May 10, 2016

When Reviewing And Watching Movie Trailers Becomes A Problem: (Part 2)

My intention, by default in our media-driven world, can’t be to tell anyone they shouldn’t watch trailers at all, but I would say be skillful about it: on one hand, go for the shorter trailers of any movie, including the teasers; next, it’s best to avoid if possible the longest trailers mainly if those are a person’s main anticipated movies of the month, year, next year, etc that are bound to reveal too much in the attempt to grab potential audience members’ attention and get butts-in-seats.

Now, for the reviewers following the trend of reviewing all the trailers (who’d most likely could be, subsequently movie reviewers), has clearly gotten far out of hand. I know Trailer-Reaction videos seem fun and express the thoughts on the flick that’s upcoming, and initially along with most of the time this is harmless, but… there’s too much attention on them, to keep going over each and every trailer – even the teasers, and teasers having teasers - giving you just a little more, each time… it’s so oversaturating that it’s no wonder people are feeling some type of lag and being underwhelmed once they actually see the movie.

Maybe it’s just me being out-of-sync with trailers more than I was a kid, knowing that that’s supposed to be the fun of it, imagining what the movies going to deliver – but the context between the average movie goer, buff and reviewer/critic has to be kept in check, and most issues of watching trailers too much and subverting judgment is an analysis of the reviewer/critic. I would say it’s in the job description but is it? Does it have to be done for every piece of media and iconography related to a movie coming out, instead of just a few overviews and then review the flick when it comes out, so that the opinion can be as objective and unbiased – or best said skillfully bias – as possible?

I’ll breakdown the idea ‘we are all bias’ in one way or another based our frame-of-reference and the balance of objectivity and subjectivity in another blog.

Overall, as this isn’t the biggest issue in cinema, I’m just expressing, but it connects back to a key point even before movie trailers were recognized as an issue in this context: I did not and do not ever want to become jaded watching movies, out of all things in life; I’ve had this in the back of my head for many years long before I was capable of dropping thoughts on it literarily. The intent is to let the film-going experience remain sacred; maybe not as ‘magical’ as it was first encountering it as a child, but definitely not reduced and made mundane because of the critical-thinking that can be done when watching in adulthood.

May 9, 2016

When Reviewing And Watching Movie Trailers Becomes A Problem (Part 1):

As of recent times, this issue came in regards to certain movie trailers, specifically, within the superhero movie craze, showing too much of the movie in something that’s just for prepping, to be enticing and for enhancing expectation. Matter of fact, this extends to other genres (Terminator Genisys); and in times long-past I’ve had my reservations for trailer-viewing, having the inclination to lean away from them so to just go into an theater and watch a film fresh.

Recently paying strict attention to the difference of having seen a trailer and watching versus knowing just a little about the film – as in the synopsis,  poster promotions, some visuals here and there – the latter has proven to be literally refreshing… even if the movie was off-base, bad etc but definitely when it was on-point.

Sort of a double-edged sword situation; sometimes the trailer was really the thing to hype me up, other times showing too much; but these recent examples were such direct violation, plot twists being revealed in the trailers, possibly and most likely spoiling the whole film (even if, people like myself, still enjoyed the films enough). Thus brings me to the dynamic of trailers and professional reviewers – and even beyond trailers to a topic for another time, as far as the focus/involvement in films too repetitiously – and how that’s effecting their judgment and enjoyment of watching movies, versus the common audience or even the movie buff/cinephile.

To keep things legit, this is definitely not some, “Turn your brain off at the door” type of breakdown, don’t want and not promoting that, though not knocking it if people choosing that route gives them the entertainment wanted. Sadly though, too much anticipation can set you up for a letdown, especially if a production team happens to spoil too much in upcoming films’ trailers.

This alters or compromises your whole experience of the movie, now complaining about what the trailers showed you. If I say make a decision to not watch, at least as my rule, trailers that are too extensive – if not attempting most the time to not watch them at all – would probably be responded to with the likes of, “That’s not possible,” based on mass media all around us, or specifically not wanting to wait outside a screening for them to pass, and “It’s not our job to edit the trailers correctly”, and of course, “That’s what their there for, for us to decide whether to go or not”. If not those, then about how the physical action of avoiding film trailers is too much work and responsibility on the part of the viewer.