I suppose you've already checked out the trailer for Invictus in beautiful Quicktime. Soon it will be embedded everywhere in crappier looking formats. The movie, based on this true story, is about Nelson Mandela's efforts to unite a divided South Africa through rugby. The trailer and synopsis suggest that it's a two-lead film as Morgan Freeman (as Mandela) and Matt Damon (looking athletic as Francois Pienaar) work together towards making this happen. Freeman is the mastermind, Damon acts as vessel. But since Invictus is another December Eastwood Oscar lob (oops, that's a tennis term. What do they say in football?) Matt Damon will obviously be demoted to supporting for the pursuit of Oscars.
I'm not quite buying the accents they conjure for Invictus but it is only a trailer and Freeman and Damon are both hugely talented fellows. It's hard to tell about actor's voices in 150 seconds of ittybitty clips anyway. When I first saw the Amelia trailer I was nearly sold on Swank's vocal work but stretched out to 120 minutes it made me ca-razy with its strenuous affectations.
Here are the beloved stars...
It's more and more obvious that there's more community and discussion revolving around movie trailers on the web than there is on actual movies themselves. This is one of the many reasons conversation seems to die on opening weekend. So trailer madness is fitting for any Oscar discussion, unfortunately, since you know that many of the ballots are cast through a complex combination of buzz factors, hype power, the power of suggestion (sometimes literal -- like the precursor awards), industry schmoozing, the general tone of reviews... and film clips! (Yes Virginia, not every AMPAS voter watches all of their screeners, dutifully.)
Check out this random tweet about the trailer.
I think this happens more and more with trailers. Instant love. I can't say I've never experienced that. I remember falling head over heels for Milk in its 2 minute form. I mean there was no movie in sight! It was just a commercial.Movie trailers are like frozen Buzz Concentrate. Just add
So I shan't say anything qualitatively about the movie (haven't seen it and a trailer is still just a trailer) except that it looks right up Oscar's alley: inspirational with an overlay of "important!" Best Picture nominee fer sure. Plus, there's the Eastwood factor. Gran Torino aside, he is, to steal from this trailer, the 'master of the Academy's fate, the captain of their soul.'
[editors note: Speaking of Clint Eastwood. The next episode of Best Pictures From the Outside In is coming up next week! "Casablanca and Unforgiven"]
And Morgan Freeman isn't without his own faithful voting block in AMPAS either. With four Oscar nominations and one win, he's pretty far up the hierarchy of the Academy's favorites. Useless trivia alert! One more winning nomination and he's actually tied with Denzel Washington as their favorite black actor of all time.
But what about you? "This trailer made me ___________" -- complete the sentence in the comments.
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