Tue, July 29

Trusting Your Actors

Comedy dialogue is only as effective as the people saying it. This should come as a surprise to no one, but here's an example nonetheless. (Read more.)

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Sears Thinks Middle School Is A Rave—4:02 PM

Sears has a new back-to-school ad campaign featuring Vanessa Hudgens (who's cute as a button, even with her clothes on) and the tagline: "Don't just go back. Arrive."

I applaud the attempt to make the dreaded start of a new school year sound fun, but remaking it as a red carpet paparazzi gala sends a weird message. Adding the word "lounge" makes me no less queasy. I'm imagining fourth-graders splayed across velvet chaises holding a cosmo in one hand and firing off text messages with the other. (I'd rather imagine fourth-graders doing something a little more wholesome – or much, much naughtier.)

I suppose it makes sense, though; we've got spellcheck and Google to give us anything we might have learned in school – what's important is to be seen.

Also: Sears for back-to-school shopping? When I think of clothes, pencils, and notebooks, I think of Target. Sears is for dishwashers, ratchet sets, and buckshot. Of all the stores to make a push for hip tween couture... Sears?!

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Thu, July 24

The trends are taking over!—5:19 PM

Lately I've noticed an annoying trend of "trend pieces" in Entertainment Weekly, in which they proffer grand generalizations with little or no actual supporting evidence. For example, a cover story about Tina Fey's career explosion, which was simply a matter of her being in a movie while also running one of TV's lowest-rated sitcoms. Or a couple thousand words on the resurgence of the "pot movie," just because Harold and Kumar smoked out a few times and James Franco plays a marijuana dealer in The Pineapple Express. Why can't we just have a pot movie without having to declare "the pot movies are taking over!"?

This week, they declare that Comic-Con is taking over!

Crowd reaction at Comic-Con can rocket a film to riches (Iron Man) or kill it in its cradle (Stealth). "It's scary," says X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner. "If they don't like the preview of a movie, [that reaction] is going online."

Really? Stealth? This is the one where a lightning strike grants artificial intelligence to a fighter jet, and the jet starts shooting things up and develops a crush on Jessica Biel. (I forget if it was in the trailer or just in my imagination that Biel was startled to see the jet hovering outside her window while she's changing clothes.) I'm pretty sure that film's crib-death fate was sealed at conception. No amount of blogger fandom would've made it profitable – probably not your best example of the mighty power of Comic-Con buzz.

Bad word of mouth is not exclusive to Comic-Con. Reviews – whether online, in a newspaper ("Daddy, what's a 'newspaper?'"), or just among friends – are going to give people a sense of what a movie is like. Ignored is the fact that you can make a movie – even one with a sci-fi theme – and not take it to Comic-Con. You think comic fans would've avoided Watchmen in droves if Zack Snyder hadn't screened some clips at Comic-Con? Of course not. You go there hoping to grab a little buzz by wooing them early; but if your movie is truly excellent, people are going to see it anyway. A big movie has to make $200 million to cover its production and marketing costs, but a lot of that is the cost of marketing at Comic-Con to try to boost it to $200 million. When does it end?

(Answer: August 16, 2017.)

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Tue, July 22

Yes We Can!—9:24 PM

I watched Batman Begins this afternoon in anticipation of tomorrow night's IMAXtravaganza. This has become the summer of sequel prep: Indy, Hellboy, and now this. It's been fun reviewing – it's all too rare for me to watch a movie twice – but I hope it's not a sign that my brain, addled by entering its third decade, is incapable of remembering the basic beats of a Hollywood franchise movie.

Here's what I noticed. See if some of the key phrases in this exchange from the film's sequel-bait epilogue don't sound familiar:

Lieut. James Gordon: You really started something... [there's] hope on the streets.

Batman: We can bring Gotham back.

Ohmigod... black face, big ears, and audacious hope? Obama is Batman! And – to borrow Colbert's logic – the market has spoken: $166M in one weekend. It's gonna be a landslide!

I'll be back when I can think up a way to make McCain into Guru Pitka.

(Ag– IMAXtravaganza. What have I become?)

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I'm Sorry But If Her "How-To" Article Is More Than Two Words Long I Call Bullshit—10:12 AM

I know – more mailbox rants from me, but seriously. How in the world did this Julia Somebody get people to look at her web site? It's a mystery.

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Fri, July 18

I'm Totally Stoked—6:40 PM

It would be disingenuous to imply that I've had a single "busy" week in the last few years, but this week has been just cluttered enough to repeatedly distract me from my favorite news of the summer: Psych is back, tonight!

If you haven't seen the show before, you should. You never thought you wanted to watch a show balance on the razor's edge between infectiously silly and completely obnoxious – but once you've watched James Roday and Dulé Hill together, you'll realize what you've been missing. Tune in, people! (10pm on USA.) If you're not already in love with this show, you're forgiven. But if you don't give it a try tonight, we might have to stop being friends.

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Thu, July 17

Front Row Joe: My Hero—12:36 PM

Those of you who live in modern cities may not be familiar with Cinemark Theatres, but they're one of the larger movie chains. A moronic cat named Front Row Joe is their mascot – the only one I've seen that makes AMC's "Clip" the filmstrip man seem like a nuanced and engaging character.

Nevertheless, I fell in love with him yesterday because Cinemark has released a new animated intro which specifically admonishes against talking during movies. Most theatres will tell you to silence your cell phone, as if leaving it in the car is too much to ask. But FRJ now goes a step further: he asks you to avoid texting, explaining the distraction the backlit screens create; he shows how to silence your phone; then he specifically says "don't talk."

This last is huge for me, because I've always been boggled that theatres aren't more explicit about that problem. They say things like, "Please be quiet and courteous to others," or, "Don't spoil the movie by adding your own soundtrack," but they don't just say, "No talking." There's a segment of the population that thinks talking in the movies is normal (no, not that segment; I mean movie talkers in general) so they're not going to understand that talking – any talking – violates "quiet and courteous" and qualifies as "adding your own soundtrack." The best thing to do is hire attentive ushers to eject people who can't be shushed, but failing that, you have to tell people talking is not cool.

Photo courtesy jjfish

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Sun, July 13

Cry For Help Dept.—10:12 PM

I want you to know I take no joy in posting things like this that pop into my head, but I'm eternally grateful for your patience and understanding that allows me to do it. I'd hate to enter our third week in July with the monthly writing archive still completely empty.

Anyway, without further ado...

Q: What's the difference between an acorn and a pontiff's prevarication?

A: One is a maple baby; the other is a papal maybe.

With that, I think I'm overdue for a long nap.

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