MOVIES
The Funniest, Most Depressing Movie Trailer of All TimeLOS ANGELES, CA 02 January 2009 |
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Like so many people, I watched a lotta movies over the holidays. At home. In the theater. On television. Traditionally, this is a good time at the box office. The season of award-caliber cinema.
My wife and I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night. Technically speaking, an impressive achievement. David Fincher is an excellent director. Cate Blanchett is a world class actress with incredible bone structure. And Brad Pitt, playing---of all things---an elderly boy, gives his best performance since Fight Club.
Me? I only thought the movie was so-so. Basically a rehashing of Forrest Gump, easily one of the most grating films ever made. And I have a creeping suspicion that---just like Gump---it will win Best Picture. And if Eric Roth wins Best Screenplay Adaptation, he'll be the first man to win two Academy Awards for the same script. An impressive achievement by any measure.
And speaking of curious, something funny has been happening in movie theaters over the past couple of months. The trailer below has been playing before packed-house theaters throughout America. And every time I've witnessed it, the audience has broken out into peals of nervous laughter. Waves of uncontrollable giggling. An involuntary response.
Revolutionary Road. The Sam Mendes adaptation of the Richard Yates classic.
It begs the question: Has there ever been a more perfectly depressing movie trailer in the history of American cinema?
I see this thing as a sort of masterpiece. Worthy of an Oscar nomination all by itself. So darkly funny it makes me want to stand up and cheer. And this, perhaps, is where my sense of humor veers off the beaten path a bit. I find it wickedly hilarious that unsuspecting moviegoers---out to watch Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughan exhibit horrendous chemistry in Four Christmases---would be suddenly assaulted with a perfect, two-minute encapsulation of the darkest, most nuclear fears at the heart of the American Dream.
The first time I saw this trailer, I howled. And broke out into a light, cold sweat.
And think about it from a sales perspective: Has there ever been a more brazen act of willfully self-destructive marketing? It's almost like Mr. Mendes is trying to scare people away. At the end of the day, this advertisement is tantamount to a two-minute warning: Please stay away from this utterly soul-crushing film at all costs. It's a showcase for Leo and Kate's Oscar chances, certainly. But beyond that? A vicious deterrent.
Whatever the film's merits, I expect Revolutionary Road to do utterly dismal box office here on the home front. (Perhaps it's possible that overseas audiences will embrace it as a sort of comedy...or an exercise in delicious schadenfreude.)
But in these times, in this economy, in this world, I have a hard time believing that Americans will want to spend two hours in the pitch-black dark, watching a surgically accurate pyrotechnic domestic implosion. Right now, as the news reports keep coming in from the precipice, people don't really seem interested in watching their worst fears played out onscreen. Instead they would prefer to be taken away into a miraculous, airbrushed dreamland where simple men with learning disabilities can screw beautiful Southern blonds and change the course of history by accident.
Who made these rules, anyway?
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This looks like and amazing movie. It reminds me a bit of ‘American Beauty’. Didn’t that movie win some awards? (smile).
Perhaps, it looks good to me because I can relate to it. I tried to live the ‘American Dream’: working at a job I hated, buying ridiculously inflated real estate, sacrificing my being for responsibility to my family. I’m fortunate enough to have a lot of loving folks around me, though, that are helping me make a sane transition to a life that actually makes sense and honors my talents and deficiencies.
Whether or not they admit it, I think lots of folks can relate to this movie. I know. I worked with lots of them. Whether or not they want to admit it, is another issue, altogether. Like ‘American Beauty’ this film is another wake up call from Hollywood. Hopefully it will wake some people up.
Oh, I think most everyone of a certain age can relate to it. And likely it’s a very good film, and perhaps even the kind of wake-up call you talk about.
American Beauty did indeed win some awards—Best Picture, in fact—but American Beauty was, I think, the more explicitly satirical, more explicitly funny film. And it was released in 1999, at the tail end of the long stock market boom of the Clinton years. Had it hit theaters this year, in the midst of this epic financial collapse, I’m not so sure it would’ve enjoyed the same kind of reception.
The national mood/collective consciousness is a significant factor in how a work of art is perceived. And this might help to explain why a movie like Button will be so warmly embraced by the public and the Academy. It is, after all, a film about a man who lives in backwards chronology. And so many people right now are feeling nostalgic for the good old days.
You are wise, Mr. Listi. I bow to your genius.
Heh. I live in LA, Philip. People analyze movies and box office trends out here in much the same way Bernard Maddow (used to) analyze the ledger sheets for his hedge fund ponzi scheme.
Madoff. Bernard Madoff.
Sorry, it’s just the only name I’ve heard for the past two weeks.
Thanks for the correction.
Meh. I think it’ll do okay. In the big cities anyway. And the smaller towns will probably think it’s Titanic, Redux. Especially since Kathy Bates makes it a hat trick.
People who are expecting Titanic II are in for a rude awakening!
A different sort of doomed vessel.
I love pyrotechnic domestic implosions. I’ve been looking forward to this movie for a while now. I don’t like the idea that all movies have to be chipper with a funtastic happy ending.
You do have to admit, however, that this film is pretty extraordinary on the depressive end of the scale—at least as far as the trailer is concerned. (I have friends who have seen it and they confirm that the film in its entirety is equally gloomy.)
Anyway, it does look like one of the better films of the year, but if I see it I’ll have to go alone. My wife refuses.
I fully admit that this movie looks extra special in the ways of depressing beyond the acceptable level of most peoples standards. The thing is that’s something I really enjoy in a film. The more depressing the more it makes me think about what I’ve seen and it affects me, and that is what makes me really enjoy a film.
That being said, your wife has much in common with a few friends of mine who have absolutely no desire to see something that will bring them down to such a low. I love the movie The Things We Lost in the Fire, so I suggested to a friend that she watch it and she said it was a good movie, but that she didn’t like it. Same reason. Too depressing.
that movie trailer- a bad scene…
my three holiday movies:
Burn After Reading- Dark, black, Coen Bros. comedy- very good
Christmas Evil- 80’s slasher movie, crazed Santa, weird allusion to the Godfather…pretty good…
Slumdog Millionare- EPIC!! still mentally buzzing….
If Slumdog Millionaire gets beaten by this Hollywood cheeze then I will be VERY disappointed.
Hi, Zoe.
HI JOSH!!!! (Brad is retarded)
For some reason I didn’t love Slumdog like so many people do. Is something the matter with me?
yes. do you need me to elaborate?
I thought it was schmaltzy. I didn’t care about the guy playing ‘Millionaire.’ I only liked the little children actors. It seemed totally predictable.
But it did have the best “jumping-into-feces” scene that I’ve ever witnessed on the silver screen.
you clearly had your period that day. Or a low blood sugar level.
Entirely possible. It just felt like a Hallmark card to me. A Hallmark card from the slums of Mumbai.
Zoe,
Slumdog Millionaire is a work of genius.
I agree with you completely about Forrest Gump. And I hate being publicly critical or trashing anyone (fear it will come back to me) but since it did win so many awards, and was so acclaimed, I think I need not worry about some karmic backsplash hitting me in the face when I say that I hated that movie. That said, I watched the first half of Benjamin Button, lay my head down and went to sleep. It had a Forrest Gump feel that I simply couldn’t abide.
I agree with Zoe, loved Slumdog Millionaire.
And, I saw Revolutionary Road. The acting was great. Kate was so beautiful it was hard to look away. But there was something shallow about it–surface skimming. It was like one long trailer. Not nearly as great as American Beauty (which I loved).
surgically accurate pyrotechnic domestic implosion.
taken away into a miraculous, airbrushed dreamland where simple men with learning disabilities can screw beautiful Southern blonds and change the course of history by accident.
That, was excellent.
I must be honest. I’m existential enough by nature - I don’t like heavy films. I like escapism, light, Cheetos type fair.
Give me “Zapped” with Scott Baio on late night cable.
Last night, I went to see Benjamin Button, expecting it to follow the trajectory of the original story, which was grim but darkly funny. I agree–the film has been tweaked to new heights of twee; it’s saccharine and just so-so…although since I am “enjoying” a break-up that landed in my lap on Christmas Day, I found myself clutching tissues while the film pounded away at the messages, “at the end of something, you have no choice but to let go,” and “the reason we lose the people we love is to teach us how important these people are to us.”
But, that’s an aside, really.
Revolutionary Road! The trailer! Oh my gosh! I was in a sold-out, last-weekend-of-the-holidays Saturday-night crowd. The Nina Simone soundtrack was quiet enough it became evident not a single person in the room was moving, talking, rummaging in paper sacks of snackfood…everyone was just kinda sitting…probably with sweaty palms…probably looking askance to see what their seatmate was doing, too.
I agree–absolute genius, in such a horribly awkward way.
Hey Brad:
Yeah, give me Brad Pitt as a man/baby and Cate Blanchett with beautiful skin, bone structure, and equally beautiful acting chops any day of the week over Revolutionary Road. When I first saw that trailer–Winslet and DiCaprio screaming at each other, crying, and gnashing teeth ad infinitum–I’m not sure that I laughed. Actually, I was too dumbstruck and blown away. In fact, I literally felt like I’d been *pushed* into my chair and had left an indentation there on account of that trailer coming at me so hard.
I saw that trailer recently when I saw Benjamin Button. Again, it had the same effect on me. Woof.
Sam Mendes, I love you. But you ain’t getting my money for this one. Maybe I’ll go out and buy American Beauty on DVD to try and make it up to you.
I read the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and it was really awful. Just my opinion. Can’t imagine how they can make a whole full-length move around it.
Revolutionary Road looks really depressing. I have depressing enough in my own life, thank you.
The movie to see, I swear I am so right, is “Let the Right One In.” It is a Swedish movie, but you subtitle haters won’t mind because it is so incredibly fabulous.
Just Google “Let the Right One In” and watch the trailer. Tell me you don’t want to see it! It’s ten times better than the trailer, too. I see LOTS of movies, (or films, as you say in LA,) and I am completely right about this.
Seriously.
I googled. I watched. I now have to wait until it comes out on video because I live in East bumblef*#k upstate NY where there are no decent theaters that play foreign or independent films. We do have a new theater actually and I’ve heard rumors of independent films but I’ve seen no proof yet.
Autumn,
When it wins best foreign film, it will be available on DVD. don’t worry.
True, it’s just the waiting. When I move, it will be somewhere that the movies playing at the theater aren’t just the blockbuster hits.
Okay. I think I am in a minority here…but I am so looking forward to this movie, “Revolutionary Road.” The Nina Simone song over the preview gets me every time. And laughter? Excuse me for saying this, but I cannot–I repeat, cannot–imagine laughing, not even nervously, at this preview. Feeling like I’d been punched in the gut is more like it. And depressing? Sure. It looks to be a good, honest reflection of the illusion of the American Dream. If that’s depressing, then so be it. I’d take that sort of “depressing” honesty over a silly bathroom humor comedy any day.
I think my reaction to it is sort of absurd. But I also think it has something to do with the fact that the trailer is so bloody humorless and d-r-a-m-a-t-i-c. Even the most “honest” movie, depicting the most severe situation, should have at least some humor in it.
(No, it shouldn’t. I’m wrong. Some severe situations simply aren’t funny.)
So I guess this is more a personal preference thing. And an observation. For me, life itself is difficult, twisted, cruel, exhausting, and often very ugly. And at the same time, it’s miraculous, beautiful, energizing, and often absurdly funny. And I like my movies (and art in general) to reflect that strange paradox.
Brad. Brad. Brad. You didn’t google “Let the Right One In”, did you?
Brad, you couldn’t be more right about Button. It’s Forrest Gump meets Big Fish (did anyone see that film?), and I didn’t really care for either of those movies. I saw it downloaded onto a DVD by my friend (wouldn’t have paid for it), and thought I was the only one who had noticed this unfortunate likeness, and am delighted to find that I am not.
I’d see Revolutionary Road, even though I admit I giggled a little bit at the High Drama of the trailer. It still seems like the kind of movie I like. I do prefer a bit more of the satire-and-beauty infusion with my “darkness cocktail,” yes, but if I have to choose, I’d take the darkness over the schmaltz any day. Plus, I have a girl crush on Kate Winslet ever since Hideous Kinky.
I really, really enjoyed Slumdog, but I agree with you, Brad, that the children were more compelling than the adult story line. I know it was sort of a fable and not strict realism, but the utter ease with which the protagonist kept being able to meet up with his long-lost-love seemed facile to me after awhile. I mean, this isn’t small town Iowa, it’s bloody India; it’s a crowded place, with lots of people, and it cannot possibly be that easy to locate a transient would-be prostitute if you are, say, about 13 years old and have few resources. I liked the device of how he had come to know all the different millionaire questions, but I found the love story elements a little Hollywood, coincidental and simplistic for a film that was otherwise none of those things.
Well said. We appear to be cinematic brethren.