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This is Jeff Bayer, and I don't update this site very often. If you'd like to listen to my current movie podcast you can find it at MovieBS.com.

Rating the Trailers: 'Premium Rush' and 'Lawless'

I write an article at movies.com analyzing trailers. Here are the three latest I’ve written. Give it some love, comments, tweets, Facebook affection. Trailers these days are getting out of control with spoilers. But don't worry, we're here to sort out whether or not you should watch a certain trailer beforehand. We'll take a look at how accurate the marketing is to a film's tone and plot, as well as warn of any spoilers it might contain.

Premium Rush

Tone

Premium Rush is fast. Almost everything about the film hinges on speed, and that flying through New York City traffic on a bike is cool. For the most part, the film feels like an '80s action movie, taking a basic hunt-and-chase kind of film and putting it in a new surrounding (the bike messenger world). Michael Shannon's Bobby Monday is over-the-top bad, while our lead Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is the best of the best... at delivering messages on his bike. The trailer is honestly a little slower than expected. It stays true to the film's pace (fast), but doesn't go into overdrive with it, which is something trailers normally do. Trust me when I say the movie is fast. It doesn't have the speed of The Raid: Redemption, but it's close.

READ the rest of Rating the Trailers: Premium Rush

Lawless

Tone

The bad guys are good, and the good guys are bad. You spend the film rooting for bootleggers to get away with it, avoiding the law. The film tends to wash from violence to romance, but when the violence is present, it shoves itself down your throat (it's significant). The movie is a drama about America's flawed past. Corruption is around every corner, so you end up cheering on the most ethical criminal. There is a great beauty captured in the dust, humidity and dirty clothes of Lawless with director John Hillcoat running the show. The trailer makes this film look like it's non-stop violence. That's not the case. I also don't think freezing the screen and turning it to black and white actually does a thing for the tone of the trailer. Don't worry, that's not in the film. You do get the sense that these boys are up to no good, and it might cost them.

Read the rest of Rating the Trailers: Lawless

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