Going to “…River..” last night, I had to sit through a lot of pretentious “triumph of the human spirit” previews for foreign films about people suffering and hugging and dancing in faraway lands. Got me thinking about the sad state of movie previews these days. The primary offender, of course, is the “let’s tell the whole movie, including the ending” disease. This is actually a benefit for a movie like “The Wedding Planner,” where you’re relieved they told the whole thing so you don’t have to suffer through it in real time. But for a movie that you actually want to see, well…
I used to really enjoy the previews – they were like little movies unto themselves. Now I’m just a crabby old man who doesn’t want to see even two minutes of the latest Martin Lawrence train wreck. Maybe it’s just the avalanche of crappy movies in the theaters now, but these days I don’t mind if I come in just as the movie’s starting. That way, I’ll likely also be spared a mind-numbing commercial for Mountain Dew. And that’s a good thing.