqCsYk trailer deserves some wider recognition too.
posted by usertm at 8:53 PM on January 19, 2020


I liked the trailer for In the Heights when I first saw it online. (Previously) Then I saw it on the big screen and fell in love with it, and it also occurred to me what a well put-together trailer it was.

Are there awards for trailers? There should be.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:50 AM on January 23, 2020


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