I have a bad habit. One that keeps me up at night. One that has me scouring the internet in search of the latest fix. No: not online porn or a predilection for pictures of dogs in fancy dress, but film trailers.
Watching iTunes movie trailers is my catnip, my crack cocaine. And I'm not alone. Almost 10 million viewers have already watched the teaser for the second instalment of The Hobbit, the Desolation of Smaug (above), just on YouTube — and it isn't out until Christmas.
In part, the draw of trailers is the anticipation. My to-see list currently includes Lake Bell's In a World, David Sedaris's autobiographical C.O.G and, er, Jackass's Bad Grandpa. But in an age of shortening attention spans and lengthening blockbusters (The Lone Ranger lasts 149 very long minutes), the trailer also offers an enticing clip of celluloid without the commitment or the cash. My butterfly brain happily flits from film to film — sometimes I even Google the ending afterwards so I can forgo the cinema trip altogether.
