The Art of the Movie Trailer

Mike and I are both big movie fans (him more so than me), but he can pretty easily compel me to watch nearly any film that has a stunning trailer. We saw a trailer recently for this Sundance romance called "Like Crazy." It was the kind of movie preview that you can't stop thinking about, that absolutely floors you with its idyllic images and compelling score, that has you counting down the days until the theatrical release of the film. Then Mike told me that he thought the movie was going to suck.

This led us to a conversation on the art of movie trailers. There are some trailers that I watch again and again, despite being disappointed or unmoved by the full-length film, simply because I love the way they make me feel. There are others that provide a small and seemingly magical glimpse into a world that the feature film fully encapsulates as well. No matter the integrity, quality, or wonder of any full-length movie, there is undeniably a way that shots from it can be pieced together to create a compelling and moving trailer. But it takes a very talented and creative eye to put the puzzle together in a maximally appealing way. And that's what this post pays ode to.

Here's the trailer that started it all. Though "Like Crazy" doesn't come out until later in the year, I feel as though this trailer will feed my appetite for quite some time. Set to Ingrid Michaelson's simple but stunning cover of "Can't Help Falling in Love," this Sundance film looks like a really heartfelt, beautiful, slightly quirky, and overall satisfying romance. I hope it lives up to all the hype I'm creating in my own home about it.

I think that Mike's pessimistic prediction regarding "Like Crazy" was probably founded on his experience with "Blue Valentine." An amazing trailer for a truly disappointing film. We both felt that the feature-length movie was painfully slow-moving and extremely difficult to watch. It is a very dark film, so this light-hearted trailer definitely helped to appeal to the masses more so than one would that was more in keeping with the feel of the entire movie. But despite our feelings toward the film, I think we both still consider this a delightfully sweet and enticing trailer. It's just a shame that the movie turned out to be so different from our expectations.

I don't think that "Garden State" needs much introduction, successful as it was. And I think this film truly deserved every last iota of critical praise and recognition that it received. This is one trailer that I found extremely compelling, as much so as the movie itself. The film lived up to all that the preview promised, and for that I consider this trailer even better than I originally thought.

"Medicine for Melancholy" is a movie that was on me "To See" list for a long time on account of the trailer. The look, the feel, the conversations, the sounds. Everything about it appealed to me and the snippets from positive reviews that occasionally interjected clips from the film didn't hurt either. I wasn't completely blown away when I saw the movie, but I was definitely quite satisfied with it.