Golden Trailers — No, Not What You Think

I got a real kick out of a Post article this past weekend, “Hail the Coming Attractions,” all about the Golden Trailer Awards. No, you’re not likely to see this awards show on broadcast television; it’s not exactly the type of ceremony that brings out the Hollywood glitterati.

It’s an award not for movies, but for movie trailers.

I don’t imagine there are a lot of other folks who share my interest, but I’ve always loved movie trailers. As far as I’m concerned, they’re an art form unto themselves (a very limited art form, true, but a form nonetheless). And finally, there’s a group recognizing that the art of creating a movie trailer ain’t just a question of slapping a bunch of scenes together and tacking it onto the beginning of another movie. I’ve talked about the selection of trailer music before (one of my first entries, in fact), but music is only part of the picture (though on a side note, I’ll mention that my latest movie-trailer-music find is the otherwise unavailable instrumental version of “Cells,” by The Servant, as featured in the trailers for Sin City). As the Golden Trailers demonstrate (and just about any moviegoer can attest), you can take a complete dog of a picture and make it look like a masterpiece with a good trailer (witness this year’s “Golden Fleece” award winner, White Noise). Or you can take a great picture and watch it die at the box office because the trailer makes it look like crap.

And then there’s the “movie trailer voice.” Ah, the voice. Voices nowadays, to be sure, as Don “Voice of God” LaFontaine’s monopoly is starting to erode.

And as was probably inevitable, the stars of the trailer world are starting to satirize themselves: LaFontaine in the trailer for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and “In a World...” guy Hal Douglas brilliantly self-lampooned in the hilarious trailer for Comedian (one of the few trailers that’s earned a permanent home on my hard drive).

I’m about to start cutting together a trailer myself, for the Team Jabberwocky production Bystander. It’s not going to be easy, but at least I’ve got a “movie trailer voice” in mind. All I have to do is ask him...