Movie Trailers

I've always been a movie trailer junkie. I love a good preview. The most recent one that gets my blood pumping is the King Kong trailer, which you can see here. It's just a great trailer. It builds perfectly, hits all the right beats...and ends with a shot that just made me pump my fist. I actually left my chair and stood, arms in the air, at the end of this trailer.

I was telling my mom about it last night, because she likes movies, and she said, "You know, the art of making a movie trailer isn't something I've ever given much thought to."

You see, many people confuse the trailer with the film itself. They're totally separate elements. Sure, the trailer is used to sell the film, and uses images from the film...but trailer-making is an art. There have been awful trailers for good films (Chris always brings up Beautiful Mind as a great example of this) and there have been great trailers for films that were not good (I always use the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the example of this, with it's fantastically creepy droning sound effects).

We who have worked in theaters--and specifically in the projection booth--talk a lot about which trailers we think are the best. Maybe we're just movie nerds. But a good movie preview needs to have a few elements (regardless of the film itself):

-It must grab your attention

-It must build. A trailer is a short film, really, and you can't just flash a bunch of images from the movie, set it to music, and call it a trailer. The trailer has to capture the spirit of the film as well as tell a miniature version of the film's story.

-It must have at least one money shot from the film...the pump-your-fist shot...that one shot that speaks for the film. This shot is the one that ultimately determines whether or not the audience will put their butt in the seat. Chris and I were talking about this the other day and mentioned a few moments like this from great movie trailers: the ship tilting up and everyone falling into the water in the Titanic trailer...Kong leaping off the Empire State building to crush the plane in the new King Kong trailer...Gandalf screaming "You shall not pass!" before crashing his staff to the ground in the Fellowship of the Ring trailer....

You get the idea.

Well, my mom got me thinking that there might be a lot of people out there who don't really think about trailers in this way...that don't see it as a craft. So I thought I'd submit a list (with links, where possible) of some of my favorite movie trailers. Chris has his own list, I'm sure, and I hope he'll share some of it--he also has a freak ability to tell you what prior movie the music in trailers is from...you should ask him about it. My list is mostly made of recent trailers, simply because they're the easiest to find links for. I made this list and this post because I just didn't find much online as far as "Best Movie Trailers" was concerned. You will need Quicktime for all these links, which you can download here.

-The Chronicles of Narnia. It's gorgeous. It contains shots that fans of the books will instantly identify with. It puts to bed any concerns you might have about how real the fantasy elements (creatures...landscapes) will look. And it ends on just the right note...with Aslan roaring from atop the rock. Great trailer.

-King Kong. I linked it above...but it's one of the best trailers ever, especially in recent years.

-Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. This is the one with Vader's mechanical breathing in the background as shots from the film flash by. (A note: I can't currently get this trailer to play properly...I might have too new a version of Quicktime or something like that).

-Munich. The new Speilberg film, which had a rushed shoot, looks amazing. Intrigue, action, character. It has it all. And it's Spielberg. I'm so there.

-The Return of the King. Okay, every single trailer for every single Lord of the Rings film is great. I chose this one because it's the only one I could find that's still online.

-The Incredibles. This is the teaser trailer. It has great music, sums up the story just by showing us what's on the walls in Mr. Incredible's trophy room, and sums up the tone of the film perfectly with the comic ending of his trouble with the belt on his suit. This is also one of my favorite movies ever.

-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This movie just looks great to me. More dark and more mature than previous entries.

-Walk the Line. Here's a trailer that hits the right beats. And realizing that Joaquin Phoenix is doing all the voice and singing work only adds to the excitement of seeing this film.

-The New World. After boring me throughout most of The Thin Red Line, if there was anything that was going to get me back into theaters to see another Terrance Mallick film...it's this trailer. Lush and gorgeous, it signals to the viewer that it's clearly a John Smith/Pocahontus story without pandering to us at all.

-Spiderman 2. This trailer begins with a scene from the film, played out almost in full. Usually trailers just go spastic with the multiple cuts and shots...but this one just shows you one of it's best scenes....before the music swells. The scene was perfectly chosen, too, because it represents the mind-set and state of two major characters and what they're going through in the film.

-Comedian. This is the documentary that follows around Jerry Seinfeld and another, lesser-known comedian. This is still the funniest trailer I have ever seen. I can't stop laughing at it, even today. It's not footage from the film, it's basically a mock recording session with the "movie trailer voice guy" trying to record a trailer for Comedian. I guarantee laughs.

Okay. There you go. 11 of my favorite movie trailers (mostly recent). Hope you enjoy. I had a ton of fun putting the list together and reliving all those trailers...though I spent WAY too much time doing it.