A trailer is like a personals ad for single movies looking to find single moviegoers who aren’t doing anything on Friday night or Saturday afternoon, whichever works better for you, ’cause I am totally up for whatever. Anyway, a trailer is the first opportunity to impress you enough to convince you to spend some time with the movie when it comes out in theaters or as a torrent.

Just like in dating, trailers can highlight all of the good things about the movie, or it can fail to spark your interest and you end up losing out on spending quality time with that movie (which sucks because Jackie told Christie who told her boyfriend’s cousin who told me that it totally likes you, SERIOUSLY). What do these trailers tell us about the movie they are trying to convince us to see? Are any of these movies worth your time, money and Friday night?

Check out the trailer reviews after the jump!

Anamorph

What is it about? When reclusive Detective Stan Aubray (Willem Dafoe) is called in to investigate a series of increasingly spectacular murders, he is thrust into a dark and unsettling underworld that threatens to reveal the secrets of his tormented past.

Want to go out? Date this movie, but use protection for God’s sake! Anamorph looks like a smart and disturbing take on the serial killer-as-deranged-but-really-smart movie trend, made popular by movies like Silence of the Lambs, Seven and its more “special needs” progeny, the Saw films or Hostel.

The difference between Silence of the Lambs, Seven and movies like Saw is, that movies like Saw are, as it has been so lovingly referred to by many, “torture porn” – you just watch it to see the next twisted and horrific way that people die. Anamorph looks like the middle child in this family of films. I can see it wanting to live up to it’s older brothers Seven or Silence of the Lambs, but still looking to have fun like it’s cousin Saw. Only time will tell whether this is torture porn wanting to be art, or art that wants to attract the Saw and Hostel crowd. This film is either a sick movie that wants you to hate humanity more, or it just thinks that cutting people into animal poses is cool, in a disturbing way.

Two things are for certain: Willem Dafoe looks like a bad-ass and the premise of “murder as art” was in the video game Bioshock.

Blindness

What is it? When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

Want to go out? Date this movie. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In this case, it is Julianne Moore. Blindness follows in the footsteps of many health epidemic films before it. Many people believe that the concept of everyone being blind is very unique, and while I have not read the book (not that it matters as most films are loose adaptations of the book that they are based on), the premise is just a substitution for another disease or biochemical weapon.

The great irony in all of this is that blind people will never get to see this movie and consequently, how this movie looks at blindness – like it is a fate worse than death. I, however, think that blindness wouldn’t be so bad. Growing up with video games, I am used to poor vision and find that when I don’t wear glasses or contacts I get a lot more sleep. At least your other senses would be heightened.

Maybe this film is just an allegory to the way that we all are blind in some respect or another, or perhaps it is a critique of America being blind to the rollback of our civil liberties right in front of our eyes! Think about it, man…

War, Inc.

What is it about? “War, Inc.” is a political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former US Vice-President (Dan Akroyd). In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn nation offers, the corporation’s CEO hires a troubled hit man, played by John Cusack, to kill a Middle East oil minister. Now, struggling with his own growing demons, the assassin must pose as the corporation’s Trade Show Producer in order to pull off this latest hit, while maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff) an outrageous Middle Eastern pop star, and keeping a sexy left wing reporter (Marisa Tomei) in check.

Want to go out? Do not date this movie. Hollywood is full of great films which become bastardized for the sake of the dollar. Filmmakers or actors need to make more money because they need to buy another small island in the Pacific – I’m sure you understand – but they want to do it without having to do something “creative” they will hack up a great film in order to squeeze out a decent film like so many oranges. Grosse Pointe Blank 2, er, I mean War, Inc. looks to be one of those films.

Could it be good? Maybe, but the plot from above reads like a Mad Libs of the Bush administration. Is this the same character that John Cusack played in Grosse Pointe Blank? If not, then why is this movie being made with him in it? My friend Zak believes that actors should play the character they became famous for in all future films they are in. It sounds crazy, but he may be on to something…Just think how much better Serendipity would have been, or Must Love Dogs.