― Ally, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
I love the trailers. The ads annoy me mostly but....when I first read your question I read it as cinema ads as an art form to be considered against other art forms. So I enjoy or dislike a lot of cinema ads on an 'art' level.
― Tom, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― alex in nyc, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
What I don't like is seeing 'funny' ads in the cinema because a) they rarely made me laugh the first time I saw them, let alone the 59th and b) there are always people in the audience who laugh uproariously and you want to shout at them "My God, don't you own a TV??"
― Nick, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
People who hate sitting through them can easily avoid them by going to the movie five minutes later --- I mean, it's not like they're stuck somewhere in the middle of the movie, are they???
― Nicole, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Very old people and record collectors will recall that LPs used to have ads on the inner sleeve, and sometimes on the outersleeve also (for other records by same record company; if it was an EMI record, ads also for EMITEX, which was a nice cloth to wipe your record down with).
Pulpy paperbacks often have ads at the back.
Art shows have big logos for sponsors. Some art-show catalogues have begun to carry hilariously bogue intros thanking the sponsor, saying things like "Leonardo Da Vinci invented perspective in the Renaissance. Kraft Cheezy Nodulez have re-invented it for the 21st century. That is why they make a great pair. Da Vinci and Kraft Cheez." Only at greater length and (if anything) less humility.
― mark s, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Was reminded of this just the other day seeing a trailer for Say It Isn't So which not only reveals that Kline and Graham are brother and sister, it also reveals the later twist that they are not actually siblings. Genius. Why bother writing a plot.
The Pearl Harbor trailer though - at least the European one - is a piece of majestic beauty and almost certainly better than the film it trails. I am always thoroughly disappointed when I don't get at least two new tailers per visit - and there are certain arthouse cinemas which I tend to avoid because they only show one trailer per filck. Give me my moneys worth and ad me til I burst.
― Pete, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Anyway, yeah. An interesting (if minor) counterblast to the 'everything's so commercialised these days' argument is the way, as Mark says, pulp fiction (and even Penguins, I think) used to be bookended with pages of adverts for grooming products and sewing patterns. Also, 'serious' newspapers used to have a front page consisting solely of classified advertisements. A long battle was fought before the Times accepted the trashy tabloid practice of actually putting NEWS on the front.
Lots of books feature "trailers" for other books in the back, BTW
x0x0
― norman fay, Thursday, 19 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Interestingly, when I was in San Francisco recently I went to see Enemy at the Gates (it's shite). One of the trailers before it was for this brilliant looking hard-hitting courtroom drama with James Woods in it - and then it turned out to be an anti-smoking advert. So not all cinema ads are rubbish.
Books do carry ads - they often carry lists of other books you might want to read in them.
― Dirty Vicar, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link