Screen Rush is the blog of film critic and journalist Eric Kohn, whose work regularly appears in indieWIRE, New York Press, Filmmaker, Moviemaker, Heeb Magazine and a half dozen other outlets. A true twenty-first century movie buff, his writing centers around the impact of new media on the moving image, the changing face of film criticism, and the tempestuous relationship between pop culture and independent artistry. This site includes links to his recently published work and allows for additional thoughts on cinema's modern state. E-mail Eric at erichkohn(at)gmail(dot)com.
Earlier this year, I was contacted by a start-up called Filmmortal that had an interesting agenda: The site serves as a middleman between filmmakers and companies interested in product placement. It helps producers build their budgets with sponsorships while connecting companies selling products that might fit the movie environments. Naturally, the driving motive here is capitalistic rather than creative, but it does help filmmakers in desperate need of financial assistance—and there are ways to place a product without necessarily degrading the quality of the movie itself (as far as I know, only Wayne’s World got away with combining sly self-parody and actual product placement).
Well, I think the folks at Microsoft could use a service like Filmmortal. First, they hired Bobcat Goldthwait to direct a series of hilariously over-the-top browser commercials, and wound up deleting one that contained a porn element. Now, they’ve retracted a decision to sponsor a commercial-free episode of Family Guy because they found Seth McFarlane’s comedic tendencies to be distasteful.
Seriously, Family Guy? Was nobody able to clue them in?
It’s less surprising that McFarlane would allow his program to become a tool of corporate machinations (but I don’t think The Simpsons would ever sell an entire episode like this). If Family Guy is up for grabs, the right people ought to grab it.
I had the opportunity to speak with Tim Burton a few weeks back while he was in town doing double duty as a producer on Shane Acker’s 9 and prepping an upcoming exhibit of his work at MoMA. A few days earlier, the trailer for his developing Alice in Wonderland adaptation leaked online a day early, prompting a flurry of reactions across the blogosphere. I found Burton’s animosity (not only toward the leak but toward the trailer itself) to be very telling: “I come from the olden days where you like to see a movie and be surprised,” he told me. “Then you want to know something about it—as opposed to getting everything front-loaded.” Of course, some contemporary marketing campaigns have successfully shielded audiences from their content as means of drawing them in — think Cloverfield — but that requires a complex form of transmedia storytelling that simply doesn’t jive with Burton’s conventional methods. Which doesn’t stop me loving his work.
While recently sitting through the desolate world of The Road, I couldn’t help thinking of another recent exploration of isolation and dismay in the middle of nowhere: Asiel Norton‘s Redland, a visually fascinating portrait of families struggling along in the wilderness of Great Depression-era rural America. It’s unquestionably one of the more fascinating cinematic visions of life amidst nature that I’ve seen in years. (Think Terrence Malick meets There Will Be Blood.) Here’s the trailer:
Studio-produced American comedies rarely leave me satisfied these days. It often seems as though Hollywood has outsourced its sense of humor to the indies: Humpday and Big Fan both contain observant portraits of flawed personalities capable of generating serious pathos without disabusing viewers of the right to laugh at their true-to-life flaws. But The Ugly Truth and Post-Grad are gleefullyoblivious.
Greg Mottola’s Adventureland, which hit DVD today, briefly restored my faith in big budget comedies when I saw it at Sundance in January. Mottola, the director with Superbad and Daytrippers on his resume (not to mention the recently completed Paul), might be one of the last hopes of genuine humor-filled entertainment in the American film industry. Mike Judge comes right behind with his upcoming Extract, and Bobcat Goldthwait would make that list, too, if he had the opportunity to stop making indies and direct a studio comedy with the ability to have final cut.
But Goldthwait’s movies are liberating simply because his stories’ dark, subversive tendencies reflect the freedom behind the camera. Mottola doesn’t need freedom. He only requires a moment of your time to catch you off guard and deliver smart, believable coming-of-age dramedies that put his original benefactor (rhymes with “Shmudd Shmapatow”) to shame. Here’s the Adventureland trailer. Check out the DVD, which contains a nifty behind-the-scenes doc and commentary from Mottola and star Jesse Eisenberg.
The theatrical experience is in a unique state of evolution, both technologically and financially, causing the industry to continue experimenting with new ways of getting audiences into seats. While not perfect, James Cameron’s “Avatar Day,” wherein 15 minutes of his 3-D sci-fi action movie were previewed for audiences around the country, may actually qualify as a greater nugget of history than the supposedly groundbreaking technology behind the production. Here are my thoughts on the footage and the event from The Wrap:
The man who famously declared himself King of the World on Oscar night 10 years ago has now become the ruler of an entire planet. Directing his first feature since “Titanic,” James Cameron appears to have gone in a similarly epic direction with “Avatar,” a technologically audacious 3D sci-fi production—predominantly set on an alien planet—that was previewed for audiences on IMAX screens around the country on Friday—a day he dubbed “Avatar Day.”
Attendees eagerly reserved their free tickets for the 15-minute preview well in advance, crashing the site on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, two of the four screenings that took place at the AMC Empire in Times Square Friday evening contained dozens of empty seats, an absence that Fox representatives blamed on the rainy weather.For such a highly ambitions marketing scheme, there seemed to be a fair amount of confusion among casual moviegoers.
Read the rest of the dispatch here and check out the Avatartrailer.
Syndicate this site