Zach Kolkin's Trailer Hitch for October 30th

The Oscar buzz on this one is so loud I need ear plugs.

The trailers this week cover a wide range of films, from some early Oscar candidates to some of the more mainstream movies of the winter and even our first look at one of the biggest movies of next summer. It's always important to remember, however, that just because a movie is being heavily pushed by one of the big studios doesn't necessarily mean that it is going to have a good trailer. Conversely, even the little guys can sometimes surprise and look fantastic. Check out this week's Trailer Hitch to see exactly what I mean.

10. 28 Days Later

28 Days Later is the latest from Danny Boyle, the director of Trainspotting and The Beach. The story takes place 28 days after a disease of apocalyptic proportions is accidentally released in England. There are only a small group of survivors left, and they must struggle to keep themselves from getting infected. I liked the trailer's opening montage, where the effects of the disease over the 28 days were shown in fast-forward, but after that, the preview lost me. About all I could glean was that the film looks like it will be ultra-violent and controversial. 28 Days Later does not have a confirmed release date yet, so it seems likely that we'll see another trailer in the future that perhaps explains things a little better. Until that time, though, I really can't say that I was at all intrigued by the teaser.

9. The Quiet American

Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser star in this story of a journalist who travels to French-occupied Vietnam and falls in love with a much younger Vietnamese woman. An American CIA agent, however, also falls for the same woman, and thus conflict ensues. I have to say, for a movie with so much early Oscar buzz, I was not particularly impressed with the trailer. It was hard to get a sense of exactly what type of movie this was, and since movie previews are in essence pieces of advertising trying to convince people they'll like a film, this is not a good start. The fact that the trailer starts with the line, "From the director of The Bone Collector and Clear and Present Danger", makes me think that the movie is a suspense thriller, but it could also be a drama centering around this unconventional love triangle. Critical praise and good word-of-mouth might help this film's cause, but I'm pretty certain that the trailer will not.

8. Personal Velocity

Personal Velocity is actually three separate short stories combined into one film. Each one of these segments is the tale of a different woman, and each one follows a similar theme of how and why people start new lives for themselves. Interestingly, the fact that these are three separate arcs is never explicitly stated in the trailer; our only clue is the fact that the three women are each introduced separately. One problem I had with the preview was the voiceover. While they frequently do give a good sense of the film's tone, voiceovers sometimes hurt a trailer's effectiveness by overemphasizing a point that would be clear from the scenes shown. In this case, I felt that the narrator's verbal descriptions of each of the three women could have been more effective if we were allowed to make our own assumptions based on what we saw on screen. Still, the trailer certainly lets you know what kind of movie you're in for, and perhaps this was the producers' true intent.

7. Treasure Planet

Disney has released a new trailer for Treasure Planet, its futuristic update of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale, Treasure Island. The film has the now-standard celebrity cast of voices, although the names are not quite as big as they frequently are (a good thing, in my opinion). As for the movie itself, I'm a big believer in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. Consequently, I'm a little skeptical that such a great story, already set in a fantasy world of sorts, is being put into space. Bolstering my opinion is the fact that I was really not too impressed with the grandeur of the whole thing, the one element which the space setting really could have capitalized on. Instead, it's just a bunch of pirate ships flying around in the sky instead of sailing on the water. The obligatory sidekick doesn't have any particularly funny lines, and the villain doesn't look particularly diabolical. While I'm sure that this movie will captivate the little ones, there doesn't look to be the same amount of crossover appeal as there was with recent classics like Toy Story or Monsters Inc.

6. Empire

In watching this trailer, I was quite surprised several times. At first, I was sure that this was a film centered around John Leguizamo building an empire within the ghetto. However, then Peter Sarsgaard's investment banker character was introduced and I was intrigued. The story had become one about two very different worlds and the attempts of Leguizamo's character to bridge the wide gap between them. However, I was thrown for a loop again when the investment banker stole Leguizamo's cash; apparently, this is actually an action/suspense movie where the main focus is the theft of the money. All these plot twists within the span of a couple minutes are both good and bad. They are good in that I was intrigued by both subplots, as each sounds like it could make quite an interesting movie. They're bad, however, in that I'm not sure if all these different plotlines will work well when meshed together. The cast is interesting, to say the least (you'll be glad to know Fat Joe now has a Bacon Number of just 2), but the trailer is overall fairly good, and I'll be interested to hear more about this film as we near its December release.

5. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

In what is sure to be one of the biggest popcorn movies of 2003, Charlie's Angels will make their return to the big screen. Their first teaser trailer is here just in time for placement with all the big holiday movies, as obviously ingraining the film in the minds of the movie-going public is the most important aspect of financial success for the movie. The scene in the teaser shows the Angels escaping a rocket by driving their truck off a bridge and boarding a helicopter that was attached to the back of the truck. The scene was very reminiscent of Goldeneye's opening sequence for me, but obviously no one is expecting any groundbreaking or innovative action sequences from this film. I was happy to see Bernie Mac filling the shoes of Bill Murray as Bosley; his lines are already the funniest of the trailer, and I can't wait to see what's written for him in the rest of the movie. This isn't the greatest teaser ever, but it certainly will be enough to get everyone excited for the movie next summer, and that's really all it needed to do. We should be able to get a better idea about the movie when a full trailer is released, I would guess in the spring.

4. The Hunted

After the recent events in the Washington DC area caused the indefinite delay of Phone Booth, a movie about a sniper, it is surprising to see a trailer such as the one for The Hunted come out. While the film is not about a sniper per se, it is about a killer with extensive military training who murders each one of his victims with the utmost stealth. Perhaps the film is not quite as oriented around the slayings as the trailer would appear, but the fact that so much of the focus is on the murderer's behavior is frankly shocking. Despite all this, the movie does look quite suspenseful. Benicio Del Toro looks to do an excellent job, as always, and Tommy Lee Jones seems to fit in well as the only man with the knowledge to find the killer. The movie is currently scheduled for release at the end of February, and I suppose Paramount figures that the sniper coverage in the news will have died down by then. Still, I would expect that this film will get a lot of advertising throughout the winter, and how that will be received by the public remains to be seen.

3. Wes Craven Presents: They

Dimension Films' latest is coming to theaters soon, and its trailer is actually surprisingly enticing. First of all, let me say that I'm a little puzzled by the fact that Wes Craven is not listed anywhere in the trailer's closing credits, nor is it listed as one of his projects on his official Web site. What part he actually had in the making of this movie - if any - is a mystery for now. As I said, though, They's preview is actually quite creepy. The premise, as it appears from the trailer, is that a group of people who all had horrible night terrors as children are all now starting to get them again. Once they find each other and realize that they're all having similar experiences, they begin to wonder if there is something more sinister behind their psychological problems. I thought the trailer did an excellent job of revealing just enough scary scenes, but never going overboard and showing too much, and consequently losing what is sure to be a great deal of tension in the movie itself. One other thing I found interesting had little to do with the trailer itself, but instead the ubiquitous green screen beforehand; the film is rated PG-13, a rarity among horror movies. Perhaps this is a sign that They is more psychologically frightening than explicitly gruesome, or perhaps the amount of gore was just toned down for the more friendly rating. We'll have to wait until the end of November to find out for sure.

2. The Hot Chick

There's a certain attitude you need to have when watching this trailer. First, you have to forget about all those critically-acclaimed artsy films you've seen lately. After that, you need to accept the fact that there are some actors who will just never make a "quality" movie. Finally, you need to remember that every once in a while, a nice assortment of fart, penis, and boob jokes can actually be pretty damn funny. Once you've done all that, you're free to proceed.

Sure, Rob Schneider's movies are really stupid, and sure, they are about as deep as a mud puddle, but who cares? The idea of a ditzy teenage girl being trapped in Rob Schneider's body is too funny to pass up. The trailer alone is filled with some great gags, from Schneider first realizing the problem when he sits down on the toilet to the anonymous call to the boy she/he has a crush on to the girl in lab who empathizes with Schneider's shaving issues. Hopefully, the full movie holds more of the same, and if that's the case, you can bet that I'll go see it.

1. El Crimen Del Padre Amaro

An extremely timely film, this is the story of a young priest in Mexico who falls in love with a 16-year-old girl and consequently breaks all his oaths to the Catholic church. The preview is an excellent example of how gripping the advertisements for a dramatic movie can be. The scenes themselves are silent, except for three sequences in the confessional between Father Amaro and the young girl. The dialogue between the two lovers is excellent, and leaves me hoping that the rest of the film will follow suit. The otherwise silent action is complemented beautifully by excellent choral and orchestral music that only adds further to the mood. The sexual indiscretions of men of the Catholic church is an all-too-familiar topic nowadays, but El Crimen Del Padre Amaro appears to take the theme and turn it into quite a compelling movie. Hopefully, it will meet the high expectations created by this excellent preview.

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