Skip two-hour movies, watch previews instead

  David Holmberg The words and opinions of
Holmberg do not necessarily reflect the words and opinions of
Holmberg, and e-mailing him at [email protected] won’t make it any
clearer.

I was planning on writing a column about why movie previews are
the fat drippings of cinematic brilliance cooked down to its primal
gluttonous flesh. About how watching a film trailer before a movie
is like being stuck on the bus next to that smelly elderly woman
with questionable living arrangements and having to listen to her
interminably ramble incoherent sentences, unable to escape the
painful torment.

Yes, I was quite prepared to vigorously attack Hollywood’s
institutionalized practice of feeding us teasing glimpses of their
future failures; to take my stand against the media giants who not
only give us poor films to watch but force us to suffer through the
three-minute condensed version of next month’s blockbuster
hopeful before we even are allowed to see the opening credits of
the movie we paid that unfortunate $9 for.

But as I got to thinking about it, I realized that, unlike my
favorite bus riding companion, I enjoy movie previews ““ a
lot. In fact, I usually prefer film trailers to whatever
unintelligible and badly written mess I choose to spend my evening
painfully sitting through.

Wait! Don’t trailers give away everything good in a film?
Damn straight, that’s why I love them. There’s no need
to waste your time if total satisfaction is gained from those often
exciting and exhilarating couple of minutes. This too is assuming
that there is something actually worth seeing in the movie, which
is frequently not the case.

To be honest, it shocks me that movies are still two hours and
rising when the general public has the attention span of a coked-up
crack whore. She’ll sit and talk to you for hours if drugs,
sex or money are involved somewhere along the interaction, but
that’s about the extent of her interest. See? Just like
y’all out there reading, because everybody loves a crack
whore, and no one has any sort of attention span to speak of.

In fact, you probably should take a break right now before
continuing reading.

Anyway, my point is that what good are the other hour and 57
minutes of the film not in the trailer? The trailer’s got it
all wrapped up in a succinct package, with action, sex and the
whole plot summed into simple and catchy phrase. Who can’t
name the movies whose tag-lines were “It was a Sunday
morning,” or “65 Million Years in the
Making”?

OK, take another pause and grab something to eat before you
finish.

I for one appreciate the preview’s omnipresent narrator
explaining everything to me. While movies today usually are not so
complicated that any more than cursory thought need be involved to
grasp the fundamental plot, the voice booming from the surrounding
50 speakers does away with that unnecessary activation of the
brain. And you can’t deny that the powerful sweeping
orchestrated music doesn’t give you goosebumps, what with all
of those slow motion explosions and sexy supermodels thrown in for
good measure.

All right, it’s almost over, but you might want to use the
bathroom, you know just to take a moments rest.

The current trend toward longer films is completely contrary to
the rapid demise of the public attention span. I don’t like
sitting still for two hours; I’ve already left this computer
five times since I started writing and am considering a sixth
before it’s through.

Ours is the MTV generation, and a couple of minutes is about the
extent of our willingness to focus on a single event. There seem to
be more reasons than not to do away completely with films, and
instead give over to the inevitable conclusion that short is
better.

So embrace and love the movie preview; it was made just for you.
For Hollywood will always make crappy movies, but damn if their
previews don’t cater to our splendidly limited length of
cognition while placating to our most carnal desires.

OK, you’re free to go.