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?
Posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
Liosngate has released a couple new production photos from Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush biopic - W. The photo above shows George W. Bush (Josh Brolin, front) playing with his two dogs, Barney and Spot, on the White House lawn, as Karl Rove (Toby Jones) comes up with evil schemes on his blackberry (we can only assume).
The behind the scenes photo above shows Oliver Stone (standing, center) directing a scene in a facsimile of the White House situation room with (left to right, seated) Condoleezza Rice (Thandie Newton), Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn), George Tenet (Bruce McGill), George W. Bush (Josh Brolin, seated on table), Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) and Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss). Click on the images to enlarge. W. hits theaters on October 17th 2008.
Last month we brought you the teaser trailer for Recount, HBO Films’ retelling of the behind-the-scenes happenings during the 2000 presidential election and the scandal that resulted. /Film reader Linton sent us the full length trailer for the upcoming film.
Written by 33-year old actor turned screenwriter Danny Strong, Recount was the top film on the 2007 Black List, an annual poll of 150 development executives and high-level assistants which ranks the hot screenplays making the rounds in Hollywood. The top three entries of the 2005 list where Things We Lost in the Fire, Juno, and Lars and the Real Girl. So it’s definitely a great list to be on. Directed by Jay Roach (Meet The Parents, Austin Powers), and starring Kevin Spacey stars as Ron Klain, former Vice President Al Gore’s Chief of Staff, John Hurt as Warren Christopher, who supervised the contested Florida recount, Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, former Secretary of State for the State of Florida, Tom Wilkinson as James Baker and Denis Leary as Michael Whouley.
