FRED Entertainment

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here…

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 a lot I like to read about movies.

I usually skip the fluff in favor of the harder news that a lot of sites out there push out, commenting on the stories from an angle that contextualizes events, happenings.

On one of my perusing journeys I came across an article that decried the lunkheadedness of many reporters out there who are aching to serve entertainment outlets with vapid and shallow filling that will play well to Ma and Pa Kettle in Bumwad, Tennessee.

I’ve been there, believe me. I don’t know how these people managed to get a paid position with an organization that thinks asking actors or directors meaningless questions about their personal lives or proclivities with them being loosely based on the fictional product they’re out hocking but it’s embarrassing to be in the same room with said actor or director when they get a question that feels written by a third grader. They get that look on their face where you instantly know that a) they’re going to be nice and answer it and b) are making a mental note to never make small talk with the wag in the future.

One such event happened during a Cannes interview with directors David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Wong Kar Wai, Jane Campion, Gus Van Sant, Taskeshi Kitano and Roman Polanski all gathered for an ol’ fashioned press conference. I’ll save you the fluffery and get right to the quick: Roman Polanski had enough of the softballs he has being given. He had enough at one point and said:

“This is a rare and unique opportunity to see a gathering of such important directors and it’s a shame to have such poor questions,” Polanski said pointedly.

He then left the stage in a huff and didn’t come back. He had enough of the press’ lame questioning and went about his day. On the one hand, I think he did the right thing but, on the other, CHUD’s own Devin Faraci chimed in with the opinion that, “How much banality should a great talent have to endure to sell his product?” True enough. It’s a point, and essay, worth taken. However, it doesn’t make it right in the grand scheme of things if ever there was a grand scheme.

Months earlier, Faraci stepped further into the Polanski issue by stating that, “there are people who will never again watch a Polanski film because of the statutory rape he committed years ago. But does Polanski as rapist diminish Polanski as filmmakers? Of course not”¦ unless Polanski was a filmmaker whose whole oeuvre was based on the sanctity and beauty of youth and innocence.”

This view couldn’t be filled with more ignorance even if he was the original template for Plato’s allegory for those stages of mental cognition in The Republic. Based on Faraci’s logic, then, it should follow then you should be able to enjoy his award-winning film, THE PIANO, without ever bringing the issue of the whole drugging and rape thing of a young girl into an honest critique of the man’s film.

I believe, and would posit, that a man like Polanski still deserves the kind of ire that we, as a society, place on those who would harm young children. If you can separate the two notions in your own head and justify being able to say “Yeah, he’s a rapist but, boy, he is a great filmmaker!” I’m sure there are scores of adults who have to live with the scars of physical abuse from when they were children and, I am willing to bet my left nut, I’m positive they don’t take issues like this lightly and I’m sure they don’t think there’s ever a statute of limitations on rape.

To look at something, and hold something, like a movie above all else is a case study in myopia. For those who have children, for those who have sisters, I’m pretty positive none of them are apologists for a filmmaker who has yet to answer to a crime which he actively avoids to this day. Use all the excuses to defend the man but, at the end of the day, there will always be a woman who I’m sure never would patronize a Polanski film, nor support it due to the vile things that monster has wrought.

In case you’d like to read more about the kind grandiose filmmaker Polanski is, as every student of film should understand the backgrounds of those who produce world-class art, here is a snippet of the man’s life circa 1977 from Wikipedia:

In 1977 Polanski, 43, became embroiled in a scandal involving 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. It ultimately led to Polanski’s guilty plea to the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.^[1]

According to Geimer, Polanski asked Geimer’s mother if he could photograph the girl for the French edition of Vogue. Her mother allowed a private photo shoot. According to Geimer in a 2003 interview, “Everything was going fine; then he asked me to change, well, in front of him.” She added, “It didn’t feel right, and I didn’t want to go back to the second shoot.”

However, subsequent to the first photo shoot, she agreed to a second session, which took place on March 10, 1977, in the Mulholland area of Los Angeles, near Jack Nicholson‘s estate. “We did photos with me drinking champagne,” Geimer says. “Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn’t quite know how to get myself out of there.” Geimer alleged that Polanski sexually assaulted her after giving her a combination of champagne and quaaludes. In the 2003 interview, Geimer says she resisted. “I said no several times, and then, well, gave up on that,” she says.^[2]

Polanski was initially charged^[3] with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor, but these charges were dismissed under the terms of his plea bargain, and he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.^[4]

Now, who wouldn’t be lined up to see his next film?

LICENSE TO WED (2007)

Director: Ken Kwapis
Cast: Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, John Krasinski, Christine Taylor, Eric Christian Olsen
Release: July 3, 2007
Synopsis: LICENSE TO WED follows newly engaged Ben Murphy (John Krasinski) and his fiancée, Sadie Jones (Mandy Moore), who has always dreamed of getting married in a traditional wedding at her family church. The problem is St. Augustine’s only has one wedding slot available in the next two years, and its charismatic pastor, Reverend Frank (Robin Williams), won’t bless Ben and Sadie’s union until they pass his patented, foolproof marriage-prep course. Through outrageous classes, outlandish homework assignments and some pious manipulation, Ben and Sadie are about to find out if they really have what it takes to make it to the altar”¦ and live happily ever after.

View Trailer:
* Medium (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Negative. “I have feelings of homosexuality that cause me some concern”¦”

I’m literally just trying to recall from the moment when I was faced with a questionnaire from my church with dozens of questions about anything and everything regarding my personal life but it wasn’t until I hit the aforementioned “homosexual” question that I realized there are some strange things afoot inside the church.

I think it’s why I gravitated so well towards this trailer.

It, as well, has everything to do with Robin Williams’ subdued performance; he’s not screaming, riffing endlessly or posturing for the benefit of no one but himself. It’s, also, the instant sense of goofiness that you sense with John Krasinski and Mandy Moore.

When, in the beginning, one of those retractable line strips comes undone unexpectedly the ensuing wackiness is slapstick that Middle America would love dearly. You realize quickly that this is not a film which will linger with you after you see it. This is the Carls Jr., the Sourdough Jack, the McDLT, if you will, of the summer.

However, there are lots redeeming the production.

You’ve got John who is just a charming addition on the screen. You can keep your McConaughey’s, your Hugh Grant’s, because there is something truly delightful about having someone who looks like an Everyman and acts like someone you could take an interest in.

“Ben, what do you do”¦besides little Sadie?”

Williams also shines as he establishes his character as someone who is even tempered and has an even mood. His demeanor just sparkles as he explains to Moore and Krasinski about Marriage Preparation. You can feel the friction building and even Moore, who genuinely dazzled during her time on ENTOURAGE adds to the mediocre laughs that are sure to ensue when William’s breaks free of his cloistered chains and indulges us all in a little exorcism humor.

It’s hard to be truly positive about a trailer that doesn’t look like it’s something I’m going to be paying for but even though the camera work looks like it’s going to be as basic as anything auteur, and master of making sure everyone uses X3 as a litmus that usually starts with “Yeah, but was it X3 bad?”, Brett Ratner has put on film, this comedy has something about it as there is still a glimmer that it could be a great rental when it comes out around Thanksgiving.

A MIGHTY HEART (2007)

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Archie Panjabi
Release: June 22, 2007
Synopsis: On January 23, 2002, Mariane Pearl’s world changed forever. Her husband Daniel, South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was researching a story on shoe bomber Richard Reid. The story drew them to Karachi where a go-between had promised access to an elusive source. As Danny left for the meeting, he told Mariane he might be late for dinner. He never returned.

In the face of death, Danny’s spirit of defiance and his unflinching belief in the power of journalism led Mariane to write about his disappearance, the intense effort to find him and his eventual murder in her memoir A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl. Six months pregnant when the ordeal began, she was carrying a son that Danny hoped to name Adam. She wrote the book to introduce Adam to the father he would never meet. Transcending religion, race and nationality, Mariane’s courageous desire to rise above the bitterness and hatred that continues to plague this post 9/11 world, serves as the purest expression of the joy of life she and Danny shared.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Negative. Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way.

Regardless of your feelings about Jolie’s constant appearance in the news for adopting/having/keeping children from all over the world despite plucking one from our own adoption system which is just pathetic considering how we publicly dry-hump the idea of abstinence yet have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world, regardless of how Mariane Pearl has handled the subsequent events following her husband’s untimely death and regardless of your feelings about the creepiness that is Angelina and her media machine, this looks like a fairly spiffy film.

Ah, who am I trying to kid? I can’t look at Jolie without being reminded how many times that woman has been staring back at me while I’m trying to read the wife’s US Weekly when I’ve been droppin’ a grumpy in the can.

For all intents and purposes, though, there is a good amount that’s done right in this trailer that deserves a mention. I do appreciate that we’re given a fair introduction into the life of Daniel, a guy who looks like he’s completely wet behind the ears of life, and the scene that we’re given is allowed to happen organically without any impedance of a graphic or voiceover.

Jolie looks like she spent too long at the spray tanner.

South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. That’s what Jolie, in a hamfisted accent that I think no one’s really going to believe this side of Madonna’s or Paltrow’s faux English linguistics, tells us about Daniel’s job. Not to mention that this is going to go down in Pakistan, not really a good place for an American to be in 2002.

So, we move on and before we even get into the meat of what’s happening here Jolie says that the two of them flew to Pakistan the day after 9/11. I don’t know what world you live in but, again, there are a lot of red flags that a) should have been waved in front of their face about what the climate was and b) regardless of your position as a journalist you can’t help but feel, after hearing those words out of Jolie’s badly accented lips, that this was a losing proposition.

Then we’ve got the moment where Daniel disappears forever. According to the trailer we see that he wants one more interview. He gets into a cab and starts driving, and driving, and driving before he says, looking scared, “Are we far?” Um, yeah, at what point does chasing a story and being in love with the idea of being a journalist preclude the notion of preserving one’s life? You can’t watch this trailer and not feel some sense that there was something really amiss with the way things went down.

“I don’t think this is the business of a journalist”

From the moment he’s captured the music score gets faster, to create the sense that everyone’s running out of time in finding the man, but the trailer doesn’t really convey the kind of urgency that I would expect to compel me to want to see the movie. While I understand that that everyone, almost everyone, there are some people who can’t list the last three presidents of America, knows how the story ends I can’t believe that a tagline that this movie represents, “the story you haven’t heard.”

Umm”¦pretty sure I have, Sparky. Apart from the situational details and the summary of events as explained by his own paper anything else are just the private moments of Mrs. Pearl which are open for interpretation and misrepresentation.

Apart from the usual trappings of a cat-and-mouse movie and the events as they unfolded, a lot of which I would deconstruct here, there is a moment, at the end of this trailer, something really concerns me. Jolie, again in that wretched accent, breaks the 4^th wall of this film by saying out loud that this movie is for his son. Is this Angelina talking or is this his widow? And why have there at all? The emotional buy-in, obviously, but it is gauche in ways I can’t begin to describe.

Is this a film or a documentary? If it’s the former then it makes Angelina’s comments seriously out of place and disgraceful. If it’s the latter then why isn’t his wife playing the part of his wife and why aren’t we just saving the cost of whatever it took to pay Angelina to do this movie (I’m sure it wasn’t done for free) and getting a documentary crew in there to do the work for us?

It’s all very strange but I am sure as Angelina graces more tabloid covers leading up to this film’s release we’ll get a clearer picture of how this film was handled.

Interesting side note: Ted Rall, someone who is the embodiment of brutal and insightful honesty in a time of censure, had this to say about the proliferation of outspoken widows in this insidious and un-winnable “war on civil liberties”:

Let’s see. Ted Olsen, one of the three “terror widows” in my (in) famous comic from 2002, appeared on “Larry King” a week after his wife’s death to promote Bush’s war on terror(TM), aka neo-fascist agitprop. Mariane Pearl made repeated appearances on cable news stations to promote her two books. So did the “Let’s Roll” (R) widow. (She also sold a book, and filed for a trademark on the term “Let’s roll.”) Of course, I was demonized by Coulter’s right-wing fellow travelers for criticizing these people for the (strange) way they chose to mourn their losses. Psychotic self-hating African-American pol Alan Keyes called for me to be censored, jailed and shot to death, not necessarily in that order. My, how things have changed.

MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (2007)

Director: Wong Kar Wai
Cast: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn
Release: TBA
Synopsis: MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS is the new film from one of the world’s most sought-after directors, Wong Kar Wai. It’s a magnificent love story starring multi-Grammy award winner Norah Jones in her movie debut along with a “A-list” cast of Academy Award winners and nominees including Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman.

Norah Jones plays a sensual, alluring young woman who sets out on an unforgettable journey of discovery in pursuit of true love. In heartbreakingly beautiful locations and classic Route 66 atmospheric diners, Wong Kar Wai’s captivating heroine encounters a series of enigmatic characters that help her on her quest.

Set against New York’s magical cityscape and the stunning vistas of America’s legendary Route 66, the celebrated director’s first English language picture embraces his signature elegance and originality that made “Happy Together,” “In the Mood for Love” and “2046” must-see movies all around the world..

View Trailer:
* Large (Flash)

Prognosis: Negative. Nigel Tufnel: It’s part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy, I’m working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don’t know why.

Here’s something that gets me when I think about the currency of trailer advertising:

Does a filmmaker’s previous films have any kind of “goodwill value” inherently attached to it? For example, and about as rudimentary as I can explain it, if you make an excellent film does it follow, then, that the trailer that heralds your next feature get a pass in a way? I would argue that, yes, there is some kind of extra credit given to that trailer.

While I was one of a few who pointed out, long before the movie opened, that the My Chemical Emo Romance haircut of Peter Parker that has, ostensibly, sunk the replay factor SPIDER-MAN 3, regardless of how well it fits in the pure sense of the film, there were a lot of people who never brought this up and socked some people upside the head when it finally was there staring them back from the big screen. It’s these things that are worrisome.

Worrisome, as well, is how 2046 was just a movie that had ambition but failed to deliver anything resonant as a filmgoer. So, too, then, we have a flick, MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS, that stars a guy who loves to not only play a dong-sticking cheater but plays one in real life and a girl who can capture my attention whilst behind the ivories but is completely untested as an actress.

Goodwill? Good God, what hast thou wrought? Nothing memorable, I can tell you that.

Let’s start at this statement: the opening is absolutely wonderful. Artfully framed and sticky with the kind of musical arrangement that emotes sadness and loneliness. Regardless that she’s a singer, Jones is just standing there in her thigh highs looking forlorn.

And then she opens her mouth.

It was absolutely rough to see the following images, feeling more like a lesson in music video acting, of Norah wiping away her tears, damn near staring at the same window she wishes she could be behind like a dazed stalker.

Enter, stage left, Jude Law. I don’t know what his deal is. Honestly. I think he works in the same restaurant with Jones, I’m not sure, the trailer is a bit muddled about this, and at one point him and his disastrous looking head of a hair (Seriously, is it a weave? A piece?) help each other to shout into a telephone with great aplomb. I don’t get it the point of it and we’re not let in on it.

What follows afterward are two, distinct, conversations. However, what’s not revealed is what these people are talking about! You’ve got Norah talking about some people finding different people and then an awkwardly set up moment between Law and Jones that not only feels sleazy but plays out like I’m watching Keanu Reeves and Paula Abdul circa 1990 in her awful, cankerous beast known as her “Rush Rush” video. Ghastly, any which way you slice it.

PARIS, JE T’AIME (2007)

Director(s): Gus Van Sant, Joel Coen, Alexander Payne, Olivier Assayas, Frederic Auburtin, Gérard Depardieu, Christoffer Boe, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Ethan Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Christopher Doyle, Vincenzo Natali
Cast: Steve Buscemi, Juliette Binoche, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood, Gena Rowlands, Emily Mortimer, Miranda Richardson, Rufus Sewell, Willem Dafoe, Natalie Portman, Gerard Depardieu, Bob Hoskins, Nick Nolte
Release: May 4, 2007 (Limited), Coming Soon
Synopsis: Eighteen different directors and a slew of indie actors come together for PARIS, JE T’AIME, a cinematic homage to the City of Light. Each director presents his or her own short story set in a different Parisian quarter, each one featuring a different cast of characters. The pieces vary in length, with some of them striving to tell a fully developed tale–no matter how simple the plot–while others are more abstract, content to rely on sparse dialogue and vivid imagery. With directors such as Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne, Wes Craven, and the Coen brothers participating, the tales are as varied and oddball as one might expect. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a lonely actress with a fondness for her hash dealer. Elijah Wood encounters a seductive vampire on a moonlit street. Steve Buscemi is a flustered tourist. Natalie Portman falls for a deaf Frenchmen. Each tale is markedly unique, and specific to the quirky style of its director, and the film is a veritable Who’s Who for indie buffs. The end product is a bit uneven, with some of the narratives sparkling and others starting strong, then falling flat. But in the moments when it succeeds, the movie can feel mysterious and magical, evoking the romance and longing the city is famous for.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Positive. Sometimes, just sometimes, an original thought can start something special.

You watch something and think that the gimmick is just that, a gimmick, and if you try and there’s no way the finished product can support itself beyond that. FOUR ROOMS proved that very well with the multiple-director germ that spawned a film that was ½ good while the other half could have been pitched into a river, tossing and twisting inside a gunny sack. This trailer, though, just exudes that je ne sais quoi (I apologize for that) which really does and should surprise.

One of the very first things that catch your eye is Natalie Portman. Sitting, perched near a window, the belfry ringing in the background, the screen goes black and the pronouncement is made: “From 18 of the most acclaimed international directors”¦” The first thought for many could be “How is this possible?” but for me it’s “Who was able to coordinate all those schedules?” Beyond that, the list is populated with handfuls of people who I know and, quite naturally, those who I am not familiar with. It’s a veritable who’s who of the directorial arts but before you question how the brothers Cohen made the list alongside Wes Craven were thrust into the narratives.

Now, from a marketing standpoint there’s obviously an issue with selling a story to the public when you’re talking about a movie that’s a literary equivalent to a short story collection. The angle you have to take, and the one you’re really left with, is selling the styles. Selling the chance to find out why Steve Buscemi looks so forlorn, why Rufus Sewell actually looks like a leading man for once and why Willem Dafoe is on a horse in the middle of an urban jungle.

There’s some simplicity in the musical score that is the only, singular thread that is connecting the reasons why you would want to toss down some scratch to see the picture. I am compelled by Bob Hoskins’ performance in a strip club and the odd pairing of a man who stands behind a pane of smoky glass only to have a fist shatter it as he stands perfectly still as it happens.

“Every glance”¦Every kiss”

The perfection that is this trailer is its simplicity. We’re no better understanding why the flirtatious looks between a man and woman are so compelling but as the trailer builds to a steady crescendo we’re given the reasons why there is enough reason to see this film: it’s an ode to new love, old love and the kind of love we all can connect with as human beings. It’s a bit corny, yes, but that’s exactly what modern cinema has been missing for a little while.

Elijah Wood’s story looks creepier than fuck, I actually feel positive to a cleaner looking Nick Nolte strolling with his maiden and the individual signatures from all the other directors involved, mashed up with one another, works so effectively that I dare say there is some reason to believe in the power of the short-story angle which doesn’t feel like an excuse to have all sorts of directors toss a bunch of slop against a wall to see what sticks; in fact, I would posit that what’s given here at the end of the trailer is a case for the ethos that love can be a good, solid reason to make a movie where you really could find a gem or two within the body of the work.

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here…

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 punished”

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.

HAIRSPRAY (2007)

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.

HOT ROD (2007)

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.

TRANSFORMERS (2007)

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 8^th 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 6^th 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.