Read my Reviews of Movie Trailers, Won’t You?

By Adam Quesnell
Contributing Writer

Disclaimer: I am finishing this column after an eight hour drive from Appleton, Wisconsin, running on four hours of sleep (in a room with a shower curtain for a door), a 5 hour energy drink, four A&W Root Beers, a Pepsi Max, and a King Sized Peanut Butter Twix. Basically…I am fueled by sugar garbage and hanging on to lucidity with fingernails that could probably be used as the hard sugar stick found in a Fun Dip candy. I’m basically taffy blood and cheeseburger shaped organs at this point. Also, yesterday I ate a gyro that must have consisted of most of a small lamb. So…that can’t be doing me any favors.

I was having a tough time nursing my column out of my exhausted brain this week. I was originally going to write about all of the fun I had in comedy last week. I had the chance to perform an MC week at the Skyline Comedy Café with hilarious headliner Stewart Huff and the incredibly funny Bill Squier (MSN Bing them now if you have a soul that likes to laugh…or, if you don’t believe in the soul…if you have a godless blackness in your heart that likes to laugh). I knew the hilarious Stewart Huff was headlining, but I was surprised to see Bill as the feature. Bill was one of the first people I MC’ed for at Courtney’s Comedy Club. He is nice and supportive and I found out that Stewart was the same way. I also performed at the Red Raven Open Mic and in a comedy contest at the Joke Joint in St. Paul.

It was an awesome week, but when I tried to write about it…it wasn’t funny. I know that this column is sort of formless and I could write ABOUT comedy in a more educational and less funny way if I wanted, but A: I actually know very little in the way of teaching anyone about comedy anything…and B: it wouldn’t be as fun as writing short reviews of movie trailers…So, I’m just going to do that instead.

REVIEW OF THE TRAILER FOR BATTLESHIP

They made a film out of the game Battleship. I know one might expect a predictable film based on the game Battleship to consist of a tense drama about opposing naval fleets battling under harsh physical and political conditions to decide the fate of the free world. However, the trailer for the film Battleship starts on the beach and ends with ships fighting UFOs…I mean, who doesn’t remember that tense moment in any Battleship match when the blonde dude from True Blood looks through a periscope to see an alien spacecraft rising out of the game board? Oh, I know who doesn’t remember that…EVERYONE.  Everyone doesn’t remember that! I would rather watch Forrest Whitaker portray an autistic adult who is playing in a Battleship tournament to win his mother’s soul back from a demon. How does the actual film relate to the game outside of the use of Battleships in some capacity? Well, the editor of the trailer was sure to include that the sonar of the human fleet is malfunctioning…so, you know…please poison me in my sleep.

REVIEW OF THE FIRST THEATRICAL TRAILER FOR DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK

I couldn’t write a review of this because I was too busy changing my own diaper. Just know that this trailer involves little monsters that try to eat Katie Holmes…that’s not the terrifying part. Crank the volume if you watch this clip.

REVIEW OF THE TRAILER FOR GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGANCE

This trailer opens with the balding voice of Nicholas Cage talking about something to do with the demon inside of him over an image of turning burning chains. This then cuts to a series of clips as a disgusting hairless hero played by Nicholas Cage…as well as Ghost Rider (played by a computer machine), the chain wielding, fiery-skulled, leather-wearing biker who is apparently incredibly mad about something. Some of the effects actually look neat…like when Nicholas Cage looks like he has normal human hair from that one angle. The trailer ends with a kid asking Nicholas Cage what happens if he has to pee when he is on fire…then it cuts to a rear shot of Ghost Face Rider swinging flames in front of him, which looks like he is urinating fire. Did the first Ghost Rider movie even do well enough to warrant a sequel? I mean…I didn’t see it, but I saw the trailer and it made me think, “I would rather see a documentary-style Daredevil sequel written/directed/and starring Casey Affleck’s ghost.”

REVIEW OF THE TEASER TRAILER FOR THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

This teaser is so cool you should have to pay a quarter to watch it in a private booth. The end.

TRAILER FOR SHARK NIGHT 3D

When a film is called Shark Night 3D and the trailer opens with college kids packing up to go to what must certainly be a salt water lake, you know that it’s something that likely isn’t worth $10 plus the fee for 3D glasses. This trailer looks like a humorless take on the shark antagonist horror thriller…but, since I’m a dummy, the trailer also reveals a torture porn angle to draw me in because they understand that these types of films turn out best when genres are simply dumped into a blender and poured into the eyes of an audience that wants to see hopeless idiots eaten by a terrible looking CG shark.

Did I already ask to be poisoned in my sleep? I did? Well, get to an apothecary…these movies come out soon and time grows short!

Thanks for reading, and please remember—if the trailer looks TERRIBLE…the film is probably something you could wait to see at the Discount Cinema.

Adam Quesnell is a stand-up comedian and writer working out of Moorhead, MN. Send feedback to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), follow him on twitter at twitter.com/adamquesnell or visit http://www.adamquesnell.com