One Small Window

Isn’t it bad enough that mainstream cinematic language is becoming a series of shortcuts simplified to be comprehended by sheep? Do supposedly smart and edgy filmmakers also need to start resorting to cliches to underscore the coolness of their movies, right at the teaser trailer level?
Latest offender? Edgar Wright. The film? Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I’m sure hispter comic book nerds all over the world are sitting in a puddle of slow-drying sweat obsessing over every little detail about the first teaser trailer for this ‘much anticipated’ movie. Now I think Michael Cera is all kinds of cool. And Mary Elizabeth Winstead (when fetishized by Quentin Tarantino) is alright. I don’t have major objections with the trailer. it is what it is and the fans are probably ecstatic over the moon ohmygawdIneedtoseethis-like-now with this first set of moving images from the much-teased motion picture.
There are many things that bug me about the way ‘they’ are writing movie these days and one of those things is the AutoCorrect exchange. Mostly used to exact a cheap chuckle, this is the “make a supporting character use a sorta-kinda rhyming word which is obviously wrong” gag. So that the principal character can correct said supporting character. Mostly this is followed by a reaction line that is somehow supposed to make it all funnier.
Sigh.
But seriously Mr. Wright (and people at Universal)? This is how you underscore everything that went before in the teaser trailer?
So this here post is my first about Trending Annoyances. I suspect it won’t be my last.
Check out the trailer for yourselves.

I am a little wary of movies made from Mark Millar comic books. Not quite in the way I dread the next attempt at bringing an Alan Moore masterpiece to the big screen… but it is definitely in the same ballpark.
See Wanted may have made over a hundred million at the US box office but there is no denying that that movie was a polished turd compared to helmer Timur Bekmambetov’s previous two movies (Night Watch and Day Watch). Kick-Ass has been directed by Matthew Vaughn, director of Layer Cake (okay…) and Stardust (good God!) and producer of the earlier (better) works of Guy Ritchie (and I do not count Swept Away in that lot).
So yeah, not the greatest precedents are being set here. Which means one has to rely on the trailers to give us the best sense of how this rather cool idea will play out as a movie.
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Everywhere you look, someone is putting out the results of an experiment. Music albums, art exhibits, books, dance performances, movies…
Whatever happened to perfecting it before trying it out on unsuspecting consumers? Are we so bored (hate that the Carrie Bradshaw voice-over is playing in my head as I type this sentence) that we will consider becoming test subjects in whatever ‘artistic’ experiment happens to catch our eye (or ear) on any given day? Whatever happened to pure entertainment? When the hell did creative folk turn into a bunch of mad scientists? And who is profiting off the resulting spike in sales of lab coats and protective eye wear?
I know the answer of course.
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Has this ever happened to you?

You are watching something – a movie, an episode of a television show or an online video on a slow connection. For whatever reason (lunch, dinner, telephone call or crappy connection that will not load the file beyond a certain point) your viewing experience is interrupted.

And when you resume the filmed entertainment, it seems to have transmogrified from an enjoyable piece of ‘something I would recommend’ to a distasteful piece of ‘what the hell just happened!’ I’ve experienced this a few times in my life, most recently (like just now) while watching the nine-and-a-half-minute long version of Lady Gaga’s Telephone video, featuring Beyoncé, and directed by Jonas Åkerlund.

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