A viewing of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Part One the other night allowed a viewing of the big trailers for 2011. Although they’ve all been linked online, there’s nothing like seeing them on the big screen.
YOGI BEAR. You watch this and then you walk to the window and look out at the starlings sitting on the telephone wire, and the kids riding their bikes in the alley and the grey sky lowering with storm clouds and wonder where it all went wrong, and why you even bother trying anymore. Isn’t all human endeavor a futile pretense at holding back the darkness? And then you shoot the people who made this trailer, and everything is much better.
GREEN HORNET — this played pretty well now that we know it’s a follow-up to PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. The crowd (the theater was absolutely PACKED for POTTER) seemed not to hate this, but that wasn’t a really positive endorsement either.
COWBOYS AND ALIENS — this is an excellent trailer and it definitely made me want to see this movie. Jon Favreau is a fine entertainer. BTW, you all know Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are in this, but apparently there is a girl character, too.
GREEN LANTERN. Hm. When they got to the part about “It chose you! To become one of us! To become…a Green Lantern!” a teenage girl sitting next to me exclaimed “A Green Lantern? What?”** You can buy that whole ‘You were chosen to save the galaxy” part just fine but then it’s called..Green Lantern…and it loses something. Also, the costume looked stupid at the end. Really stupid. Given Ryan Reynold’s new Sexiest Man Alive status, it’s best to keep harping on that. Please note, Warners has a lot riding on this movie, and I’m sure future trailers will be more impressive.
As for HARRY POTTER 7 — I’m not a fan of David Yates’ direction but it worked here pretty well. The action scenes were still badly directed — when a major character dies about 5 minutes in someone has to announce it because you don’t actually see it happen even though it’s onscreen — but the character stuff, which is mostly what this film is, worked very well, especially the Harry-Hermione-and-Ron wandering around the woods for months part. Everyone always says this part is boring in the book but I’m like how are you supposed to show how miserable and hopeless things are without writing a long, miserable hopeless section of the book? At any rate, the age of the stars — now 20 instead of 10 — really worked to show the gravity and darkening of the general mood. I’m really looking forward to the big finale!
BTW this chapter should really have been called HERMIONE GRANGER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, because without her, everyone would be toast and they know it.
**Although I’ve quoted her here, this girl and her date were soon my unfriends because they talked loudly during the movie — not just the odd comment but loud CONVERSATIONS about what was happening — something which doesn’t happen that much at my theater. I actually shushed them twice, and after that they started whispering, after acting like I was being the rude one. Like all civilized people I detest talking during movies, except for the odd funny comments. When another major character dies towards the end, a woman loudly proclaimed “—– died??? That’s fucked up!” and THAT was funny.
Nice overview of your movie experience, Heidi. Sorry to hear that some rude talkers almost ruined the evening, but this seems to be the ongoing trend. It’s like they think they’re watching it casually at home with their friends.
Frankly, I thought that if it wasn’t for Emma Watson’s scenes, this movie would have been a serious slog. The pacing seemed hopelessly erratic and the overall mood really became tiresome about halfway through.
Nice calls on the trailers, too. Thank God my cinema didn’t show the Yogi Bear one, as I probably would have thrown up my lunch.
The crowd I saw HP in this weekend began laughing outloud (I mean really loud!) when the title came up for “Cowboys & Aliens”. If you think Green Lantern may be a hard sell, if the audience is already laughing at the title, not sure if they’ll go through and see the picture….
It’s not that they think they’re at home, it’s that they think they’re entitled to do whatever they please wherever they please to do it.
And you have to admit, the actor playing Yogi Bear is a remarkable likeness. Much better than that guy playing Cameron Diaz
There really is a follow-up to Pineapple Express, btw: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1240982/
“It’s not that they think they’re at home, it’s that they think they’re entitled to do whatever they please wherever they please to do it.”
It’s magnified cell phone etiquette; they really think the universe revolves around whatever they’re talking about.
I had the same reaction to the Yogi Bear trailer. Do kids today even know who Yogi Bear is? I predict this will die a much deserved death at the box office.
Re: Green Lantern – I say Potter with my friend and his wife. The wife, who I am sure doesn’t know who or what a Green Lantern is, gave the trailer two enthusiastic thumbs up solely because of Ryan Reynolds. I expect this will be a hit along the lines of Iron Man. Costume (and especially the mask) does look ridiculous though.
Re: Potter, I couldn’t disagree more. I thought the action scenes were reasonably well done but that there were WAY too many scenes of the three kids in a tent in the woods. We get it – Ron likes Hermione but can’t tell her and is jealous of Harry but is still a great friend etc etc etc. This was made perfectly clear in each of the last four films in the series! No Snape, minimal Voldemort; I loved the scene in the coffee shop and was really hoping it would go from there into the first half of a slam-bang finish with all the characters participating, not a meditative study on the Harry/Hermione/Ron dynamic. The characters are already very well established, making the additional character “development” in this film unnecessary, repetitive, and boring.
Also, I saw all the other films but for some reason had a lot of trouble figuring out what the hell was going on. Three hours and they only destroyed one horcrux? And now are they abandoning the search for those and going after the deathly hallows objects? Why didn’t anyone (besides Voldemort) make a beeline to Dumbledore’s grave to grab that wand? From what I’ve heard/read I am in the minority on this one, but there must be others who agree…..
The theatre I was in also laughed, with some groaning at the “Cowboys & Aliens” title. They were reacting positively to the movie up until that point.
It always seems to be the one’s who are talking during the movie that act like you are the rude one when you tell them to be quiet. I now pay extra to go to the theatres that serve alcohol, restricting those who are under 19 (drinking age in Ontario). While I might sound old, but removing teenagers mostly removes the talkers. Or perhaps it’s just those who are willing to pay extra for their movie ticket are not likely to talk during a movie.
Hmmm. I was always hesitant to go to the screenings where alcohol is served, reasoning drunk people are probably more likely to be chatty.
Even here at home the GL costume seems underwhelming, especially with that “save the universe” line. But isn’t that why his costume is a CG creation? So it can be tweaked until the final moments before release? Oa has that feeling too, like it was some weird CG representation of Oa on the Home and Garden channel that could be tweaked by an architect (the John Stewart GL perhaps?) if it didn’t meet the buyers’ wishes…
Except for the fact the Ryan Reynolds still somehow ends up looking like Ben Stiller somehow when he has the mask on. How the heck does THAT happen?
@Joseph “that there were WAY too many scenes of the three kids in a tent in the woods. ”
I couldn’t disagree more.
Just like the book, these scenes are needed (and I thought were well balanced with the action scenes (coffee shop, Ministry, Luna’s home and Malfoy’s home). These scenes aren’t a ” meditative study on the Harry/Hermione/Ron dynamic” they’re showing just how desperate and tenuous their lives (and those of their loved ones) have become.
This may be stretching things a bit, but when I read the book and saw the film, it felt like to me what the world, and especially Europe, may have been like in the early 1940’s.
This huge dark cloud of death with an evil army bent on conquering and wiping out those that are good and free, under the thumb of a power crazed despot.
These are three kids who are on constant fear for their lives with the ominous task of trying to defeat this evil with everything stacked against them.
Boring?
Far, far from it.
Harry Potter 7.1 is what it would be like if they split RETURN OF THE KING into twp parts and half of it was Sam and Frodo struggling across the plains of Morder.
Except that in this case, Mordor was East Anglia. And much nicer.
My movie date, Trish Mulvihill, who has seen all the movies but not read any of the books, was surprised by the change in tone and lack of Hogwarts. Just goes to show — when you establish a pattern, it make the break from the pattern all the more powerful.
Actually, Heidi, I feel like your “Yogi Bear” comment could apply to just about any of them. The same old bits and bobs recycled again and again.
@Richard – I didn’t get that from it. The world these characters lived in has been turned upside down, the equivalent of a Nazi invasion of America. But by separating them from everyone and everything that they were familiar with, I didn’t get any sense of how much different/worse things had become. Staying in the woods the entire time, I also didn’t get any sense of the danger they were in or how desperate things had become in the rest of their world. Your mileage obviously varies.
Heidi’s comparison to LOTR is interesting; maybe the fact they were camping in a beautiful forest, in a tent bigger than my apartment, contributed to my disconnect from what was supposed to be conveyed.
ahahahahhaa! The Twitterverse is aflame over the Green Lantern trailer. Who is the most prominent Green Lantern? No, not Hal Jordan. John Stewart. Quite possibly the most popular black superhero on the planet.
So what happens when you replace a black superhero (who many consider to be THE Green Lantern) with a white guy most people have never heard about in a major motion picture?
Green Lantern looks terrible. The highlight was the one-second glimpse of Mark Strong as Sinestro. Everything else was lame.
The person I was with laughed at every trailer EXCEPT Yogi Bear. And she wanted to talk the whole time. 29 must be the new 19, I guess.
Yogi Bear is going to be the big winner at the box office this winter. Maybe the Little Fockers will do alright, but expect Yogi Bear to do Alvin and the Chipmunks money.
Ryan Reynolds was just a terrible choice for Hal Jordan/Green Lantern.
Cowboys and Aliens does seem a bit hokey, but with that pedigree, I’ll give it a shot.
As someone that did not read the Harry Potter books, I was totally unsurprised by much of part 1. I too do not like David Yates and think Alfonso Cuaron has been the best director in the series. Hopefully part 2 goes well.
I like Ryan Reynolds, but as Green Lantern he seemed way off. Nothing about that trailer looked exciting.
As for Cowboys and Aliens, knowning about it since the original comic/graphic novel was being promoted, I thought it was a clever title and a neat premise. The trailer seemed incredibly dark and way to serious though. The clever, humorous title totally didn’t fit and made the movie go to skip from must-see for me.