[I'm on vacation until November 18, so my friends are looking after The Critical Condition. Today, please put your hands together for Joe Reid, whose writing appears everywhere from SoapNet to Television Without Pity to his very own awesome blog. Joe will be scaling the trailer for Frost/Nixon.]

The Movie: Frost/Nixon (opening December 5)

The Buzz: Ron Howard adapts the Tony-winning play by Peter Morgan, which dramatizes the real-life series of televised interviews that former President Richard Nixon granted to upstart Brit journalist David Frost. Depending on who you listen to, this is either a shoo-in or has zero chance for a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

The Trailer:

Let’s get scalin’… after the jump!

The Review: As with any bit of marketing, no detail is too small. A movie trailer has two and a half minutes to sell you on a $12 movie ticket, and unless we’re talking about a sequel, remake, or a known quantity like a comic book superhero, it’s got to use every element at its disposal to let you know what you’re getting and why you’ll love it.

[In some ways, "Frost/Nixon" has it easier than others on this count because Nixon is about as known a quantity as it gets in modern American history. The David Frost interviews aren't as big a part of Nixonian lore as, say, the Checkers speech or the enemies list or G. Gordon Liddy, but that's why they're making the movie, right?]

If you’re looking for shorthand from a trailer that says “this is the kind of movie you should expect,” look no further than the music cues. Particularly when that music is borrowed from other films or pop cultural touchstones. When the “Big Fish” trailer uses Danny Elfman’s score from “Edward Scissorhands,” it’s telling you to expect fairy tale elements and a whimsical story, but tempered by that Tim Burton darkness. When “Pride & Prejudice” is advertised using Craig Armstrong’s music from “Love Actually,” it’s saying “This movie is British, perfect for a date night, and stars Keira Knightley.”

Musically, the “Frost/Nixon” clip is divided into three parts. The first, set to David Bowie’s “Fame,” doesn’t really draw any conclusions based on other movies, but the familiar opening chords suggest a swagger on the part of the team of investigative journalists (including Michael Sheen’s Frost but also Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt) setting out to take down Nixon. Since it’s the “Frost” half of the film’s title we’re not familiar with, it’s a good idea and effective shorthand. These are brash, idealistic upstarts — like Woodward & Bernstein…or the Ghostbusters.

The second part, set to The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly,” is less original. Pete Townshend’s spiraling crescendo is awfully familiar to movie audiences, most memorably as used in the “American Beauty” trailer. What does it want to tell us about “Frost/Nixon”? That it’s set in the 1970s, for one thing. That it aspires to the kind of year-end kudos “American Beauty” got, for another. And that Frank Langella’s Nixon isn’t all doom and gloom — he can make a crack about fornicating as well as any rock star long-hair or sardonic Kevin Spacey character.

The third part is the most interesting. It’s set to Clint Mansell’s “Death is the Road to Awe,” from the soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain.” Setting aside the fact that it’s one of the greatest pieces of movie scoring in the past ten years (at the very least), “Death…” has been showing up on the pop culture landscape a lot lately. It’s replaced Mansell’s “Requiem for a Dream” score as the go-to dramatic tension-builder for many a preview clip. It’s certainly effective in ramping up the stakes here, much as it did in the trailer for last year’s “The Mist.” Of course, “The Mist” was an action-y monster movie, while here the music only makes what is essentially a series of sit-down interviews feel like a monster movie. I remember the trailer for “The Hours” did that as well — made what was essentially an inward-looking exploration of the trappings and entrapments of femininity (BANG! POW!) seem like a psychological thriller. Is it misdirection? Sure. But I loved the shit out of “The Hours,” and however manipulative its use may be, Clint Mansell is probably gonna get my ass into a seat for “Frost/Nixon.”

And it’s a good thing, too, because I’m finding myself worried that Frank Langella’s acclaimed stage performance is going to loom a little TOO large in theatres. I’m not sure I’d ever think to call Anthony Hopkins’s work on Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” “scaled down,” but in comparison to what I’m seeing of Langella here, I might end up doing it. That being said, the supporting cast of Rockwell, Kevin Bacon, and Rebecca Hall all look intriguing. I never saw the stage play, but I have to assume their roles were beefed-up, if not created entirely, for the film version. In fact, this clip makes Rockwell’s role look almost as big as Sheen’s. In any event, I’ll surely be disappointed at seeing how Ron Howard manages to waste their talents entirely. Join me, won’t you?

The Rating: Three unearned pardons from Gerald Ford