Trailer Hitch
By Kim Hollis
August 25, 2004
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Note to trailer producers: using the voice of “Trailer Guy” is sooooooo passé.
While I’m looking forward to this film, particularly as it is based on a well-loved children’s book, this trailer does little to encourage me to see this supposedly inspirational film. The child who plays the titular role appears to have chosen Frodo as his role model for acting delivery, and not in a good way. Meanwhile, much is made of the fact that the film is uplifting and moving, but I’d rather have a trailer that gently showed me that this is the case as opposed to one that is telling me. Nonetheless, I have the utmost faith in director Paul Feig, creator of Freaks and Geeks, so I’m there as soon as it hits my local indie theatre.
2. Stage Beauty
Apparently, it’s just the folks at Lions Gate who are using “Trailer Voice Guy,” because here he is again.
I love Billy Crudup and Claire Danes and Tom Wilkinson. Even with all three of them present, this movie still looks just god-awful. The film takes place in the days when there were no women actors. Instead, men were awarded these parts, and Crudup plays a man who appears to take his job awfully seriously. Unfortunately for him, women are about to find their place on the stage, causing him no end of inner conflict as he realizes that he “enjoys being a girl.” For the trailer, at least, the most mundane of lines have been cut as highlights, which gives me even more pause about the finished product. Also, listening to Crudup and Danes affect British accents actually pains me. Wholly disappointing.
3. Remember Me, My Love
Good god, it’s Trailer Voice Guy again! I seriously hadn’t seen more than two or three trailers with his voice in the background in the last seven months, and here we are with three in a row. Perhaps I obsess too much.
Although this film is well-loved in Italy, having received the nomination for that country’s equivalent of the Best Picture at the Academy Awards, this trailer just makes it look like another clichéd family drama. There’s nothing much original or interesting here, other than the fact that Monica Bellucci is in it.
4. Uncovered: The War on Iraq
Perhaps I’m just suffering from an over-saturation of these political documentaries that seem to be at every turn lately. This film comes from Robert Greenwald, the same guy who directed Outfoxed! It appears as though he’s using a lot of the same guys (and perhaps footage) that he showed in that film. I’m still interested in seeing it, but probably less than I might have been if I hadn’t recently seen so many similarly-themed non-fiction flicks in the past few months.
5. Undead
Another Lions Gate film, another Trailer Voice Guy preview. Do they have him under contract or something? Somehow, he manages to not kill the mood this time around.
Undead is an Australian horror film that presupposes what might happen if a giant meteorite struck in a pleasant Queensland neighborhood, thereby infecting the residents with something nasty that causes them to be zombies. The teaser shows just enough to pique the viewer’s interest, though pull quotes from Ain’t It Cool News sure won’t help their cause any.