Trailer Trash: Paper Man

Paper Man

It’s a miracle that any movie ever gets made. It’s hard enough writing these short Trailer Trash’s, so the fact that someone wrote a one hundred page script, got in the door somewhere, pitched it, got it greenlit, a production company came aboard, someone hired actors, set designers, costume designers, electricians, lighting people, sound engineers, etc. and they all worked every day for weeks on end to make a movie that then went into post production and then had even more people working on it to create a real movie as their job is incredible to me. Although I this particular case, after all that, all I can say is “those poor people. Those poor people who worked hard on Paper man.” All their hard work went down the drain because of this terrible, awful, trailer. Paper Man trailer, you suck!

It’s true, I’m already not a huge fan of Jeff Daniels. According to imdb he was considered for the role of Joey Gladstone on Full House and to me, yeah, that’s about right. I am also not a fan of Ryan Reynolds. Apparently, American is having a love affair with him, I don’t get it. This trailer had a lot of work to do to win me over from the beginnig. So, showing the “R” rating immediately followed by Ryan Reynolds in a child’s superhero outfit did not help. Neither did the overly gruff voiceovers, “Richard Dunn’s got some growing up to do,” or “His only friend. Lives in his imagination,” or “Then he met a girl.” Really? “Then he met a girl”? What am I an idiot? Of course he id, it’s a MOVIE! And trailer, you didn’t think I could figure out that he just met this girl by his double take? Or the quintessential “quirky girl shot” of Emma Stone wearing a snow hate and standing alone against a brick wall? Or Jeff Daniels overtly “nervous acting” which verges on turning him into a cartoon character? Because you kind of hit me over the head there was so much “meeting a girl.” You didn’t need to say it, I get it!

Other hack trailer moves? How about cutting the sound out during the hilarious awkward moment. Jeff Daniels invites this new girl (Did we mention he met a girl?!) to his house to…umm, babysit?? She comes over and asks where’s the kid. He says….There is no baby. CUT SOUND! Whaaaaaaa?! I only wish there was a big record scratch, at least then it would be ironicly funny.

The trailer continues to shlock on with some cheesy singer songwriter acoustics as Daniels starts to figure out his life and has emotions. Then we awkwardly cut every plot heavy line in the film into one thick paragraph of crap. “I read your book.” “You’re the only one.” “It kind of blew me away,” while the titles come up in “hip graphics” which are trying so hard to look cool you can almost hear them saying. “Right, guys?! Right???” No, get away from me.

My eyes proceed to be raped as people hug on the beach and people angrily throw papers around and we end with, get this, the new girl (the one he met, remember??) suggesting a title for his book…..wait for it…..Paper Man! And this is when I shot myself. I only came back from the dead to write this review warning you how bad this trailer was. And I bet the movie sucks too. In fact, forget everything I said up top, screw all those people, they made one hella crappy movie.