Petrelis Files

Boos During Oliver Stone's "W" Trailer at SF Theater

Over the weekend I caught the new thriller-on-a-train movie "Transsiberian" down at the multiplex cinema on Market Street, near the Powell Street cable car turn-around.

Before the flick began, we in the audience had our eyes and ears assaulted with 20-minutes of loud commercials and rapidly-edited coming attractions, none of which stood out except the last one. It was for Oliver Stone's new movie on the Worst. President. Ever.

The trailer's pacing is a very old-school coming attraction in that it allows the viewer, towards the end, more than a nano-second to look at the characters and who's playing them.

When "Karl Rove" appeared, a few people loudly grumbled, and there were hisses as "Donald Rumsfeld" crossed the screen, but there was unmistakable booing as "Dick Cheney" showed his face. Count me among those who booed and hissed the characters, not the upcoming biopic on George W. Bush.

As soon as the trailer ended, a man behind me raised his voice to ask, "Is it January yet?" I haven't experienced such audience participation at the movies since I saw the sing-a-long version of "West Side Story" at the Castro theater two years back.

Any other reports of audiences reacting to the "W" trailer now showing at local multiplexes?