The Playlist

While we don't get the appeal of sitting down for four hours and watching a bunch of cars drive around in a circle, apparently, a lot of other people love it so no surprise that the Daytona 500 has -- this year at least -- become a mini-Super Bowl of sorts. During yesterday's broadcast of the race, two short, new trailers for a couple of the summer's biggest sequels dropped with enough new footage in each to make them worth a moment of your time.

Can't wait to see some actual footage from "Transformers: Dark Of The Moon" instead of whatever is in that overly self-serious teaser spot? Then this car ad might fit the bill.

The Answer Is Probably Not, But Hey, What The Hell...Our exhausting coverage of the films coming out in 2011 continues and yes, we're tired, hungry and a bit cranky. We used to call this our Least Anticipated Films feature, but this year our New Year's resolution was to be a tiny bit more positive. Frankly, the sentiment applies, but this is also the leftover films of 2011 we just don't know what to do with. Many of them look abysmal, some of us glass-half-full Playlist types (yes, there are a few among us) think, "hey, that picture might not be so bad," while other members of the group stare in shock that such an idea could be possibly floated. So yes, basically these are the films that we don't hold out too much hope, the ones we think look downright cheap and dreadful, made only to turn a buck and the occasional few that look half-decent (and may just not have fit in the character count of our Escapist Features, sue us) --- though before you bombard our comments section, please actually read what we have to say about these films before assuming we're completely writing them off. Also, while it wasn't intentional, some of us do find it amusing that most of the cast of "Twilight" fill these halls. Another trend we just realized? Leighton Meester pretty much means box-office poison (poor cute, "Gossip Girl"). Also, Hollywood seems to be banking on the mostly unknown Alex Pettyfer, but he truly looks like a charisma-free zone of blandness. Onwards to 2011, though, not necessarily upwards in this case....

So, when is a teaser trailer not a teaser trailer? When it's an ANNOUNCEMENT TRAILER. That's right fools, Michael Bay plays by his rules and he's not gonna call the first trailer for "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" something sissy like a "teaser trailer." Sounds like the name of a backwoods brothel or something that only dorks and losers who've never felt up a girl in the backseat of a Camaro would think of.