A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

IN A WORLD RULED BY A CRUEL DICTATOR, ONE WOMAN STOOD UP: I suspect the movie version of The Devil Wears Prada is not of much interest to most of our readers (though Meryl Streep having the opportunity to flex some comic muscles can be a rare treat, as Adaptation proves in spades), but I link to the trailer because I think it can spur an interesting discussion of movie marketing. First, the trailer's an unsually long 3 minutes. Second, there's no voice-over, rapid cutting, title cards (other than the final one), or any attempt to tell us what the story is about. Instead, the studio has just given us a 3 minute scene from near the start of the movie, in which our heroine (Anne Hathaway, who we're supposed to believe is the "plain girl") meets our villainess (Streep) for the first time. No surprises, jokes (heck, there's not even a "laugh line"), set pieces, or any of the plot seems to get spoiled beyond what you'd read on the jacket flap of the book. It's an interesting approach--think it'll work? (My view is that it probably won't, but that the film will do all right anyway.)