The pReview Re-viewing presents
The Best of.. Worst of.. and somewhere in between for..
2012
(limited only to movies actually released in 2012)
(warning: Keep in mind that "best trailer" doesn't necessarily mean "best movie".. Also, I curse my dick off. In a good way. Also, "good way" doesn't necessarily mean "good".)
Clicking movie posters will open their site in a separate window!
by Jeff Finck
written: 12/27/2012
Have you ever watched a movie trailer and thought, "Fuck me! Why aren't there awards for movie previews?!" Well.. Actually.. I think there are.. Well, here's mine! Screw those other guys! This is my free-for-all metaphorical cockfight of two and a half minute proportions! Are you ready? Even if you answered yes, that's just too damn bad! Here we go!!!
BEST TRAILERS OF 2012!
I actually had to break this up into a couple different genres because, if I didn't, this would have taken forever for me to pick just one fantastic movie trailer. (Even though, The Dark Knight Rises probably would have broken everyone else's backs..)
Best Action trailer: The Avengers!
The Avengers dropped several trailers for their extremely ambitious release.. And (click) every (click) one (click) of (click) them made me feel like a 13 year old girl all over again. Seriously. If you've ever been a fan of comic books, just the idea of this movie probably sent quivering vibrations up your spine and into your brain.. And then your nose started bleeding, your eyes went droopy and you had a stroke.
Best Comedy trailer: The Watch!
First of all if you're not a fan of Ben Stiller or Vince Vaughn, this movie is not for you. Well, I mean Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn in ensemble movies.. I can not figure out why neither of them can hold down their own movies. You also kind of have to not be worn out on Jonah Hill yet, either.. I'm not. As for the fourth member of The Watch, Richard Ayoade, if you've never seen The IT Crowd, do yourself a favor and watch all four seasons on Netflix eighteen times in a row. Now that all of the stipulations have been set, I hate you. I'm just kidding, I still love you, baby. But every trailer for this movie from the teaser all the way to the redband trailer (especially the redband trailer) made this movie look hilarious. And then.. Surprise surprise.. It fucking was. Click HERE to read my full review of the redband trailer.
Best Drama trailer: The Dark Knight Rises!
I should probably explain before the dozens of you who have shrines to my blog start screaming in unison, "This was an action movie!!! ACTION!!!" Yeah, no it wasn't. If you saw the movie that I did, it was an hour of no Batman, an hour of broken Batman, and about 45 minutes of the end of the Adam West Batman movie where, some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb. That being said, the initial full-length trailer for this flick made my kneecaps explode through my ear drums.. Which was cool, because now, for the rest of my life, the last sound I hear will be, "Deshi Deshi Basara Basara!" And that bit where the stadium begins crumbling? YES!
Best Horror trailer: V/H/S!
Anthology movies are tricky. It's hard to really sell one without it looking like it's covered in aging cheese that fell on the ground.. And now it has all of those weird little hairs all over it.. And because it's cheese, they won't just wipe off. It's just awful. V/H/S was the first time since 2007's Trick 'r Treat (and, no joke, 1982's Creepshow) that I saw a horror anthology preview and actually got excited! Right in the middle of what I insist is a backlash against found footage flicks, these guys decided to take it in another direction: movie shorts. Which, in my opinion is where found footage movies should be. With very few exceptions (I can count on three fingers all the people who have done it well), feature length movies just need to stop. This, however, made the genre look fun again!
Best However the Fuck You'd Classify Quentin Tarantino's Movies trailer: Django Unchained!
The first time I saw the trailer for this, I thought, "Fuck yeah! White people are gonna get what they have coming!" ..Immediately followed by, "Uh oh.. I'm technically white on the outside!" (TV's Chris Black Chris has officially made me honorary black.. But I just don't think that would hold up in a mass revolt.) My third thought was, "Spike Lee is gonna be pissed at Quentin Tarantino!" But then all of my thoughts were replaced with sitting back and just watching people getting shot and Christoph Waltz being fucking awesome. (read that as: He started talking.) Seriously, Quentin Tarantino, notorious for wordy scripts, actually wrote a movie with a bunch of people I actually WANT to hear talk! Oh, and make sure you don't confuse it with the Quentin Tarantino re-imagining that totally doesn't exist..
Worst of.. and everything else in 2012!
Now, as an artist (my other hobby), it's hard to really lay into someone's hard work. Don't get me wrong, what I actually mean is that it's really easy, especially if someone or something is just asking for it. I can empathize, though.. I've been on the receiving end of harsh words plenty of times in my life. But this wouldn't be comedy without a scapegoat of some sort. Now, it's really easy to take some pot shots at movies that just looked awful, like Parental Guidance or The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2.. But with a lot of deliberation, hours of my life that I'll never get back, and hopes that people in the future look to this trailer as what not to do..
Worst trailer of 2012: Cloud Atlas
Like I said, it's easy to pick on the obvious.. It's even easier to pick on the little guy. But I'm coming for you, Cloud Atlas! I'm saying up front that I love Tom Tykwer-- Dude can put together a fantastic movie (Run Lola Run, The Princess and the Warrior, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer).. And the Wachowskis are even pretty damn great in their own right (Assassins, Bound, The Matrix.. part one.. V for Vendetta). But whoever cut this trailer together managed to create the most disjointed thing I've seen since I actually powered through Southland Tales. It seems like it'd be hard to make a movie look uninteresting when it stars Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, James Whishaw, Jim Sturgess, and sure, why not, Halle Berry. Somehow.. Some effing how.. They did it. I get that the movie is probably a series of seemingly unrelated scenes connected by a central theme and blah blah blah.. Who cares?! Whether the movie is twenty minutes long starring Pauly Shore farting into his own mouth, or a three and a half hour snuff film.. The point of the trailer is to get you pumped up to see the damn movie! And this one.. Just didn't.
Biggest Surprise: The Avengers!
I should preface this with, yes, I realize that this is amongst my favorite trailers of 2012. Yes, I hoped that this was going to be a fantastic film.. I hoped.. And then it was! Everything I hoped for, but my cynicism wouldn't allow me to believe, actually went down exactly correct. Four straight years of build up actually managed to pay off like Joss Whedon giving a thousand dollar fanboy handjob. It was like we were all allowed to finally have that hero-gasm we were all promised way back in 2008.
Biggest Let Down: Branded
I have to say, I was the biggest supporter of this movie before it came out. It had giant corporate monsters plus Jeffrey Tambor and the Devil himself, Max von Sydow.. How in the fuck can you mess that up? The answer was: Let someone trying to make a statement about society write and direct it. The trailer promised so many amazing things, but instead, the movie delivered us butt first into a Matthew Barney fever dream. I was there opening night, excited. There were six other people in the theater. Bad sign. Twenty minutes in, there were three people left. "No!" I thought, "I will stick this out." I.. Should be given a medal for my courage.
Some trailers lead you by the hand through every single funny part, every single scare, and every bullet fired.. While others carefully dance around the best parts of the movie it's trying to sell and do a spectacular job of drawing you in and giving you so much more once you enter. The next category.. Is the former.
Best Exactly What I Expected trailer: Premium Rush
While The Campaign let us in on all of its funny ahead of time.. Like filling us in on the inside joke, that way when it comes up, we can chuckle along knowingly unlike every other dope who didn't bother checking out the trailer. And like Lockout gave us that sweet taste of every 90s action/sci-fi stomp around the Danger Room.. Premium Rush was a movie about a bike messenger being chased around because he has a package he needs to deliver that could change the lives of.. Like.. Two? People..? And that's exactly what the trailer showed us. Point A to Point B. And I'll be honest with you.. I still enjoyed the balls out of this little movie from beginning to end. I mean, come on! It was like Paperboy and Grand Theft Auto had a very obvious baby.
I'm gonna round this all out by ranting a bit about that thing that ties most trailers together. No, not Don LaFontaine.. I'm talking about the music! Sometimes previews can be made or broken with whatever song they try to cram into the film's hidden meaning.. Or whatever sounds nice. Or.. Sometimes, the shit just falls apart and makes you want to watch the trailer on mute with death metal being injected into your frontal lobe.. Well, here's my take on 2012 song usage:
I wanted to be able to type: GI Joe Retaliation's initial full trailer and their usage of the White Stripes v The Glitch Mob's Seven Nation Army.. However, since Hasbro retracted their tale into their own anus and ran screaming away from the 30-story monster that was The Avengers into 2013, and it was pointed out to me that Johnny Cash's Ain't No Grave was mashed with James Brown's The Payback in the alternate Django Unchained trailer.. I suddenly realized that if I didn't choose Django, I had no soul. It’s like, Johnny Cash brings us into the world of the Western, and then James Brown smacks us in the side of the face and reminds us that this is a Quentin Tarantino Western.
Runner up: Killing Them Softly's full trailer's usage of Johnny Cash's When the Man Comes Around. So, I guess.. Johnny Cash wins this year.
Honestly, it's not even that they used this song poorly.. It fits rather well. And I don't really even have anything against these guys, honestly. I just hate this song. So, you know.. Fuck these guys.
Well, I hope you enjoyed reading! Did you like what you read? Do you agree? Do you think I have my head up my ass and shouldn't ever attempt to put fingers to keyboard ever again? Sound off in the comments! Tell me what your picks would have been! I can't wait for 2013! There are about a hundred zillion movies coming out that look phenomenal.. And I can't wait to rant every one of my balls off about them! Until next year!