Gimmicks, tropes, and why we love them

Two horror trailers have grabbed my attention this year, but not because they're teasing some kind of innovative, genre-busting, or intellectual take on scary movies. It's because they demonstrate a combination even more addictive than Trader Joe's peanut butter cups: high concept and lowbrow. "Wish Upon" and "Happy Death Day" both set up either marginally likable or somewhat unlikable heroines using a tried-and-true trope, and it's catnip to me.

"Wish Upon" re-configures Richard Matheson's old "Button, Button" premise in which protagonists get their wishes granted, at the price of someone's death each time. Richard Kelly's "The Box" made something heady and fairly interesting of Matheson's concept, as befitted the writer-director of "Donnie Darko," but "Wish Upon" is aiming decidedly lower: at teens, and maybe even tweens who somehow sneak a horror rental into a sleepover, if those still even happen.

Star Joey King is best known for playing Ramona Quimby, fer chrissakes, so she's pulling a Selena Gomez-in-"Spring Breakers" and darkening her rep. Based on the trailer, pro tip for poor Sherilyn Fenn: Keep yer damn braid away from the garbage disposal next time! Anyway, King's character goes from zero to popular girl, lotsa people die in gratuitously gruesome ways, etc. I likely won't actually watch this dreck, but why do gimmicks grab me -- us -- so persuasively? Why do I even slightly want to watch this movie?

Maybe the answer can be found in the trailer for "Happy Death Day." Meet Tree, played by Jessica Rothe. Tree is a popular, bitchy, probably somewhat vapid sorority-type college student. Tree has a big birthday, everyone who's anyone attends, and somebody in a super-creepy mask kills her dead.

Roll credits? Nah.

See, Tree is stuck in a "Groundhog Day"-inspired time loop. She dies, she wakes up the morning of her "death day," and the whole kit and caboodle starts all over again. Fun fun! Tree has to solve her own murder, etc. ("I Don't Know Who Killed Me" -- alternate title?) Anyway, this one looks targeted at a slightly more sophisticated audience, in light of the fact that Blumhouse produced it. And it might be good fun, especially since bitchy vapid Tree gets help, evidently, from clean-scrubbed, geeky male classmates with whom I have to believe, if anything is sacred, she will mightily hook up with once he helps her save her own life from Masky McStab-Stab. But again, why is this trailer taunting me with its movie's theoretical entertainingness? Why do I want to see "Happy Death Day"?

I suspect it's mostly this: Tropes = comfort. When Blumhouse waves this particular product in front of our figurative and collective nose, we know what they're selling. So we have a general sense of the likelihood that we'll like it. That's something that's distinguished mainstream film from so-called art film for at least a few decades now. "Tree of Life" guarantees views nothing except multiple WTF moments. "Boo 2! A Madea Halloween"? The trailers are pretty much two-minute versions of the movie, and a bargain at the low, low price of free.

And yet... a movie like "Happy Death Day" also promises to have some wit up its sleeve. I wrote about horror-comedy recently, and how it's an ever-loving hassle to pull off. Well, "Happy Death Day" promises us it'll mine the existential-comedy antics of "Groundhog Day" while also tapping into the popcorn-y meta-horror of "Scream." As prepackaged products go, that sounds mighty tasty. Most moviegoers, I hope, don't want total paint-by-numbers gruel when they go to the theater or illegally download or whatever. But a familiar formula shot through with some offbeat humor -- or at least humor that's somewhat funny -- and an intelligence level that exceeds what is fundamentally necessary to plot and dialogue a film, well, that's sometimes exactly what the cinedoctor ordered. (In action, see: "Kong: Skull Island.")

We who love originality and realism in movies can also love watching old beats being skillfully hit. Not every horror movie needs to be "Get Out," and even there, Jordan Peele played with tropes. How can you not? Horror is one of cinema's tropiest genres. The worst horror flicks are built with tropes, zip ties, and fake gore. The best are much classier and, sometimes, sassier, but they're not from an entirely different family. Jump scares are scary! Shadows are shadowy! Icky-looking figures wandering slowly but unswervingly toward you are very unsettling!

Even arguably the best horror movie of the 21st century, "Cabin in the Woods," paid loving homage to the tropes it was upending. Ultimately, Pauline Kael was right: "Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them."

The new "Hunger Games" trailer is terrific

See for yourself:

Trailer of the year so far

With Jesse Eisenberg starring, Aaron Sorkin writing, and David Fincher directing, it could be pretty damn good. One of fall's must-sees for me.

"Winnebago Man" looks terrific

Dying to see this.

When bad = awesome

This looks sweet. I'm a sucker for certain bad movies (e.g., Howard the Duck), and one of the reasons I love film in general is that it brings people together. Sometimes, deeply awful movies are better at that than extremely good ones, and this documentary is proof (as is David Schmader's long-running, unfailingly hilarious Showgirls shtick.)

The return of Andrea Arnold

The extremely talented British writer-director, whose 2003 short film Wasp won an Oscar (and still shocks me with its brilliance), has a new movie, Fish Tank, coming out in the U.S. this month. (Her first feature, Red Road, was intelligent and very well acted and directed, but a little dry for my taste.) Based on the trailer, and the fact that it's racking up international awards, I'm betting Fish Tank is her ticket to the worldwide acclaim she so richly deserves. Arnold is especially impressive to me because she's nearly 50 -- decades older than the typical up-and-coming filmmaker. Her work is an inspiring reminder that it's never too late to begin a creative endeavor, or even to become a career artist.

"Mammoth" expectations

I'm a big fan of Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, so I was excited to discover that he has a new film coming out -- with Michelle Williams in a lead role, no less. It'll be great to see her continue to flex the acting muscles she showed off in Brokeback Mountain. Both Together and the devastating Lilja 4-ever demonstrated Moodysson's skillful touch with actors and mastery of tone, so I'm eager to see what he brings to a fairly ordinary-looking troubled-marriage story. Also anxious to see Andrew Bujalski's newest, Beeswax, at Northwest Film Forum this week. I've been following Bujalski's work ever since I reviewed his wonderful feature debut, Funny Ha Ha (scroll down after clicking to read my review), and I'm always interested to see what he's up to. Doesn't hurt that Beeswax has been getting raves from many a critic, including Kibbutz regular Leyna Krow. If that girl doesn't know about mumblecore, who does?

The song that's currently stuck in my head

Thanks a lot, New York, I Love You trailer.

The power of "Mad World"

The venerable Tears for Fears song, famously covered by Gary Jules for the Donnie Darko soundtrack, has become the go-to recording for game and movie producers looking to imbue their cultural products with an extra level of gravitas or sensitivity you never knew was there (because it isn't). Darko's "Mad World" montage, which gives us a glimpse of nearly every character in the film, would be nowhere near as moving without Jules' cover:



His take on the song shimmers with the same kind of intelligence and sadness Darko conveys, which makes it something like a perfect match for the movie.

In contrast, the makers of Gears of War 2, a sequel to the extremely popular (and violent) combat game, went against conventional wisdom by scoring their trailer not with balls-out death metal, but with the deeply emotional strains of... yep, "Mad World":



Presumably, this was an attempt not only to suggest that the game had hidden emotional depths but also to attract a more adult audience than the game already had -- or simply to reassure adult Gears addicts that they'd chosen a genuinely sensitive, profound shoot-'em-up as the object of their addiction.

Finally, we come to the trailer for The Crazies, a 2010 remake of a 1973 George Romero horror film about a virus that turns people into zombies:



Et voilà! A seemingly conventional splatter pic becomes a melancholy rumination on the human condition, the existential reality that we're all basically alone, etc. Or something like that. What's also interesting is that Darko, Gears, and Crazies all share decidedly apocalyptic themes. The whole thing reminds me of Mike Barthel's excellent paper on Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," presented at the 2007 EMP Pop Conference. "Mad World" seems well on its way to "Hallelujah"-level pop-culture ubiquity and shorthand value.

A different world

The trailer for James Cameron's Avatar, his first feature since 1997's Titanic, debuted online today. I kind of wish the preview hadn't revealed what the aliens look like, but I guess an enigmatic, Cloverfield-style campaign was too much to hope for. The animation looks excessively like a video game or a cartoon for my taste (think Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within grafted onto typical Cameron sci-fi action), but I'll almost certainly see it -- in 3-D, since I don't share Roger Ebert's disdain for the format.

Angel with an AK

I thought 2012 looked ridiculous, but Legion has it beat. (Watch the trailer; you'll see what I mean.) Evil shape-shifting angels who bite people and light cars on fire? Archangel Gabriel as a supervillain? Nice job, Hollywood. Way to give the Religious Right more ammo in their war against the entertainment industry. Now it's that much easier to dismiss it as a heathenish, amoral wasteland.

Seriously, though: The old lady zombie angel? Who crawls on the ceiling? I feel like I've seen that in 20 other thriller previews.

I want a Jewish equivalent in which Moses comes back for revenge after being denied entrance to the Promised Land: Exodus II: Moses Strikes Back. Trailer ends with him turning a bazooka on God. Robert Downey, Jr., stars in full Tropic Thunder mode.

Michael Bay directs.

The female Michael Bay?

Coming soon to a mall multiplex near you: Yet another Nancy Meyers movie that's sure to suck. Mr. Bay has been getting razzed like crazy for the atrocity that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen apparently is, but Meyers -- the woman behind the unbelievably insipid The Holiday -- also deserves some brickbats for putting actors as talented as Streep, Baldwin, and Martin in what looks like stone-dumb dreck. Every joke in the trailer is unfunny; every time the script tries to be even remotely hip, it fails miserably. As a writer, Meyers has a tin ear; as a director, she's bad with comic timing. Like Bay's, her oeuvre represents the worst of Hollywood product: unimaginative, unoriginal, and virtually unwatchable.

"The Lovely Bones" and "Paris" trailers

I've read Alice Sebold's novel twice and still have considerable affection for it; based on the trailer for Peter Jackson's movie version, I'm afraid he's lost Sebold's delicate tone. Not surprising, just disappointing. The new Cédric Klapisch film, Paris, looks like more of the same from the talented French writer-director, but I loved L'Auberge Espagnole and liked Russian Dolls, so I'll go. Wish Kate and Angela were in town to see it with me.

"Juno" + "Night of the Demons" =

Screenwriter Diablo Cody's follow-up to her semi-iconic portrait of teen pregnancy angst is a horror-comedy flick that looks both fierce and fun. I may not be able to resist. The casting of Transformers star Megan Fox is particularly clever, in light of countless male fans' open, unrelenting lust for her. This, apparently, is what you get, boys.

Update, Aug. 6: Here's ye olde red-band trailer -- which, despite the note from "Karyn, Diablo, and Jason," isn't better than the green-band one, and actually seems a bit worse.

Good on Tobey Maguire...

...for getting cast against type. Not that I'll see this, but it's nice to know he has a life after "Spider-Man." I still remember how much I liked his performance in Wonder Boys.

Apocalypse porn

From Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, comes what could be the most ridiculous, destruction-filled catastrophe epic ever made. Do I totally suck if I kinda wanna see it? I have a weakness for trashy end-of-the-world flicks (is there any other kind?), particularly if they star Amanda Peet and the former Lloyd Dobler.

Scorsese does horror?

Not quite, but close enough.

Summer of love

The romantic comedy needs an overhaul. Not unlike the horror genre, which many would consider its polar opposite, the romcom has a bad reputation, and unfortunately it's often justified. There are some good horror movies, but many of them are awful, relying as they do on gimmickry, gore, and extremely tired formulas. Similarly, romantic comedies frequently err on the side of color-by-numbers plotting and character development that hold few surprises for the viewer. And since that's precisely the opposite of what love is actually like, it's easy to get cynical. The last cardboard Hollywood romcom I saw, He's Just Not That Into You, combined a lifeless, unintelligent script with meager direction and underwhelming performances from stars who should know better. Movies like this are why people love to hate romantic comedy, dismissing it as a frothy genre stuffed with untruths, the big-screen equivalent of the Harlequin novel.

The Stranger once declared Annie Hall the best romcom ever, and it's hard to disagree. Woody Allen's masterpiece captures the awkwardness and serendipity of dating (in the famous first-kiss sequence, for example), the hope that love inspires, and the way two people can grow apart slowly but surely -- and how hard it can be to let go of the other person, even when you know, in your heart and in your head, that you should. Annie Hall is funny and insightful, yet for all its intelligence it maintains a breezy tone. It's tremendously well structured; every corner of the film, every scene, every moment, is packed with signifiers and color and throwaway jokes and sharp observations. Yet despite its density, it's always a joy to watch, never a slog. It's the kind of movie I can't see too many times, the kind I have to watch until the end if I happen to find that it's on. It doesn't pretend that love is a simple undertaking, but it also captures love's simple pleasures, which are many if you're open to them. For anyone who's been in love and hopes to be again, Annie Hall is a touchstone and a virtual bible of relationship wisdom. With that film as the gold standard, many newer ones understandably -- but still regrettably -- fall short.

Enter 500 Days of Summer, one of the movies I'm most eagerly anticipating at SIFF this year. When I taught an Experimental College class at Oberlin on contemporary (post-Annie Hall) romantic comedies, I sought to include films that didn't conform too much to genre tropes. When Harry Met Sally..., that immortal statement about male-female friendship, was one movie I chose; High Fidelity, about how relationships shape and reveal us, was another. I titled the class "Chasing Love," which I hoped would contain both a whiff of Shakespeare's "What fools these mortals be!" perspective (the Bard, after all, is the source of many romcom tropes) and an intimation of the timeless emotional slapstick to be found in our pursuit of romance.

What Summer promises is a tale of unrequited love. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt falls for Zooey Deschanel (and who wouldn't?), but she doesn't fall quite so hard for him. Hard enough, it seems, to date him for the titular 500 days, but not so hard that she won't cut him loose after that. Gordon-Leavitt is an actor who's played both jaded rebels (Mysterious Skin) and downy innocents (The Lookout), and judging from the trailer he'll be working on the latter end of the spectrum this time around. Deschanel has played jaded to another actor's innocence (Elf and Almost Famous), but this role will require more nuance, and I'm sure she's up to the challenge.

What makes me optimistic about the movie is that it seems intent on doing what one of my favorite books, Blankets, does so beautifully: reminding us that love, real love, is heartbreaking whether or not it lasts, and regardless of whether it's requited. (The movie's lovely tagline offers a clue: "This is not a love story, it's a story about love.") Whether it's easier to be the adored or the adorer is an open question, but to open yourself so wide emotionally is always a trial. Of course, it's a trial that's good for us, but how many times will we submit to it before we turn away forever?

Charlyne Yi, the heroine of Paper Heart (which also stars Michael Cera, and is also at SIFF), thinks she's done with love. The film's mock-documentary approach was hard for me to grasp at first, based only on the trailer; I thought it was a fictionalization of a real relationship between Yi and Cera. In any case, Yi might well stand in for the cynical viewer who's ready to snipe at the first false note in a romcom. Justin Long giving a last-minute speech on Ginnifer Goodwin's doorstep, confessing his true love? Yeah, whatever. Paper Heart seems to be saying that even if we give up on chasing love, there's nothing stopping love from coming after us when we least expect it.

Finally, Adam (at SIFF as well) reveals the personality quirks that populate ordinary romcoms (Sally's habit of ordering everything on the side in When Harry Met Sally..., for example) to be molehills compared to the mountainous task of loving someone with bigger challenges. The film's title character has Asperger's, and the trailer suggests that his condition gets the kind of treatment -- sympathetic, but not sugarcoated -- that 500 Days and Paper Heart try to give romance in general. I've not yet seen any of these films, but I have reason to believe that they could help revitalize one of my favorite genres. Here's hoping.

Mumblecore meets hardcore

God, I loved writing that post title.

Anyway, Humpday looks fun. It's great to see movies big (I Love You, Man) and small (the aforementioned) giving male heteronormativity a well-deserved noogie. Reed says it's at SIFF, so I'd better get my ticket soon, since it's local and all.

Julie & Julia seems promising, too, and not just because it reunites Streep and Tucci post-Prada. It's also got wonderful, wonderful Chris Messina and my #2 movie-star crush, Amy Adams. Chick flick of the year? Likely. (P.S. When somebody wants to turn Red Blue Green into a movie, can we get Chris Messina to play me?)

And you know what? Even the new Woody looks all right.

One last note: The Grand Illusion is currently playing Plague Town, whose trailer is pretty disturbing. I may be moving tentatively toward horror, but I don't think I'm quite ready for something this fierce. I may experiment with a horror flick or two during SIFF, but we'll just have to see.

And the offbeat romcoms keep on coming

This summer promises to be a season of off-the-beaten-path romantic comedies, which suits me fine. Adam features the wonderful Rose Byrne and adds Asperger's to the mix.