A mother's guide to movie trailers
With Comic-Con finished, and summer blockbuster season in full swing, a slew of new and exciting movie trailers are being dumped onto the internet week by week. For comedic effect, I showed these trailers to my Diet Coke-loving, decorative-wooden-duck-owning mother and gauged her reaction.
Deadpool
The Deadpool trailer has a heart warming start, as Ryan Reynolds' character (my Mom still calls him 'Van Wilder') has been diagnosed with cancer. Mom cups her mouth, anticipating a tear jerking drama.
When 'Van Wilder' goes into what my mother assumes is "very rough chemo" she blurts out, "Why are they doing this to this poor, sick, very gorgeous sexy man!?" I shudder in realization that my mother has let me in on what she finds sexually attractive.
My mom finds the Rosie O'Donnell comment a bit rude, being a long time fan of her talk show and the movie A League of Their Own. My mom then glances away from the computer screen, remembers the good times she had watching The Rosie O'Donnell Show and wonders where she is now, what she's doing, and if she still says "peeps" to describe her cat peeing on the carpet.
While my mom is in a deep O'Donnell-induced trance, the action in the trailer jolts her back to the screen where she aggressively shrugs and yells, "Who is this shooting clown man?!"
She's immediately turned off from any sympathy for this now "rude, violent, clown person" and especially turned off in the final scene when Reynolds reveals his scarred face and my mom has to deal with the fact that the once "gorgeous sexy man" now resembles her own aging 'pop pop' father. My mom shudders.
I then asked her to guess what the name of the movie might be and she said:
Zoolander 2
The Zoolander 2 teaser starts with a computerized voice talking about science and I immediately see my mom's eyes glaze over with boredom. I tell her to be patient but she closes the laptop saying, "I don't like that Star Wars science crap, it's too confusing, I failed science in high school I don't need to relive that again today."
She takes a long sip of her tea as I open the laptop to reveal the first shot of Ben Stiller as Derek Zoolander. She scoffs loudly and says, "I think I hate his dumb hair more than I hate science. What is this garbage?"
And I asked her to guess the name of said "garbage" and she said:
Spectre
When I played the trailer for Spectre—the new James Bond—to my mom, she still felt betrayed by the Deadpool trailer and said, "oh I hope he doesn't get cancer too," when Daniel Craig appeared.
As the trailer continues my mom revealed that she thought Austin Powers came before James Bond: "This seems like a way too serious Austin Powers, where's the funny stuff?"
My mom loses interest even though the trailer is packed with action. I assume she's exhausted from anticipating a "yeah baby!" and not receiving one.
I asked her what she thought the movie was called and she confidently said:
The Martian
When I started the trailer for Matt Damon's new movie The Martian, my mom scolded me by saying, "what did I just tell you? I hate that science Star Trek-y stuff. What is this baloney?"
Despite the gripping story line and superb acting portrayed in the trailer, the next two minutes became a lecture on how I don't listen.
While Matt Damon was "science'ing the shit" out of his Mars habitat my mom reminded me how many times she had to tell me to take out the garbage as a kid. And then pointed to Matt Damon "science'ing" saying, "Look! I'll bet Matt Damon starting doing all this the first time his mother asked him to do it."
I don't think The Martian is about a man going to Mars "because his mother told him to" but I still asked my mom to guess what the name of this movie might be and she said:
The Revenant
"Ugh, remember how terrible this past winter was?" my Mom asks when I start the teaser for Leonardo DiCaprio's The Revenant.
She ignores most of the trailers brutal fight scenes and the beautiful, haunting scenery to recollect past winters and how bad they all were.
"Remember that one winter when you fell through the ice in the river? We dragged you back up to the house and stripped you down to your naked pee pee winker so you wouldn't catch pneumonia. Oh you were so chilly!"
Me and my pee pee winker DO remember that, Mom, and please stop saying "pee pee winker". My mom is now laughing uncontrollably, which is unsettling because the background noise of the trailer is so intense and it's making my mom sound more diabolical than usual.
I asked what she thinks the movie is called, and while still laughing she pinches my arm and squeals:
