Alice Cooper will ring in 2012 in Hawaii with the oddest band of the year - he'll be joined onstage by 'Weird Al' Yankovic and Michael McDonald as part of a charity show. According to The Maui Ne...
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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Alice Cooper To Ring In 2012 With Weird Al & Michael McDonald In Hawaii
T.I. To Celebrate New Year With Release Of Dr. Dre Mixtape
Rapper T.I. will ring in 2012 by releasing his new mixtape collaboration with reclusive hip-hop icon Dr. Dre. The hitmaker, who spent much of 2011 behind bars on a probation violation, is plannin...
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Zac Efron To Show Michelle Pfeiffer A Good Time This New Year's Eve
Zac Efron is refusing to let his "New Year's Eve" co-star Michelle Pfeiffer have a quiet night in on December 31 after learning she likes to be in bed early and sleep through the bells. Promoting...
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Minka Kelly Spotted At Museum In Paris With Ex Derek Jeter
Actress Minka Kelly and baseball superstar Derek Jeter appear to have reconciled just in time for the New Year, according to reports. The New York Yankees star and former "Charlie's Angels" pin-u...
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Here Are The Rest Of Our 'Twilight Zone' Top 25 Episodes
A few months ago, we brought you a list of our Top 10 'Twilight Zone' episodes. With another New Year's marathon approaching on SyFy, we decided there were just too many good installments missing f...
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Top 10 Most Shocking Celebrity Stories of 2011
Celebrity Birthdays - December 31, 2011
Happy Birthday to: Wonderland star Val Kilmer (1959) New Kid Joey McIntyre (1972) Fringe actor Lance Reddick (1969) Actress Gong Li (1965) Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian (1963) Replacements sing...
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Friday, December 30, 2011
'Pretty Little Liars' 2.15 Clip: Aria Gets Dress Code for School
Russell Brand Files for Divorce, Says He'll Always Adore Katy Perry
Christopher's Top 10 Trailers of 2011
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they're seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I'm operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
I'll get this out of the way now: Harry Potter is not on this list. I only mention this as I was excoriated back in 2009 when I left Star Trek off the year's best trailers list and today there is no sentiment I agree with more than /Film's own David Chen when he wrote a couple of days ago:
About to publish my Top 10 of 2011 at @slashfilm. I feel like Maximus about to say "UNLEASH HELL." Only it will be against me. By readers.
Yes, there is some trepidation in putting out a definitive list as you're tacitly implying that "These 10 here are the only ones that matter and if you happen to be #11 then it's not worth discussing." Lucky for me, all I'm talking about is two minutes and thirty seconds worth of marketing savvy so the stakes aren't that high. Although many will count their actual films watched in the dozens, I can honestly peg the number of trailers I've seen this year in the hundreds. In addition to the ones that I find and actually find a home in this column there are handfuls of trailers every week which aren't even worth mentioning. Countless trailers just miss the mark and, honestly, there is a genuine art to it. Steven Reedy is one guy who I've mentioned a couple times this year and he would be the first to tell you how hard it is to get the tone, the tempo, the music, the cues, just right. However, there were some truly excellent trailers that came out this year, for both big and small films, and my hope is that at least some of you admires why it made the grade.
Alas, I know all of this won't stop the super troll who will let no list, however petty, get in the way of their merriment. In an effort to alleviate the negative sentiment that is about to be unleashed my way, though, I offer some notable mentions that really deserve a couple more minutes of your time that didn't quite crack the top 10: The Artist, The Devil's Double (still the best use of "Personal Jesus" ever in a trailer), Headhunters, Kill List, Catatan Si Boy, Bombay Beach, Pina, The Other F Word, and The Swell Season. Enjoy the rest…
10. Beauty Day
Bless filmmakers like Jay Cheel who are out there making movies that speak to their artistic sensibilities. Specifically, making a movie about someone you've never heard of and someone, right after this trailer is finished, you couldn't wait to know more of.
There is a certain level of impressed you have to be about the slick manner in which this trailer blends together really shoddy VHS footage, old newspaper clippings, scrapbook detritus, and a subject that anyone would love to bottle and sell as an energy drink. Christ, I thought this was a movie about David Lee Roth at first but not even Diamond Dave is daring enough to be so insane yet completely lovable at the same time as Ralph Zavadil is in this trailer. It's mixed with the right amount of pep, fun, and biographical back story that not only draws you in with Cheel's directing acumen to frame the story in the right way but it really comes together a the 1:30 mark when Dan Deacon's "Crystal Cat" rears up in the background. Cheel knew well enough of how to bring it home and my ADD can barely keep up with the scenes that are interwoven in a pastiche of sight and sound where the only response after this visual assault that comes at two minutes should be: When can I see it?
All I know is that I've been waiting a while and I'm still hungry for it.