Trailerate: A Fixer-Upper Ripe for Flipping

By Dec. 10, 2009, 3:30pm PT 31 Comments

Let’s say you’re single and kind of frustrated with the dating scene. Then one night you randomly encounter someone who’s a total mess, appearance-wise. But the two of you end up talking for a little while, because you don’t have anything better to do, and after a couple of minutes you’re completely charmed, so much so that you’re excited about your friends meeting this new object of your affection. But your friends are glamorous and attractive and prone towards judging others harshly. What will they think?

This elaborate metaphor is a good way to describe my feelings about Trailerate, an incredibly low-budget movie review series that needs a makeover — bad. Launched last month on YouTube, Trailerate features Shay’Tay (played by Chane’t Johnson) and Pay’Tay (Phillip Jordan), two goofy cousins with extreme fashion sense who have plenty of opinions about the weekend’s upcoming releases, based solely on their viewing of the trailers.

The characters are fictional, but the movies are real, and Shay’Tay and Pay’Tay’s commentary ranges from funny to hilarious. “It’s like Where Dreams May Come but with murder, intrigue and better actors,” Pay’Tay says about The Lovely Bones, followed up by Shay’Tay’s mournful realization that “I guess it’s time” for Susan Sarandon to play a grandmother. Shay’Tay has a crush on Phillip Seymour Hoffman, her favorite “fluffy puffy white actor,” while Pay’Tay wants restitution from John Cusack after having sat through The Martian Child. And rather than using thumbs or stars to rate the trailers, they use a pair of sock monkeys wearing colored vests to declare whether the trailer is a “Tito” or “Veto.” Ridiculous, yes — but surprisingly, it works.

However, let’s be frank about this: The production values are terrible. Each five-minute episode is shot in one take in front of what appears to be a wrinkled bedsheet lit by a table lamp. No cuts, poor sound recording, no insert shots from the films being discussed, and only the rare and amateur use of graphics. It’s so bad, in fact, that when I sent it around to a few people this morning, I had to beg that they watch at least two minutes before giving up — just long enough for the quality of the writing and performances to become clear.

Both Johnson, who also directs, and Jordan are working actors with decent credits — Johnson in particular has had recurring roles on network shows including Life, Day Break and LAX. The two have great chemistry together, and some real effort has been put into their web site, which includes implementation of an (underused) Ning community. But so far only their first episode has managed to exceed 500 views on YouTube, and while some of that is down to the difficulty of penetrating a crowded marketplace (everyone from monsters to former mayor Ed Koch is reviewing movies these days), the fact is that whether you’re on a date or watching web content, looks do matter.

So here is my hope: That someone out there sees the potential in Trailerate — someone with some good mikes, a nice camera, access to a studio, and maybe even some ideas as to how to spice up the pretty dry talking-head approach. Because I do think that Trailerate‘s fresh voice is strong enough to take it to the next level — so long as the sock monkeys come with.

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