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38. Face/Off (1997)
By IFC
on 06/25/2009
The notion that anyone might confuse the broad John Travolta for the slender Nicolas Cage is totally laughable. Or rather, it was totally laughable before the utterly simple but ingeniously clever trailer for John Woo's "Face/Off." In it, John Travolta sits alone in a shadowy room. The camera begins in tight close-up on his face, then slowly tracks clockwise around him in one long take as he describes Cage's character, a man with "no conscience, no remorse." It passes behind his back as Travolta smooths his hair and explains that he's studied the man he's talking about so closely that he "knows every mannerism, facial tic, gesture."
Just as Travolta says he's finally figured out a way to trap his prey, the camera stops on the left side of his face. But when he turns to look at us, he's been magically replaced by Cage. It's one of those all-time "How did they do that?" movie moments, a bit of cinematic sleight of hand so perfectly executed it seems a shame to throw it away in a trailer. The switcheroo is bigger than its wow factor, though; with one seamless and invisible edit, the trailer proves the believability of the conceit, not to mention the viability of the entire production. John Travolta mistaken for Nicolas Cage? Yeah, I can see that. --Matt Singer
I guess you guys haven't seen the trailer for The Hughes Bros.'s Dead Presidents, huh? What about Forest Gump? I think those are the 2 greatest of all time. Gump is better than the movie. And Dead Prez is the best ever.
Oh... what about the SW Ep 1 teaser? Maybe you should call this the best film trailers on YouTube! LOL. Dead Prez is probably too hard for you to locate.
I think The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and 300 should be included!
Clerks? No love for the Clerks trailer? Sigh.
Honorable mention for the Grindhouse fake trailers? "Don't" was brilliant.
Great list, by the way. Thanks for including 'Man Who Wasn't There'
Seriously? We have to click 50 times just to get the damn list? No thanks.
Like clicking 50 times is soooo hard, right? But you guys forgot about There Will Be Blood!!
50 PAGES?!!! Get back to work researching how to post an article. No Digg for you.
50 PAGES?!!! Get back to work researching how to post an article. No Digg for you.
GREAT article and flawless pick for #1. I actually did a lil piece on that trailer at our own movie blog, so I'm elated to see as your top pick. Yay trailers!