Well well well.

I can’t make up my mind: does the trailer for Terry Gilliam’s Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas laugh with you, luring you into a sense of “hey, you can totally read Hunter Thompson’s book as a buddy comedy about the Sixties”, or does it laugh at you, in a grand, evil plan to suck money out of unsuspecting moviegoers?

The trippy ambiance is laid out for anyone to see, except for the more explicitly disturbing bits (White Rabbit, anyone?), and there is a sense that larger things are at play here - see the gorgeous “bat county” sunglasses shot, or poor little Christina Ricci being (we assume) left alone to fend for herself. On the other hand, compared to what happens in the movie, the score is cut and used in a drastically different way: same tracks, opposite situations. Everything sounds so much raunchier, and so harmless here, it might even work as a recut trailer.

Three Dog Night pops up at 1’ 12”, and that’s probably the moment of truth.

Random wisdom from YouTube commentators: “I love this movie. It appeals to all generations.”

Keeping up with yesterday’s dosage of Boy, The Nineties Did It Wrong On So Many Levels, I thought I’d pick another little something younger generations might just skip on their drama-free way to adulthood: 1994’s S.F.W.

See it here:

Theatrical trailer

30” trailer

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I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: the Nineties just didn’t work.

The longer trailer manages to do a decent job, though. First 30” function as a subtle parody of the “TV special within the movie” technique that was favored by pop storytelling at the time. Shades of Natural Born Killers are swiftly neutered, and the overall pace/look is pretty close to what they must have thought about while still in pre-production, the biggest clue being a then untested, emotional song as a character/audience bonding tool (hallo, Radiohead), whereas the choppy period-specific editing choices fill the coveted “anything can, and probably will, happen” spot (hallo, monumental spoiler).

And how Nineties are those big flickering words? Aww.

Still, the shorter, raucous trailer is much closer to the actual movie - disjointed as they come, trying to hit way too many targets and laying it all on Stephen Dorff’s alleged leading man potential.

True, I shouldn’t rag on him, since my girl just loved him in Blade. But one exploding vampire can only atone for so much (hallo, Norman Reedus).

Random wisdom from YouTube commentators: “1:43 it was for you !”

Another day, another dollar. Right?

The 1995 release of Tank Girl - The Movie would go on to become one of the most infamous cases of “comic book done wrong”. And a bitter reminder to future generations about how bad things can get when American middle-level producers try to stick the cool-by-association label to their output, acquiring the rights to any obscure “cult” phenomenon and then proceeding to butcher it senselessly.

Following a sky-high rights auction (at one point Mr. Spielberg himself chipped in) and some dubious expectations from Tank Girl fans, it ended up a) being a huge flop and b) bankrupting the magazine that featured the comic book as well.

To which I can only say: “Wow. Really?”

From the look of things, it’s a cheap, sad affair. Production values were trying for a campy, wink-wink two-dimension feel, maybe. But everything falls horribly flat. Come on. It looks like a Christophe Lambert vehicle from the mid-Nineties. And guess what? It plays out exactly like a Christophe Lambert vehicle from the mid-Nineties. Damn you. Damn you all to hell.

And yes, the very diverse and very large “featuring music by…” cards at the end should have warned us to stay away. Instead, we caught it on cable, were fooled by the cute intro and stayed there, unable to move.

Like they say - avoid female directors. They ovulate.

Random wisdom from YouTube commentators: “Ice T is a gangsta ass kangaroo. Calling him a ripper didn’t change the fact that that nigga was a damn kangaroo neither.”

Due to copyright issues, assorted YouTube mishaps and a whole slew of Unintentional Metafuckery, we are able to showcase 1992’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer theatrical trailer, but not the must-be-seen-to-be-believed TV ad which was on the air that summer.

So, go check out this link…

… and then join esteemed web designer Matteo and I in our little chat.

——

M: So. What do you make of it?

V: What do you make of it?

M: I saw the movie, but never tuned in for the show, and I know I’m the only one. In the TV ads Donald Sutherland doesn’t even exist. Were it released now, it would be hyped for months. It came off as just some dumb thing back then, because the Nineties were oh so serious, depressing, as Rourke would say.

V: You get some Sutherland in the theatrical trailer, but not a whole lot of him.

M: True. What you get is a lot of Luke Perry. But his name only pops up at the end. The TV ad goes like, “so, ok, this is just a regular 90210 episode with a couple vampires thrown in”…

M: (and that’s something they must have tried at some point)

M: … while the theatrical trailer is really keen to tell you “no, it’s a legitimate scary movie with Rutger Hauer, look, Donald Sutherland’s wearing a trenchcoat”.

V: Things the trailer is not telling you, part one: in a most bizarre turn of events, Hilary Swank - who plays Buffy’s lead bitch friend - would go on to become both the only Oscar winner ever featured in 90210 and the only Oscar winner to be fired from 90210.

V: Things the trailer is not telling you, part two: David Fucking Arquette turns into a vampire.

M: Is Buffy’s cheerleader outfit an homage to Bruce Lee’s yellow jumpsuit, way before Tarantino did it?

M: Did Rutger Hauer still have a manager at this point or just didn’t care anymore?

V: It went straight to video here. I seem to recall atrocious dubbing being involved.

(Full disclosure: I saw this in a theater. Fuck, I’m old.)

As one could predict, Stuart Gordon’s Space Truckers turns out to be neither as visually clever nor as funny as its trailer. Which would be a lie, considering that the trailer doesn’t promise anything special, besides a quirky idea for a B-movie being taken way too seriously.

Film itself is a little less self-righteous, though, with some situational humour that’s never even hinted at here - i.e. Dennis Hopper’s character being named “John Canyon”, or one amusingly raunchy scene involving the main villain - and elaborates a bit on the seductive idea of a future space highway, à la Galaxy Express 999.

On the other hand, yes, the whole holyfuckthatsarobot angle is as crudely drawn as you see here, and yes, once again Stephen Dorff’s alleged magnetism is M.I.A.. Oh, and ’80s scream queen / future Bold And The Beautiful employee Barbara Crampton makes a super fast cameo at the end.

Random wisdom from YouTube commentators: “if this movie is so good why is it rated so low on IMDB?”