Charlie Wilson’s War blowback item #1: the more I look at this trailer, the more irksome those clips of Julia Roberts are starting to become. Trailers have the potential of souring viewers on the movies they’re supposed to be selling because they always hammer home the most cloying selling points, but in every clip Roberts is either doing the sly sexy smile with the raised eyebrows or she’s winking. Sorry, but I have a low tolerance for this stuff in movie trailers to begin with.

Plus her accent sounds Southern but not exactly Texan (i.e., she’s playing a real-life conservative Houston socialite named Joanne Herring), and that big blonde hairdo is starting to bother also. I don’t mean to be a pain-in-the-butt nitpicker with nothing better to do than complain, but I’m starting to feel these iffy vibes because of Roberts and (let’s be honest) the trailer itself. More and more I’m hearing and seeing a series of quips and punch lines, but not much of a river or current underneath.

Memo to Universal marketing: get the team to cut a non-cute, non-winking trailer sometime soon that makes Charlie Wilson’s War look like a moderately serious political drama. The more I think about it, the idea that it’s some like of light, sardonic geopolitical romp isn’t going down well. I’m not saying “dreary” is the ticket — just get away from the smirks and the chuckles, and maybe throw in one or two extra clips with Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Hanks, Roberts and Hoffman on location.

And please, please shitcan the “All Along the Watchtower” and “American Pie” song clips altogether.