It's time to buy your tickets -- or not -- for a new movie based entirely on its trailer. This one is called People Like Us and stars Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks (who introduces the trailer... I find it so weird when they do that). The film also stars La Pfeiffer but they weirdly pretend like it doesn't until halfway through. Which also happened with Dark Shadows. Marketing departments clearly think she has no bankability anymore which is depressing. She has a robust online fan community still -- far more than some other 80s superstars -- so it stands to reason that they go see movies if she's in them. Unfortunately there are few case studies to be had. And maybe Hollywood is basing everything on Chéri bombing a few years back?
Let's break it down after the jump.
YES
• Pfeiffer... but I guess that goes without saying.
• Pfeiffer crying.
• Pfeiffer pfeeling pfrustrated by pfamily.
• I guess I could buy Pfeiffer & Pine as being related but you know who I thought made the most convincing of all her screen children? Jonathan Jackson in Deep End of the Ocean.
• I enjoy Elizabeth Banks. Is anyone watching 30 Rock still? I swear she's gotten more mileage out of that than anything. They talk about her character "Avery" CONSTANTLY even though she hasn't been on the show in ages. Which makes it feel like she's always on the show.
• Hollywood really should be making more basic mid-size contemporary family dramas. Maybe like this. We'll see.
NO
• Trailers that are this "plotty" raise warning bells. If you have to give the whole movie away in the trailer are you nervous that you have nothing to sell?
• I'm not convinced that Chris Pine is a "star." He got lucky with Star Trek but does that mean he should be headlining? Captain Kirk sold Star Trek tickets, not Captain Chris.
• Is the manic editing -- this is not an action movie -- just the marketing team being nervous that nobody goes to dramas anymore or is the movie just very fussy. Fussy like Chris Pine waving his hands around.
• Remember when Chris Pine stole Lindsay Lohan's luck in Just My Luck?
• I apologize. That was totally uncalled for.
• Don't you feel like there is maybe a big twist at the end even though the trailer doesn't go there?
• Why are movies always about cocky frat boys who are having career trouble? Tom Cruise would have played this role if they made the movie in 1993.
• Doesn't this feel like the sort of movie that might have characters bonding while singing into hairbrushes as microphone? Or doesn't it feel like it would if it was about two half sisters instead of a half siblings?
MAYBE SO
• Character based dramas or comedies do not lend themselves as readily to trailers as genre films do. It's all in the execution so maybe this could surprise.
The trailer in question...
Are you a YES, NO or MAYBE SO?
What's with that title? Have you ever known anyone who was anything like Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks or Michelle Pfeiffer?