Movie Trailers

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A big shout out and sincere thank you to Hollywood movie trailer producers.

While some people resent being shamelessly sold new movies, I do not. I am so excited to watch what the marketing department thinkS are the funniest moments. What they think are the most violent moments, or the most exciting tidbits. I am delighted to sit through large robots, gangsters, trucks, and of course aliens with the obligatory impaling, mauling, and generally terrorizing innocent people. And by innocent people I mean those of us stuck in our seats.

I love how so many films are approved for general audiences. I wonder who these people are. How does one even describe a general audience, other than "we got all these people in a room". None of them look alike or talk alike (okay except for those weird 80-year-old identical twins who dressed the same or Patty Duke and her imaginary cousin). But I suppose they all agreed they were not too bummed out when they watched the particular movie. And if this "general audience" they practiced on was a focus group, the other thing they have in common is they all will sit still for two hours for $25 and free Oreos and Coke. Then there are the R-rated films or for Mature Audiences Only. That cracks me up. If they were all that mature, they would not be watching this drivel.

Upcoming trailers are now including comic book heroes working together, outer space aliens still attacking the humans (Why, oh why? Come on, just because we trashed our own planet and are looking for another one to destroy?), and the romantic comedy. Ah, romance. The theme is always: it is complicated. That is code for someone is a liar and the other one is hiding a deep secret. And to round out the film fare, there are spy films with lots of people getting killed.

The cool thing about the trailers is they come in several varieties. But let me suggest the two front runners for the aficionado: 1.) the snippet and 2.) random images. The first, the snippet, is when someone has to answer that hard biting question, "What the hey is this movie about?" The result is a frenzy not only to collect two minutes of scenes, but scenes that while they may not be in the order shown in the actual movie do flow together. Or what I like to call the plot line that should have been followed all along. We hear the protagonist declare what they want as in, "I will get this planet back." "I will stop that killer." "I will eat every pie I see." From then on we see quick cuts of everything that tries to prevent the protagonist from his or her intended goal. The final scene will often show the worst probable scenario. CUT, send to movie houses as the trailer.

Movie Trailer type 2. These are for the terminally hip. Think of Monet, think of Cezanne, think of you without glasses in front of the eye chart with the big E. The producers of this brand of trailer are angry art students. They are frustrated that no one wants to listen to them read poems about death that go on for over six hours. They love to do art installations using plastic spoons to show how vapid and hopeless the world is. These same said folks get into the studio and take cuts of the film in question. They make a sort of collage of light, sound, and color. If you hear yourself say, "What in tarnation was that supposed to be?" you are showing your inability to grasp deeper things, lo even to be a deeper person. If instead you weep at the trailer and nod and say, "So true, so true," you are way too hip for me and will love what you see.

What I do is take notes. Because after a trailer, I know how traumatized or offended I will be if I watched the full-ength version. Yes, thank you Hollywood for the 15 minutes of movie trailers. This week alone you saved me over $300 in movie tickets. And that is at the senior citizen rate.

Sally Franz is a former stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, and radio host. She is a twice-divorced mother of two and a grandmother of three. Sally has a degree in gerontology and several awards for humor writing. She is the author of Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey and The Baby Boomers Guide to Menopause.