In my oh-so-humble-opinion, the best tool for procrastination (well, the second-best, if you count the ever-present Facebook) is www.apple.com/trailers, which has dozens and dozens of movie trailers available 24/7. The vast majority of the movies you will never see, but you can at least watch a two-minute snippet of its best parts. For many of them, you won’t be missing much in the remaining hour-and-28 minutes of filler. The only funny jokes will be the three featured in the trailer.

One can spend hours watching two-minute synopses of such priceless and eternal cinematic masterpieces such as “Kickin’ It Old School,” which features Jamie Kennedy as a 1986 break-dancing champion who wakes up from 20-year coma to find that everything has changed. Clichés ensue — he needs to win a dance competition to win the heart of his lifetime love who is engaged to his worst enemy. Seriously. They would not make it unless you were going to watch it, folks.

However, gems do occasionally appear: both summer-blockbuster atrocities and truly compelling films. At least, atrocious and/or compelling trailers for these films.

After procrastinating much on a paper last week, I ran through many trailers. A sampling of the movie fare on offer in the next few months.

“Private Fears in Public Places.” Alain Resnais, Dir.

This movie is very, very French. Paris is snowing, the color palette is muted and the dialogue hangs in the air. A piano slowly plays in the background through the rapid scene changes. Statements that sound banal — “The problem with women — they don’t understand men’s need for solitude” and “Life is strewn with ordeals like this that paralyze us. Surely you don’t get over them either. That makes me very happy” seem profound when set against this background. There’s no real sense of a plot in this trailer, but the cinematography, at least, is superb. Evocative, heavy, dim, this will eventually make it into my computer’s DVD player.

“28 Weeks Later.” Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Dir.

“28 Days Later” was a surprise-hit zombie movie from a few years ago. Described as a “zombie movie with a heart,” it sacrificed suspense and horror for emotion and family. Even more surprisingly, it worked. This movie is set, I guess, four months after the outbreak of zombie-ism, when London has been cleaned up and the population moves back. A broken family, the mother having been turned into a zombie and killed, is reunited. But there is another outbreak, there are shots of crowds of people running across fields and the military blows up London. There’s a quick shot of the father, pained, as he is running, and one is immediately greeting with the strong sense that the father is doomed. “Weeks” seems to lack the originality of “Days.”

“Ocean’s 13.” Steven Soderbergh, Dir.

Another iteration of the casino-heist-ensemble-cast franchise. “Ocean’s 11” worked very well, and “Ocean’s 12” worked adequately, but this one seems like another move downhill. The plot-rigging Al Pacino’s (replete with terrible highlights) new casino in revenge for something that isn’t entirely clear-seems contrived. There’s the usual wit, Clooney, Pitt, Damon and the rest are all there, but it’s hard to see the justification for another “Ocean’s” movie, especially with a plot this bad.

“Sunshine.” Danny Boyle, Dir.

Another of those horribly overdone science-fiction film aspiring for realism. The “Icarus 2” is a spacecraft heading to the “dying sun” to “reignite” it, whatever that means. Predictable uses of mythological references ensues. The narrator of the trailer and one of the main stars is that “Scarecrow” guy from “Batman Begins.” The trailer is mostly quick-cut scenes of people running through hallways and advanced-looking glass-and-steel installments exploding. None of this bodes well for the actual film. That being said, if there is enough of a human element, the film could save itself from the dreaded o-word (overdone), but chances seem slim.

“No Reservations.” Scott Hicks, Dir.

Part of the description of the film on the trailer page is as follows: “High-spirited and freewheeling, Nick Palmer (Aaron Eckhart) couldn’t be more different from Kate [Catherine Zeta-Jones], yet the chemistry between them is undeniable.” The set-up is clear in the first 30 seconds-Eckhart joins a perfectionist Zeta-Jones in a high-powered kitchen, and Zeta Jones inherits Olive from “Little Miss Sunshine,” or at least the actress who plays her. As one might expect, every second of this film is permeated with feel-good clichés and happy music. Witness this priceless exchange: “‘I wish there was a cookbook for life.’ ‘You know better than anyone; the recipes you create for yourself are the best.’” This movie seems to be straight from a recipe, no substitutions.

“Transformers.” Michael Bay, Dir.

I wonder how much The Strokes paid for Shia LaBoeuf to wear their t-shirt throughout what appears to be the entire movie; it was probably a lot. The band needs the publicity, apparently. The movie seems to have a “War of the Worlds” feel, which makes sense considering that Steven Spielberg is an executive producer. It’s unclear from the trailer what is happening in the movie, but it opens on July 4, and the budget is clearly impressive. It will either be a classic summer blockbuster and pull in $300 million, or it will flop miserably; I’m leaning toward the former, for the moment.

Sometimes it’s hard to be optimistic about the state of movies, especially when one is watching overdone trailers that attempt to summarize a two-hour film and reveal the ending (why, we will never know) in all of two minutes. But at least it’s easier to avoid the bad ones.