We've already done a "yes no maybe so" on American Hustle's A+ teaser. I loved that teaser so much I ended up purchasing Led Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times" on iTunes. But recently the full trailer debuted. Due to travels I hadn't commented.
I'm in Los Angeles for a few meetings and the enticing promos for American Hustle (those fab character posters, too) aren't just the talk amongst movie fans but rival Oscar teams, too. It seems like two conversations are running parallel: the ongoing Gravity conversation and the conversation about the films people haven't yet seen American Hustle and Her (which screens tomorrow for press). Are Captain Phillips and Twelve Years a Slave going to be able to find a large enough window between what's hot right now (Gravity) and what's still coming to steal some of that thunder?
The conversations I've had on the West Coast are a good reminder -- the internet can get so dully negative -- that many people who work on movies, whether its publicity, production, or full fledged movie stardom, started out as die-hard movie fans just like you and I.
So let's talk about the new trailer after the jump
'Thoughts I Had' on the Hustle trailer as they arrived without self censorship ...because who has time to edit these days? (I mean besides Thelma Schoonmaker, if you're speaking literally, who is undoubtedly chained to her editing bay right now trying to get The Wolf of Wall Street ready for Christmas. But that's another topic! I digress)
• Just saw Jeremy Renner in The Immigrant and he was almost suave there. Now he's suddenly Joe Pesci! And Christian Bale is giving DeNiro. Is this a Scorsese flick?
• No, no, it's not. The women clearly have too much to do for it to be a Scorsese flick. That and there's more than one of them. Dead giveaway!
• Interesting that the music would be so opposite from the rock vibe over the disco look that featured so heavily in the teaser. The first music cue could practically be the setup music for a romantic comedy... the first half wistful part where the heroine worries she'll never find love. Sleepless in New Jersey?
• If I love Amy Adams in this movie as much as I love her in the teaser and trailer, this will end up being my favorite of her star turns... or at least a close runner up to Junebug.
• Though that shot of Christian Bale's potbelly as she introduces him is kind of enraging when you consider the gender politics imbalance. Try imagining that being a shot of Amy Adams w/ Bale voiceover about how charismatic she is. You can't, can you? God women have it rough.
• ...Unless they look like Jennifer Lawrence or Amy Adams... are they both hitting their sexy peak in the same film? I was going to say something about the film melting in the projector but we've gone digital so everyone is safe. And also: what the hell is JLaw going to do for an encore once she hits thirty IN SEVEN YEARS since she keeps playing characters that make sense only if you pretend they're, like, 30.
• This is my favorite bit.
We gotta get over on all these guys. That's what we need to be thinking about right now. We gotta get over on all these guys."
Damn, Adams can just kill with a line reading. (See also that porch scene in The Fighter.)
• I bet Jennifer Lawrence has three scenes, tops, and they're just playing those up like crazy since she's such a hot draw.
YOUR TURN. What's the conversation like where you are: all Gravity or room for other films? And did this trailer make you more or less excited?