Condensed movies

I'm getting really sick of movie previews showing the entire movie, twists included. Of course, there might be the oh-so-original second twist thrown into the actual movie to throw us off. Hopefully not. But still, these trailers are so dumbed down and insulting. Like girls today, they leave nothing to the imagination. The marketing droids are so intent on showing even the stupidest person in the audience exactly what their film's about and spilling out most of its eye candy as part of the sales pitch that it ruins the movie for those who actually go see it.

This happens because of the business model of movies. They get your money after you've decided to see the film but before you've actually watched it. So increasingly the juicy bits are being frontloaded into the sales pitch in an all-out bid for your dollar. This strategy may work well for bad movies, since by careful editing they can be made to look better than they are. But it's a bad long-term strategy for good movies, because by killing the surprise and the fun you are basically guaranteeing many people won't be back for a second or third viewing. Seeing the film feels almost like an afterthought.

I try not to even watch trailers. Unfortunately it's hard to avoid when you're sitting in the theater and they hit you with seven of them before the movie starts.

Double-entendre titles and moral-of-the-story taglines are another way the machine clues you in to what to expect and what you'll learn from the flick. Two films I just saw advertised illustrate this nicely. Enduring Love: The word 'enduring' could be an adjective (eternal) or a verb (putting up with). The tagline: "Obsession is forever." Hmm, wonder what the movie's about? Paradise Now: Once you've seen the trailer and know the movie is about a Palestinian man deciding whether or not to blow a bus up, this becomes obvious. Paradise now as opposed to when you die and get all those virgins. And if you somehow missed that one, the studio hits you with the tagline: "Sometimes the bravest thing is what you don't do." So there, now we know how it ends, or at least what the film's message is. Gee, a movie released in the West condemning terrorism? How daring!