{"id":13,"date":"2006-09-14T00:18:39","date_gmt":"2006-09-13T14:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/keep\/?p=13"},"modified":"2007-04-04T23:52:31","modified_gmt":"2007-04-04T12:52:31","slug":"the-trailer-narrator-must-be-stopped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=13","title":{"rendered":"The Trailer Narrator must be stopped!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight I watched <i>Boys Don&#8217;t Cry<\/I> which, while well made, I really didn&#8217;t want to see. After I finished it, I checked out the trailer so that I could see how they promoted the film: it seems very much like something that you can&#8217;t market, almost as if it should go directly onto the &#8220;university text&#8221; list and bypass the cinema entirely.<\/p>\n<p>I was most surprised by what I heard:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A true story of hope, fear, and the courage it takes to be yourself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In what way does this pertain to the movie that I saw about the fallout of a woman passing herself as a man in smalltown America? In an effort to get people to see their films, the studios will pass their movies off however they can.<\/p>\n<p><i>Boys Don&#8217;t Cry<\/I> can be compared, I suppose, to <i>Brokeback Mountain<\/I>: the trailers for <i>Brokeback Mountain<\/I> were honest. I went into that film expecting something and getting it. I knew what <i>Boys Don&#8217;t Cry<\/i> was offering me, and the trailer was vaguely honest in that it admitted that the film was about a hate crime (well, it was more about the <i>lead in<\/I> to a hate crime), but when that voiceover man comes on, you know it&#8217;s all over.<\/p>\n<p>My terrible secret is that, with the number of movies I go to, I hate some trailers a heck of a lot. In July and August, just about every film I went to had a trailer for <i>48 Shades<\/I> in it. It was a really poorly made trailer:<\/p>\n<p><center><object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Av9LBHxZvzM\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;How many shades of brown are there?&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;48.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Wow, that&#8217;s a lot of shades of brown!&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> &#8211; ACTUAL DIALOGUE<br \/>\nNo one in Australia has gone to see the movie.<br \/>\nSadly, the voice over for <i>48 Shades<\/I> is probably telling the truth, but it is the most trite, life affirming truth that it could possibly tell. It&#8217;s no small wonder that Australians hate local cinema. That and we&#8217;re an island of pirates.<\/p>\n<p>The whole lying about your product d\u00c3\u00a9bacle reminded me of the <trailer for the film <i>Comedian<\/i>:<\/p>\n<p><center><object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/fVDzuT0fXro\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n<p>As long as the studios recognise that this stuff is pure BS, I suppose they can get away with it. If they think that I gleaned a single ounce of hope from <i>Boys Don&#8217;t Cry<\/I>, though, they&#8217;ve got another thing coming.<\/p>\n<p>(if you&#8217;re wondering what <i>Boys Don&#8217;t Cry<\/I>&#8216;s &#8220;flaw&#8221; is, I&#8217;d suppose that I&#8217;d put it down to a mild case of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=556\">Hilary Swankitis<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight I watched Boys Don&#8217;t Cry which, while well made, I really didn&#8217;t want to see. After I finished it, I checked out the trailer so that I could see how they promoted the film: it seems very much like something that you can&#8217;t market, almost as if it should go directly onto the &#8220;university text&#8221; list and bypass the cinema entirely. I was most surprised by what I heard: A true story of hope, fear, and the courage it takes to be yourself. In what way does this pertain to the movie that I saw about the fallout of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1HLZ6-d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}