TOOTH FAIRY (Trailer) + PRECIOUS (Trailer)

Did you think Will Ferrel's character in 2003's big Christmas hit Elf was too much of a pussy? Then thank god for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson taking on the role of a hockey player turned tooth fairy in a film directed by the man who brought us The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. Watch out for the bit in the trailer where Dwayne, in a low whispy voice, says "I'm the tooth fairy... ... ... Oh yeah." Brilliant (but obviously not really brilliant, I still don't understand films that seem to have the message of "let your imagination take flight, believe in tooth fairies" where the whole plot makes a joke of lying to young children and through its over-the-top depiction of the myth reinforcing how ridiculously impossible it is and therefore, by extension, how stupid children really must be) NEXT TRAILER:



First off, my gripe is not really with the film or its content because, as a male from a middle class family (and as I expect, just like the majority of other film critics) I would never dream of giving such a film a negative review in fear of appearing maybe just a tad Hitler. People can give The Soloist a bad review because it's got Robert Downey Jr. in it and it doesn't have the independent film, rags to riches angle to it that Precious does.

I would advise you all to watch the "exclusive" trailer on apple trailers for the purposes of this post: http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/precious/

As I said my problem lies not with the film, but with the trailers. First off, why the hell is every trailer being produced these days twelve million hours long? Two minutes and a half is way too long to advertise a film, it is so long in fact that you get to see most of the movie, in Precious's case, I dare say, all of the big scenes. Brevity is key to film-making in general. 2:30 mins is a minute too long just as Deer Hunter or Once Upon A Time in America are 3 hours too long (although both brilliant films it takes something away from them).

Secondly, I know Oprah is queen of America and holds more power than Obama and Jesus combined, but what is she doing in a movie trailer? Trailers are heavily edited versions of films that should sell the product to the audience on its own merits, the District 9 trailer didn't have Peter Jackson pitching in every 30 seconds saying "This film is just so powerful" unlike Precious where Oprah and some bloke interupt to tell us how proud they are to present this "independent" film (whatever consitutes as independent). Oprah even says "I want everybody I know to go see it" well just tell your friends then, not the entire internet.

Thirdly, I don't care how good Mariah Carey's performance is her presence will ruin whatever part of the film she is in (she's got dark hair to confuse the morons, she's a Harlem social worker or something) because whenever you see her it will pull you out of the film as you think "Oh that's Mariah Carey hur hur hur." I know you get that with certain actors anyway, but I just hate her and would rather see her in Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, except she gets the shit kicked out of her by Willem Dafoe.

I'm going to see Up tonight so look forward to a totally unbias review from the world's biggest Pixar fanatic :)