I bet you KNEW there was a plane crash in this movie. Weird, huh?
When we walk into a theater, we usually know a fair amount about the movie we’re going to see. For instance, I haven’t seen Transformers 2. But from the trailer, I know that Sam Witwicky goes off to college and absorbs some sort of alien code from a mysterious artifact. I know that Optimus Prime fights in a forest, and it probably doesn’t go well for him. (There’s something about the way Shia yells “Optimus!” that reminds me of the way Ewan yells “Noooooooooooo!” in that Star Wars: Episode I trailer I memorized in 1999.) I know that Megatron returns. I highly suspect that the final sequence takes place at the pyramids.
(By the way, someone remind me to make a list of movies in which ancient Egyptians had direct contact with aliens: Transformers 2, Stargate, The Fifth Element…)
This is all right there in the trailer—it’s information the studio wants me to have. Depending on what other movies I went to see, I might have been shown this trailer whether I wanted to see it or not. Being surprised by Megatron’s return just wasn’t an option.
Now compare that to the District 9 trailer. (Warning: D9 spoilers ahead.)
So last May (that’s May 2007), Matt “Call Me the Webmaster” Wrather and I were taking in The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays by Tom Stoppard. It covers the part of Russian history most people don’t know a lot about — between when Catherine the Great had sex with a horse and when Animal Farm picks up.
So anyway, during one of the intermissions, I was sort of free-associating, as is my wont. And like an apple hitting me on the head (see how I’m referring both to Newton and orchards?) I realized that Tobey Maguire is in both Spider-Man and The Cider House Rules. And that Spider and Cider rhyme. And then I knew I was doomed. I was going to have to do something about it.
So here you go, internet. The Spider House Rules.
I don’t really expect it to get watched that much, since The Cider House Rules isn’t that well-known. But as long as you guys are impressed, I will not have sat through the terrible 1992 Michael Caine thriller Blue Ice in vain (I needed him holding a gun).