The best movie trailer of the year

"Coming Attractions". Everybody loves 'em. Everybody loves talking about them. But when was the last time you saw a really good movie trailer?

The art of the movie trailer (and yes, it can be an art) is sadly rarely seen. Most trailers are simply sneak peeks, exciting or entertaining mostly for the footage involved and not the editing or presentation of the trailer itself. Numerous trailers end up falling into one of two categories: "Wow that looks good" or "Wow that looks terrible". And neither of these categories have anything to do with the trailer...they have everything to do with the selection of footage from the film.

Let's face it, movie trailers are nothing more than glorified advertisements for upcoming feature films (hence the term "coming attraction"). Hollywood has and has always had a formula for trailers, which is incredibly simple: choose the footage that will get asses in seats. The criteria is slightly different depending on each genre, of course, which is roughly as follows:

Drama-Stirring, emotional music scoring the most powerful close-ups of the actor's faces, using snippets of scenes to showcase a heated emotional argument or an impassioned inspiring speech. A special sub-category is the Oscarbait trailer, which does all of the above only with much more shmaltz and the words "Academy Award Winning" used all over the place.

Horror-Quick fast cuts accompanied by either screeching strings or grungy techno/metal, involving the most footage of violence the editors can get away with. Usually involves fake jump scares through poor editing (along with the presence of a quick loud scream sound, so people know that watching this movie will involve screaming).

Comedy-A briskly cut montage of the funniest scenes and lines from the movie set to whatever songs are on the Top 40 chart that year.

Action-A slickly cut (think Michael Bay) selection of the best action sequences from the film, giving away the best stunts.

Those are the four big trailer categories, every other genre usually being molded to fit one of the four. By far the worst offenders where trailers are concerned is The Trailer That Gives Away Everything. These trailers are usually for films that the studio is really worried about selling, so their solution is to give away the entire damn movie so people aren't confused or worried ("Oh, so that movie has a happy ending! I guess I'll go see it now"). Of course what the execs fail to realize is that this technique makes more people angry than intrigued, which backfires on their whole purpose. And if you're an old fuddy-duddy who thinks that this practice was only started in recent years, think again. Hollywood has been pulling that shit for ages...just look at the trailer for Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" (which gives away the LAST SHOT OF THE MOVIE) or the trailer for just about any screwball comedy of the 40s (which usually use a climactic kiss from the two leads...sure it's expected, but it's still giving it away).

As I said, most trailers work only because the footage is good or the film advertised is one you already want to see; either your favorite actor is in it, or your favorite director made it, or it's an adaptation of a comic book or something.

But when was the last time you saw an honest-to-God GOOD trailer?

I firmly believe "Alien" was the best ad campaign for a movie of all time. Who hasn't heard of "In space, no one can hear you scream"? That's not to say that there haven't been other great ad campaigns and trailers...it's just that film's ads that I use as a benchmark of quality. The methodical editing of that first teaser trailer...a long shot of stars whizzing by...then close ups of an object that wasn't easily identifiable...finally revealing itself to be a giant egg which then suddenly and violently cracks open with an eerie glow coming from inside...all this while the title of the film slowly spells itself out on the top of the screen, finishing with the final title and that tagline...bloody brilliant. Even when the longer Theatrical Trailer was released it still said everything and nothing about the film it advertised...it told you what you were in for, but in reality you had no idea.

Friends, I have just come across a new trailer that gave me that very same feeling.

The trailer in question is for a film called "Trade", a movie being released this year starring Kevin Kline and directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner, a relatively new German director. The film is about the sex traffiking industry...and that's all I know. I could find articles about the film and find out lots more about the plot, including details and whether the film is any good or not...but right now I don't want to. Not when I still have the beauty, sadness and misery of this trailer still filling my head with possiblities. This movie might be good...or it might suck. In the end, it doesn't matter, because I am sold on seeing it. Nothing short of a thousand horrible zero star reviews would deter me from checking this film out. Go ahead, see what I'm talking about:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809420398/trailer

Okay...so just click on that link and then click on "theatrical trailer" so you can HOPEFULLY see it.
I apologize for the crappy quality of it but (big surprise!) this is the ONLY copy of the version of the trailer I saw in theaters.

A little explanation: I saw "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" over the weekend (which is great, by the way) and this trailer played before it, almost moving me to tears, it was that good. So I go searching for it on the internet, only to find that Lionsgate (an American studio known mostly for horror film distribution) has taken the trailer from Roadside Attractions (a more independent studio) and Oscarbaited up the trailer. Fuck. Whatever you do, do NOT watch the Trade trailer on Youtube or iTunes or Apple. Or better yet, watch them both, for a perfectly good object lesson on what makes a bad trailer versus what makes a good one. The Oscarbaited Lionsgate version has a bunch of "important" statistics at the beginning (who wants to see a film about statistics, they MEAN NOTHING) followed up by a bunch of weak-ass catchphrases (How do you save a VICTIM...when they can't be FOUND) to really drive the themes of the film into our skulls with a sledgehammer. What's more, the trailer's final shot is of the two captive girls hugging, subtly implying that all will be okay and everyone's gonna come out smiling at the end. Go see the movie kids! Now who's up for popcorn?!

Now look at the Roadside version of the trailer. Every cut and shot used serves the ambiguity of the film...is it a tragedy? An uplifting weepie? A horror film? A detective film? An expose? Numerous questions are posed, but none are answered. Instead of mindless statistics, the trailer tells us that the film is based on true events via a short but sweet note at the beginning that it is based on a New York Times article. From then on it's pure cinema, all spectacular visuals (note the broken doll lying in the grass) and great snippets of dialogue coupled with images (Kevin Kline telling the boy to bid on his sister at the last possible second--cut to a shot of one of the girls jumping through the air, soaring). I have to say at this point that the music does so much for this trailer...it is "Agnus Dei" by Rufus Wainright off his album Want Two. Go buy the song right now, it's worth it.

And what's the final shot of the Roadside trailer? One of the girls saying "you paid for this" and then: BOOM. The title. "Trade". Think about all the implications that come out of that one simple cut. Sure, the title refers to the literal sex trade, as well as the idea of trading a human life for money. But what about other kinds of trades? Emotional trades (which sex certainly is), personal trades. What if one of the girls was "traded" for another...one goes free while another has to stay. This simple cut says so much and so little, causing your mind to burst with questions. All the final shot of the Lionsgate trailer tells you is that this is yet another boring statistic drama with lots of weepy bitches moaning and hugging all the time, looking at the camera and saying "please nominate us".

Arrgggh, it makes me so mad to find out there's a tarted-up trailer for this movie. Regardless, I hope the Roadside trailer is closer to what the film actually is, and I plan on seeing it upon release.

Thoughts? Agree or disagree? Please leave some comments below...(I wonder if anyone reads this thing yet)