Our Screenwriter has been overwhelmed this week with arrangements involving his actual scriptwriting, so here in his place is a suitably screen-orientated website recommendation:
I don’t want this to turn into an advert for Apple, so in a timely way I’ll open with a comment on the iPad, which looks like it’s going to be exactly the kind of thing one should expect from Apple – desirable enough to make you want one, but ultimately fulfilling neither the use of a laptop nor an eReader, thereby meaning you could never justify buying one, and it will ever remain one of those things that you covet. So screw them.
As is the case with the iPad, Apple never quite hits all the buttons, but what they are fanstastic at, is simplicity, and this is the joy of their trailers page. Why exactly Apple has a page where it simply displays the latest film trailers I’m not quite sure; perhaps they’re viewed on their iPods and Pads they whizz along that little bit faster, but I have never found myself wanting to watch them on the move. No, the trailer website is for those times when you have a little bit of time where nothing is happening. Perhaps you’ve woken up a little bit earlier than expected and have a bit of trawling time before going to a lecture; or woken up a bit later and have already missed the lecture, and are feeling aimless. Personally I like them if I’ve made lunch and there’s no one in the house: if you start watching something long at that point, you’re left without food far before it’s over, or if you spend a while choosing something you really want to watch, your food will be cold. Trailers are perfect, because they come in bite sizes, and you can watch as few or as many as you want.
Some people complain that trailers give away far too much of the film, but that is exactly their attraction. The number of films that come out nowadays is vast. Until I started visiting this page, I’d never realized quite how many it was, mainly because often they don’t make it to the UK, or sometimes not even to any cinema screen at all. There is no way I have the time, money or inclination to see them all, but every film gets made for a reason; there’s always some bit of interest in the plot, star or setting, even if it’s only enough to fill up 50 seconds of footage. So, as quite frequently happens when I try to watch a whole film, with a trailer there’s never time to get bored.
It seems perverse to enjoy these tiny tasters of plots, when I know I will rarely see the full story, but it is a similar enjoyment to that of reading the blurbs of books in Waterstone’s: it is the condensation of plot that makes them interesting: trailers are designed to be pure, unadulterated excitement: they hit all those hermeneutic and proairetic codes in an effort to leave you tantalized for more. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately, given the time and money constrictions mentioned above) they usually fail, and a little taster of the story leaves you satisfied; but on those occasions when they really get it right, you have the rare pleasure of a potentially good film to look forward to.
AP





