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The Trailer Man looks at the trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's MAGNOLIA plus more
Hey there all you flick lovers, Harry here with another installment of TRAILER MAN! Able to watch trailers days before mortal men, able to speak in concise soundbytes (but only when he feels like it), able to have green or red appear before him. Look up on the screen, it's a public service announcement, no, It's a sound system ad, no... it's.. it's... TRAILER MAN...
TRAILER MAN PREVIEWS One great, the others not, one blows it.
Well, isn't it a busy, teeth gnashing, keyboard stabbing,
mudslinging, opinion slamming, finger pointing, compelling,
enthusiastic, and revelatory kind of a week on AICN!......It's like
living the studio life in LA all wrapped in one web site, well the
view from here in the Big Apple is almost far enough... Let me see if I
get all of this right...I am with a studio if I say anything positive
and congratualatory conjointly engaging in guerrilla marketing tactics,
single handedly subverting the essence and purity of AICN....no thats
not it... if I SPELL correctly and use proper syntax, I'm the
antichrist....no...lets see......if I admit to liking Blair Witch I
suck, no no no, if I say I hated Blair I am saving the film industry as
we know it from wannabees with a video-cam, a couple of bucks, and a
dream...no wait if I happen to be listening to the theme from SHAFT
while in the bathroom on the .. (no way, Harry, I won't even go
there!).....no no no no got it now, if I get a bit more scruffy, sport a
patch and spit out monosyllabic snarling utterances, I will rule as
Snake Plisskin, the greatest anti-hero from the master genius of
contemporary cinema; a pantheon graced only with the works of Kubrick,
Spielberg, and Godard (for those that "get" him), none other than John
Carpenter! but alas no one knows it except the geeks at AICN who as
you read are lobbying for the director's director's, really final and
digitally enhanced Special Edition DVD in DTS version of Big Trouble In
Little China with all the missing footage including Goldie Hawn's
musical production number that was only seen by the two of them in a
private NY screening while the projectionist, who was blinded just prior
with, an ancient Chinese dart to be released......hmm,
allright..enough.....okay the pressure is just too much.......I'll
confess...... I am the next Anakin Skywalker who will woo Natalie
Portman into a blissful second episode since I love older women and my
light saber is the envy of Doc Johnson..then only to screw it up by
turning everything into a dark allegory worthy of David Fincher where
Jar Jar Binks will be served at a Cantina Burger King near you, managed
by a forefather of Hogarth and all of it jarringly shot on a hand held
digital video camera that will be available at a discount with the
purchase of two regularly priced adult admission tickets from
Artisan-Blair Theatres...........cool.
Magnolia (New Line) The quasi-darling of "hot directors", Paul
Thomas Anderson, delivers what has to be a very hands-on teaser of his
new film mag-no'li-a. Thanks "p.t." (you'll see what I mean at end of
teaser) for the hooked on phonics spelling.... save for those conceits,
this trailer does exactly what it is suppose to do: it piques your
interest...memorably. Tells you it's from the director/writer of
Boogie Nights and then with a jazzy percussive beat camera shot tracks
down a hallway of a run down apartment building, through a door where a
noxious old woman stands with a rifle ready to fire at her (presumably)
husband, missing, shooting out window behind him simultaneous to someone
plumetting head first from a floor above in view through the same
window (wow what was that?!) STOP forgot about the voiceover that waxes
rhapsodic about "stories of coincidence and chance and intersections and
strange things"...and now I am paraphrasing (sorry, it wasn't like I had
a recorder)..."if it wasn't in a movie I would'nt believe it"...and then
immediately, spectacular edits of the actors introducing their
characters by name: a kid, somebody, then wait! TOM CRUISE, then more
kids, more famialiar faces, wait! William Macy yes!, then oh that's
whats her name , then another face or two then oh Julianne Moore, yes
twice! and then a funny reptilian......intro a magnolia blossom and
boom, over, done, your hooked. Uhhh then december 99 (wince). Teaser
trailers........they are an art unto themselves...short, don't give out
too much at all, WHICH IS GOOD SINCE WE ARE'NT ALL LEMMINGS......and
create a variety of perceptions which turns to buzz which is its purpose
in life. Very cool.
Anna and the King (FOX) A longer version of snippets seen on
Phantom Menace but I don't think yet a regular trailer so a neo-teaser
(?) anyway clearly selling gargantuan production values: Breathtaking
vistas, clamoring Siamese, soaring temples, thundering elephants,
intercut with shots of hoop-skirted Jody Foster and an imperial Chow
Yung Fat. Footage coallesces easily to anyone who knows the book, or
even more, the musical but clearly it is not a tuner. It's the woman's
costume drama of the 40's and 50's, fully realized and sumptiously
mounted. There had better be an audience come this Holiday
Season........but Jody is as sure of a bet as anyone. Forget anyone
under 20 unless a last minute cue is taken from the current Summer hit,
American Pie, and Fat porks pud-thai....
Random Hearts (SONY) Actually, this trailer has been out a couple
of weeks but I draw attention to it since Harrison Ford is certainly a
favorite of Harry's and Kristen Scott Thomas is mine and this trailer
commits the pervasive malaise in many previews today......it tells too
much. Clearly a slick, glossy production from director and sometime
actor Sidney Pollack (Tootsie, Eyes Wide Shut). Well I can't say how
intrigued I was from the initial premise, Hard boiled Washinton DC
police detective (of course Harrison) in a seemingly happy marriage,
then whoa tragedy...... his wife was on board a plane that has
plummetted into the Potomac (startlingly reminiscent of the Florida
bound/Potomac Bridge crash filmed live) Then circumstances find that
she was traveling with the husband of a Congresswoman (yep Thomas) and
thus begins their search for circumstantial truth. Stop right there but
no, no, no, no they get angry hurt then wham kiss hard like colliding
buses....okay stop there that adds a bit of interest but goddammit no
now they're in bed and oh no don't show me they're in love and the press
is inquiring about their relationshipand yikes a comfy look I'm home
shot at end and is there.........any more movie left? You had us at
kaboom...................
And real fast, a couple of just ever so bubbly/precious romances to
send you into anaphalectic shock Dog Park (New Line) and Drive Me Crazy
(FOX) Okay, contestent number one.... even though your movie is about
disenchanted-in-love singles who meet at a dog park sniffing each
other's tails like their canine counterparts, searching for the love
that elludes them in their ever so stylish lifestyles- why name your
movie copy-slug-ready for mincemeat? Let's try a few right now! "'DOG
PARK' SHOULD BE SENT TO THE POUND" "WATCH WHERE YOU STEP IN THIS PARK!"
"'PARK' IS FOR THE DOGS!" "A SHORT LEASH TO THIS 'PARK" "THERE IS'NT A
SCOOPER BIG ENOUGH FOR THIS 'DOG!'" and "LOVERS AT THIS 'DOG PARK'
SHOULD ALL BE SPAYED". I could go on but another cinematic dog biscuit
needs a bite....I am declaring now that Buffy and any of her blood
suckers, along with Sabrina, swimming in Dawson's Creek with Felicity
while totally Clueless to Moesha serving up a warm apple pie are
screwing with an American Cinema tradition.......the life affirming,
hurts so funny and totally real, TEEN FLICK. I offer to the courts
Drive Me Crazy..........nuf said. (Molly where are you and why did you
have to ever grow up?) (Election and Rushmore you give hope and
inspiration, please move to the head of the class). Let the games
begin...........cool.
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...he should remember the old classroom rule and bring enough for everyone to share.
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.... and tell us straight what you saw and how you felt about it. The tedious, trendy, drivel I can do without. As my countryman would say "you're talkin' bollocks mate".
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Harry, the scene with the woman holding the gun, shooting at her husband and missing sounds a helluva lot like a story I know about. It's about the most bizarre death I've ever heard, and I'm not sure if it's true or just an urban legend.
True or not, the story goes that a woman and her husband are living together on the 9th floor of an apartment building. The woman finds out that her husband has had an affair and vows to kill him.
Meanwhile, a young man in the apartment above them has decided to commit suicide by blowing his head off with a pistol. He is in the process of psyching himself up to do it when his father walks in and interrupts. Seeing what is about to happen, the father attempts to wrestle the gun away from him. They grapple at each other, very close to an open window. Needless to say, the dad is stronger than the son, somehow gets some leverage with his feet, and pushes the son away, holding the gun, trying to wrench the gun out of his hand. The dad succeeds, but in pushing his son, ends up pushing him directly out the open window.
During the time this fight is happening above, the husband on the 9th floor had just come home. His wife is waiting inside the apartment with a shotgun or rifle. He opens the door, takes off his coat, and hangs it on a coat hanger right next to a window. The wife appears out of the shadows and takes a potshot at her husband. The bullet whizzes by her husband's ear, and through the window. The bullet hits the young man from the upstairs apartment who was plummeting down to earth, killing him instantly.
The woman is charged with attempted murder and the murder of the young man falling out of the window.
The mention in the trailer about coincidences and the like makes me think this is the story being related in Magnolia. Thoughts? Anyone else heard this story? -
While I can't verify the urban myth part, I do know that this plot device was already used in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, where the husband is Steve Allen and the wife is his wife in real life (think it's Audrey Meadows). Can't remember who is shooting at whom, but during the course of the investigation (which comes about as a result of investigating the dead man's "suicide" which turns out to be a murder, since he was killed by the bullet before he hits the ground), we find out that the dead man was their son, who couldn't take their arguing any more. My second favorite story of all time on Homicide, next to Wallace Shawn as a murderous revival theatre manager who kills an annoying patron who gives away all the endings of the films while they are playing ("Rosebud is the sled!" "It's not the mother, it's Norman in a dress!").
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Just back from a useless meeting and checked up on things...Iallen you have nailed what was bugging me since watching the mag-no'li-a trailer. Just like the last surreal scene in boogie nights where Dirk and company are trying to rob the dealer in his home...that entire scene can really stand on its own like a short film. And on first viewing I thought, this has to be based on something actual, to bizarre not to be...well found out it was liberally borrowed from a john Cassavettes film nevertheless it satisfied that there was an actual source. The gun shooting then feels consistent within anderson's established style, especially when trailer voice-over says: "if i saw it in a movie, i wouldn't believe it"...this being preceeded by: "there are stories of coincidence and strange things told". Ha the characters in the movie are "real" in the sense that they experience "for real" this strange act-of-god. And as we know strange things in life happen all the time. Script is evidently tightly guarded....and this could very well be how this movie is constructed hinted at with this small morsel locked in the collective conscious of many. And of course examined first in Talk Back...cool. As for the Brit, I don't know what cool speak is I always talk in person like this except you can't see my hands...
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Too bad this guy spent more time trying to sound cool than he did on his grammar and trying to get his point across. I can barely read this damn article (as happens many times with AICN scoopers) because it's trying (and failing) so hard to be written cool. Learn how to write first, then worry about sounding like a hipster. I come here for the news, not the lame grasps, and I think most others would agree.
http://www.almostcool.org -
Please no more Dennis Miller ranting ok Cha Cha!....I saw that Homicide episode and also recognized it as it was being described. I saw the Random Hearts trailer and they did show too much. I think it gets everyone's attention if they just saw a romance/drama starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas. OUT.
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Boogie Nights was kick-ass adreniline and this movie looks to be another great exciting pic. Next to the new "Mindfucker" from David Fincher....this is the one I'm waiting for.
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"Dog Park" is written and directed by Bruce McCulloch, quite possibly the maddest of the geniuses that made up the Kids in the Hall. He also appears in the film, as does fellow "Kid" Mark McKinney. For those of you unfamiliar with the guy, his most recent performance is playing Carl Bernstein in "Dick," where he and Will Ferrell's Bob Woodward steal the bloody movie. Anyway, let me say this...there is NO WAY that Bruce McCulloch would make a standardized, Hollywood-ized romantic comedy. No way. If it's promoted poorly in the trailer, that's too bad, because I can guarantee a warped, twisted love story that will knock all of the romantic comedy conventions on their respective asses. Don't let this reveiw fool you...go see "Dog Park" when it comes out. You're sure to not be disappointed.
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At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for
Forensic Science, AAFS president Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in
San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the
story:
On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and
concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had
jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he
left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor,
his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed
him instantly. neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety
net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window
washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide
anyway because of this.
Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit suicide
ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he
intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below
probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide.
But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused
the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room
on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an
elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with
the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely
missed his wife and pellets went through the window striking Opus... When
one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is
guilty of the murder of subject B.
When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant
that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his
long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had
no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be
an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's
son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident.
It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and
the son, knowing the propensity of this father to use the shotgun
threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would
shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son
for the death of Ronald Opus.
There was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son,
one Ronald Opus, had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his
attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the
ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through
a ninth story window.
The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
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I hate trailers. They are generally obnoxiusly loud and so frenetic that they make me want to leave. I frequently arrive late to avoid them.
The magnolia trailer was excellent. It makes me want to see the movie very much; odd, in that I didn't appreciate boogie nights. It was intriguing, well made and quiet. It makes the movie look like it will be early and good Robert Altman or Twin Peaks with content and wierd characters. Am anticipating a pleasure.
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