This is a growing trend that I like a lot. Films are starting to release a few minutes of their film online for people to check out. This is a fantastic way to get people hooked. I like it.
The latest film to join this trend is the new Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel film The Illusionist… a film that looks disturbingly like Nolan’s new film “The Prestige”, but let’s not worry about that right now. The synopsis looks like this:
A magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna who falls in love with a woman well above his social standing. When she becomes engaged to a prince, the magician uses his powers to win her back and undermine the stability of the royal house of Vienna.
The only thing that bothers me about this “6 minutes of footage” is that it’s a little misleading. It says “6 minutes”… and that’s true… it is indeed the first 6 minutes… but the first 3 of those minutes are just opening credits, so we’re actually left with under 3 minutes of the actual films… hardly longer than a full trailer. If you’re going to give us a look at the film… then give us a bloody look at the film… or just give us the trailer.
Anyway, if you’d like to take a peak at the fist 2 minutes and 50 seconds of The Illusionist, you can click here.
JESSICA BIEL IS SUCH A GODDESS….
what a great movie! i saw it yesterday and woul buy it and recommend it.
I don’t wanna see!
I agree with Marty. Credits can do a great deal for setting up the tone of a movie (one of my favs is still “Seven”) and personally, I’m much happier just seeing a short clip of a movie to get me interested and after that, the less I know the better…for the most part, I like to be surprised and expectant.
I’m not into this new trend of showing big chunks of films at all. Definitely not this one. The first scenes of a movie are incredibly important and the credits, if they’re done well, set the tone for the entire thing. Why would I not want to experience that stuff for the first time when watching the whole thing? The opening is what hooks me into the story and the film. It’s as important to me to see the very beginning of a film as it is to see the end. I wouldn’t watch the ending before I bought a ticket. They should stop being lazy and just make a bloody good trailer.
Okay. I’m probably just being weird. I’ll just not watch it.
Hey Bjon,
Oh I’m not saying one copied the other… I’m just saying they look a lot alike from the outside
Cheers
~john
Well, about it looking a lot like The Prestige, I actually saw the trailer for this movie before I saw or heard anything about The Prestige.