Inspired by those wacky geeks over at TWIT I have decided that instead of putting off and putting off and putting off my vow to somehow market my first book I would let people download and read it for free. Give it a preview, read the whole thing or, if you like what you see, send me some kind words or money for the actual book. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.
There’s nothing that really rocked my world this week except the new album from WILCO. And, on the subject of Wilco, therein lies why I’m just not feeling it this week.
I put in a request to interview someone, anyone, from the band. Lately I’ve been doing this a lot, putting in requests for all sorts of things, people, acts, oddities but it’s been the oddest thing, trying to get someone to respond to an interview request as of late. I might as well have the bubonic plague of the conversational arts if the numbers of e-mails that ever come back is any indication.
I’m of the mind that writing for as long as I have for the site, and doing the kind of entertainment journalism (and don’t let anyone try and convince you otherwise that any of what’s done regarding film is anything less than cream puff journalism. I know reporters who cover city hall and taking about the cleavage you can peep from Jessica Biel in the newest catastrophe by Adam Sandler is hardly elevating in any sort of way.) I’ve done, I thought, should translate into some kind of cred.
It didn’t. It doesn’t.
What I know is that I can’t even get Derrek Lee to talk about his part for a film called CHASING OCTOBER without getting snowjobbed by the dude’s publicist for the film who promised everything short of a guaranteed interview. It’s what I wanted, of course, but the fun part of this gig, and partly the most frustrating, is that I’m not paid to chase these snake oil salesman until they relent. It’s rather freeing in a way to know that I’ll cast a net out there when the mood strikes and, sometimes, I’ll get lucky. Read here: Darren Aronofsky, Tanya Donelly, even Andy Dick was an amazing time.
The difference between everyone else and me, I guess, is that I don’t really care at the end of the day. I’m trying to bring good material to those handful of people who read this but getting the Heisman by publicists who would be better off to slit their own wrists than perpetuate the perennial “I’m too much of a pussy” facade of ignoring e-mails or dodging phone calls than to man-up and say they’re not interested in allowing their client-of-the-moment to chat with me.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe they are the great soothsayers who can tell when someone’s Bush League or when they have bazillons of hits on their site to warrant a one-on-one. Again, it’s fun in an antagonistic way to see this play out again and again only from the perspective that a) I don’t really care when you get right down to it; I’m trying to do a good job for you, the teeming dozens, but this is just the result of what happens when you’re dialing for dollars. And b) I just know someone will eventually say yes to something and then it makes the hustling all worthwhile. It may be someone you have never heard of but it’s my job here to tell you why you should.
It’s nice to be thrown a famous bone every once in a while but sometimes this just feels like a real job, a grind almost. Let’s see what happens with that request I put in for Wilco. It’s probably nothing but it just might be something.
I’m here, and will stay here, because I’m always thinking it’s going to be the latter.
CAPTIVITY (2007)
Director: Roland Joffe
Cast: Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Michael Harney, Laz Alonso
Release: June 22, 2007
Synopsis: Top cover girl and fashion model, Jennifer Tree has it all – beauty, fame, money and power. Her face appears on covers of hundreds of magazines. At the top of her game, Jennifer is America’s sweetheart. She is loved and adored and sought after. Everyone wants her. But someone out there has been watching and waiting. Someone wants her in the worst way. Out alone at a charity event in Soho, Jennifer is drugged and taken. Held captive in a cell, Jennifer is subjected to a series of terrifying, life-threatening tortures that could only be conceived by a twisted, sadistic mind.
View Trailer:
* Medium (Flash)
Prognosis: Negative. What I really don’t like in movie promotions is when, and if, a movie causes a stir prior to opening, during release or even after it has shuffled off this mortal coil to the video stands I think it’s gauche to make the thrust of your campaign a series of pull-quotes or superlatives.
You see, what’s going to bring me to the theater and what brings a 16 year-old to the theater is different but it’s revealing to me as a moviegoer as to the quality of company that the studio decides to employ for its publicity when they have to resort to the tagline: The Movie They Didn’t Want You To See.
Didn’t want me to see? Who? The people who complained about the real shitty billboards that depicted a caged woman as a device to drum up some attention? Pardon me for saying it but it’s one thing to be complimented about your ability to take a crap film and make me believe that it’s the next Oscar contender but it’s an entirely different story when you’re just plain lazy about your film’s promotion. And this trailer speaks to its laziness in rather overt ways.
Elisha Cuthbert, the Canuck who deserves a lot better than what she received in promotion for her turn in GIRL NEXT DOOR, only gets glimpsed at with a jiggly, shaky camcorder; it seems whenever you have a perv who likes to hunt prey with a video camera you’ve got to make sure it’s on the fritz all the time. The weirdo in question plays with her leg for a bit while she’s unconscious.
Don’t know what any of the creepy fondling means and I surely don’t know what the gun, egg timer (I use mine to make sure I undercook my cookies. The recipe calls for 10 minutes but I like my cookies a little on the under-baked end and so I set it for 6.), a blazing stove top burner and the pack of people standing over someone’s body, could be Elisha, like some CSI procedural.
“The movie so intense it was punishedâ€
How you punish a movie? Do you bend it over and give it a few lashings? I’m not really clear about how the metaphorical wall can be broken like that but some dude in a suit made the trailer guy keep it in there for some warped, twisted reason. I like the SAW movies because I know what they’re trying to be and it was sold as such, without any hesitation. The media campaign was creative in their explanation but this movie, controversial as they’re saying it is, but here there isn’t anything else but gorillas beating on their chest making a lot of noise.
Yeah, you have a car battery being drained of its acid, it’s going to be used for some nefarious purpose, but what does it mean to the girl that’s being held captive? I have no clue because we’re not let in on what’s going on. And, yeah, filling this chick’s cage with a large amount of sand in the hopes of burying her alive is a novel concept but why was she chosen and how does she fit into the overall scheme of things.
The answer to all these questions is simple: it’s because the studio doesn’t have anything worth putting out there for you to chew on. The film is a saccharine substitute for other, better, serial killer genre pictures. Smoke and mirrors doesn’t begin to describe this publicity campaign.
Director: Adam Shankman
Cast: John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Queen Latifah
Release: July 20, 2007
Synopsis: Sixteen years after the release of the original film, New Line Cinema is bringing a feature film adaptation of the Tony award-winning Broadway production HAIRSPRAY. Featuring new and original material based on John Waters’ 1988 cult classic about star-struck teenagers on a local Baltimore dance show, the comedy features a remarkable collection of talent including John Travolta, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, Allison Janney, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron, Elijah Kelley, producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago), and director Adam Shankman (Bringing Down The House). The new screenplay for Hairspray was written by Leslie Dixon (Freaky Friday, Outrageous Fortune).
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Nega-Positive. Three things, right off the bat, about this trailer:
1) Remember Iggy Pop? Guy used to stand for all that was punk and cool and hip and cutting edge before there was even an edge to cut? Yeah, “Lust For Life†has been co-opted by Royal Caribbean, I some a lot of the Boomers the ad is directed toward haven’t really listened to the song all the way through. In much the same way, and I know John Waters penned the screenplay, I can’t help but feel the teeth have been removed from the razor sharp dog that was the original HAIRSPRAY. The trailer gives off the scent of homogenous milk, if that makes any sense.
2) The pervasiveness and positive reception of a show like UGLY BETTY can only help a movie about an unpopular fat girl who is just looking to accentuate and be herself in a judgmental society; these themes have never been more at the forefront of the American zeitgeist and, for the moment, this may help the film.
3) John Travolta is scary as fuck in drag.
It’s hard to really define what has attracted to me to this trailer. Perhaps it’s reason number three above but I’m of the belief that any preview that has a good beat that you can dance to is worthy of a few moments. The opening sequence, sans the stale and stalwart voiceover that just grates on the nerves, sets things up fairly nicely. You’ve got the period, the time, the place and the people all tossed out within the first ten seconds.
You’re bounced, in a nice way, from what our protagonist holds fairly close to what is really at issue with the young lady. We may not know, there are some of us who have never seen the original, exactly is so interesting about a chubby girl and her desire to be on that era’s CLUB MTV but it works. It works for me.
If you can look past Travolta as he unsuccessfully tries to channel Divine’s oddness or Queen Latifah’s route, cookie cutter performance that doesn’t ever seem to change no matter what vehicle she’s placed in, there is really something that simmers on the screen as Michelle Pfeiffer just helps to move things along.
You leave things just sensing this could be a more satisfying than DREAMGIRLS if for no other reason than you have nearly a dozen people all contributing toward the common goal of making a classic film a little more palatable to a wider audience, just like any good co-opting campaign.
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Cast: Andy Samberg, Isla Fisher, Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader, Sissy Spacek, Ian McShanez
Release: August 3, 2007
Synopsis: Self-proclaimed stuntman Rod Taylor is preparing for the jump of his life. Rod plans to clear fifteen buses in an attempt to raise money for his abusive stepfather Frank’s life-saving heart operation. He’ll land the jump, get Frank better, and then fight him, hard.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive. Before Red Vines were crazy delicious and before Justin Timberlake actually found his way into my heart with his Dick In A Box song, Andy Samberg was just a name to me.
Saturday Night Live was just this limping horse that needed to be put down and turned into glue and my interest in the sketch comedy show that just seems be a staging area for people to come and then go to do something better was at a nadir. I think that Jimmy Fallon was a joke, not a jokester, and Tina Fey, no matter what you might think, was a pandering comedienne who delighted in laughing at her own material on Weekend Update and is only better now because she doesn’t guffaw at her writing on 30 ROCK.
When Samberg appeared on the scene, though, I found my TiVoed episodes taking a little bit longer to get through. The kid was, and is, humorous. He may not be establishing a new way to deliver the funny funny but he does have an original voice that is a delight to listen to when it has something good to say.
This trailer got my attention.
From the get-go the framing of the opening scene is just good. You’ve got this suburban neighborhood that seems about as boring as any manufactured housing development for Yuppies can be. The composition just elicits smiles.
Samberg’s personally made yellow cape looks like a yellow flag that was spray pained with his name just moments before and as he cranks his moped, the diminutive stature of the bike itself is another piece of the whole moment, asking whether the jump ramp we’re all familiar with as kids has been reinforced. As the word “No†gets uttered, Samberg shrugging it off and going full-force towards his destiny.
As his body is flung from his bike, he tumbles forward and completely eats it on the downslide. It’s fucking hilarious. CGI, special effects, I’m not sure how they captured the moment but it was good. You’ve got no choice from here but to keep watching.
We get to know who Rod is by being introduced to his sad little life. He looks like a low-rent daredevil and the kind of camera shots and odd characters that we glimpse make this a wonderful teaser trailer.
I don’t think I have any handle on what’s really happening in this movie but that’s irrelevant to the way this film is being marketed.
Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson, Rachael Taylor, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Jon Voight
Release: July 4, 2007
Synopsis: Whereas 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.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive. Forget everything I said.
No, strike that, forget what I portended for the future of THE TRANSFORMERS movie if the teaser trailer were any indication of what was to come.
I admit and still believe that the teaser trailer where the little robotic machine that’s traversing some alien soil that subsequently gets crushed, the very first look we got as viewers for how Bay was handling the property, is just awful. It’s shoddily done and looks like it was an assignment given to some 8th grade video and tech students at George Washington P.S. #138.
This, however, is great. A solidly built trailer that promises everything that the summer can be: loud, hot and fun. It seems so simple but this is the first trailer for a tent film that has actually stoked a sense of “gotta see it†in my inner child.
First, hats off for a) not using a voiceover and b) actually contextualizing Shia’s character. What could have been a moment to show things ripping apart or getting crushed under some machine’s metal foot we get that Shia is a normal kid. The sneaky reveal that he’s ending up with a car off Bernie Mac’s used car lot and not the Porche dealership they pull into is cute. Audiences will eat that kind of thing up. The Autobot decal on the horn is a real nice touch. I could have done without Bernie’s declarations that “the car picks the driver†and, I can’t believe it was said, “there’s a mystical bond between man and machine†as, besides feeling false, it shoehorns us into what follows.
Mere quibbles as what comes after, the car taking off in the middle of the night as Shia looks on, the quiet, thunderous arrival of other machines into our atmosphere is simply dazzling. It’s impressive to see the money shots we’re given.
In an era where it’s en vogue to deny anything and everything, to see the machines collide into the ground, a ballpark and then to see Bumblebee transform in front of us, to look at the detail put into the cars’ anatomy, is nothing short of amazing.
Again, yes, the whole army trope of “Gentleman, what you’re about to see is…†is so tired and lame and boring and a lazy device for any writer worth his margarita salt there is a sense of danger and impending doom when you see Megatron standing there, lifeless.
Two things while I’m thinking of it:
1. If that indeed is Starscream hopping up in the air, transforming into a jet plane and taking off is unreal. The physics actually feel applied. If you see how fluid a lot of effects make ordinary objects look like, a little too fluid, see SUPERMAN RETURNS for this, you can only be bowled over to see things given weight, made to seem like gravity applies.
2. The Optimus Prime transformation. I know there are lot of Gen Xers out there who eschew the series and say that the animation really wasn’t great to begin with and that it was one big marketing gimmick, etc… I can say I agree but to see that diesel truck come alive it just awakens the 6th grader in me.
For a trailer to do that and for the orgy of violence we’re given at the end there is just something in me that hopes this isn’t a trailer like PEARL HARBOR that promised an epic but gave us a crap love story; the geek backlash would be far less forgiving.
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