Why is it movie trailers can raise my adrenaline levels by thousand percent but the movies bore me to death?

I recently saw Anna Karenina which was okay, but I could have lived the rest of my life without seeing it—although Jude Law’s performance as Karenin is brilliant. It was obviously based on Tolstoy’s novel which remains one of my favourite pieces of literature till today. No idea why they felt it necessary to give it the theatrical flavour à la “Moulin Rouge!”. (At least Roger Ebert helped me to understand what the meaning of it was: to make us, the audience, feel we are observing Karenina with the rest of Saint Petersburg’s society—whatever.)

What I wonder is why the movie trailer people get it? The trailer is absolutely wonderful and there is no way you could tell from this preview that the whole movie takes place in a theatre. Yes, the trailer people knew it was a dumb idea. Maybe they should have a movie trailer company make the movie next time.

Do you get bamboozled by movie trailers to think that you absolutely have to see the movie?

Do you get bamboozled by movie trailers to think that you absolutely have to see the movie?

I used to but now not so much. Being a big movie buff I’ve been suckered in by the trailers more times than I can count. Actually saw “WIllard”, what a PIG! Then after watching the trailers I figured out a pattern the movie companies use: they cherry pick the most exciting scenes or the most poignant, or the scariest, or the sexiest, and with an overdub (used to be one guy doing ALL of the overdubbing, no kidding one guy. that’s all he did, that was his whole career, he was a professional overdubber) which usually began with a “in a World of..” or “blankety blank is back and he’s pissed…” to catch our interest we get hooked into waisting 2 hours and $20.00 on pop-corn on crap films with a thin, predictable plot and just a seed of excitment. And now the writers and producers are dipping deep into the vaults to dig out old scripts for remakes. Blaaah. The picture sucked the first time. There are well made movies out there if you look hard enough, but if you don’t like extreme violence Stay away friom Quentin tarantino.  BTW I miss the hat and Winter scene!

Cap’t Jack

Oh yeah, I’ve been bamboozled a few times.

The movie “No Country For Old Men” comes to mind.

It had a good trailer, but the actual movie was lame.

Same with “Pineapple Express”...... dumb ass movie!  Good trailer.

I began getting the basic idea from blurbs on sci-fi books versus what was actually in the book when I started reading them in grade school.  I recall being really pissed off when the books didn’t match the blurb but I slowly developed an instinct for it.  I expect if from movie trailers.  Way more money hangs in the balance.

psik