Hesher finally has a trailer but it has a nut shot in it (UPDATE)

UPDATE: Apparently this isn’t the “official” trailer. More on that here.

Hesher, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman, finally has a trailer, and it puts me in a bit of a bind.  I’ve been pretty open about how much I liked this movie, but now the trailer has JGL taking a kick to the meat bucket at the 58-second mark, and we’ve long maintained that a nutshot in the trailer is the kiss of death for any movie.  But (500) Days of Summer had a retarded ending and people liked it anyway, probably because of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Maybe JGL is so well-liked that he could actually transcend the laws of nutshots in movie trailers, thus rewriting the laws of the universe!  If he can pull this off, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s balls will have more indie cred than Ryan Gosling’s ukulele.  They could even start a band together called, uh… Balls and Sebastian.  Yeah, let’s go with that. (Wait no, “Dead Man‘s Balls?” Aw, forget it.)

Hesher plays SXSW (“South by Southwest”) next month and someday you the general public might even get to see it.

It debuted at last year’s Sundance Film Festival to mixed reviews, was bought up days later by Newmarket Films, and has languished for over a year without hitting theaters because of what appears to be internal politics. Newmarket chief Chris Ball left the company to form his own shingle, and there are now plans for the release to be a joint venture between Newmarket and Ball’s Wrekin Hill Entertainment [BALLS WRECKIN, MY GOD IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW! -Ed]. It should hit later this spring. [ThePlaylist]

Trailer needs more metal. Or, if there were a just God, Bas Rutten could narrate.


Even though he’s too cool to respond to any of *my* emails, director Spencer Susser told GordonandtheWhale that this isn’t the trailer he wants you to see.

“I’m sure you’ve seen or heard about the HESHER trailer that’s spreading around. I wanted to let you know that it’s far from the official trailer. It’s a trailer cut for foreign markets from the same “geniuses” who tried to change the name to “rebel”. While it’s not a bad trailer, it was created by the foreign sales representatives of the film for the specific intent of explaining the film to people in foreign, often non-english-speaking markets. I’m happy to see that people online like the trailer and are interested in HESHER, but the trailer doesn’t accurately present the tone of the film or the character of Hesher. Anyway, I’m looking forward to sharing the official trailer which will be out very soon and I feel will communicate the film’s intent more clearly.”

Yeah, whatever dude. The GordonandtheWhale guys blow goats, I have proof.