Trailer Analysis: Beastly vs. Red Riding Hood

This March we get not one, but TWO classic fairy tale reboots. CBS Films' Beastly and Warner Brothers' Red Riding Hood open a week apart and will do their best to tap into the Twilight fangirl base. I'll tell you this much now, one of them I'm stoked on and the other... well the other you'd have to tie me to a chair and duct tape my eyes open to watch (and I guarantee you the entire time I was sitting there I'd be gnawing away at my arms in an attempt to free myself. The pain of my teeth grinding through my skin would be less than that of watching this attempt at romance). I think you know where this is going...

vs.

Beastly is a modern take on the Beauty and the Beast tale. A pretty, popular, and terribly vain young man is made to look ghastly by a sorceress and only true love (by a brunette) can break the spell.

This is what love looks like, right guys?

The trailer opens with the words "Beautiful people get it better." Then why are you playing this part Alex Pettyfer? If someone loves this movie does that break your spell of only doing shitty movies (I Am Number 4, anyone?)?

Look! It's Will Ferrell in Zoolander!

Beautiful, blond Pettyfer is made to look like an awesome punk rocker by one of the Olsen sisters (I still can't tell them apart, although I always suspected they dabbled in witchcraft [How else did New York Minute get made?].) and so he becomes a recluse to be tutored by a blind Neil Patrick Harris.

But how the fuck can he play darts??!

Don't get me wrong, I love NPH, but apparently blind to him also means deaf given the slow cadence of his dialogue. But it's okay, because NPH can see how awesome Pettyfer is (funny, I didn't get that out of the trailer. Since his personality sucked, too). I contemplated awarding NPH the "What-The-Fuck-Is-He-Doing-In-This-Movie" award, but then I remembered that twin babies are expensive. He's not the only one who can see Pettyfer's inner beauty... It's that bitch from High School Musical! With nothing better to do and the desire for ANOTHER green room, Hudgens is here...trying to be a star... again. Move the bangs aside, sweetie, and embrace your lack of star quality. Just. Stop. You can see how beautiful Pettyfer is, but you can't see how dismal your career is?

It's supposed to be a sweeping Twilight romance, but really its a jumbled modernistic montage of "ugly" Alex Pettyfer looking past Vanessa Hudgen's bangs into her big, vacant eyes. I get no sense of her character what-so-ever. And as I Am Number Four and Twilight taught us, the movie needs to be from the normal girl's point of view, not the supernatural freak. If you haven't guessed it, this is the movie I'm looking forward to THE LEAST. I frankly can't even believe I sat through the trailer three times to write this.

Stay home and watch the good version

My what an exciting trailer you have.... Red Riding Hood.

And my what big eyes you have... OMG guys, she's the wolf.

Less that 15 seconds in and I'm already way more excited about this movie. The vacant glances of Beastly are replaced with a, quite literal, carnivorous love affair. Seyfried's Little Red is big eyed and all grown up. She's fooling around with the woodsman, when her hand in marriage is promised to another. Love triangles did director Catherine Hardwicke well before, (cough, Twilight, cough) and if you're going to try and tap into that fan base, you might as well go back to the source.

They've got more chemistry in this photograph than

Hudgens and Pettyfer have in their entire movie.

While Seyfried is running around with good old fashioned lust (which I know she can play given her stellar performance as the over-sexualized title character in Chloe.) there is another in the village with blood lust! A werewolf, it turns out. And now we're officially in a whole different world than the original little red riding hood. I imagine Grandma will play into this somehow, but the real mystery is not how little red escapes the wolf, but rather- who the wolf is.

Gary Oldman in a dapper purple outfit is hell bent on finding out, and he knows Seyfried knows. It's probably someone she's fucking... but which one?

Red Riding Hood does several things right, where Beastly goes wrong. First, they cast talented actors. Its amazing what Gary Oldman can do for a movie, and I've never seen Amanda Seyfried in something where she was bad. Second, it's got a style. It's beautiful and bright and they stick to that bright but Gothic style through and through. Seyfried is sure to be the only one with red, but the purple, the blue, the yellow all pop just as much. I've always said that Amanda Seyfried has a face for a Tim Burton movie, and this looks like its about as close as she'll get for now. Third, its from HER point of view. This is where Twilight succeeded and I Am Number 4 failed. If you're going to cater to the teen girl, by all means, make your character a teen girl.

A great soundtrack, fast cuts, and a story that I am familiar with (but did not grow up on in a superior animated form) all help to make Red Riding Hood my choice for fangirl storybook romance.

Trailer Analysis: The Social Network

If there is one thing I know about, it is social networking. I love my blog, my facebook, my twitter. Hell, I still I love my myspace (in a nostalgic type of way). I've been social networking since xanga (but you don't get the link to that, nice try). But enough about me-

David Fincher's trailer (the real one, not the teaser) for The Social Network has hit the Internet today. Let's take a look shall we?

Find the trailer here: The Social Network.

The trailer is presented as a series of status updates accompanied by the voices of actors reading them. Not very cinematic, but the movie can hardly be expected to be visually stunning. Its the type of story that might make for a better play.

This clearly means theres nothing interesting to show in the movie.

There is a definite feeling of drama amidst the founders (or those who can be presumed to be founders based on the trailer) of facebook. Who said what, who stole what from whom. It's the story of invention and court. A relationship drama. Sounds a lot like Flash of Genius. Look at how that did (you don't have to, I'll tell you: TERRIBLY).

Film is a visual medium and while it might have story, The Social Network, does not have visuals. Maybe stunt casting people like Justin Timberlake will put young people in seats, you see- aside from it's lack of visual appeal (that isn't the actors, I'll admit they're er... visually pretty. No, not you Jesse Eisenberg) there is another fundamental problem with a drama about facebook-

People my own age (aka The Facebook Generation) do not care about dramas. Very few people, in fact, care about dramas. So why would a movie, whose primary audience should be facebook users, gear itself for those looking for more distinguished dramatic fare (often, but not limited too, older people who know nothing about facebook). Maybe I'm being harsh on the elderly, maybe I'm being harsh on people my own age- but look at the movies in the marketplace- how many are dramas skewed for younger crowds?

Interestingly, the movie is placed in the "history" genre on IMDB. While facebook will be history, this movie will hardly make a historical dent.

Trailer Analysis: Tangled

I make no attempt to hide my love of animated films. The first movie I remember seeing in theaters is Disney's Beauty and the Beast. They've always held a spot in my favorite movies. And with the likes of Wall-E, Up (okay...Pixar movies), The Princess and the Frog and How to Train Your Dragon - I thought we were bouncing around in a golden age of animation. So how fitting that the tale of the girl with the long golden hair should work it's way into my golden age.

I always thought the story of Rapunzel was pretty simple, so naturally, I was interested in seeing how they'd do it. Then they released these stills and I was through the moon excited.



The first tip off should have been that Mandy Moore was cast as the voice of Rapunzel. But, I kept my chin up....



And then they released the trailer. Never in the history of movies has my expectations of a film shattered so quickly. Catch the trailer here, and find my commentary after the last beautiful still.



What you just watched was indeed for a Disney movie, as a follow up to the Oscar nominated Princess and the Frog. No, that wasn't a Shrek movie, although had they titled it Shrek and Rapunzel down a 5th of Vodka (see what I did there? Cleverly incorporating the sequel number into the title) I wouldn't have batted an eye. I'll need a fifth to get through this.

Here's what went wrong:

The princess: Let me break this down for you: Rapunzel is a damsel in distress. She is locked in a tower, and thus has not gotten a haircut, resulting in some long ass hair. This is not that Rapunzel. This is the female empowerment Rapunzel. A slightly superhero-esque version of the princess. Her hair has fucking powers! With powers like that, why does she need some strapping prince to rescue her? And without that need, pray tell, what is the point of the movie?

The prince: Who is this guy? Cocky, self-centered, seems to me like he's the perfect foil for our heroine. But Disney has forgotten, in their desire to make the female strong-willed, that boys watch Disney movies too. This is not the type of guy they should grow to be. I know they've got other movies too, but come on. This guy is a joke. And the main character (as is appears in the trailer). Give me someone real.

The style: After all the hubbub about returning to their roots with hand drawn animation they give us this? You're joking me. This is a classic story and deserves to be presented as such.

The music: Reminiscent of the Smash Mouth cover of I'm a Believer in Shrek, the use of a pop rock soundtrack is wildly out of place in the medieval setting. Stick with catering the soundtrack to the era, Disney, a la the Jazzy New Orleans sound of The Princess and the Frog.

The title: Why not just call it Rapunzel? There is no brand recognition with Tangled. If it's an attempt to make the story relevant and hip, it's painfully amiss.

Mind you I had to watch this trailer several times to dissect it. Punishment I wouldn't even put my worst of enemies through.