Trailer Trash

Last week I was lounging around on campus with a friend while she was on the computer. She was reading the celebrity gossip blog PerezHilton and as I glanced at her computer, a post about Angelina Jolie caught my eye.

Me: What's that?

Her: Oh, just a post about Angelina Jolie.

Me: What about her?

Her: Nothing really, just that there's a new trailer for her upcoming movie.

Me: Oh. Beowulf?

Her: No... (looks at post again) something called Wanted.

Me: (pause) What did you say?

Her: Some movie called Wanted.

Me: ...and the trailer's out?

Her: Apparently.

Me: Let me use your computer.

Her: Uh, what fo-

Me: LET ME USE YOUR FUCKING COMPUTER!

um... Perhaps some context is needed. Wanted was a 6-issue comic miniseries written by Mark Millar that ran from 2003-2004. The London Sunday Times allegedly dubbed it "the Watchmen for super-villains" and while I wouldn't necessarily go that far, I can certainly agree that it was one of my favorite books at the time. It was about a young loser who is pulled out of his mundane life of obscurity and obedience when he finds out that his father was the greatest super-villain of all time.

The story was clever, tense, humorous, and had amazing art by J.G. Jones. What's more, Wanted was unique, with interesting characters - each a rift on archetypal super-villains (like Catwoman and The Joker), only approached in new and colorful ways. It was through these characters that the book truly shined.

Which only made me more confused when I saw this garbage trailer:



"Where are the costumes?" I asked my friend, who was beginning to get a little scared. "Where are the colorful characters? The witty dialog? Hell, where's anything that would have me believe this isn't just a generic shoot-em-up piece of crap?"

They certainly aren't in this trailer, I told myself. I nodded.

A few days later I went and saw American Gangster with my comic-loving friend Michael and this trailer started playing. I turned to him and asked him if he knew what the trailer was for. He replied that it looked like the sequel to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which was, let's face it, a generic piece of crap to begin with.

As much as I want to see Mr. Tumnus running around shooting people (not at all), I don't think I will be catching this one in theaters. I know the term "Hollywood-ized" gets thrown around a lot (at least, I think it does), but this is perfect example of Hollywoodization. It's like if they made a Batman movie, only he didn't wear a costume and instead went around shooting bad guys, and every time he shot someone he'd say some cheesy one-liner, like "Paper or Plastic?"

Wait, that's an awesome idea.

-A

Next up: Enough about comic book movies. Aaron's Pick of the Week.

Edit: In a rare turn of events, myspace appears to have actually done something cool. Thanks to them you can now download the entire first issue of Wanted here. How about that?

Ironing out the Problem

So, the Iron Man teaser has been around for a while, but for those of you who have yet to see it, here it is:



Now, I know that, according to what I said in an earlier post, I should be responding to this trailer with "Mass excitement." And I probably would be in most circumstances. I mean, the non-Home-Improvement costume looks awesome. But for some reason that I couldn't put my finger on, something about that trailer didn't sit right with me.

Then it hit me.

Here is a trailer from Ghost Rider, a movie that I and most of the surface world thoroughly didn't enjoy.



I hope the similarities between the two trailers speak for themselves (the one main difference being that the Iron Man trailer is only a "teaser" and therefore doesn't show as much). There was another Ghost Rider trailer where protagonist Johnny Blaze is told, like with Iron Man's Tony Stark, "You should [be dead]," as well as a similar ending (a prolonged CGI shot of the hero speeding in a particular direction), but I thought the similarities were more palpable in this one.

The fact that Iron Man's trailer is even remotely comparable to Ghost Rider's is, frankly, not good. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to line up at midnight to see it on opening night, dressed appropriately, but I won't be happy about it.

...no high five?