Tag: Trailers Without Pity

  • Trailers Without Pity: Morning Glory

    This one was a lot of fun. Morning Glory is a holiday movie starring Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton and Rachel McAdams about a national morning TV show, which I’m sure will make for lots of mockery. (It sure made for some easy second-hand mockery on our part.)

    We’re still figuring out the future of Trailers Without Pity; I think it’s most likely that we’ll either stop doing them after October or at least take a very long break. I’ll let you know when we know for sure. In any case, if either of those things happens, we’re probably down to the last two or three videos.

    Anyway, here it is, the Trailers Without Pity for Morning Glory, which includes a fresh new background from Pablo. Follow the link if you can’t see the video embedded below.

  • Trailers Without Pity: Due Date

    Our latest Trailers Without Pity is about the upcoming Robert Downey, Jr. / Zach Galifianakis comedy Due Date, directed by the guy who did The Hangover and Old School.

    It’s nice to go into a comedy and know that you’re in competent hands for a change.

    We’re still knocking out videos, but haven’t yet made a decision about what we’re doing after our contract is up in October. I think we could both really use the free time, but on the other hand, the videos are still a lot of fun to do and don’t seem to be taking as long to produce as they did when we started. In any case, enjoy! Here’s the link to the video if it doesn’t appear embedded below.

  • Trailers Without Pity: Red

    Our newest Trailers Without Pity is about the retired-assassins comic book adaptation Red, starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren.

    The video gave me the opportunity to bust out the Morgan Freeman impression I’d been storing in the closet and, ironically, the opportunity to throw in Viagra and adult diaper jokes while taking the filmmakers to task for Viagra and adult diaper jokes we only can assume will be in the movie.

    Clearly we hold filmmakers to a much higher standard than we hold ourselves. I am OK with that.

    Enjoy! Here’s a link to the video on Television Without Pity if you’re unable to view the embedded video below.

  • Trailers Without Pity: The Social Network

    Our new Trailers Without Pity video is about The Social Network, an October movie from director David Fincher about the creation and subsequent world-changing growth of Facebook

    It’s an interesting thing to make a video mocking a movie like this because it’s based on real people and events. I met Mark Zuckerberg a few years ago at South by Southwest Interactive and sat front row when he (perhaps unwittingly) threw a reporter to the wolves in front of an audience of several hundred people.

    Mark’s a very smart guy and seems to truly believe what he says about privacy going away and Facebook’s potential to be a huge avenue for change in the world. He’s got a very young man’s confidence and all the resources in the world at his disposal right now. Which is also what makes him a little scary and very hard to relate to. When people like Diane Sawyer interview him, they will ask a perfectly reasonable question, and he’ll give a perfectly reasonable-sounding answer to a question that is different than the one which was asked. It’s a neat trick, but not one that endears you to people, really.

    I can’t wait to see how the movie portrays him. I just saw Zombieland a few nights ago and really liked Jesse Eisenberg in it and think he’ll do a great job.

    As for the video, it’s nice that all the time Pablo and I wasted on Facebook has finally paid off in some small way; this was a very easy script to write.

  • Trailers Without Pity: Machete

    They just funked with the wrong Mexican

    Our new Trailers Without Pity is about the new Robert Rodriguez epic Latino ass-kicking primer, Machete.

    We have no quarrel with films featuring lots of Latino actors and music in which, instead of gardening or being one of several desperate housewives, they are handed a knife and instructed to hack, slice and blow shit up for dramatic purposes. I think our enthusiasm is evident in the video below. (Which you can also see at this direct link if the video doesn’t load for you.)

    Next up, we’re doing the Facebook feature The Social Network.

  • Programming notes

    There honestly hasn’t been a lot to alert you to lately and I’ve been so busy with some work and outside-of-work things lately that there’s not even be time to post anything fun and goofy.

    What’s new:

    • I haven’t done NPR in a few weeks and honestly have no idea when I’ll be on again. It’s been very quiet. People have been on vacation, my producer was assigned to a major blog project and I just haven’t heard much. I’ve been enjoying the summer time off and am still posting an occasional blog entry on All Tech, but there’s been no parting of ways or anything like that (that I know of).
    • Ditto with CNN. They originally asked me to write just two pieces and that was that. I’m still waiting on my first check to clear through their large corporate structure and arrive before I ask if they’ve got any more assignments.
    • The famous tech podcast Glark and I did that was never famous, Age of Lasers, has transformed into a Tumblr blog at AgeOfLasers.com. It’s much more random and requires a lot less coordinating to post on. So far, so fun.
    • The contract Pablo and I have for Trailers Without Pity hits the two-year mark in October and we’re in the process of deciding whether we want to continue. We’ve been told there’s no money for raises, so it’s kind of up to us whether we want to keep doing what we’re doing at the current rate, propose a different project that would be simpler to produce, or just stop.  They’re still fun videos to do and it’s very nice to get paid to do fun work, but it’s very time-consuming and we’ve been doing it with very few breaks for two straight years. I’m inclined to say we had fun, said what we wanted to say, and are ready to move on, but that decision is not set in stone yet.
    • Where I’ve been spending a ton of energy lately is at work where I’ve been wrapping up a story scheduled to run on the front page (fingers crossed) Sunday. It was a very tough story to put together — it’s a profile and when it comes to telling one person’s life, especially a person you’ve been wanting to tell people abou for a long time — it’s a lot of pressure. I’ll be very glad when it’s completely finished.
    • Lastly, my mom was in the hospital recently for surgery and just got out today. It wasn’t nearly as bad as when she was in the hospital a few years ago and everything seemed to be going wrong, but it was still scary and draining (much more for her than for us).  We’re very glad this whole experience is over.

    And that’s what’s going on.  Lilly and Carolina are doing great. I think Lilly has just discovered that if she plays with Carolina, Carolina will respond and play back and it’s a wonderful thing to watch. Lilly has a birthday coming up. The summer already feels like it’s almost over.  I’m trying to enjoy it before it’s gone with trips to Schlitterbahn, walks in the evenings and trying not to take on too many projects, at least for now.