"look upbeat.."

Journalism Roger Ebert offers some tips for critics, some which I've actually taken to heart (especially in terms of not being afraid to give a negative review) but there is one which I'm already a big fan of:

"Trailers. Have nothing to do with them. Gene Siskel hated them so much he would stand outside a theater until they were over. If he was already seated in the middle of a crowded theater, he would shout "fire!" plug his ears and stare at the floor. Trailers love to spoil all the best gags in a comedy, hint at plot twists in a thriller, and make every film, however dire, look upbeat.."

I don't as a rule, even going to the toilet during the trailers when I'm at the cinema hoping against hope I don't miss the start of the film. As Ebert suggests, trailers actively lie to you about the film's content or else tell you too much about the films content for you to later care about ultimately seeing the thing.

I'm so out of the habit of watching trailers on seeing the promo for the Robert De Niro headliner Everybody's Fine the other day I was so shocked at the length and how much of the storyline was being given away that I had to hit the skip button half way through. Empire Magazine used to have a rule that the longer the trailer the worse a film is. I wonder if that still stands.