As promised, reviews of trailers. I'll be quickly commenting on the trailers on apple's site and giving them two grades, one for how good the trailer is on its own, and another for how well it sells the film. (Rated on a scale of 0 to 5, where 5 is the Vanilla Sky trailer or Swimming and 0 is Spirit.) You will quickly find out why Alec is the one who has worked as a film critic and why I do math...

Simone:
This is the film by the director of the Truman Show about a movie producer who makes a digital actress so real that the world doesn't know she's a similuation. It stars Al Pacino. This trailer consists largely of comments being typed intercut with shots from the movie. I find this effective, although I could also see this coming accross as cheesy ("oh, i get it, she's a computer so its typed instead of spoken"). The music is very well chosen. Since I liked the Truman Show and this seems a very similar setup, and Al Pacino is great, I found this trailer both enjoyable and it did a decent job convincing me to see the movie. However, I think this might just be me, so:
Ratings: 3, 3.

Sex and Lucia:
This is the sexiest trailer I have ever seen. When making the case for why suggestive is more erotic than explicit I can think of few better pieces of evidence than this trailer. (That having been said, one imagines that when the trailer cuts away the film probably does not, thus decreasing its appeal.) Its quite remarkable from a technical point of view how one gets all of those moments into the trailer with no actual nudity. Furthermore, although it is a foreign film, the trailer actually contains dialogue, which is a remarkably rare, and remarkably good. All that having been said, I think I would much rather watch the trailer than go see the film.
Ratings: 4.5, 2.

The Matrix Reloaded
Yeah, I could say its overwraught, I could say that it would be completely uninteresting if you hadn't seen the first movie, but to say those things would be to miss the point. Like a Star Wars movie here you're trying to sell the movie to fans who already love just about everything about the movie, and I have to say that seeing that black screen with green symbols scrolling down it gives me much the same visceral pleasure as the opening sequence of a Star Wars movie. Yes I'm a fan, yes that's the only reason why I like this trailer, but this is one of the few movies which has enough fans that they're the only people you're selling it to.
Ratings: 2.5, 4.

Harry Potter II
After reading the last review and turning to this one you will call me a hypocrite, you will say "Isn't this also just aimed at fans? Doesn't it hit all the important notes?" and I will respond, but I'm not a fan of the Harry Potter movies, I'm a fan of the books, and this trailer does a very good job of reminding me why. I still don't like the Harry Potter actor at all, I still think the humor of the books doesn't make it on the screen, and I still think "where on earth is book 5 and why is she wasting her time screwing up the movies instead of writing another book?"
Ratings: 1.5, 1.5.

Secretary
This is a lighthearted sadomasochism romantic comedy. Yes you heard that right, and yes it is a funny idea. Its a funny idea that's worth thinking about for no more than two minutes, which fortunately is the length of a trailer, but unfortunately is not the length of the movie. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe this could be the next Being John Malkovich (see the trailer here, definite 5 star), but the trailer hasn't convinced me this setup merits more than two minutes of chuckling.
Ratings: 3.5, 1.5

Okay, I only got through half of this weeks trailers, but more tommorow I guess.