trailers

for as long as i have been going to the cinema one of the treats of the experience was the trailers. as a child the weeks of many happy summer holidays were counted down by watching the trailers counting through the films i would be seeing in the coming weeks. the picture palaces may have lost their grandeur, the double bill has come and gone, adverts have improved in quality but the trailer, ah the trailer remains.
the trailer served to get you in the mood for the main event and also gave you a promise of future treats. it teased you with cinematic delights to come, had you eagerly anticipating your next trip to the cinema. true they sometimes lied and the film that looked oh so good in the trailer turned out to be ooh so boring when you paid your money and took your seat (this aspect of the trailer is still the same…) back then the trailer also gave a glimpse into the world of what the adults were watching, films i was too young to see, many of which i wanted so desperately to see then and now can’t remember.
back then the key thing about the trailer was that when it said coming soon it meant in the next few weeks.

flash forward to today.
i still love the cinema.
i still love the trailers. they still hold out promises and they still (occasionally) lie.
however in this world of ever decreasing attention spans, in this world of almost instant gratification the trailer seems to have gone the other way and now it is more of a tease then it ever was.
now there is the teaser trailer, the short trailer, the long trailer and the longer trailer.
and they start showing months before the actual film is released.
this means that by the time the film is finally shown some of the trailers have become old friends and some have become so tiresome that you probably never want to see the film ever.
i am sure “the holiday” is a wonderful film but i have seen the trailer so many times i am pretty sure i know the film. while the “300” trailer with its over the top man-love imagery and shouting combined with stunning action shots make it a trailer i can watch time and time again.

call me a purist, call me sad, call me old fashioned (or call me the man with no broadband at home) but i prefer to watch trailers on the big screen, the only place you can get a true sense of their majesty…..
none of this watching them on the internet for me.

but there are times when you have no choice but to go to the computer and watch the trailer.

it should come as no surprise that i love (in a manly fashion) bruce (no not bruce “the brute” anderson of the independent – whose photo makes him look like he is sucking on a mouthful of wasps). i discovered bruce willis when i saw die hard 2 with a pal of mine emma w. when we left the prince charles cinema i knew i was hooked on bruce, and little did i know that my adoration of bruce would last longer than my friendship with emma w.
i have taken days off to go see bruce movies. i have the dvds and watched them many many times.
so when someone tells me that there is a die hard 4 trailer on yahoo.com (thanks jim, thanks kevin), well what is a man to do?
that’s right he goes and watches it. then watches it again and again and then one more time for good measure.
it’s bruce as john mcclane. it means dry quips and wisecracks, it means lots of shooting, there will be a vest , there will be action and with a yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker we will all know that the bad guys have been beaten and the innocent can sleep easy again!

the trailer is awesome (like i was going to say anything else) except for one thing: the july 4th date.
that is seven months away.
seven months.
i have to wait seven months.
it is the first date in my diary, the clock has started ticking and i am counting down.

i love trailers.