Top 5 Super Bowl Trailers

The best part of Super Bowl commercials is an early look at all the summer's big movies. Here are five of the more notable Super Bowl trailers.

Land of the Lost



Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, and Anna Friel of Pushing Daisies doing the Jurassic Park thing? I'm in.

Star Trek



Interesting how they continue to downplay the Star Trek part in favor of the young cast and the action. Since I've never seen Star Trek, that works for me.

Monsters vs. Aliens



I didn't get the 3-D glasses, but this appears to be about an alternate universe in which Stephen Colbert became president and installed Jack Bauer as head of the military. With GOB, Dwight, Seth Rogen, and Paul Rudd also in the voice cast, it's got to be funnier than what was in the trailer.

GI Joe



No idea how this relates to the original action figures, but I'm curious to see Dennis Quaid as an action hero.

Up



Ok, Pixar didn't give any new footage for this trailer. But since the Year One spots looked kind of disappointing (though with Jack Black, Michael Cera, Paul Rudd, and Harold Ramis directing, it's gotta be better than it looks), Angels of Demons still looks like The Da Vinci Code, and Transformers is...Transformers, Pixar's winning out.

Top 5 Super Bowl Commercials

Ok, these probably aren't the best 5 commercials from the Super Bowl. I don't really pay that great attention to the whole thing (it's really long!) But here are the five that, for whatever reason, seemed the most memorable to me afterwards:

Hulu - Alec Baldwin



This one gets my pick for best of the night because Alec Baldwin + aliens = a winning combination.

Monster: Need a New Job?



So true.

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head



Because it's Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.

Coke Zero: Mean Troy



A funny reworking of a classic.

Heroes Football



I'm not sure why, but this was my favorite of all of NBC's self-promotional ads. Probably from Hiro stopping time to score the touchdown.

Oh, and for the absolute most confusing commercial, Sobe: Lizard Lake 3D



How much was going on in that commercial? 3D, football players, Sobe, iTunes...I've lost count. Why did that need to exist?

I'll do a post later with my five favorite trailers.

The Post Super Bowl Letdown

This isn't a sports blog, so you know I'm not referring to disappointed Cardinals disheartened by their down-to-the-wire loss. I had trouble even pretending to care about the team I arbitrarily decided to root for (the Steelers). Even with more interesting teams, the Super Bowl for me is still about wings, beer, commercials (which I'll cover tomorrow), and the show that gets to follow the big event. That post Super Bowl time slot can do a lot for a show. Grey's Anatomy's bomb episode helped make it one of the highest rated shows on TV. Yet despite all the hype, The Office tonight felt more like a fumble, or at least a 5 year penalty.

It started off well enough, with a humorously absurd plot about Dwight setting the office on fire to teach a lesson on fire safety. Seeing everyone smash things to try to get out (or, in Kevin's case, get into the vending machine) made for a pretty hilarious start. But while the rest of the episode had its laughs, nothing worked as well as it should have. I mean, there was a roast of Michael Scott, one of the greatest ideas the show has ever come up with. With so much about him to mock, how could it not be hilarious? Well, by showing a couple of merely ok snippets before making it all serious. Why couldn't we hear the rest of Jim's speech? What did Kevin say? When Angela's roast is the funniest, something went wrong. At least Michael got a few good lines in his final roast of everyone.

I also have to say that Jack Black, Jessica Alba, and Cloris Leachman had probably the lamest guest appearances I've seen in a long time. They were relegated to a weak movie parody that had virtually no relevance to the rest of the episode. The only real jokes involved Jack Black making out with Cloris Leachman while really cheesy music played. You couldn't even tell it was Jessica Alba in her 15 seconds of mini-screen time. It's the kind of movie parody we've seen oh so many times before, except usually much funnier. It was almost like The Office writers were trying to prove to NBC that they have no use for big name guest stars.

The fake movie's only relevance was in maybe sorta not really relating to Pam's parents' marital roles, a storyline that had no place in a Super Bowl episode. Why don't Jim and Pam get to be funny anymore? Writers, make them be funny again. The CPR class was a bit of old-school Office, harking back to the British days or, if you prefer, "Diversity Day," as Michael completely took the class over. I admit I laughed when Dwight started carving up the dummy, but coming right out of the fake fire it meant way too much of Dwight at his craziest.

The whole thing just proved The Office can't handle all the expectations. Now in its 5th season, I'm not sure the show still has any great hour-long episodes in it, and certainly not of post Super Bowl calibre. Seems NBC would have been better giving the spot to 30 Rock, which could have used the exposure and could have come up with a funnier episode. After all, Alec Baldwin's Hulu ad was one of the highlights of the night. With another new episode on Thursday, I have to wonder, "Do we really need three episodes of The Office in one week?"