Best of 2010: Trailers

I love a good movie trailer. They are a significant source for where I find new music. and considering when I can't muster the energy to blog, an amazing trailer seems to suffice. Now what makes a great trailer? Music plays a large role. I also have personal feelings about the use of an announcer, which from my choices, you can guess is not positive. So for 2010 we had some great ones. Some of these have been posted/shared elsewhere. Do yourself a favor and watch them all again.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Clearly this was the most anticipated film for me this year. So any trailer would have made me even more excited for the film. Then they released this beauty, which covers both Part 1 and 2 and I was blown away. The scenes they chose to show were serious ones. The trailer is bookended by Harry/Voldemort encounters: One expected and one that, while not in the book, looks amazing. In the middle we have a hauntingly beautiful score and title cards that speak the truth and tug on heartstrings of those of us who have lived with this franchise for a decade. By the time that bolt of lightening hits the bottom of the P in Potter my jaw was dropped, my heart was bursting and the days to November 19 and July 15 couldn't go by fast enough.

The Social Network

Remember when you heard that they were making a movie about Facebook? I think the country did a collective eye roll. Then you heard that it was going to be written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, which made me a little more intrigued but still dismissive. Then the world saw this trailer. The marriage of the creepiest version of "Creep" ever with images of people clearly creeping on people's Facebook pages could have been a great teaser on its own. Then the song continues to play over Jesse Eisenberg's incredible dead-eyed asshole performance. I love the end of the trailer when the quick succession of clips flick by and the music swells. This is a case of a trailer completely changing my perspective of a movie and guaranteeing that I would be there on opening day.

Blue Valentine

Another thing I love about trailers are how they can do so much with so little. This trailer uses the audio of one scene to frame the rest of the trailer. Obviously, if you have a scene of Ryan Gosling serenading Michelle Williams, it will clearly work in your favor to put it in the trailer and allow it to seduce the rest of us. Even though the serenade is adorable, the song itself is heartbreaking and sets us up that this is not a happy movie.

Inception

Now here is a movie that is a hard sell to begin with. How many of you even "got" what it was about from the trailer? The best part is that it doesn't matter. It still completely sucks you in. It shows you all the iconic scenes of the movie but in no way explains anything about them. Why is JGL floating through the air? Why is that city folding on itself? We know nothing?! The most memorable part of this trailer is the foghorn sounds that make it seem like a bad-ass clock is ticking down to something. Ticking down to blowing your MIND.

Black Swan

Speaking of what the hell is going on, how about when Miss. Portman pulls a black feather out of her back? I had heard little about this movie before seeing the trailer, which is rare for me. So I was really blown away by what I saw. It also doesn't give too much away, as I figured that the movie was going to be about her sleeping with her director. Wrong. I also remember being shocked, but happy, that Mila Kunis was in such a serious movie. Lots of crazy shit going on, but it all looks amazing. Sold.

True Grit

Three things make this trailer awesome. 1. Johnny Cash's version of "God's Gonna Cut You Down," which I can not for the life of me find to download (so if you have, give it to me please). 2. Matt Damon's line about Jeff Bridges eye (shows there's some classic Cohen humor in there). 3. Enough of an echo of No Country for Old Men mixed with enough new awesomeness by The Dude means a movie ticket will be purchased.

The Adjustment Bureau

We have a meet cute. We have title cards spouting off lines about free will and fate. We have great music. We have Roger Sterling in a fedora. Later we have Matt Damon in a fedora. It's all good. Very good. I love the shot of them walking into an empty Yankee stadium. Very chilling. I am sad this got postponed until the spring but this trailer suffices for now.

Easy A

This one probably has more to do with my girl crush on Emma Stone, but I watched this trailer at least five times before seeing the movie. You could just tell that it was going to be better than your average teen movie. Perhaps it was the Gaga. Perhaps it was because respectable adult actors kept showing up (Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Lisa Kudrow). It is probably mostly just due to the fact that it is a great movie and this trailer just showed it off. Plus anytime you can just Emma Stone talking to a camera and it doesn't make you hate her, you've got something good going on.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The beauty of this lays in the fake out. The beginning makes it seem as though it's another Michael Cera romance where he's awkward and pines. That is true . . . to a point and then POW! It becomes something else entirely. Killer moves. Killer music. Killer casting. The trailer did it's job and made me certain this movie was going to be amazing.

Iron Man 2

And here is the one on the list where the trailer was better than the movie. RDJ's "Yes, dear response in the first clip plus the "You complete me" line remind you why he is the best part of these movies. I had so much hope after seeing this trailer. Mickey Rourke looking absolutely insane—from this it looked like he could have given a Heath Ledger/Joker caliber performance. Instead it turned out he was better in small doses, like in this trailer, than an entire movie where he is ridiculous instead of creepy. Then you have the fast successive clips, which I'm always a fan of, but in this case it just proves that this film was better in theory than in practice. But one mark of a good trailer is that in retrospect, it can still make you forget that the movie itself wasn't what you wanted it to be. The hope that it's going to be awesome survives in the trailer.