The Art of Misdirection

   
        Perhaps it's become a stale topic by now, but marketing and adversiting have certainly made a great impact on the viewing public and not in a positive way.  Of course commercials are meant to gain our interest in all the new movies to be released each and every new season, but is that all they do?  It seems to me that trailers are doing more than just making you aware of a new movie, they're literally give you a concise 2 minute version of the movie.  Not only that, but sometimes you get a completely different movie than what you expected.  Hell, sometimes the trailer is even better than the movie.

       It's hard to say exactly when this trend began, but it seems it's only becoming more and more common.  For example, the trailer for Green Lantern is not even worth watching (you could make the same argument for the movie, but that's another issue).  It literally tells you the entire movie, oh and what's up with these 3 minute movie trailers?   As if American audiences don't have a short enough attention span, why the hell would you make a trailer any longer?  Honestly, don't you want people to actually go to the movie.  Well, I suppose they're doing their job, because people did go to see it (myself included).  Also, it seems very typical for a trailer to misrepresent a movie by making it appear to be something that it is not.  An example of this would be Thor.  Sure, it was a decent movie, but it's not the all out action comic book movie you'd expect it to be after seeing the trailer.  Literally, most of the action is at the end, but the movie wasn't awful, so I can't be completely dissatisfied.

      Okay, so maybe I am overreacting or maybe I am being more than fair.  However, this trend has got to stop.  I know people who choose to view a movie with an open mind and not watch any previews prior.  Perhaps this is the best and only solution.  Until then, Hollywood executives, before I decide to completely give up on you, could you please reconsider your marketing methods and fix this ever so pressing problem.  Until then, I may start to read books again.

Image: http://cinemasights.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/movietrailer-trap.jpg

The Downfall of Hollywood...And Then Some

 

                   
      So, summer is nearly over.  The wonderful people over at Hollywood have churned out a rather high number of incredibly awful films this year, especially during the summer.  You name it and it probably was a dud.  Oh, where to begin?  From the "blockbuster" fare of Green Lantern and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides to the striving for gold drivel of One Day, Bad Teacher and Hangover 2, it was a rather depressing time to go to the movies.  Not only that, but who wants to spend $11 dollars for all of that?  Not to mention another few bucks if it's in 3D.

       So, of course, the big question is, why?  Why does Hollywood continue to make such trash?  Well, maybe, these films all sounded better on paper, not to mention these rich executives know how to market the hell out of these damn movies.  I am not going to lie, none of the films I mentioned looked truly remarkable, but it's nice to be surprised.  My hopes were clearly a fluke. You look at a movie like Hangover 2 and you wonder what went wrong?  After all, it replicated the formula that made the first one so successful, but therein lies the problem.  There were no surprises, the screenwriters literally rehashed every joke, granted with more raunchiness and envelope pushing humor.   But still, their efforts were wasted.  Hell, the movie was basically the same as the part one, even down to the music cues.   They literally just remade The Hangover and figured it would be just as successful and unfortunately they were correct.  The movie broke records and it's very sad to know that my own money contributed to its massive success.

       Hollywood is banking on nothing (of brilliance), there were literally 3 or 4 very solid films this summer, especially in regards to the big, blockbuster fare.  X-Men: First Class, Super 8, Horrible Bosses, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 are a few titles that come to mind.  But it was still very lackluster, it always bothers me that I have to wait until September or so for the so-called Oscar-caliber films to be released (and even those can be huge disappointments).  Perhaps, I am being a bit too cynical, but Hollywood is going bankrupt with ideas.  Sure, there are great films every year, but they are few and far between and that's truly maddening.  This has got to stop.  I recently saw a video of Rolling Stone's film critic Peter Travers yelling about how much garbage Hollywood has released lately.  While it's always amusing to see a 50 year old guy losing it, he couldn't be more right.

      Ahhh, when will Hollywood learn?  Perhaps, there's more to art than trying to please the masses by actually making good, well-thought and constructed films.  Oh, and when they stop charging me a ridiculous $11, let me know.   I'll stick to Netflix till then.

Images: http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefone.com/media/2009/07/lanternreynolds.jpg
             http://hangover2-trailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/hangover-2-pic-meditation.jpg