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According to Hofmann: Trailer trashed

By Mark Hofmann mhofmann@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read
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Now that everyone has a bit of extra time on their hands, many have turned to extracurricular activities like home renovation projects, dedicating extra romance with their significant other and binge drinking with only the bravest souls willing to do all three things at once.

But watching movies and television programs on streaming services has really been on the uptick lately, but an issue that me and others I know have is what to watch.

ItĢƵ kind of a strange problem, but since we’re bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of choices, itĢƵ difficult to determine which piece of entertainment moves to the top of our interest watchlist and is worthy of our extra time.

So, I’ve been spending most of my time watching trailers of movies and shows to find which movie and/or show to watch. Kind of insane when you think about it, but entertainment has nothing to do with thinking, which is why you’re reading this column.

However, in the course of this experiment, I noticed that the same songs seem to pop up in certain genres of trailers.

LetĢƵ take a look…

n “Baba O’Reilly”, a.k.a. the song that starts with “Out here in the fields, I fought for my meals…” by The Who

This is one of my favorite kick-butt songs so itĢƵ fittingly used for the beginning of trailers where, letĢƵ say, a crew of workers are gearing up to begin the construction of the Panama Canal when the men, lead by foreman Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, stumble across a burial ground that unleashes zombies.

n “Raise Your Glass,” by Pink

OMG! A girls-night-out movie trailer where shenanigans will ensue and a multitude of inappropriateness will take place. This song normally takes place near the end of the trailer as the ladies are all united and dancing or juggling bowling pins (I don’t know how women celebrate) following a unsettling encounter with a Samoan pimp played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who tries to recruit them as ladies of the night.

n “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones

This is your gangster, growing-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks movie trailer or something involving a heist in the 60s or 70s. The song is normally played while a character–perhaps Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a drug mule–is running through an airport to escape from something or looking for a bathroom so something can escape from him.

n “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood

This early 80s song is not a great departure from other ThorogoodĢƵ ditties about being a drunk, someone you don’t want to mess with and doesn’t pay his local school taxes, but, like many things, it has aged to become tame and used mostly for irony.

For example, if Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays a hard-boiled cop tasked to go undercover as a school marm, “Bad to the Bone” would play at the point in the trailer when he steps out of the changing booth in his knitted dress and wig.

n “Solsbury Hill” by Peter Gabriel

I think this song can fit into every Cameron Crow movie trailer or any movie trailer where a character goes into self-discovery mode. ItĢƵ normally played in the trailer when the main character, like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson,” is traveling inside a car or plane or on a motorcycle sidecar with an umbrella, looking off into the distant horizon of his destiny…or searching for a bathroom.

n “You Make My Dreams” by Haulin’ Oats–I mean by Hall & Oates

Think of a buddy comedy where two guys–Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson playing identical twins that never met–team up for a task and realize that they are indeed more like brothers than coworkers or rival circus performers or synchronized swimmers.

n “Who Let the Dogs Out” by Baha Men

This song is reserved for a comedy trailer, normally revealing a specific characterĢƵ introduction to the movie when it answers the question who, indeed, let the dogs out. And that character is non other than Danny DeVito. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson passed on the project.

Now there’re so many more songs I can put into this list, but I simply can’t because this weekĢƵ column is really cutting into my movie-trailer-watching time.

ThereĢƵ this one movie trailer on Amazon Prime called “Skyscraper.” I don’t know much about it other than itĢƵ like “Die Hard,” but in a skyscraper and stars some WWE star, whose name escapes me at the moment.

According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. He co-hosts the “Locally Yours” radio show on WMBS 590 AM every Friday. His book, “Stupid Brain,” is available on Amazon.com.

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