This is pretty much exactly what most new indie and studio movies look like to me. Not just the Oscar-hopefuls and the Sundance selections. And not just the trailers, but the entire movies themselves (which are usually laid out, beat by beat, in the trailers). This one's funnier, though, because it doesn't pretend to be anything more than a familiar schematic diagram. Which is exactly what these comfy, risk-averse movies seem to be aiming for.
Starring Robert Pattinson or Adam Sandler, Natalie Portman or Sandra Bullock. Directed by Ron Howard or someone whose only previous work has been on YouTube.
(tip: Max Kleger)
66 Comments
Funny as hell. I love the idea of explaining what they're doing instead of delivering generic lines; it's so much generic!
Then again it's ironic how 'Up', 'Inglorious Basterds', 'The Hurt Locker', 'A serious man' and even 'Up in the air' have little to do with the parody. You have to admit Jim that this year's nominees were quite good overall.
Victor, I just thought you should know, as well as the whole internet community and probably the world at large, that it's not "ironic," if there's a few movies nominated for Oscar's that aren't an exact fit of the trailer/schematic. It's ironic for a dog to be killed by a Purina Dog Chow truck.
Irony is the disparity or incongruity between what is expected and what is, typically in a humorous setting. It doesn't mean "odd, weird, funny, interesting, noteworthy," or any of those things. Look it up, use it right.
Actually since this video claims to be a generic "academy award winning movie trailer", it's expected that most of the nominees in any given year would fit this pattern. Since they don't, it's ironic. There is indeed a disparity between what is expected and what is.
That's right. Paradoxical should do.
There is no need, however, for the cocky attitude, because anyone -even you, believe it or not- can make a mistake.
I don't know why I agreed with you in the first place. I was using it right.
Indeed "it's not "ironic" if there's a few movies nominated for Oscar's that aren't an exact fit of the trailer/schematic", but if you read carefully and watch the video, that's not what I meant.
It IS ironic that this parody of Hollywood clichés comes out the very same year of the least cliché nominated movies in a long time. Maybe the problem here is reading comprehension.
Sorry Jim for the double comment.
Wait, Officer, how exactly is "a dog [being] killed by a Purina Dog Chow truck" ironic? You gave a correct definition of irony but failed at the example. Glass houses, man.
Well, actually - if you want to get all correct and finicky about the definition of "irony", the truth is that it can't be 100% translated into everyday life because it's specifically a literary device in which the reader knows more than the story's characters, thereby giving the characters' actions and words more meaning for the audience than for the characters themselves.
Outside of any literary context, any definition of irony can only, at best, be partially correct.
However, "sarcasm" and "satire" are perfectly suitable for our everyday vernacular.
No need to thank me!
I'll be busy reading a stack of Austen novels and feeding my 40 cats.
OMG, WHERE ARE MY GLASSES?
That is only one form of irony (dramatic). Irony can take on other forms. For instance, "clear as mud" would be a an example of verbal irony. Also, getting run over by an ambulance would be ironic.
(The dog food truck example doesn't make sense though because we don't expect a dog food truck to provide the opposite result.)
Now if it was a dog ambulance, it would have been perfectly ironic.
Or if it was a "road safety dog".
I would also like to point out the when contracting the present form of the verb to be in the plural, it should be written there're, not there's.
That is brilliant. Pure genius. Hilariously funny and very astute. I just compared it with the theatrical trailer for FORREST GUMP and found that they match up quite well. From the "my name"/"my name" introduction and the final "working in of the movie title" right down to the use of the same hopeful dramatic music (which, incidentally, is the theme from the movie DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY and gets used in countless previews). One of the best fake trailers I've ever seen.
I don't get it. That looks like a pretty good movie. I would write more but I've got nowhere else to go! I've got nowhere else to g...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjNPH06A24g
Wonderful.
Jim, you should start a thread discussing why people actually find the desire to go see those sorts of movies (and in the case of the indie variety -- why even bother making them).
How are those types of pictures comfy/risk adverse? It has been a long time since I sat through one of those things, but they are hardly comfortable to watch.
Haha, I was totally the one that sent this to Jim!
Expressing pleasure that my e-mail has managed to actually surface on the blog itself! Yelp of giddiness!
In all seriousness, this clip is so true to the state of current Hollywood movies. When I first saw it I laughed out loud uproariously throughout the entire thing, and then paused in sadness when I realized that this is literally the trailer for 90% of the films released in the last ten years. It really gives you some perspective on the importance of seeking out the unformulaic films out there.
Glad you enjoyed the clip Jim!
Thanks, Max! I'd forgotten where the tip came from (it's been that kind of day) -- but consider yourself acknowledged. This is a terrific find!
Some a cappella group called Da Vinci's Notebook had a similar idea a few years back.
Check out their song, aptly titled, "Title Of The Song."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=281ax7Ovlsg
Lots of funny little details in this, such as Catchphrase Guy playing cards with a couple of them facing the wrong side at the end.
Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis used sort of a similar idea with the dialogue: "Generic greeting!" "Generic greeting returned," etc.
Ah, BriTANick! Love 'em. I especially love the little xylophone(?) sounding background music at the very beginning, because it really is in roughly 80% of all movie trailers these days.
Cracked.com, where BriTANick's videos are often featured, has a lot of hilarious articles calling out run-of-the-mill movies on their, well...run-of-the-millness.
the oddest thing about this was that a co-worker of mine was watching it yesterday and without hearing the audio, just catching a few cuts, it looked like a very tug on the heartstrings movie.
mad props for good design and very smart writing!
Of this years 10 best pictures nominees three were in that Oscar bait, serious drama category, being made fun of here: Precious(which I did not see, but is the impression of the trailer), Blind Side(also did not see, going off the trailer), and An Education(a wonderful film, but watch the trailer and it follows the one above pretty closely).
For those keeping score[best director nominations in brackets], I included Inglorious Basterds as a war film, not comedy:
Sci Fi: 2[1] films
War: 2[2] films(winner)
Serious drama(Oscar bait): 3[1] films
Comedy: 3[1] films
To cleanse your palate after watching too many Hollywood movies, try "Gentlemen Broncos" or the second season of "Tim and Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job!". Warning: You will alienate your "normal" friends and possibly your spouse.
Bless your heart for listing off two of my faves. Hess, Wareheim, and Heidecker will be in charge of comedy within the next few years. It will cease to be alienating for it will be mainstream.
There are a lot of films out there that are so generic that they feel like trailers themselves. At the same time, I think it's worth mentioning that not every generic trailer is representing one of those films. Often a generic trailer will make a film seem far more conventional than it actually is. Those who produce trailers seem to want to market everything the same way even when that approach is completely off the mark. Watch the trailer for Gosford Park for a classic example of a boring generic trailer that grossly misrepresents a very interesting film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=440vU_yUWFI
Anyone know the name of the musical piece that starts at around the 2 minute mark? I've heard it in many other trailers but I've never been able to find out its name.
It's a cue from the score of "Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story"
Yes, it sure is and I heard that music used in trailers almost as much as the escape from the alien planet cue in "Aliens"
XYLOPHONE???
Well, at least you're in the right percussion instrument family. That's a MARIMBA (looks like a really big xylo w/ wider bars), which is IMO quite possibly the greatest and most beautiful musical instrument ever created (though violin and cello fans may disagree with me on this). Plastic-ended xylo mallets are hard, though less so than metal-balls on the end of glockenspiel mallets, while mallets used on the other ideophones tend to be yarn-wrapped and produce more delicate tones.
I've wanted a marimba since I marched in a top 25 DCI drum corps back in the 80s and played percussion in HS band (which didn't have a marimba, just xylo/vibes/glockenspiel), but a good 5-octave rosewood marimba costs around $12K-15K (and the ones made by smaller/independent artisan craftsmen cost about the same as mass-produced ones with awkward rectangular resonators and a higher rate of mis-tuned bars). My dvd shopping keeps the instrument currently out of my financial grasp. My other favorite instrument would be the (more affordable) vibraphone: imagine a 'xylophone' w/ thin soft-sounding metal bars. It's probably used most often in jazz music by the likes of Red Norvo and Lionel Hampton.
You do hear a LOT of marimba music these days in film and tv shows and even tv commercials, though one wonders how much of it used in cheaper productions is actually coming out of a sampler synth. The type of marimba music as used in this parody movie trailer is becoming a bit generic in movies. Go to youtube and check out something played by Keiko Abe or Steve Reich's piece Nagoya Marimbas or for something more laid-back check out the Japanese kids' band Marimba Ponies.
This is a great parody trailer and I feel like I've both seen and avoided a large number of movies just like the phony one depicted here.
Thought it was the trailer for "Wall Street 2"...
One thing I've noticed is most indie films and foreign films through indie companies have no idea how to cut an interesting trailer.
Weird connection I discovered through having too much time on my hands: in the video "A Monologue for Thee" on BriTanick.com they quote "part of Roger Ebert's review for 'You, Me and Dupree.'"
But Roger Ebert didn't review that movie, you did, and it's you they're quoting. Bizarre.
I'll be darned. You're right.
That's pretty fantastic. The only thing I think would make it more accurate would be if the actor introduced after the Academy Award Winner was an Academy Award Nominee. Somehow these kinds of trailers have a way of highlighting nominations of people side by side with their winning co-stars and make them look inferior in comparison.
The first minute is great because it nails exactly how a real trailer would have played, but then it loses its tone and just becomes a broad lame spoof of cliches.
I love it when these things are done well, like this one. Someone made a similar video except it's "if Wes Anderson made Spider-man". They do it perfectly. Wes Anderson should actually be embarrassed that his style his mocked so easily. Pretty funny anyway...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5KfHEoZDKI
The only thing worse than those spoof films is a spoof trailer that's too lazy to go the whole way.
Just a bunch of disenfranchised actors biting the hand that feeds them.
Catchphrase!
Clever but I liked it the first time when it was done in Steven Soderbergh's "Schizopolis". Check your netflix kids.
Hardly "disenfranchised actors." Everything these guys do blows me away. I think I shall steal "catchphrase!" as my new catchphrase.
"this scene doesn't make it into the final cut of the movie"
i really did LMAO
A better version of the Da Vinci's Notebook song without the annoying live studio laughter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoCGKFg-WYw
---Tom.
I remember seeing a short film with the same premise fifteen or more years ago that aired on "Image Union," an indie and short-film anthology show produced by Chicago's PBS station (WTTW). All I can recall is that it featured a couple having an argument in an apartment with statements like, "Interrogative as to your whereabouts" and "Expression of desire." Does anyone else recall this?
---Tom.
BRAVO superb
When can I see this movie?!?! It looks AWESOME!
Since I have little kids I don't get out to the movie theater as often as I'd like to. So I watch a lot of trailers at Apple Trailers. This clip so hits home.
I've gotten to where I can predict what a trailer and or movie will be like just from the movie poster. There really isn't that much that's original anymore.
But the most annoying thing is the "indie" movies that think they're original or different or quirky. Indie films have become a genre that are no different from any other genre like action movies or horror movies.
I’ve seen this same type of gag before (in the stage play “I Love You, You’re Perfect - Now Change,” portraying a first date) but it’s still funny.
Jim, this is a little off base but I'm using the "since 1980's" to prompt a few questions I have for you about your pre-Scanners film writing:
After reading Scanners for a few years now, looking over the remnants of your old/amazing Cinepad, seeing your 10th and 25th anniversary prizes you give out at The Muriel Awards, reading various short reviews you've done that are on Amazon (Malcolm X, Pulp Fiction, Boogie Nights) and at one point I tracked down your best of lists from 1996 and 1997 (not sure where those are now, lost in cyberspace), I gotta say, I am very curious to, at the least, look over your top 10's from the 90's... (I'm familiar enough with your approach to film that I think I'd be able to follow the logic in them without prompts.)
Have you ever considered re-posting these? (I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one who appreciates it.)
Furthermore, I especially loved reading your thoughts on the 92 "Bad Lieutenant", on James Cameron's two strong projects ("Abyss" and "T2") on older Coen Bros. work... It's a blast and makes me wonder how many other reviews you wrote back in the day that would be great to read now.
So I also have to ask, have you ever considered publishing an anthology of your pre-Scanners work? I for one would purchase it.
And if not, I really hope it doesn't get taken to the grave... (Well, everything is eventually I guess. But I imagine your fans could keep your work alive in cyberspace for another generation at least.)
finally! someone has made a movie about my frustration of working at a theater
Reminds me of Charlie Brookers generic "How to report the news"
Most of the "indie" movies parodied in this trailer are just Oscar-hopefuls from top studies with huge budgets that literally are just using plot devices from movies that won in the past, but there are a lot of original and well-made movies on the independent scene.
this is brilliant and hilarious. i love you jim.
As the father of a child with autism, I find it discouraging that they casually threw the word "retard" in there. Completely unnecessary, and prejudicial. Imagine if the shot with the black guy used the "N" word.
Think I'm oversensitive? No. I'm insulted.
I thought that was a commentary on the way certain kinds of "inspirational" movies treat characters with disabilities. They exist simply to ennoble the protagonists -- and, as the end titles comment, as Oscar bids for the actors who play them.
I laughed reading the argument at the beginning of the comments section about whether or not someone commenting on this fake trailer used irony correctly since I thought at first it was a parody of people in comment sections arguing about everything but what the actual discussion was supposed to be about and finally reducing their argument to personal comment about each other. Then I realized they were serious - hilarious!
Witty and smart-alecky insert here that "I'm just sorry to see no one used the ever-immortal put down "I know you are but what am I?"
Insertion of self-referential and slightly personal concluding request that includes a relatively dated and thus possibly obscure pop cultural reference in which I ask readers to please not ask me if the above argument was in fact ironic since I'm not at all interested in paying a visit to Monty Python's "argument clinic."
Oh, and by the way, I thought the trailer was pretty funny.
Brilliant! Clever, well-executed, thoroughly entertaining. Best film of the year.
Haha. I'd see that movie.
Anyone know where the music that starts at the 0:51 mark (51 seconds) is from?
Yeah, you keep hearing the same music over and over in trailers - seems to me that some of the music from "Conan" used to turn up a lot.
What i loved was when Pixar's trailer for "The Incredibles" used James Bond music - and not necessarily the original tracks, either.
I was going crazy trying to remember where it came from, till i remembered "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".
Jim - I read your blog sporadically but this video was listed as "Google Reader's most starred item" (Google Reader is a feed reader which lets you mark items with a star that you want to be able to reference later). Anyway, that pushed me over the edge to subscribe to a feed of your blog, and you may see more readers lately.
There was a couple of standup comedy guys who did a Generic Commercial back 15-20 years ago - I saw them do the skit on TV, so I've been hoping that somewhere a video would surface. I remember the line "Idiotic glee while holding product for the camera!".
PS It's ironic (usage of word intended :) ) that Daniel Dennett diagnoses the problem with his viewpoints in his quote that you put in your epigraph, namely that he "holds dear" his views. He claims to apply scientific methods to philosophic concepts, but instead starts with an emotionally generated assumption (probably "those people cannot be right") and then tries to argue backwards from those assumptions. When one starts with no assumptions at all, one logically comes to the opposite of just about all of Dennett's views.
However, I have indeed experienced the same sort of feeling he describes in the quote. In fact, I find it actually to be a Media Technique (which needs an official title and wikipedia page). One sirs a TV program with advocates of two different sides, but makes sure that the side you disagree with is advocated by an idiot. A great example is Pat Robertson - his statements are presented by media solely to discredit the concept of religion.
Truisms, enjoyable, a giggle. . . to a point. Would have shared with others, yet take offense to the use of "retard" while describing a character. A human being with a challenge of any kind is a human being. Derogatory treatment is shameful and offensive. Get with it.
Can you appreciate the difference between delivering an insult and satirizing the use of it (and the treatment of mentally disabled characters) in movies?
Awseome,
I'm already quoting "catchphrase!" as my new hilarious catchphrase.
Witty expression of amusement & apt example of genuine irony.
Suggestion that earlier poster's female parent lacks moral fortitude & has low personal hygiene standards.
Emoticon.
exclamation of laughter in oddly cliche acronym at previous comment.
generic quip about said commenter's mother or face.
Congratulatory remark to filmmaker referencing disenchantment with industry.
link to my blog for linkbaiting, even if it is completely out of context.
Just brilliant, awesome video!
Very creative use of stereotyping ... as all plots are reiterative of other plots to a very
great degree and draw upon the same handful of universal themes and motivators
(money, love, fame, tragedy, etc.). Gotta love the acne and mildew. That's what happens
in real life.
Do you think Hollywood will see beyond the humor of this satire and try something truly bold and original. Probably not, because so much of what Hollywood does today is based on liberal political and social affirmation which is the real problem...............
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