Once Upon a Time in Mexico – Columbia Pictures, Dimension Films, 2003, Directed by Robert Rodriguez.

Click to view trailer

When I started this blog I didn’t want to review any trailers done by editors I know in person, but eventually I think I’m going to have to break that rule, because a lot of the trailers I love are by people I know. Once Upon a Time in Mexico is one of those trailers, though I first saw it during the beginning of my internship at the trailer house I eventually worked at. Thing I like about this trailer mostly is its sheer energy. I liked El Mariachi and Desperado a lot so I was pretty hyped up for this movie especially because it took so freakin’ long to come out. I think the story is that Robert Rodriguez, control freak that he is, was learning to score so that he could score this film himself because he likes to do everything himself.

Story – There’s a legendary guitar player that Cheech Marin is recommending to Johnny Depp who apparently is some sort of killer because in the first bit he shoots him under the table (unfortunately because of the speed this bit is told at, Johnny Depp’s extra arm gag is kind of lost). Johnny Depp is apparently a renegade agent for the CIA working in Mexico. He wants to hire Antonio Banderas to kills a man who is going to kill the president of Mexico. Some reason Antonio Banderas has nothing to live for, then he and Salma Hayek flee men with guns.

But surprise surprise, Antonio Banderas plays by his own rules or something? He goes to get his guitar case filled with guns. He also has no choice but to kill a lot of people. We don’t know who really. There’s lots of explosions and shooting.

Okay so beyond Antonio Banderas being hired to kill a killer we don’t know too much about the story. Lots of other characters show up in the trailer but we have no idea what their role is. 

Music & Editing – The editor on this one really lucked out on music (and he knows it) because the Juno Reactor Pistolero song(s) practically edit the back end of this trailer for him. Or rather, gives him a lot of stuff to work with to make a flashy exciting trailer. From the get go this trailer has tons and tons of sound effects. Practically everything on screen has a sound effect from the logo zooming to the fades even the little tape recorder has a little mixed up recorder sound. I especially like the finger drumming over the guitar as the punctuation before Cheech finishes talking.

One thing about this trailer (no fault of the editor) is that the dialogue bits for the trailer usually don’t sound final because they’re parts of much bigger bits of dialogue. As such the intonation sounds awkward “he’s being paid to kill the president…” This is why sometimes making a trailer from dailies is good because you can get a dialogue take that works for the trailer but not the movie.

After Johnny Depp’s initial assignment the trailer starts picking up during the Salma Hayek scene, a character montage and then slows briefly with the guitar riff from Pistolero and Antonio getting his guitar (with editing and sound effects to the beat of the guitar). Antonio cocking his guitar (funny sight gag and good punctuation) lead into the big explosion and musical finale. Lots of fast editing culminates with Antonio reloading his gun shooting and then the big explosion after “PISTOLEEERO!” and more fast guitar playing that slows to Antonio Banderas making a cross over his heart.

Then it’s the final actors’ credit montage which I’m always a sucker for with some cool looking flashy graphics. Then my favorite bit in the whole trailer is Antonio spinning the gun on his finger and then shooting it in the final shot just as the song ends. The culmination of everything before that leading to that final shot was pretty joygasmic the first time I saw it. After the fiery logo is Johnny Deep asking Antonio if he’s still standing, some thugs beat up (edited to the beat) and then we get the credits. Not really the most interesting bit of dialogue, but Antonio kicking more ass is fun.

Selling Points- Johnny Depp is cool, Antonio Banderas kicks butt, shoots guys, blows things up. Salma Hayek being sexy. Like I said, the story doesn’t come across entirely well so I think they really want to emphasize Johnny Depp and of course the action. The other actors like Eva Mendes don’t even get a mention aside from their appearance so I guess they don’t care about them much.

Final Thoughts – A very fun trailer with great music and a great climax. I was really disappointed when I saw the movie because it kind of uh, sucked. The story was way too convoluted for its own good and all the action wasn’t as fun or exciting as anything in Desperado. I like Johnny Depp and all but this movie really isn’t much to write home about. I own it mostly for completion’s sake but I don’t think I’ll be dying to watch it any time soon. At least I enjoy the trailer would be what I have to say about the movie.

Ultraviolet – Screen Gems, 2006, Directed by Kurt Wimmer.

Click to watch trailer

Okay I’ll admit it now, this one is something of a guilty for pleasure for me. Mind you I’m talking about the TRAILER, not the film. I never watched the film in its entirety because I heard how bad it was supposed to be. I enjoyed Kurt Wimmer’s film Equilibrium, but when I heard that the martial arts in that movie weren’t quite what he wanted and for this film he was going to get more what he wanted I was stoked. Supposedly the stunt coordinator for Equilibrium was more of a hard martial artist karate kind of guy whereas the director wanted more fluid Chinese martial arts style for his gunkata martial art (martial art based off of using guns). 

This movie is basically filled with trailer-y imagery because of the futuristic setting, lots of guns and fighting so there’s probably very little that wouldn’t be a trailer worthy shot.

Story – Milla Jovovich is a woman named Violet who is the result of a genetic experiment that made super soldiers. Then the creators of these soldiers decided they were too dangerous so they decided to exterminate them. The surviving super soldiers decided to rebel. Somehow Milla Jovovich is going to decide the fate of humanity? Milla Jovovich then kills and fights lots of people. 

Editing & Music – Like most trailers I love it comes down to the music most of the time. I’ve made several playlists based off of music from movie trailers. The first few were just of music that was overused in trailers, but later on when I was running out of those types of music I ended up using songs from individual trailers, the end montage song of this one I had practically on loop for quite a while. 

My name is Alice

So in the beginning we find out via her voice over that Milla Jovovich’s name is Alice and she’s a super human who fights zombies. Oh wait, sorry, that’s the Resident Evil Apocalypse trailer. Starting over. In the beginning we find out via her voice over that Milla Jovovich’s name is Violet and that she’s a super human who fights evil government soldiers. Then there’s a quick and fast scene of her shattering apparently glass armor of soldiers attacking her. Voice over like I’ve said before makes trailer editing much easier because it’s exposition which is what trailers need to tell the story. Some reason they decided to echo some lines in this trailer, seems kind of gratuitous to me.

Oooops, I mean my name is Violet

Violet describes a “world we may not understand” whereupon we get a montage of a futuristic city along with secret government labs that create soldiers that can roll around like balls a la Samus in Metroid and then become humanoid? After the government trying to kill super soldiers montage there’s some cool stunt footage of Violet doing some fancy moves on a motorcycle which leads into her white outfit changing red kind of like the secretary’s nail polish in “Total Recall.” The music leads into “Clubbed to Death” which you might recognize from the woman in the red dress scene from “The Matrix” or the Blade Trinity trailer or lots of other trailers out there.

This song is good music for the middle of a trailer because it’s interesting, but it never really rises or falls (which is why I think it sucks in the trailer for Blade Trinity). We then have footage of Violet escaping police and preview narrator (Howard Parker) talking about how the government made her a weapon and now she’s their target. Some fighting in between the lines of narration. Then William Fichtner telling Violet she’s jeopardizing the mission or something which leads into a pretty illogical dialogue edit “I have nowhere else to go Garth… besides, you have all my guns.” She’s very obviously talking in two different scenes, but oh well, the next bit is Violet kicking ass with unloaded guns which looks pretty cool.

Finally after the big Violet-with-a-sword vs thousands of soldiers we get to the song “24″ by Jem. I just love this final montage because of the music and the sync with the song. Several shots sync right to the beat which isn’t really rare for a trailer but when the timing is really good and consistent then it’s editing bliss to watch. Beats on guy disrupting Violet’s hologram, Violet kicking the guard, Violet’s gun knives deploying, one of my favorite bits is the sync of the music to Violet destroying some thugs’ weapons, zoom in on Violet’s glasses, Violet going through the window, Violet kicking someone in a cemetery, flaming swords colliding, Violet using a sword and finally Violet landing anime-style on the ground from a big jump.

Selling Points – Milla Jovovich kicks ass and her hair changes color a lot in the future. Guns and kung fu!

Final Thoughts – This trailer is one I rewatch a lot because I like the end montage so much. I’m not sure I’ll watch the movie because the word of mouth was so bad. Plus when I watched the fight scenes online they didn’t seem to be all that great, and that’s the only reason I was going to watch this movie.

An Inconvenient Truth - Paramount Classics, Participant Productions, 2006. Directed by Davis Gugghenheim.

Click to watch trailer

I thought I’d do something a little bit different for this one. Actually it’s going to be the same except this is the first documentary trailer that I’m reviewing. Documentary films just like fictitious films have to rely on the strength of their material. The difference is that usually documentaries aren’t going to have cool visual effects, action and generally any sort of flashy material. Documentaries have to rely on the information they’re trying to convey, picking and choosing the bits that most effectively tell the audience what the movie is about in two minutes or so.

This trailer is kind of funny/interesting because it’s actually edited like a non-documentary film trailer, and I know that I for one really wanted to see the movie after seeing this trailer. 

Story – The Earth’s climate is changing, ice is melting in places it shouldn’t be melting, we have to do something about it.

Editing & Music – So like I said, this is edited like it was a non-documentary film trailer. So what does that actually mean? Trailers of any kind are going to have dramatic music, probably cool motion graphics and snippets of dialogue that are punchy and get their point made very quickly. One thing that not a lot of documentary trailers have is sound effects. Sound effects are everything from dramatic hits, whooshes, swishes, drones and such.

The direction they went for in this trailer really was kind of like “make it like a horror movie.” For example this trailer starts with some dramatic text with big booming sound effects and then some whooshes into lightning sounds and more dramatic hits for its text. Really you could replace the shots in this opening bit and replace it with horror movie shots, and it would still work perfectly.

Al Gore’s first bit of dialogue ends on the year 2005 with a low bassy hit on 2005 then more dramatic sound effects into the next bit of text. The next montage of images enters with some light music, and from here it lets the material speak for itself as Al Gore shows slides of melting ice caps all over the world. This segment ends with a weather radar map, and then goes into another dramatic flashy montage of Hurricane Katrina which ends on the text “OR DID WE BETRAY THE PLANET?” which has a drone sound effect underneath it. The bit of Al Gore talking about preparing for threats also has the flashy time lapse desert footage that looks like it could be a special effect in any other movie.

After that begins the narration with “From Paramount Classics” which starts the big dramatic swelling music that takes us to the end. The music works really well with the montage of rising sea levels all over the world culminating with the contrast between what happened during Katrina and what would inevitably far far worse if it happened all over the world. The last bit is “NOTHING IS SCARIER… THAN THE TRUTH” which caps off the whole horror movie trailer style thing.

Selling Points – Documentaries are different because they aren’t out there to make money. Certainly they want to make their money back, but there was a saying I heard often in film school that the surest way to get poor was to make a documentary. Not to say that there haven’t been profitable documentaries, but this trailer like all documentary trailers is giving you a slice of what their bigger picture is hoping you want to hear more about it. This one jazzes it up more making it very dramatic trying to get you almost excited to see it. 

Final Thoughts – This trailer did absolutely make me want to see this film, and it worked on me 100%. Though in retrospect it seems at times rather silly how seriously this trailer takes itself. Not that climate change isn’t a serious issue, but it’s certainly amusing to see a documentary trailer edited like a non-documentary trailer.

The Twelve Kingdoms - 2002-2003 TV Series animated by Studio Pierrot. 45 episodes based on the light novels by Fuyumi Ono.

The Twelve Kingdoms is a fantasy anime series with a very typical anime plot set up, but exceptional execution. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: A Japanese high school student is spirited away to a fantasy magical world where its their destiny to save the world or something like that. Yeah, it’s been done countless times before whether it’s Fushigi Yugi, Magic Knights Rayearth, Inu Yasha, El Hazard, Tweeny Witches, Yu Yu Hakusho, Escaflowne, the list goes on and on. 

Before I saw it I didn’t know much about this show at all except the Anime World Order review which I didn’t remember much of except when they said it was “Fushigi Yugi but doesn’t suck.” Sure enough, that assessment is totally correct but it still doesn’t say much about the series. When working at anime conventions I occasionally met people whose eyes lit up upon seeing the DVD for sale saying how much they loved the show, but I still didn’t know much about it.

The anime is based off of a series of fantasy novels. There’re seven volumes in total but the anime only covers four separate story arcs. Most anime are based off of manga which can have pretty big back story, but one thing that’s apparent about this anime is that this is a richly detailed and fleshed out world that deserves an encyclopedia on its own.

From the DVD booklet. It takes a while, but we learn at least a little bit about every kingdom.

It’s not often you have a show with made up words for just about everything in the world. If you google search “The twelve kingdoms encyclopedia” you’ll find several pages like this wiki article listing the terminology for things in the world or this more extensive one. The DVD singles release has a small glossary for each volume, but I’m not sure if the thinpak does. Unfortunately the singles are probably very difficult to find now (and some were plagued with mono-only audio). Lots of shows might have unique terminology, but this show just thrusts you into the center of it, and even with the glossary you have to learn it as you watch.

Having only seen the anime series I hesitate to compare it to something like “The Lord of the Rings” since that’s one of the most detailed fantasy worlds in modern fiction, but I think in some ways it’s applicable. Whereas J.R. Tolkien’s story is a Western European sort of influenced setting, The Twelve Kingdoms is very Eastern with heavy Chinese and of course Japanese source material.

When watching this show you can tell the author put a lot of thought into creating this very rich and detailed world out of a very typical premise. The result is the show creates its own logic and backstory that it adheres to through all the stories. When you’re watching it you’ll be asking lots of “hows, whats and whys” that you’ll find are explained eventually in one story or another. More on this a bit later.

Since this is a fairly big show I’m going to split this review into parts for each story arc because there are things in each story arc that I love, and think are deserving of their own separate discussion.

Story – The main character is Youko, a red haired girl in high school. One day in school, a tall blond haired man in strange robes named Keiki approaches her asking that she accept his protection of her throne and that she come with her. The school is then under attack by a large bird creature. They flee to the roof and a battle between the giant bird and other creatures Keiki summons out of portals. Youko is then taken away along with two fellow students Yuka Sugimoto and Ikuya Asano. 

If you see a massive portal like this in the ocean, it probably leads to another world.

The first 13 episode story arc is about Youko’s journey of self discovery and eventual rise to power as ruler of one of the Twelve Kingdoms. I haven’t read the novels yet (they’re currently being translated and released by Tokyopop. As of this writing 3 volumes have been released) but one difference is the characters of Yuka and Sugimoto. They aren’t in the novels, but were added to the anime adaptation in order to let Youko express some of her feelings that were internal monologue in the novels. Yuka is a girl who reads lots of fantasy novels, and finds herself bored with the world she lives in so when monsters start popping out of everywhere she’s absolutely thrilled and is convinced that this is happening because of some greater destiny she possesses.

"Sweet! Now that I'm going to a real fantasy world I don't have to LARP anymore!"

When they arrive some strange things happen. Youko’s face changes and she can apparently understand the native language which Sugimoto and Asano cannot understand at all. This is one story deceit that is sometimes used for convenience with little or no explanation (like in El Hazard), but rest assured there’s a good explanation for it that makes sense within the story’s own logic. I really respect a show that can create a really convincing logic and backstory. Turns out people are often whisked to and from Japan fairly often. So often that in one kingdom there’s a registration office for people who find themselves there from Japan where they get your name, zip code (proof you’re from Japan so they know you’re not a native trying to cheat the government out of benefits for people from Japan who are referred to as Kaikyaku).

Youko spends the first four episodes or so as the whiny, reluctant character crying when things don’t make sense. Just when you think it’s going to get tiresome her character changes. This first story arc is really all about Youko’s character development and understanding of her own identity. She has a hallucination of a monkey-like guy whom echoes her own worst fears and anxieties. Sometimes internal monologue can get boring and repetitive (like in His & Her Circumstances aka Kare Kano), but Twelve Kingdoms I think is a very well paced show. Action scenes help to both move the story alone while also give Youko more stuff to think about. Youko’s character development is very believable from one step to the next, and it’s enjoyable to watch her change and grow.

This world sucks!

In the entire series there are no filler episodes. There are recap episodes after each story arc, but nothing within each story arc is filler. In fact, just about every episode will end right when you don’t want it to. Watching it while it aired must’ve been torture. I could talk forever about the specifics and intricacies of the world, but I think part of the joy of this show is learning more about the world of the Twelve Kingdoms. So much jargon, terminology, names and concepts are just thrown at you that it can feel overwhelming at times. At the same time though, each new thing you learn about the world makes everything that much more interesting, and you’ll find yourself wanting more.

This is a riboku which grows ranka that contain people or hanjyuu which sometimes are caught in a shoku bringing them to Hourai. These Taika sometimes return, and people think they're kaikyaku from Wa when actually... don't worry, it all makes sense later

So what else makes The Twelve Kingdoms so exceptional? One thing that many other animes fall prey to is a badly done romance subplot. It seems like an obligatory plot element to have, but this show never succumbs to it. There are certainly characters who I could see people pairing Youko up with in fan fiction, but the progression of the story is such that there’s really never time for a romance subplot. If they did then it would drag the story down significantly.

Okay, this episode we're going to use super detailed character designs. Why? Because we CAN

At a technical level, the animation in Twelve Kingdoms is exceptional. The show is only six or so years old and since it’s a digitally colored show, its age doesn’t really show at all. The character design, creature design and costumes are all very appealing and the action scenes are well done with not a lot of animation cheats. Episode 9 in particular has very detailed character designs that stand out amongst what is already a really great looking show. Music is also great with some really epic sounding orchestral pieces. The opening credits sequence eschews the typical anime opening with pop music and flashy visuals instead for a more subdued sequence of what look like ancient illustrations depicting the world and history of The Twelve Kingdoms. 

Opening credits. What do you think? Needs more L'arc-en-ciel or something? Naaaaaahhhh...

I think The Twelve Kingdoms is also a very mature story. Even though Youko is a high school student, her character growth is something that makes the show very engrossing. Later on in the show the politics of the world become a big part of the main plot which isn’t something seen often in anime shows. It’s hard to try to classify what genre the show fits into. It’s certainly a fantasy show, has its share of action, but its characters and story just make a show that is truly greater than just the sum of its parts. I’m really not sure how the average Cartoon Network watching fanboy or fangirl nowadays would react to a show like The Twelve Kingdoms since it doesn’t follow so many anime show clichés that people are almost expecting in a show. The ending theme song is a vocal song with similarly unflashy animation.

Man, being inside my head sucks...

DVDs - When the first DVD singles came out there was an error where some of the audio was mono only instead of stereo, but if you buy this show now you’re going to be getting the discs that were eventually fixed. The singles release had a glossary, map and guide to some characters in a booklet, but I believe the economy pack doesn’t have any of these nice extras. Like said before, the show looks great. Translation is very good with I’d say only a few errors across all 45 episodes which is pretty darn good. I happen to know that the translator had read all the novels previously to working on this title so their deep knowledge of the story helped them make the best translation possible. Small things like knowing when Japanese words weren’t to be directly translated because they were actually being used as proper nouns e.g. there’s a university called “Daigaku” which in Japanese means university, but as it’s used in the show in a manner that it’s more proper to keep it that way. 

The next seven episodes which I’ll talk about in another post are about a totally different character from Youko. The way they keep her in the story is that a character is narrating to her the story of this new character. Because I had grown to like the character of Youko so much I was worried that I wouldn’t be as interested in the second story arc. But the second arc is one that really expands upon the world, and I didn’t mind the shift in protagonist at all.

What are you waiting for? Go and watch this show!!!

They're faster than any movers you've used

Okay, a couple weeks and no post, what’s my lame excuse? I was packing and moving! What’s that you say? My girlfriend has been blogging the entire time up until before the move? Okay you caught me, I’ve just been very lazy. Still, doing a daily web comic and packing takes up a lot of time. Since now the moving is over and I’ve got my desk/computer set up I thought I’d do an entry on the amazing movers we used.

My girlfriend has used these Japanese movers several times and always talks about how fast they are. First question usually is “do you have to be Japanese to use them?” The answer is “NO!” They do speak English, but you’d be hard pressed to find them since they’re not really wired, and it’s unlikely you’d do a google search for “Japanese movers” when you want to move. I did a google search and they do indeed have a website (albeit very simple and bare bones). 

TaroTaro was taken maybe?

Anyway, I had lived in my apartment for six years so I had a fair amount of stuff. In fact, I’d say of all the people I know I probably have more stuff from my entire life than most people have in one place. Reason was that my parents sold the house I grew up in so my sister ended up packing my childhood toys and possessions and giving them to me. Still though I don’t think I have all that much, most of it felt like books, manga and DVDs.

Six years worth of stuff

So, how long would you guess it took to move all of stuff? There’s also a fan, office chair and futon bed. The white shelf wasn’t moved. A friend of mine guessed 2.5 hours, but it only took HALF AN HOUR. I have an elevator in my building, but in this case it felt more like that the elevator was slowing these three Japanese guys down because they had to wait for my tiny elevator to go up and down. My girlfriend lived in a one floor walkup and had I think at least 3X the amount of stuff I do (with bigger furniture) and they also finished loading her stuff to the truck in 30-40 minutes. I was amazed when I got her text message that they were done.

Lots of stuff. Took a bit more than 3 hours to move, and it's not even all of it.

Our new place has an elevator too. The entire job took three hours and 15 minutes. We were done before lunchtime. The movers were saying they wished they had photographs of our packing job to use as an example. The biggest help is the plastic wrapping. When we work at anime conventions all the DVDs our company is going to sell comes on a big wooden skid with the boxes all wrapped together with big plastic wrap. You can buy small rolls of this at Staples. It’s really good for wrapping furniture or combining lots of storage containers so they can all be lifted together.

This really helped expedite things, but even so these guys are fast. For my futon mattress the guy folded it in half, taped the ends, wrapped the entire thing in plastic, and then one of the other workers (short Japanese guy with huge arms) carried the thing entirely on his own out of my apartment. I wish I had a photo of him holding it.

So if you decide to use these guys, do a good packing job. I was told stories about them showing up at an apartment to find people weren’t done packing or people had tons of boxes none of which had been taped closed. Since they’re on a schedule, they’ll just re-schedule instead of being late for the next one. They apparently used to have a rate based on how much stuff you had, but they charge hourly now, but unlike I’m sure other moving companies work, these guys aren’t taking their sweet time because of it.

If you live in the New York area and are moving now or in the future I’d very highly recommend these guys. It was the first time I’ve ever hired movers, but I’m pretty darn sure they’re much better than the average movers out there.

Go Go Curry – 282 West 38th street between 7th and 8th Avenue.

Go Go Curry is a curry fast food restaurant in midtown. The place is covered in articles and photos of the Yankee’s Hideki Matsui. Matsui’s number is 55 and “Go” is Japanese for 5. So the place has a special on the #5 days of the month where if you buy a curry that day you get a free topping coupon. Also they give free topping coupons the day after Matsui hits a homerun.

Japanese curry isn’t anything like Indian curry at all. I saw on the menupages page for Go Go Curry someone expressed disappointment with Go Go saying that instead they were going to stick to eating Indian curry. Japanese curry is a comfort food, and really not that complicated. I make curry at home which basically consists of stir-fried potatoes, carrots and chicken with some curry roux dissolved in water.

The secret ingredient... is MSG

At Go Go Curry I usually get a “single” which is a medium with pork katsu which is pork with panko (breadcrumbs) and fried. I also get a hard-boiled egg for my topping (which is why I chose that particular photo up top). For me I feel absolutely stuffed when I’m finished, but not necessarily explodey-stuffed. The pork katsu is really good and there’s just the right amount of rice and lettuce with it. I like eating the hard-boiled egg one slice at a time with each spoonful of pork, curry and rice. It’s best when it’s fresh and the katsu still has a little crunch to it. There are other toppings too like chicken katsu, sausage and shrimp (the Grand Slam gives you all the different toppings). Only problem with the Grand Slam is there’s really not enough rice, and last time we tried getting more rice they said no.

Go Go Curry isn’t too expensive, I’d say $7-$8 or so depending on whether or not you get a topping with your curry. Even though on occasion I make my own chicken curry, but sometimes the people in my office like to all go get Go Go Curry on a Friday as our sort of special occasion lunch.

Magnolia – New Line Cinema, 1999. Directed by P.T. Anderson

Click here to view trailer

This is another movie trailer that I think does a good job of piquing the audience’s interest without giving away much at all. Though this movie isn’t really as easily appealing and sellable to an audience like a movie like Snatch, I still think it does a good job. Also this is the first trailer I’ve reviewed which has special shoot footage i.e. footage shot specifically for use in the trailer. Yes, there’s often footage in trailers that got cut out of the movie, but in rare cases there’s footage shot just for the trailer that was never intended to ever go into the movie. According to the wikipedia article this trailer was cut by P.T. Anderson himself which makes a lot of sense.

Story – Well this one actually sort of spells out parts of the story, but doesn’t go into plot details. We have Stanley Spector, the boy genius who goes on quiz shows and Jimmy Gator who is the game show host. There’s also an ex-boy genius Donnie Smith who says he used to be smart, but now he’s just stupid. A dying man Earl Partridge and his estranged son Frank T.J. Mackie who is some sort of speaker as we see in the one shot. Earl Partridge’s wife Linda Partridge who has been taking care of him and seems rather attached in the scene she’s yelling at Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays his caretaker Phil Parma. Jimmy Gator’s wife Rose and daughter Claudia Wilson whom seems to be having some sort of relationship problems. A police officer Jim Kurring who is looking for a special someone. The narrator tells us this will all make sense in the end. The last bit of narration by Jim muses about how people sometimes need help or forgiveness, but wonders how we decide who those people are. As if understanding the audience’s confusion about what they just saw Tom Cruise’s character asks if that was unclear.

Editing & Music – P.T. Anderson’s style in his early films is very trailer friendly. Lots of camera movement, swish pans (great for transitions) and such. Like I said, this trailer uses special shoot footage of the cast members introducing themselves (swish pans before and after their line). This works great giving the trailer a nice visual continuity and general flow.

The movie Magnolia was inspired by the songs of Aimee Mann which is why her songs feature so heavily into the film and this trailer. The trailer starts with her song “Momentum” which fittingly is a nice upbeat song that fits the visual style and pace of the trailer. After the character introductions there’s a fast cut musical montage with a TV guy counting down which leads into John C. Reilly’s final narration. The final narration is edited to the musical score by Jon Brion and edited to what looks like what in any other trailer would be a montage of actor credits with graphics for their names. It’s intercut with the title cards “Things fall down, people look up, and when it rains it pours.” What does this have to do with anything? Who can tell?

You could look at this trailer kind of like a movie in itself. It starts with a slowly building story with a climactic montage, and a sort of denoument of sorts at the end with John C. Reilly’s narration. What I like about this trailer (and movie for that matter) is the great flow and if I may be permitted, momentum. The end titles really don’t tell us much about the movie on the most basic level. This trailer is indeed kind of like a mini-version of the movie, but you can’t get it entirely without watching the movie. Still, it’s intriguing in how you feel like you’ve learned a lot about the movie, but really know nothing at all.

Selling Points – This movie doesn’t do much that I think would make an advertising executive comfortable. Movie trailers usually try to say as much as possible about a movie because usually in focus group testing that’s what gets the most positive response. Like I said before though, we don’t actually learn a lot about the movie. Even though there’s no actor ID cards this trailer’s strongest selling point (other than the film itself) is the ensemble cast. Not all big box office draws (with the exception of Tom Cruise) so it’s really only going to attract the type of audience member who would want to see movies with these sorts of independent film actors in it. Oh and P.T. Anderson’s name is in there too. Lots of people saw Boogie Nights, so I’d say that’s the last selling point of this trailer.

Final Thoughts – I think Magnolia ended up being a somewhat polarizing film with lots of people who loved it and people who hated it. I happened to be one of the people who liked it a lot, and watching this trailer is always fun. When I saw the trailer in theaters I was very confused but interested. Not in the “I need to see that opening night” sort of interested, but definitely enough to think about seeing it in theaters.

Snatch – 2000, Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems. Directed by Guy Ritchie.

Click to view trailer

This movie trailer I think is a very good example of showing enough of the movie to get the idea across without making it seem like you’re spoiling much, and at the same time getting the audience interested. I know at least it worked on me.

Story – There’s a heist with Benicio Del Toro stealing a diamond the size of a fist. Dennis Farina is an American who somehow is involved. Jason Statham is a boxing promoter who is also somehow caught up in this diamond heist. He seems to have some connection to Brad Pitt who is a “pikey” which if you’re not familiar with the regional slang you have no idea what it means. Brad Pitt talks in an accent that no one can understand in the slightest. There’s a dog. Some old bearded guy is looking for the diamond, but just shot the guy with the combination to wherever the diamond is. Everyone seems to be looking for the diamond. Vinnie Jones seems to be hired muscle for Dennis Farina. There’s a boxing match where Brad Pitt is set up to take a dive, but ends up knocking the other guy out in one hit. Dennis Farina ends up back in America. Once again we see no one can understand a lick of what Brad Pitt says.

We really still have very little knowledge or understanding of what this movie is about. Obviously there’s a diamond, and usually if there’s a big diamond there’re a lot of people who want it. The boxing angle isn’t really clear on how it connects to anything. After we see all these story strands we get a cool credit sequence for the main actors (and dog). 

This trailer’s structure actually works well in terms of referencing the style of the film. This is probably the most recent Guy Ritchie film anyone cared about at all, but at the time this movie was kind of his style because his previous film “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” was basically the same sort of thing. Lots of characters with individual stories that overlap, and there’re a lot of funny coincidences in how they combine.

Editing & Music – This trailer I think is just a lot of fun. The music, dialogue and editing have a lot of energy and are just thrown at you one after another. They don’t seems to go in a terribly logical order all the time, but the bits are pretty entertaining in themselves. This trailer really does play like the movie does with the very fast editing with quick closeups and quick dialogue. Movies like this with a flashy style of shooting are really made for trailers because flashy camerawork plays well usually with trailers which are always in search of the most interesting shots.

The credits montage set to “Apache” performed by Michael Viner’s Bongo Band is a lot of fun to listen to/watch. One of my favorite bits of music used for a trailer ever.

Selling Points – It’s a heist, comedy set in London and Brad Pitt is in it and he talks funny. This movie has the good fortune of being the kind of movie where if a well edited trailer conveys what the movie is like people will probably just be interested in it. If they’re not it’s probably because they’re just wondering what the heck it is that they saw. Also it’s not a very big budget looking film so it has a better chance of making its money back during its run anyway. The star power of this film is also a big seller even though a lot of the actors at the time are probably more like “Oh yeah, that guy” types. Nowadays they’re more recognizeable.

Final Thoughts – I really wanted to see this movie after seeing the trailer in theaters. I remember the Brad Pitt sections getting a good laugh especially. I enjoyed the movie a lot too. I had a tough time understanding “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” when I saw it because I had little experience with thick British accents (Brad Pitt’s in-penetrable accent is supposedly a reference to people not being able to understand British accents). I just remember people saying that Snatch was just more of the same, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Drunken Master II – Directed by Lau Kar-leung, Jackie Chan, 1994.

Featuring: Jackie Chan, Lau Kar-leung, Ti Lung, Anita Mui, Ken Lo, Mars, Bill Tung Biu.

Drunken Master II in my opinion is the last truly great Jackie Chan film ever made. Since then he’s made movies which have good fight scenes to be sure, but for sheer energy, choreography and creativity nothing afterwards has come close. There are a number of reasons for this. For one he’s just getting older and naturally that’s slowed down his physical prowess, and also luxuriously long film shoots required for one fight scene were becoming a thing of the past. Reportedly the last seven minute fight scene took FOUR MONTHS  to shoot. That’s longer that the entire film shoot for the majority of films out there. I never tire of watching this film’s fight scenes even though I’ve basically memorized them at this point.

Somehow I’ve acquired lots of friends in recent years who haven’t seen many Jackie Chan films other than his American films. I love showing old classic Jackie Chan movies who think he’s cool, but have barely scratched the surface of how good his films are. Drunken Master II I always view as the one I’d want to show them last, because everything else would seem disappointing. In fact I like it so much that I’ve made it my 2nd major DVD production (the first being a re-subtitled version of Shaolin Soccer).

The reason is that there STILL isn’t a 100% uncut good quality DVD out there of this movie. The best edition is the one with the image at the top of this post, but that edition is 1.85:1 aspect ratio whereas the film is 2.35:1 so you’re missing a lot of picture. The Miramax edition is 2.35:1 but it’s dub only with redone music and sound effects that ruin the film. Also they cut out the ending because they thought it was in poor taste. The picture quality on that one however is great! Hong Kong never did good film transfers so all their movies have looked like they were at least 10 years older than they actually were.

So what I did was took the original Hong Kong audio from my laserdisc edition and synced it to the Miramax picture and appended the missing ending from the 1.85:1 Hong Kong DVD. Oh and of course I re-subtitled the entire thing fixing translation here and there. When I’m done with it very soon I plan on giving copies to all my friends who I know would want a copy.

Don't blink otherwise... forget it, you're DEFINITELY going to miss subtleties in this fight, watch it at least three times.

Story – This is the sequel to the original Drunken Master which is one of the films that made Jackie Chan’s career. He plays famous historical martial artist/doctor Wong Fei-Hung who is more popularly played by Jet Li in the Once Upon a Time in China series. Jackie Chan chose to make him more of a bumbling immature character (presumably before he became the admired figure of history). Jackie is traveling home with his dad from a trip to buy lots of Chinese medicine including a very expensive ginseng root. During the train ride home his ginseng gets switched with an ancient Chinese seal being transported by a British Consul.

I don't look evil do I?

Back at home he has to give the customer who bought the ginseng a fake ginseng root which of course doesn’t end well. It turns out that the evil British Consul is trying to smuggle out precious Chinese artifacts in crates of steel being transported from a steel mill that they take over. So it’s up to Jackie to put a stop to them, and do a whole lot of growing up in the process. Ti Lung plays his strict father and late singer Anita Mui is his troublesome stepmom who is always trying to cover for Jackie.

Action – Aside from the choreography this film is also exceptionally well shot/edited. They know how good everything looks and give us nice wide shots so not a single punch or block goes unnoticed by the camera. The editing flows naturally and you never have to search for the action.

First action scene involves Jackie and Lau Kar-leung who plays an older former soldier who is trying to steal the jade seal back from the British Consul. The first bit is spear versus Chinese broadsword in very small quarters underneath the train. My kung fu sifu says no film has done spear fighting well, but to my less trained eyes this still looks very impressive. This is definitely a scene where I had to watch multiple times each time watching only one person.

Neo can suck it.

After this is a sort of friendly duel between Jackie and a fish monger who wants to go out with a snake seller who kind of has a thing for Jackie. It’s not very long, but what’s kind of cool is that the style of this fight scene is very much like the halting sort of theatrical performance from Hong Kong movies of the 70s where there was a lot more posing and pauses after each hit and block. An interesting contrast to the relentless pace of the fights in the rest of the film.

The next tour-de-force action scene is Jackie using Drunken Boxing against several opponents. He gets really drunk, and the sheer variety of moves he uses against his opponents is staggering. Just as impressive is how well the moves flow into each other. This scene is trademark Jackie Chan with his creative mix of action and comedy. Just talking about it makes me want to watch it again.

Don't fight him! Not when his face is that red!

There’s a bit of a dry spell here before Jackie and Lau Kar-leung vs an Ax Gang trying to assassinate them. Yes, an obligatory Hong Kong ax wielding gang of dozens of guys. Hong Kong films are full of movies with Ax wielding killers, but I don’t know if there’s ever been this many. Jackie versus four guys is great, but Jackie versus dozens of guys is entertaining for lots of different reasons. This scene’s highlight is a number of creative ways of fighting with a bamboo pole that ends up becoming very splintered and broken down from all the hard blows.

The last steel mill scene has basically three core fights in it. Once you’re a few minutes into it you’ll be out of breath wanting more, and you GET MORE. The last three fight scenes amount to about fifteen minutes of pure fight scene awesomeness. Highlights are lots of fire, steel poles, red-hot ashes and Ken Lo’s vertical split. It has to be seen to be believed. 

Unless you're the guy in this shot, I'm pretty sure you can't do this. You're probably not six degrees of separation from someone who can do this.

Outtakes – When you add fire to a low budget Hong Kong film expect some good outtakes. They must’ve had a lot of fire extinguishers on hand for this film. You see Jackie all sorts of bruised, burned and battered for the sake of making these perfect fight scenes. The big stunt of this film is Jackie falling back on a bed of coals and backing his way out of them. You see a different take in the outtakes so you know he did it at least twice!

DVD – Like I said, the DVD with the cover at the top of this post is the best edition on the market. Miramax released it as “The Legend of Drunken Master.” If you’re friends with me in real life, lucky you, just ask me for a copy. 

Favorite Moment – Too many to count but seriously, the vertical split was one of my most fun movie theater moments ever. Oh and also Jackie balancing backwards while drinking his wine. I saw this film first at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I didn’t know anything about it, just that it was Jackie Chan. I had already seen a lot of his films at this point so this was quite a treat.

I don't know who you are, but I'm guessing you can't do this either.

Final Thoughts – See this movie. I don’t care if you don’t like kung fu movies, see this movie. You will be able to appreciate it just like anyone can appreciate the dancing skills of Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. Story isn’t the most original or moving thing in the world, but you really haven’t seen anything like this and probably won’t ever again.

The Fountain – 2006, Warner Bros. Regency Enterprises. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.

Click here to view trailer

Something I’ve noticed about movie trailers, is that sometimes they can make a movie’s romance a lot better than it is in the movie. I can mention a bunch of movie trailers where I feel the love story more in the trailer than I do after watching the film. The Fountain is one of those movies. I’ve watched this trailer numerous times, and I still never tire of it.

Story – Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz play two lovers who seem to exist in three time periods. Maybe they were reincarnated, who knows? In 1500 A.D. Hugh Jackman is a conquistador and Rachel Weisz is a Queen. In 2000 A.D. he’s a scientist trying to cure her terminal disease. In 2500 A.D. he seems to be bald and traveling through space, and she appears to be a tree or something. It seems Hugh Jackman is trying to find the tree of life and find a “cure” for death. Though to be honest, for the longest time I thought his dialogue was “This is a disease, there’s a cure, and I will find it” when the line is “Death is a disease, there’s a cure, and I will find it.” Sufficient to say life and death are the themes of this movie.

Editing & Music – One advantage movie trailers have over the actual movie is that any visual themes and imagery are that much easier to show to the audience. Reason being of course that movie trailers are very short, so it’s easy to show similar shots and images one after another. The Fountain due to its three time period structure has a lot of visual comparisons and repetition between the time periods. One being the quick tilt shot of the horse, car and space orb thingy. The others being related to circles from the stone structure the monk unearths, the floor of the Queen’s palace, the space orb, and wedding ring. Also the tree compared to the microscopic shot of whatever it is Hugh Jackman is studying.

The editing of the trailer isn’t the usual quick cut fair, but lets the story play out. Only after the introduction of the 3rd time period do things pick up the pace with more cutting between the time periods. I don’t remember how many of the shots actually did cut into each other (like Hugh Jackman turning around between two time periods) but there’s a bit more in the final montage. Still though, it’s not an action trailer, the voice over pretty much sums up everything the movie is trying to say at a superficial level. The trailer finishes with Rachel Weisz from two time periods saying “together we will live forever.”

I’m pretty sure the music is all score for the film. Usually when it’s unrecognizable and seems to go perfect with the movie that means it’s the movie’s score. Especially with a low budget film it’s more likely the trailer will have the score in it because maybe the studio sat on the movie for a while because they were unsure of its potential. So the trailer didn’t get rolling until late in the process when the score was at least partially done. It basically seems like the trailer was edited first and then scored in this case so all the cuts and tones fit the shots and emotions perfectly.

Selling Points – This sort of movie is so esoteric the studio usually just has to hope that it was shot for a low enough budget that they can recoup the costs. This trailer doesn’t seem to have any sort of cheap marketing ideas injected into it to make it sell better so it’s content to tell its story and if that doesn’t appeal to you then there’s nothing else they’re trying to draw you in with.

Final Thoughts – Like I said at the beginning, I think movie trailers can make love stories more interesting than they actually are in the movie. Maybe it’s just me, but trailers like this I really get into the story. I think it’s because the movie trailer gives us the basic setup which you can see if done right could be very affecting, but since it’s just a movie trailer your brain fills in the gaps. What I see is a guy who is in love, and will do anything to be with the woman he loves even if it takes three lifetimes. This sounds like it could be the basis for a really touching story. The trailer gives me the setup and my head fills in the blanks.

I did actually see The Fountain in theaters. It was actually a screening where they handed out surveys at the end which usually means they’re unsure about the movie, and are wondering whether or not they should expand it to more than two theaters for the entire country. In the end I enjoyed the trailer more than the movie. The movie I thought was all right, but didn’t affect me as much as the story I made up in my head after watching the movie trailer. So it’s probably because surveys like mine that the movie didn’t get wider distribution.