Last week when my husband and I were on vacation sans children, we decided to go to the movies. It’s something we rarely get the chance to do with our busy lives and our children’s busy schedules. As fans of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, we decided to partake of “Dark Shadows.” I won’t do a review here, but suffice to say one word: rental.
Prior to the movie, we were graced with about ten movie previews, and I’m not joking. Now, I realize the way the world works these days. Everything moves quickly: we get our news in three minutes as no one reads the newspaper anymore; we text message short words and phrases and use shortcuts that make me cringe at the usage of the English language; and we can’t slow down two seconds to watch a television show that has commercials, as we fast forward through them on the DVR. But oh my goodness, do movie trailers have to be cut so ridiculously fast? We go from one shot to the next, each scene rarely lasting more than three seconds, the camera angles off kilter, shot, then shot, then shot—it goes so damn fast. I can’t even tell the actors who are in the stinking movie!
Last night during the season finale of “American Idol,” there was a preview for the new “The Amazing Spiderman” movie that’s going to be released in July. I know Toby Maguire is no longer Spiderman; however, the preview is cut so quickly, you see Andrew Garfield’s face for all of about—you guessed it—three seconds. To see what I’m talking about, watch the trailer below.
I’m starting to hate movie previews. The whole point of seeing a preview is to give us something to look forward to, let a story unfold. Let us taste and absorb what the story is about, for God’s sake. Of the ridiculous number of movie previews we saw in Florida, trailer after trailer were cut so quickly, I thought I would lose my mind. I actually turned to my husband and said, “These trailers are so annoying. Why does Hollywood not think I have an attention span?” It’s insulting. And to boot, not one made me say: “Oh…I can’t wait to go see that movie.”
And that’s the problem with movie trailers.
