A Child Of Atom

You've got a small problem here. Several times over the past year or two I've gone to one of your movies and, as most movie goers do, I watched the trailers, hoping to catch a glimpse of what I'd be seeing next. Most of the trailers were greeted by indifference, or a big "Nope" on my part, but a few of them were interesting enough to get me back into the theatre, and to take another $10.75 from pocket. Which I assume was your goal.

Here's where the problem comes in. Why do you keep making trailers for movies that don't exist?

You made a great movie about a hispanic woman and her daughter and their struggle to fit into American society. It was charming, and had a lot to say about class struggle and cultural assimilationism. It had a great cast, who gave solid performances. Unfortunately you called it Spanglish and made a trailer for it that seemed like it was about a nutty caucasian family going through a divorce scare. And it was, I suppose, but that was by far the least interesting part of the movie. It was a subplot that existed mainly as a foil for the hispanic family, and the best comedy in the film occurred at the intersection of the two plots. Did you think that it would be difficult to sell a movie starring hispanics to a white audience, or what?

I saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose expecting a standard horror movie, probably not very good, since most horror movie are not very good these days, but passable entertainment close to Halloween. That's what I was expecting from the trailers at least. Somehow, as I was watching the movie, it morphed into a courtroom drama with supernatural overtones. How'd that happen? Did you realize that even Laura Linney couldn't carry a plot that dry so you gave us the trailer for the movie you wished you had instead? You did the same thing with An American Haunting which the trailers would have had us believe was an exploration of the legend of one of the greatest ghost stories from American history. Instead I was delivered what amounted to a debunking of the legend, which was not nearly as satisfying as it could have been. Granted, it was a bad movie, so maybe you did the best with the materials you had to work with, but you could have at least been honest with us about where the movie was headed.

Tonight you did it again. I saw Man of the Year, expecting something along the lines of Dave, where the film makers explored the concept of a non-politico suddenly thrust into a political situation. Instead I got a watered down political thriller that couldn't make up it's mind whether it wanted to be The Net or a political comedy like The American President. This movie had the potential to skewer some of the current political mess that we are in, and comedically explore the path that our elected leaders have chosen to follow of late. It could have ranked with Bulworth or Wag the Dog as one of the best political comedies ever. The trailers made it look like it would. Robin Williams appeared to be making a return to comedic glory, in a role that was tailor made for him. Laura Linney looked to be playing his love interest in the trailer, when in reality they share maybe 10 minutes of screen time. There is an audience for the movie that you made the trailer for, and that audience is not going to like the movie you actually made. I know, because I didn't. The smart political comedy that I was there to see ended about half an hour into the movie when Linney's plot kicked into high gear and I was treated to warmed over plot rejects from Enemy of the State.

Now I know that asking for honesty in advertising is like asking for honesty in politics, but wouldn't all be better served by trailers that actually reflect the plot of the movie being screened? I won't go as far as to ask for trailers that don't fool me into thinking some pile of mess will actually be funny or good, but is this really too much to ask for? I'd be much happier and feel far less cheated if my $10.75 went where I thought it was going, good or bad. Voting with your dollars is hard to do when the packaging says apples, but contains oranges.