Monday, August 03, 2009

In a World . . .

IFC gathers what it considers the best 50 movie trailers of all time. ("We know them as trailers, but they don't trail anything; they play before the movie, not after it. The name dates to their earliest incarnation, when they actually did follow the feature.")

No methodology is given, but how methodological could it be, anyway? It's a great list to peruse. Each of the clips has its own page, and what I love/hate are some of the comments it attracted. Like:
Seriously? We have to click 50 times just to get the damn list? No thanks.
Good god. Let's hope we never face any land wars for our very existence anytime soon. People can't click 50 times? What, will that mean too much neon Cheetos dust on your touchpad?

What was I saying? Oh, right, the previews. The one for the documentary Comedian is pretty funny. The one for the Coen brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There (one of the few movies by them I haven't seen) is certainly stylish. The one for Texas Chain Saw Massacre puts today's sleek horror movies to shame. (In fact, don't watch that one.) Likewise, today's scary-movie trailer-makers could learn a little somethin' from The Shining. Well, in fairness -- and jeez, sorry to hit the horror note so heavily -- they do include the one fright flick of recent vintage that really got its trailer right: The Strangers.

OK, OK, enough with the chills. I'll leave you with one of my favorites embedded below, and you can go here to see the whole list.

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5 Comments:

Blogger Dan Carlson said...

Yeah, I think the complaints about the structure of the feature got a little out of hand, but I also think IFC split it up over 50 pages just to shamelessly up their pageviews.

Also, the trailer for The Strangers freaks me out every time.

11:01 PM  
Blogger Kraig Smith said...

#14 Garden State is the one I'd put near the top for me. I saw that teaser prior to watching The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I'm pretty sure it made me like Eternal less than I would have otherwise. I kept thinking about Garden State...and when it was over all I could talk about was Garden State. And when I was home I watched it online. Multiple times. On a loop. No preview ever had that much of an impact on me...except, perhaps, for Star Wars previews (for movies 5, 6, and 1 at least).

1:52 AM  
Blogger JMW said...

Dan: Oh yeah, shamelessly upping pageviews. I can see that. So, screw the lazy people and the pageview cheaters.

Kraig: Yeah, the Garden State preview was pretty good (if shameless in its generational button-pushing), but then the movie not so much.

1:14 PM  
Blogger Dezmond said...

'Alien' at the top, as it should. Best trailer ever.

I really liked the trailer for 'Unforgiven,' although it did not make their list. What was great was that they kept their trump card hidden until the very end. Most of the trailer looks like a good western starring Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris...which would have been worth seeing anyway. But then at the very end of the trailer freakin' Clint Eastwood steps out of the shadows. Eastwood made his name in westerns, but had not made one in many years. I distinctly remember sitting in a theater as that preview showed, and spontaneous applause when Eastwood appeared on screen. Great trailer.

1:16 PM  
Blogger Nathan said...

My Netflix queue thanks you for passing the list along.

Have you seen the teaser for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland? Looks fun.

7:55 PM  

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