We're doing a quickie Yes No Maybe So for the Superbowl movie spots.
Aaron Eckhart fights aliens in Battle: Los Angeles
In Part One I covered the movies I'd already done some thinking about (usually due to stars or superhero familiarity). Here in Part Two, movies I had not paid even a whiff of attention to up until this very moment. New eyeballs who have casually dropped in from a google search might be shocked that a movie website exists that does not spend almost all its posting time serving up rumors about blockbuster movies and had never before EVER said a word about these four movies exists. But it's true! The Film Experience exists!!! There are about 21,000,000 sites that do that other thing well but this is not one of them.
after the jump super 8, battle los angeles and more.
Let me know what you think of these four movie spots in the comments.
SUPER 8
Yes, No, Maybe So? Yes.
My preference is ALWAYS movie advertising that doesn't tell you too much. Although in this case maybe there's not enough since we can only assume that it's about a little boy with a camera (How meta!) and maybe an alien invasion? Something creepy is going on at least. "Do not speak of this..." Was that Elle Fanning? Oh, Coach from Friday Night Lights. Points for that. Bonus Points for the lighting during JJ Abrams name. He's flipping the bird to critics who are always "stop it with your hard-on for the lens flare."
TRANSFORMERS 3 or TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
Whichever you prefer. Michael Bay probably doesn't care so long as you buy a ticket.
Yes No Maybe So? Do you have to ask?
In truth I don't hate this spot at all --- the music is fun in that I Am A Teaser. Consider Yourself Teased, Bitch kind of way -- but if the first movie taught me anything, it's that these movies are only fun in very very very short doses like, well, trailer-sized doses. Then the movie will be 150 minutes of sunshiney gloss in which Shia LaBeouf runs around, the supporting cast tries to cover every demographic, awkward Bro humor permeates the non-action scenes, and cars zoom around and gobs and gobs of CGI crash into other gobs of it in ways that no one can follow if they're being honest with themselves. Wait which glob of CGI just smashed into which other glob? Who's winning? Who can tell!? I can't remotely begin to understand what's happening.
Now you might just say 'Nathaniel, you are not the audience for these movies. You can't judge.' But I tell you this and swear on it:. If a girlie movie arrives in which pounds and pounds of fabric by the worlds greatest costume designers swirls around in my face and lands on beautiful actresses but i can't tell which lady is wearing which dress and who ended up in the blue versus the pink and who's high heel that is and which wrap just obstructed my view of which tailored suit and what any of it means, I WON'T LIKE THAT MOVIE EITHER. So there.
FAST FIVE
Yes No Maybe So? Maybe So
I probably won't end up seeing this (will it screen for critics?) but I could theoretically imagine myself enjoying it. I actually still remember seeing the first one and being surprised that I was having fun.
BATTLE: LOS ANGELES
Yes No Maybe So? Yes
I love Aaron Eckhart -- did I tell you about how...ok yes I'll shut up bout that -- and am happy he got a lead in an action movie. He's such a good actor and with that memorably strong chin he really ought to be a big star in the classic Hollywood mode. He gets cast in all these subservient to the female lead roles (Rabbit Hole, Erin Brockovich) which he's good at but it's a very odd career development when you remember this his breakthrough role was as the world's most misogynistic evil businessman (In the Company of Men).
Bonus Points: if a city has to be destroyed in the movies...
I'm only kidding Los Angelenos but I AM tired of it being NYC that gets the beat down in every sci-fi movie. So why not LA for a change? Pull your own weight with the world destruction fantasies!