In a recent article for The New York Times, Sharon Waxman hits upon something I could’ve told you weeks ago: You’re not going to get traditional press for BORAT in any sort of fashion.
Many weeks ago I recounted my experience at Comic-Con when Sacha Baron Cohen announced this film’s triumphant decent upon movie theaters everywhere. The buzz surrounding this film’s screening was intense and should have been enough to make any PR campaign for this movie an easy sell with the right kind of push. One of the things, however, that I latched onto when I did some initial talking to those who were working the event was that Fox was looking for people to help promote it as any other under-the-radar kind of flick would want to have; people to talk about it; offering up the crew for interviews; any great word of mouth would help drive box office.
Thing is, though, there is an across-the-board shut-out of anyone even remotely involved with the making of this movie. As Waxman points out when she tries to get Sacha’s ear with regards to this movie, “Mr. Baron Cohen, who is appearing in Toronto as Borat, declined to be interviewed for this article and will be conducting interviews ahead of the film only in character” and, further, “20th Century Fox also declined to comment for this article or otherwise participate.”
So, why the disconnect with a movie that seems to barrel down its viewers wherever it plays? If you’d like to be 20th Century Fox and play the political card and defer to the movie’s outlandish jabs at nationalism and religious issues then you’re a rather insipid Neanderthal who perhaps needs to learn a little more than your ABC’s when it comes to modern economics.
If I’m a studio and I know that I have a lightning rod of a movie on my hands what sense does it make to shove it in the closet like the neighborhood idiot who’s not allowed to socialize with the rest of the kids? Movies try and fail at ever gaining awareness of their pictures, some only wish a pack of crazies would make something out of nothing but yet here we are with a movie that’s getting gagged if for no other reason than this is the grand design of the movie’s creator who has figured out the precise mathematical equation about when a movie’s hype has passed the bombing run that would guarantee a dead-on hit.
I don’t know what the answer is to this one but I do know that we are roughly seven weeks away from this film’s opening, the word-of-mouth couldn’t be better and just when it’s time to start getting people on record about the tumultuous production we get that Sacha is only going to do interviews in character. Larry Charles won’t break his vow of silence, nor will anyone involved in the making of the movie.
Believe me, I tried.
For something like this I understand the need to create the air of mystery around the movie’s content. I get it. It’s artistic. No big mystery there.
You just hope, as a passionate stumper for this film’s power as a film, that those involved know what they’re doing and this movie is allowed to donkey punch people in the chest with the force this flick is capable of providing.
If anyone else in the audience has a reasonable theory about what’s afoot with the odd silence with any member of the press for a film that could use every voice at its disposal I would be more than happy to entertain any conspiracy theory.
Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Travis Van Winkle, Josh Duhamel, Jon Voight, Megan Fox
Release: July 4, 2007
Synopsis: TWhereas the Earth is the home of a variety of organic-based lifeforms, the planet of Cybertron is the homeworld of a race of robots which have the ability to transform into other mechanisms, with each Transformer having its own unique disguise. The Transformers are divided into two separate camps: the good and just Autobots, who are led by Optimus Prime (whose disguise is a red 18-wheel semi truck); and the evil Decepticons, who are led by Megatron (who transforms into a gun; there’s a good deal of size-shifting involved with Megatron as well). With fuel supplies (called Energon Cubes) on Cybertron running low, both forces travel through space looking for a new source, which leads them to Earth, which from their perspective in rich in the minerals and chemicals they need. Disguising themselves as cars, airplanes, boats, etc. easily recognizable to humans, the Transformers engage in a secret war for control of Earth’s bountiful natural resources…
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Prognosis: Negative; Nay, This Is A Dreadful Tease. What a puss.
I was talking with someone else, a lot of people actually, who were present and not present for the Comic-Con’s presentation of the TRANSFORMERS movie a couple of weeks ago. Now, while it was cool as all shit that the original voice of Optimus Prime was going to be the voice for the live action movie I was definitely put off by the fact there wasn’t so much as an inch of footage presented.
For those in the know, Comic-Con is perhaps one of the best places to get geeks amped about your production should you have a flick ready to roll out in the next year. You don’t need much to get this core demographic moist in their Jockey’s as Bryan Singer had literally just started shooting X-MEN 2 when he came to Comic-Con and presented a teaser trailer that just blew their minds. He left knowing that now he set the expectations and needed to perform. Michael Bay had already set in motion the events of Comic-Con 2005 when he had a tractor trailer set up on the main floor, adorned with the promise that the rumor was now a reality, and now, just weeks ago, he had a captive audience. He had the opportunity that a lot of studios wished they had so what did he do? Bay literally called it in. With a pre-recorded video message that essentially said, “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, this movie is going to be so cool, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, I can’t show you a dick’s worth of footage, bullshit…†it was just awful. PR-wise the man’s lost to the idea of how to win friends or influence nerds. I was a marginal fan at best growing up but even I was pissed and disappointed for those who expected something more than they got.
And now we have this.
I’m not really sure what to make of it but I guess, as a teaser, it’s not too wretched. One of the things that I like is that the conceit that the events that transpire here on Earth have something to do with a rocket launch in 2003. If you had no idea that this was for the TRANSFORMERS the teaser would initially make you think you were seeing the sequel to APOLLO 13. You’ve got a very solid countdown with no voiceover, no cards to indicate something more than what this is.
“In 2003, the Beagle 2 Mars rover was launched…â€
The lack of music or even Tom Hanks’ face somewhere in the opening five seconds lends itself to this teaser implying more than just this being a movie about megastars trapped in space.
I love, I really do, that the conceit about this being about a Beagle 2 cover-up is rendered with some of the most crisp, sharp looking video images of what should be the surface of Mars. Never minding that what actually got beamed back from the surface looked like a series of 5X7s pasted against each other we see here, in this teaser, that the REAL surface of Mars looks like the salt flats of Utah and that it looks damn nice to have a picnic with a few brews and a pack of wieners, not the inhospitable wasteland we’ve been led to believe it is. Please, it’s damn near laughable. I know it’s supposed to be the movies and the suspension of disbelief but this looks like it was shot right here in Arizona. I mean you can see blue skies for fuck’s sake; couldn’t have someone fixed this with a few strokes on their Apple or something? If a conspiracist ever thought to question how to fake a moon landing this would be it.
Attention to detail notwithstanding, I laughed a little when a card pops up and tells me that its last transmission was deemed classified. What, did the camera catch hillbillies in their Ford 350 doing doughnuts, kicking up dirt and dust, spinning to the sounds of Toby Keith, as some topless chicks in their Daisy Dukes toss empty beer bottles of MGD from the back of the pickup, revealing this hoax of hackery?
Oh, and I love it, I absolutely adore it, that as the teaser fades to a close, a completely inconsequential transformer making a cameo that is useless to even try and be excited about, that as the movie’s logo, The Transformers, appears on screen we also get, in an amply sized font, that this is a MICHAEL…BAY…FILM. Nice. Nice touch, ass; never mind all the people who you now have to depend on to bring the actual transformers to life and make you money.
I hope MICHAEL…BAY…understands what kind of opportunity he was afforded weeks ago and that coveting his footage was worth putting the cover on top of the boiling pot.
TENACIOUS D: THE PICK OF DESTINY (2006)
Director: Liam Lynch
Cast: Jack Black, Kyle Gass, Amy Poehler, Tim Robbins, Ben Stiller
Release: November 17, 2006
Synopsis: This is the story of a friendship that changes the course of rock history forever, of the fateful collision of minds between JB and KG that led to the creation of the precedent-shattering band Tenacious D, and of the two heroes’ quest to find the fabled Guitar Pick Of Destiny…
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Prognosis: Negative. This is the movie that I’ve been waiting for, for over a year and a half?
I’m disappointed in this trailer for a lot of reasons but, and I think this speaks to the material, when you’ve got Jack Black doing a nut smash moment I am disappointed; it’s something I would expect from America’s Funniest/Best Staged Videos. It’s an easy laugh and speaks to a real uninspired master behind the switches.
I’d expect this sort of thing out of a lot of dollar theater hacks but this is the end result of waiting for as long as I have? The answer is yes and I’m not sure what more could be said above that.
At the very start of this trailer I was really expecting something special and unique. Some notable camerawork, unique cinematography or even the 5000 CCs of raw power that blew people away when they played live. Something!
“Prepare yourselves for the motion picture experience of the century…â€
I thought having Jack Black doing his shtick-y deep rock and roller voice was a good idea until I heard him do it over the visuals we are presented with; it’s pretty limp. Sure, you’ve got Kyle Gass and Jack coming together on screen in this one moment where you can see the rise of the D but after seeing the two of them walk up the steps of the Guitarway To Heaven I am struck in the eyes by the fact that this feels like SCHOOL OF ROCK 2: The Lou Pearlman Years.
I guess I should be going crazy over their hardcore antics in small clubs and how they’re so rockin’ even in their own kitchen nook but it sort of feels tired. I’m not so much sold as I am wondering, “Haven’t I already bought this?â€
We’re then introduced to the thrust of the film’s storyline: a quest to find the pick of destiny. I’m not sure if that should be capitalized as a proper noun but it kind of feels improper to give it that much weight after seeing Jack proclaim that this is their ticket to greatness. Jack’s assuaging to Kyle about its righteousness doesn’t really make me laugh as it does, however, give me a moment’s pause after seeing what Kyle is wearing: a shirt that spells out TRAIN WRECK; hmm, evil portent or cleverness disguised in the form of 100% cotton? Interesting thesis.
I’m not quite sure how to gauge Jack Black’s discovery of Sasquatch in the forest of some rich, acid-like trip or what it means to the overall story, per se, but I think it has something to do with the rather unnecessary car chase that’s inserted here as well.
Am I the only one losing their minds about what this has to do with the D?
About here is when Jack falls on a tree branch and squashes his nuts. I’m thankful that I am not left to linger too long on trying to understand how this bush league humor made it into this flick but I am hopeful, however, by the introduction of Satan. Who isn’t happy when the Lord of Darkness enters a movie? I count myself in favor of more movies with artificial renderings of his Lordship. Unfortunately, when I’m rooting for Satan and this is a movie when I should be basking in the glow that is Tenacious D I know there is something amiss in Rockville.
Director: Michael Kang
Cast: Jeffrey Chyau, Sung Kang, Jade Wu, Samantha Futerman, Alexis Change
Release: August 20, 2006
Synopsis: Puberty sucks, and nobody knows it better than 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau). As he watches guests come and go, Ernest finds himself forever stuck at his family’s hourly-rate motel, where he divides his time between taking orders from his overbearing mom, cleaning up after whatever miscreants the motel may attract.
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Prognosis: Positive. This trailer, if you can indulge me for a moment, feels like rain washing over a polluted sky.
In a filmic landscape cluttered, nay, clogged and congested, with pictures that want to show us what it’s like to be an adolescent it helps to know that there are flicks that seemed imbued with the promise that this isn’t going to end like a lot of other stories in its genre.
It’s damn hard to try and be original when someone already has told the story of youth in America and what it’s like to evolve at that stage in one’s life but this trailer is tender and firm with its presentation. No doubt that there are prescient notions of where we’re going to end up after we deal with the tropes of the bully story and the falling in love story and the dealing with one’s parents when all you want is for them to leave you the fuck alone story but what’s key here, and what seems to elevate this picture, is its belief that this is an original story all its own.
I could not be more pleased to take my finger off the Back button on my browser after getting through the first ten seconds of this trailer where we are introduced to our protagonist: a chubby kid who is screaming his hardest as he holds a box of Popeye’s fried chicken. After this young man’s concerned companion asks whether he’s “Ok†I determine this is not your average coming-of-age story. I don’t know why it amuses me, but it does.
After this I am jauntily carried to another solid 15 musical seconds where it’s established who produced this thing, the flicks that have earned them solid cred, and a real loose idea of what this movie is. I like it so much because we’re given tastes, not dollops, of information. The love interest here for our chubby bunny, played by a girl who just sparkles the moment we see her, and who also borders on the Bizarro-World kind of lady who is always attracted to the kind of physical profile that would be ignored by the same garden variety woman in real life, (e.g. King of Queens, According to Jim and every single movie where John Candy had a wife), seems like an excellent choice.
His trials and tribulations with his family also seem run-of-the-mill but there’s an air of something unique to a kid who is helping this same family operate an hourly motel; it changes the dynamic from a kid who rebels because he has everything and is a little piss ant teenager to one where he has something invested in the struggle to keep the family operation running.
The nameless sounding board for his inner consternation is an older dude, a brother perhaps, but regardless of his role within the family unit the use of him in the trailer here is really thought-provoking when we, as an audience, try to piece together this kid’s social circle.
The praises of this flick’s performance from the many different festivals it’s played at is presented wonderfully; it should be noted, as well, at how quick we’re shown from what festival it was from and how quick they get the hell on with things. It’s great to win but it should be the product, not the accolades, that gets you noticed.
We see our love interest again, the girl just bursting with believability as someone who really cares for our dude, the next moment we have her hanging out the side of a car window with chubby at the wheel. Bold, considering his age, and we easily transition to what is no doubt a highlight in his picture, to one where he stands, in a darkened room, crying just a little in front of his mother. I don’t know what to make of what happened but the trailer gives us just enough reason to think of a few things on our own to piece together what’s happening here. Real tension is a rare find in these mini-movies but you get it in these small, liquid-centered, bursts. It’s delicious.
What’s more about this trailer is that we’re not left to wonder what a series of quickly placed quick-cuts means in the overall scheme of things but we get equally timed snippets that round out this movie’s vibe.
Again, it’s hard to pimp a movie that deals with adolescence in a way that’s interesting or fresh to audiences but, I posit, this is a trailer that deserves some room on someone’s “To Look Further Into†list. In a landscape littered with pictures I just don’t have the time to research that label alone speaks louder than my words.
Director: James Burke
Cast: Joshua Jackson, Louise Fletcher, Donald Sutherland, Juliette Lewis
Release: September 15, 2006
Synopsis: Ever since the premature death of his father, 25-year-old Minneapolis slacker Duncan (Joshua Jackson) is content with shuffling aimlessly through life, hanging out with his lifelong friends, and ditching one dead-end job after another.
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Prognosis: Underdog of The Week. Okay, let’s hit the high points first:
1) I know that the first reaction to seeing this movie’s poster is to turn tail and opt to watch the SPIDER-MAN 3 trailer another time is a right one. I mean, you’re all right on this; it’s God fucking awful and whoever designed it needs to have an inner tube shoved up their ass while someone else uses a foot pump to inflate it. BUT, at least watch the first minute of the trailer and be amazed by how discordant these two things are. Even the movie’s title is a little crap. Actually, it’s a whole lot of crap.
2) Holy Christ, you are not going to believe this but Scut Farkus, from the CHRISTMAS STORY, people, is in this movie. Does that automatically sell me on the movie? Maybe, but that’s reason enough, number two, to at least give the trailer a chance.
3) I had such low expectations for this trailer, the trailer of all things, because I saw Joshua Jackson was attached to the movie but, believe me or dis me, he’s solid. Surprised even me.
4) Really, this movie has a crap poster and a crap title. Ignore both.
The lead-in to this trailer is what really got me. We establish, quickly, that Joshua is unemployed, directionless and seems lost in his life. With the prodding from Steven Pasquale, one of the best reasons to watch Rescue Me, Joshua is asked to visit his grandparents where, as you can see from the crotchety-ness of Donald Sutherland’s old guy character, you can just tell that this movie is going to deal with how Joshua navigates a relationship with his elders. It doesn’t seem like much but the movie’s foundation is laid out for us; it’s an impressive feat, you understand, because there is no superfluous padding or glossing over what this movie is about.
Now that we have a vague idea that Joshua is sticking around his older family the bits with his friends, and the relationship they have, seems more genuine than a lot I’ve seen come out of onscreen buds. Mix in the love interest with Juliette Lewis, a lady who I’ve seen in both attractive and way repulsive roles, and this movie has done the impossible: makes me actually aware of Joshua as a real actor and Lewis as a genuine love interest.
Amazing, I know.
About mid-way though this trailer we get a laid-back acoustical number that launches us into the second half of this movie which establishes the notion that Joshua takes up the role of handyman for his grandparents, showing genuine interest in the goings-on of his older relatives, while mixing in the tension that exists between his new lady and the supposition that even in small time employment Joshua is still lost in his life.
Hey, Scut Farkus!
There seems to be an almost Tuesdays With Morrie kind of schmaltz that’s embedded into this movie but I somehow look past this for the simple reason that there seems to be a lot more at work within the confines of this movie.
“The way that they are or the way they were?â€
We end on an ON GOLDEN POND moment but, I would posit, we’re not left scratching our heads, not feeling sold into a movie that it is not and feeling like there is hope for this little movie that could. Once in a while a movie like this deserves a second look even when its poster and title suck ass.
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