And we’re back! The first new episode of Trailers Without Pity of 2011, for the space alien invasion movie Battle: Los Angeles, has been posted on TWOP.
This kicks off our third season of the web show. We’ll be doing fewer episodes per season (12-15 or so instead of a gajillion) and taking breaks in between seasons so we don’t get burned out and exhausted. You can see our complete Trailers Without Pity Episode Guide with the entire video archive. That’s a lot of damn videos.
I like a good alien invasion. I thought War of the Worlds was fantastically terrifying and dug me some Cloverfield. I’m surprised there aren’t more movies like this. Then again, ask me in two months and I’ll probably tell you this was a huge mistake and that the market is oversaturated. Such is my wont.
We should be back next time with Sucker Punch in two weeks.
I don’t know if it was the vacation I took from work in late December, the fact that I just purged out my desk at work and moved to a new one (more on that in a sec) or just a general sense of delayed New Year’s reflection, but I haven’t felt this content, centered and focused in a while. It just makes me realize what a nervous wreck I was last summer and fall as I was galloping to try to catch up on major writing assignments at work (and at home) and balance it with a toddler on the brink of being potty trained and an infant in the house.
Whatever the reason, the last few weeks have felt really good in some weird, undefined way. The air seems scented with possibility and at one lull in my December vacation, my wife joked about how relaxed and laid back I was, something she rarely gets to see.
“Oh, don’t get used to this. Relaxed Omar will be gone soon. Say goodbye. He’s great, but he’ll disappear by mid-January,” I told her.
I think she may have cried.
The 2011 good mood is partly because a lot has been resolved of late. The Kirkus Reviews project, which started back in October, is finally wrapping up, at least in its current phase. I committed to write 50 children’s app reviews, which at the time seemed like a ridiculous, theoretical number, the kind of challenge a competitor at the Coney Island 4th of July hot dog eating contest might accept. I just didn’t think I could do it, no matter what the offer was on teh table. So I did it anyway.
Breaking it down to five reviews a week (and then, when even that seemed daunting, breaking it up to three reviews written by Sundays and two by each Monday) really worked. I turned in my last two reviews with a week to spare (we agreed to have 50 reviews done by the end of January) and I was lucky enough to work with a great editor, Vicky Smith, who guided me through the unfamiliar territory of children’s literature and gave my short write-ups careful, witty, knowledgeable edits. It was a good experience and I may stay on doing app reviews (but in much smaller numbers) for Kirkus as they continue covering the emerging digital book market.
The other major loose end was that, on my wife’s solid suggestion, I called up my contact at NPR to find out what was up. It was a great conversation and, as it turns out, my fears that I had been unknowingly put out to pasture and was unworthy of being on the radio anymore were unfounded. The stuff I do for them in the future will likely be different than what I was doing before, but in a really good way. I wrote up and recorded a segment for them that is scheduled to air on Monday, Jan. 31 on All Things Considered. We’ll see how that turns out, but it was nice to find out that the door hadn’t been shut on me. It relieved a lot of anxiety I was having (but was trying not to acknowledge).
In general, I feel an easing of tension, a lack of nervousness and anticipation. In the past, I’d have interpreted it as feeling that my life was boring and I was being unambitious, but lately, I’ve come to embrace having a little free time and room to breathe.
Meanwhile, my day job continues as usual (or, hey, better than usual). We’re already preparing for South by Southwest Interactive in March, but in the meantime, I’ve had a few stories in the paper. On Monday, I had a piece on the front page of the Statesman about an Austin-related lawsuit filed against Courtney Love. I got to talk to some lawyers about libel law and how it relates to social media. Read it if you want to know if your Tweets and Facebook posts could get you sued.
I also did a “There’s a Creator for That” app feature about “Animated Knots,” an iPhone app that is about knots and how to untie them.
At work, I switched desks, which was an occasion to completely clear out my old desk (as well as the new one) and to wipe both of them down and get all the grime and dust and disorganization cleared away. We’re doing the same thing in our home office; January for me has been a time to throw old stuff away, donate whatever I can and think about how I want to live and work and exist in my space.
It’s been very liberating to come to work and not face stacks of paper and books and just schmoot all over the place. I know it might not last long, but right now everything fees like its in the right place, that things are focused and correct, relaxed, but poised to act.
Trailers Without Pity was a web video show written, voiced and edited by brothers Omar and Pablo Gallaga. It ran on NBC Universal/Bravo-owned TelevisionWithoutPity.com from October 2008 through 2012 for four runs of shows. Episodes typically ran 4-5 minutes long and featured the “Super Gallaga Bros.” in animated form talking about movie trailers, intercut with stills from the film (often with word balloons or captions) and stock photos.
After several versions of a test episode called Trailers Trashed (“Season Zero”) for the movie Hancock were made in the Summer of 2008, the eventual format, which is more of a visual recap of a trailer rather than a re-enactment/puppet show, was settled upon and continued to be the template for the series. It was heavily influenced by the format of Daniel “djb” Blau’s The Week Without Pity videos.
For the purposes of this episode guide, all links from the movie titles go to the original entries where they appeared on Terribly Happy/Bloggystyle. There, the context and back story of each videos is often explained. Due to issues with outdated video embed codes, TWOP links are also provided as direct links to where each video can still be viewed. If you’re trying to view the videos on an iOS device, you’re better off downloading the official iOS TWOP app, where the videos can be viewed on an iPhone/iPad, etc.
In the video, we learn that ballet is as brutal as pro wrestling, that Aronofsky is like a cuddly, beloved version of Lars von Trier and that ballet + malaise = ballaise.
The plan is to return with new videos in January. In the meantime, I want to create a episode guide blog post that lists all the Trailers Without Pity episodes we’ve done so far with links to all of them. I think we’re up to almost 60 episodes dating back to October 2008. Look for that in the next few weeks if things don’t get too busy and overwhelming around here.
Sometimes, lost as I am in an adult world of mortgage payments and shitty diapers, I forget that once upon a time I was quite the nerd and my classmates didn’t let me forget it. It’s nice to know I can always dip into my nerd hurt reserves when the need strikes. This was one of those times.
As for my use of the word “Penultimate” above, here’s the deal: we decided in the spring that when our two years of doing videos for TWOP was up (and when the latest run of our contract expired) in late October, we’d stop doing Trailers Without Pity. We asked for a raise and didn’t receive it, which we kind of expected, but we were starting to feel things had run their course anyway and that we should wind it down.
We held off on a final decision all summer and, weirdly, the videos kept being fun to do and seemed easier to put together the longer we kept doing them. So we decided to keep the door open and it looks like what will happen is this: we’re going to take a long break after the next video (for Black Swan), and then return in January with new videos.
The show would be broken into smaller seasons (maybe 10-12 episodes per run) and between those seasons we’d take a few months off. What’s really been killing us isn’t producing videos every two weeks, it’s doing that indefinitely without breaks or vacations. We’ll see how that goes, but I’m excited to have a break for us to catch our breath and to come back fresh in the ’11.
So, enjoy this one and we’ll see you for one more in another two weeks.
As is made clear in the opening seconds of our new Trailers Without Pity, we sure do like boobies, so it wasn’t hard to muster up the … uh… mustard of enthusiasm for Burlesque, a Thanksgiving movie starring Christina Aguilera and Cher.
This is a movie I don’t think I’d go see, despite the flesh and Stanley Tucci on display, but hey, if it floats your boat, have a great turkey day big-screen turkey.
I got 
