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Rant Time: Over Marketing of Shitty Movies

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Does this piss anyone else off? I swear to God if I see another "Paul Blart Mall Cop" commercial, billboard, web banner, sound bit, or viral marketing scheme I'm gonna snap. What the FUCK is with Hollywood these days? Do they know they are making such crap that we aren't going to watch, that they need to spend untold millions to annoy us?

This Paul Blart movie is one of the worst I've seen lately, but there have been others. Wanna know when they started marketing this piece of shit? Well other than your normal TV ads, I was watching the Lakers Game on Christmas Day. Kevin James and Adam Sandler had courtside seats. They spent almost 10 minutes interviewing these two about their two crappy movies instead of covering...I don't know...BASKETBALL. No joke. Sportscasters going to the courtside seats to interview them about their upcoming movies. And it wasn't because they were celeberities at a Basketball game. Mark Walhberg was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO THEM and they wouldn't even put the camera on him or mention he was there. They interveiwed these guys endlessly for their movies. I have no doubt at all the studios paid for their tickets, and then paid NBC to spend time interviewing them.

Then, when commericals for this movie run during football game commercial breaks, the commentators there talk about how they are looking forward to seeing it. Bullshit. They dont even try to sound like they care, but they are being paid to advertise for this POS too. Then you have actors on the networks like NBC announcing the upcoming movie in breaks between their shows.

WHY THIS MOVIE? WHY? What the fuck is so goddamn special about Paul Blart that the other dozens of crappy movies don't get all this attention?

And then you have "Marley & Me," The latest Owen Wilson schlock thats part romantic comedy, part old yeller. During the halftime show of one of the football games a few weeks ago the dog was in the studio, in front of the desk where all the commentators are. Thats right, the dog from the movie was there during halftime. Like ANYONE watching an NFL Halftime show who just wants to get the scores and stats gives a flying fuck about some new dog movie coming out. Once again, poor Jimmy Johnson had to pretend like he actually cares that this movie exists and give a little sound bit for the movie and the dog being there.

Product placement in TV shows was getting bad enough. Now we are getting these CRAPPY movies shoved down our throats no matter what we happen to be doing.

As you can tell, I'm getting pretty sick of it.
 
What I find especially annoying is .. when watching TV shows on the web, and being given the same damned add for the same bad movie in every single add break. This was "Paul Blart, Mall Cop" just recently. Wasn't going to watch it the first time, wasn't going to watch it the gazillionth time.

Sometimes when a movie bugs me like this, I check back on its revenues months later, and in many cases am satisfied to learn that it was a complete box office bomb.
 
It all comes down to personal taste honestly. I became sick and tired of all the hype/adverts for The Dark Knight because I didn't see why such a bad movie needed to be hyped so much. But, at the end of the day even if I thought it sucked there are people who thought it was great, or who will like it. The same is true of Paul Blart, you may hate the idea of it, but there are people who will like it, and it's actually been getting good reviews.
 
Yeah, there's a pretty significant buzz for Paul Blart among my students.

A lot of it, I think, has to do with which movies are being marketed. Adam Sandler and Owen Wilson and "Paul Blart," huh? They're pitching those movies at people with no attention span, people who talk about such things endlessly, people who make things go viral and become huge hits for no apparent reason: teenagers. Specifically pop culture-loving teenagers. You probably won't see Oscar-bait films being marketed in quite the same way, and you probably won't see the cute and clever indie-flicks marketed at all, because the teenagers who want to watch those actually have good taste and aren't quite so easily swayed... but the mass of teens who have been taught that thinking is hard and that instant gratification is their due, they're the target audience.

Such kids laugh at every fart joke they see, no matter how many times they've seen one. And they have no attention span. Of course the marketing has to pitch the movies to them every friggin' moment of every day!
 
It's just mass-marketed cheeze whiz. I sit and watch a trailer and more often than not, I'll say, "someone was paid to write that movie. PAID. Paid a LOT OF MONEY to write a piece of crap film. Paid more than I'll ever see in 10 years." It blows my mind. But, I do have a few friends who will see some of these shit movies (cough: Mama Mia) and think "this is awesome, I can't wait to buy it on DVD!" Some people eat it up. It's the simplicity of it, I think. Some folks need Marley and Me to escape whereas folks like us, well, perhaps that is what draws us to science-fiction and fantasy.

The ads are there because some people actually want silliness sometimes. I know a lot of people who don't like anything too "dramatic" or "intense" or "thought-provoking." They pass right by the Drama aisle in the store and always go for the comedies.

To each their own. The only thing that annoys me (as stated above,) is that people are getting paid to crank out movies that utterly astound me in their lack of entertainment value. I could write a craptastic slapstick comedy with no humor and get paid the bucks, I guess. It's all formula. I guess I just don't want to attach my name to that kind of riff raff.
 
Dude... I'd rather watch the Dungeons&Dragons movie and Waterworld for the rest of eternity than sit through that again.
 
Well, I actually think The Postman is a good movie, since I realized what it is really about. It is about the artists, hippies, LIBERALS, etc., finally triumphing over the right wing militarist survivalists. :D So, okay, I'm biased. I haven't read the book.

But, for the record, I have never seen "I Know Who Killed Me," "Dungeons and Dragons," "Mama Mia," or any Olsen twins movies. Nor do I intend to! BTW, I dislike Abba intensely. I would say hate, but I believe that to hate something, it must have some substance...

Perhaps we should have a worst movie thread? There are a couple of Clint Eastwood films I would nominate, but Mannequin: On The Move would be a good start, as would be most Julia Roberts movies.
 
As one of the few who liked the Dark Knight (?) the adverts did not piss me off that much, as given the IP it was going to be hyped anyway.

Generic teen slapstick / Romantic comedy #347 staring Owen Stiller or whoever is a different matter. Bascially, everything Koshfan said is true for me, although its possibly as much about Hollywoods perception of the audiences tastes and attention span as the actual audience themsleves. But I hate intrusive viral marketing for films that do not interest me. I will however actively seek out advertising on stuff I do like (sci-fi, hisotrical epics, decent comedy, political thrillers etc) so I guess I am not what hollywood had in mind.
 
darth_librarian said:
Generic teen slapstick / Romantic comedy #347 staring Owen Stiller or whoever is a different matter. Bascially, everything Koshfan said is true for me, although its possibly as much about Hollywoods perception of the audiences tastes and attention span as the actual audience themsleves. But I hate intrusive viral marketing for films that do not interest me. I will however actively seek out advertising on stuff I do like (sci-fi, hisotrical epics, decent comedy, political thrillers etc) so I guess I am not what hollywood had in mind.
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I, too, agree with what KF said.

I'm pretty annoyed about the attitude film-makers recently have, though, that anything directed to young people has to be stupid. Films for young people don't have to be stupid - just think of, say, "Spinal Tap" or "School of Rock". Definitely geared at a younger audience, but definitely not stupid movies.

Jade Jaguar said:
Well, I actually think The Postman is a good movie, since I realized what it is really about. It is about the artists, hippies, LIBERALS, etc., finally triumphing over the right wing militarist survivalists. :D So, okay, I'm biased. I haven't read the book.

But, for the record, I have never seen "I Know Who Killed Me," "Dungeons and Dragons," "Mama Mia," or any Olsen twins movies. Nor do I intend to! BTW, I dislike Abba intensely. I would say hate, but I believe that to hate something, it must have some substance...

Perhaps we should have a worst movie thread? There are a couple of Clint Eastwood films I would nominate, but Mannequin: On The Move would be a good start, as would be most Julia Roberts movies.
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ABBA is the personification of the Eurovision Song Contest, an ancient European ritual followed attentively by pretty much everyone all over the continent with morbid fascination, in which each European nation tries to out-generic-pop the others, year after year after year.

As such, no offence .. but you people aren't supposed to get it. :p .. and consider yourselves lucky for this.

This is why Mamma Mia was pretty much a flop in the US, but the biggest box office success in history in Britain.

Movies of the recent years I hate with a passion are mostly sucky sequels to movies that were awesome - Matrix II, Pirates of the Carribean III, Shrek III. Oh, and yes, anything with the Olsens. Or the Wilsons. More the Wilsons for me.

Oh, and Waterworld. Mostly for taking the suspension-of-everything-I-ever-learned-in-school a bit too far. Polar caps melting = enough to cover all the word but the Himalayas in water? Even the 7000-metre high Andes? O RLY?
 
Recoil, I highly recommend sports w/o sound. Non-sports people (usually actors) in the booth is indeed incredibly boring, awkward and irritating. Monday Night Football does that all the time, and between that and Tony Kornheiser, the audio of that broadcast is absolutely unbearable. The vast majority of what sports announcers say is useless. If I'm watching at home alone, I'll usually have the sound on at the beginning just to know what's going on with player substitutions and injuries, weather conditions if applicable, etc, then turn it off and put on some music or something.

My impression re: really crappy movies is that when a studio knows they have one on their hands, they either tuck it away by releasing it during a down time of year (if you've ever tried to go to the movies in February or March and found nothing of interest, you'll have experienced this phenomenon) or over-compensate by hyping it up beyond proportion, either banking on celebrity or youthful enthusiasm. Certainly this works best with kid flicks.

Kevin James is not funny. His standup is pedestrian, his sitcom- like all non-animated laugh track sitcoms not called Seinfeld- is bland moronic pap, and his movies bank off of one joke- he's fat. And, you know, that is usually a great joke- where would John Candy, John Belushi and Chris Farley have been w/o their morbid obesity? But those guys were also really funny.

You probably won't see Oscar-bait films being marketed in quite the same way
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I actually am way more annoyed by Oscar-bait films. Yes Kevin James movies are retarded, but at least their presented that way, basically. But the hype around some of these BIG SERIOUS movies (that just happen to be released at the end of the year so that the Oscar people see them right before having to vote) try to make them feel like they are important. Folks, no movie is important.

"How can you not have seen Schindler's List/Brokeback Mountain/Crash/Blood Diamond/whatever?!" they cry. Well, I choose to develop my understanding of the world through life experiences, absorbing the best journalism I can find, and thinking for myself rather than subjecting myself to the cynical machinations of an inherently decadent, self-serving entertainment empire. And also I prefer spaceships, tits and zombies to that boring crap.

ABBA is the personification of the Eurovision Song Contest, an ancient European ritual followed attentively by pretty much everyone all over the continent with morbid fascination, in which each European nation tries to out-generic-pop the others, year after year after year.

As such, no offence .. but you people aren't supposed to get it. .. and consider yourselves lucky for this.
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You'd be surprised. I occasionally visit music forums and website and remain plugged into the musician and audiophile scenes a bit, and ABBA and the Monkees enjoy some sort of odd love and respect by people who otherwise are vicious music snobs. I don't get it, and I don't share it. My guess is that people are trying to intellectually "justify" nostalgia, the way people try to make comic books into serious adult art as I described in the other thread.
 
See, I like Abba. Fernando is an awesome song, but the movie sucked so bad. I couldn't believe it was nominated for best musical/comedy for a golden globe. My respect for the golden globe has been obliterated like poor Pegasus in season 3 of Galactica.
 
I'll second sports without sound and raise you sports with no sound and the radio on instead -- at least for local games. Much more effective, and that way, the ads are actually amusing when they don't sync up.

I enjoyed the Dark Knight -- to an extent -- but I missed most of the hype.
 
KoshFan said:
I'll second sports without sound and raise you sports with no sound and the radio on instead -- at least for local games. Much more effective, and that way, the ads are actually amusing when they don't sync up.

I enjoyed the Dark Knight -- to an extent -- but I missed most of the hype.
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Yeah, same here. I missed a lot of the commercials and such. I stay far away from E! so that helped.
 
The Eurovision Song Contest?

One does not simply walk into Eurovision. It's black gates are guarded by more than just ABBA. There is evil there that does not sleep. The great eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this (nor should any sane member of the human race desire to). It is folly.
 
Galahad said:
The Eurovision Song Contest?

One does not simply walk into Eurovision. It's black gates are guarded by more than just ABBA. There is evil there that does not sleep. The great eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this (nor should any sane member of the human race desire to). It is folly.
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In the old days, European nations fought deadly wars every few years.

Now we have the Eurovision Song Contest.

Some say Europe has become a more peaceful and loving place. When in fact, Europe has just ascended to a new level of evil.
 
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