BLOG: Edward Burns' homage trailers

This is a re-post of a piece I wrote for FilmJunk.com, where I am an occasional contributor. While there is no real "writing" here to speak of, I wanted to pass this on because I absolutely love the subject matter.

Joshua Ligairi » 10.13.2010 »

With it’s sappy-sweet first trailer premiering to much online criticism, Edward Burns has taken the marketing of his new film, Nice Guy Johnny, into his own hands and, in my opinion, in a very exciting new direction. Burns, with the help of someone named “Reel Movie Guy“, has recut the Johnny trailer in the style of several classic films. So far, five such trailers have been released.

Want to test your own movie knowledge? You can play along at home. See if you can figure out which classic films’ trailers are being homaged by Burns et al. Nice Guy Johnny "homage trailers" (and the original trailers they are homaging) below. Sadly, something to do with my Blogger settings crops the right side of these videos, but if youclick on the YouTube logo in the bottom right corner, you can just watch the trailers on YouTube.

1. Nice Guy Johnny Homage Trailer 1

2. Nice Guy Johnny Homage Trailer 2

3. Nice Guy Johnny Homage Trailer 3

4. Nice Guy Johnny Homage Trailer 4

5. Nice Guy Johnny Homage Trailer 5

And now, the originals. How did you do? There are some tricky ones in here. Like, number four is obviously a Woody Allen film, but how do you tell it apart from the 100 or so other Woody Allen trailers with the exact same font and very similar jazz music? If we were playing Scene It, I could have guessed Husbands and Wives just as easily. And what about number two? This is essentially the same trailer as Godard's trailer for Breathless. It is just the font at the beginning that gives it away. Frankly, i think they cheated a little bit, using "the pretty girl" and "the bad boy" from Breathless, but once you realize they are going for Contempt rather than Breathless, jokes like "the Cutlass Supreme" play a lot better. I was able to identify most of these trailers on my own, all except for number three (which is a bummer because it is my favorite). Thankfully, Film Junk reader "Alex" helped me out with that one. What a fucking awesome awesome trailer! They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

1. L’Avventura (The Adventure) Trailer

2. Contempt Trailer

3. The Thomas Crown Affair Trailer

4. Hannah and Her Sisters Trailer

5. Love Story Trailer

I love that someone in Burns’ position is not only sticking with indie film in a very tough time for it, but is also willing to put himself and his film on the line with such a unique form of marketing. What a lovely tribute to the work that inspired him an d what an effective example of how marketing can effect our impression of a film.

I’ll be checking the film out based on this campaign alone, hoping that a filmmaker with this level of guts and creativity will deliver a comparable film.

More info on Nice Guy Johnny can be found on the official website.