Trailer Hitch
By Eric Hughes
September 9, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Leslie, My Name is Evil – Opens September 14th
In Leslie, My Name is Evil, Gregory Smith plays a straight-A, moral and Christian soul who falls for a girl with a touch of "evil" – that is, she does drugs, had an abortion and, well, joined a hippie death cult that eventually led to her aiding in an alleged murder of a God-fearing person within her home. During the trial, in which the two meet, Perry (Smith) sits on the jury and by extension must confront issues that he – up to now – hasn't had to deal with.
The project is pegged as a comedy, yet parts of the trailer are supposed to be read seriously. Even so, these more dramatic elements come across as comical (in the pitiful sense, not the ha-ha) so the preview leaves you feeling like you can very much forget about the thing altogether.
Grade: D
Pretty Ugly People – Opens September 18th
"Is losing the weight... worth losing your friends?" Whaaaa? At least that's the way Pretty Ugly People chooses to sum itself up about halfway through its trailer's runtime. The tagline doesn't make much sense, and that's okay really since I'll probably skip over this one outright when it hits theaters in about a week and a half.
In Pretty Ugly People, Missi Pyle stars as a former fatty who gets her old college pals to embark on a camping trip with her for the sole purpose of showing off her new body to them. However, as Lucy (Pyle) spends more time with her buddies, she unexpectedly reawakens and strengthens her old friendships.
It's a less-than-elementary idea, and the payoff is what you'd expect. Actually, a project like this could benefit from an injection of drama, yet it appears from the trailer that Pretty Ugly People settles for solely slapstick comedy.
Grade: C-
The Boys Are Back – Opens September 25th
Following the misfortunate death of his young wife, a father (Clive Owen) struggles to raise his two sons – including one he hasn't seen for some time – alone. What's a pretty boy to do?
I kid, I kid. The Boys Are Back, from the director (Scott Hicks) of Shine and producer from Billy Elliot, has the makings of being a sweet dramedy about a man coping with a magnificent loss, while at the same time strengthening (and even forming) relationships with some of the family he still has here.
Grade: A-
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men – Opens September 25th
In 2006, back before John Krasinski was a boffo TV star as one half of everyone's favorite Ross and Rachel couple post-Friends, the guy wrote, directed and starred in an adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, a collection of short stories presented as interview transcripts with male subjects who elaborate on one revolting characteristic that defines them. Julianne Nicholson (Law and Order: CI), who plays a graduate student and conducts the interviews, listens closely to the men and finds she has a lot to learn about the hidden darkness among human interactions.
The trailer is funny enough, and would be a guaranteed hoot if it wasn't so concerned in being incredibly self-serving. Too much text – its selection in Sundance, its stars, its source, its male subjects – cut into the story and, for me, becomes too distracting, inhibiting me from really being sold on the idea of the movie.
Side note: Where is Krasinski supposed to be when he's introducing his movie as an exclusive to Apple's trailer page? It's as if he filmed it all by his lonesome in a hotel room at three in the morning because he forgot – with a few hours to spare – that he had to record a brief prologue for the Web site.
Grade: B
Untitled – Opens October 23rd
Untitled puts a sarcastic, comic eye on what we've dubbed contemporary art. You know, the nameless art pieces (as the movie's title probably refers to); the harsh "music" that's created by kicking a bucket around onstage and pieces – as the trailer hilariously depicts – where you simply label a wall as "Wall Surrounding Space" and BAM! slap a year on that puppy and you've got yourself some homemade art.
While the awkward, Office-like humor had me chuckling pretty frequently – partly because contemporary art is a giant world I know little to nothing about – I struggled to grasp from the preview what this thing is really about. And, whether or not the filmmakers involved in the production knew or didn't know what they were dealing with. The poster has a guy and a girl (facing opposite directions), and Apple's trailer page mentions a blossoming romance between an art gallerist (Marley Shelton) and a new music composer (Adam Goldberg). Yet not much of that love stuff is discussed in the trailer. Instead, we're treated to slow-rolling jokes about whatever you can funny about an art gallery.
Grade: C