Not much to say about this one except that I assumed, like I sometimes do, that something that looks so dumb and ripe for parody would be easy to make fun of. Then I started scripting and realized that the trailer was already so ridiculous on its face (and its fishnet-clad legs, especially) that there wasn’t much more to do than recount the silliness.
Not to say it might not be a good movie, but… OK, let’s not kid ourselves. This probably won’t be a good movie. But it might be interesting to look at, like a mysterious orange puddle in the street or a car accident where you aren’t personally involved. Let’s hope!
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.
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.
It’s Thanksgiving in two days and, like I said last time, things seem to be accelerating grimly, spinning outward as if by centrifuge, instead of settling into tedium and sugarness, like my famous (OK, Luby’s famous) sweet potato casserole.
I spent the end of last week finishing up what I thought would be a front-page story (in the end: not so much) about a University of Texas study about how students and recent grads are using Facebook. S. Craig Watkins, who led the study, is one of the smartest, most interesting people I get to interview regularly and it’s always fun to catch up on what his thoughts are on the state of social media and tech.
For several weeks before that, I’d been working on a holiday tech gift guide for the Statesman, an annual tradition that always ends up being more work than I remember from the year before. We focused on Internet-video-on-your-TV products like Apple TV, Roku and the Logitech Revue with Google TV. I’ve tried two of those three products and am curious about the third (Apple TV), especially since iPads and iPhones can now do a neat trick with it.
There’s also a helicopter that flies around and shoots video. You’re welcome!
Another annual tradition is a similar gift guide I do for Television Without Pity. It’s more a photo gallery than a story, much shorter and with some different items. If you like things like Karaoke Revolution Glee, you may like this guide.
This week, I’ve been finishing up a profile of game designer Warren Spector, who is releasing Disney Epic Mickey next week. The reporting for that story has been pretty epic itself; I’ll tell you more about it after the story runs on Sunday.
What was I talking about again? Oh, right! Sweet potato casserole! I gotta get on that for Thursday.
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.
