THE BOOK THIEF Trailer Rundown
When is the last time we did a Trailer Rundown? Ender’s Game? Let’s get amended stat with a rundown of The Book Thief trailer.
So The Book Thief is a book-to-film adaptation set in Nazi Germany, or as I like to call it, Everyone’s Favorite Oscar-Bait Setting, that will release in mid-November, or as I like to call it, Oscar Bait Month. Let’s see how many other Oscar Worms on Oscar Hooks we can count.
Throughout trailer I will assign points based on how hard each detail seems to be trying to suck up to Oscar voters and at the end of the trailer we’ll see how much the trailer needs to be embarrassed about itself.
:06- Full steam ahead train in the snow that’s supposed to remind us that this is Nazi Germany and it’s a cold place for temperature and freedom (+20)
:09- Plaintive little girl accented voice-over (+10) telling us her name (+5)
:11- She’s doesn’t “have a family.” (+20)
:14- “…or even a place to call home.” (+100)
:16- She stares out the window of an old fashioned car, she’s sad (+10)
:19- She doesn’t understand the meaning of the word hope. (Shut the front door, +1000)
:22- She’s about to meet nice Germans who don’t like Nazis and change her life (+100)
:26- GEOFFREY RUSH (+100)
:27- Geoffrey Rush NOT being an octopus pirate, that deserves another (+50)
:28- Geoffrey Rush is going to help someone discover their courage and stand up to the Nazis AGAIN (+50)
:30- The emotionally manipulative strings section has literally not stopped playing throughout this entire trailer (+500)
:40- Foster parents telling their foster kid to call them mom and dad (+40)
:48- Bullying… about LITERACY no less (+30)
:50- Little Blonde Girl right-hooks her tormentor making us believe we can ALL stand up to oppression… and Nazis (+50)
:50- Geoffrey Rush teaches the Little Blonde Girl to read in a visually interesting way (+10) (I actually liked this part) (It’s a two minute trailer, I had to like SOMETHING.)
1:00- Swastika flags EVERYWHERE (+50)
1:03- Smart, hot Jew comes to stay (+100) (Whatever, I liked this part too.)
1:12- Children under the age of ten heiling Hitler (+100, no, I changed my mind, +500)
1:20- “From the studio that brought you LIFE OF PI…”AKA “Remember that other book-to-film-adaptation we did that won infinity Oscars?” (+250)
1:27- Hide the smart, hot Jew in the basement under the Swastika Flag, it’s ironic and you get a slamming shot of his chiseled profile (+75)
1:32- Shut up, we get a generic movie voice over man telling us that books are magic, SHUT UP (+3000!)
1:35- The smart, hot Jew says something poetic and incomprehensible (+50)
1:38- A bridge that symbolizes something (+20)
1:40- More generic-movie-voiceover-man-voiceover but now he’s talking about COURAGE (+1000)
1:46- A foster parent tearfully insisting that foster child is “his daughter.” (+100)
1:50- Kristallnacht (+500)
1:55- Book burning (+500)
2:00- Child making wise proclamations about life (+10,000)
2:09- New York Times blurb that seems like praise but actually isn’t (+100)
2:15- Voiceover that compares life to a book with pages YOU have to fill (+ 1,000,000)
Final tally (1,018,230, ridiculousness)
And as we all know, with hard-driving Oscar Bait movies, they either win ALL the Oscars, or they win one pity Oscar for like, sound editing.
So what Oscar Bait points do you give this trailer? Do you give it any actual points (Geoffrey Rush and learning to read in a visually rad way deserve a little love in my book)?
