I haven't been following any of the Illinois Mid Term Election races despite having a bunch of relatives near Chicago, so I have no idea about the actual politics of some guy named Quinn who is running for Governor in land of Lincoln. (which is also the land of Rod Blagojevich, but I'm sure the State Government would prefer we focus on Lincoln.)
But politics is about perception not reality, and whoever did this ad for Quinn make the Quinn campaign out to be the coolest cats in town.
A lot of people say they are disheartened because political TV ads these days are way too negative. I say that's poppy cock, attack ads are only annoying if that are badly done, the probably is that all political ads normally seem to be written with six year olds as the target audience. Attack ads can be awesome if done well, as this is this ad proves it.
Oh and if you are reading this on November 2nd be sure to vote. If all the candidates in your district suck, just write in Woodrow Wilson. CBS cares.
Via Warming Glow
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Nick Swardson
I remember loving Nick Swardson's Comedy Central special back in High School. He has done some supporting roles and writing for Adam Sandler productions over the years, but I was excited to find out via subway ads that he has a show this season on Comedy Central. I have no idea how good the show will be, but the trailer for it is pretty awesome:
Maybe its just because I like the orginal Dos Equis commercials so much, but this parody, and the Steve Nash parody I had on here a few months back are both equally awesome. I'm also glad to see that Mr. Swardson finally got to build his own gay robot*. I remember a short skit he did on an album years ago** about a Gay Robot, and I'm sure when you write a two minute skit about a robot who is gay, you never expect that 7 years later Comedy Central will let you actually build your own damn gay robot.
I think going from being an unknown comedian writing jokes about gay robots to actually being able to build a finely crafted Gay Robot on Viacom's dime is the best possible realization of the american dream.
Footnote(s)
*Quick disclaimer for the sake of Political Correctness: I understand why making jokes about someone's sexuality is still a taboo topic (see the recent controversy over Vince Vaughn's character using the word gay in a movie trailer as an example.) So I figured I should take a second to point out that the humor of Nick's Gay Robot, at least in the original sketch, was not that it was bad that the robot was gay, but that it was funny because the Robot was really horny because he was the only Gay Robot ever built.
**According to Wikipedia*** this originated on a sketch Nick wrote and preformed on an Adam Sandler CD. Also apparently because of this there is somehow a wiki article simply titled "Gay Robot." I'm glad we live in a world that has an online encyclopedia with an entry title "Gay Robot"
***Which has never been wrong ever as this video evidence shows:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - Wikilobbying | ||||
| ||||
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Conan Advertising News Part 2000
The domain name hornymanatee.com is owned by NBC.
Really. Trying going to it. Conan said it on air as an ad lib and NBC bought it to make sure they weren't retroactively advertising something obscene.
So Conan may have been fired and NBC took down all videos ever of him, but he will live on anytime anyone accesses the NBC main site by typing in Hornymanatee.com
Conan. I salute you.
Also this week in Conan advertising news: Team Coco had two really clever forms of non-traditional promotion this week that I thought I should address:
1. A god damned actual blimp that is flying around the country. with a website you can track it on here. (My favorite part of the site, is that at night when the blimp is docked at the airport the status updates to "The Blimp is sleeping." This makes me visualize a bunch of little blimps covered in blankets snoring side by side like the baby elephants in dumbo.
2. A live feed of the production offices for 24 hours straight which included puppets announcing the guest lineup for Conan's first week of shows, along with a contest to vote for who his first guest should be (below)
The 24 hour live feed's final minutes were what appears to be footage from the hotel lobby at 2:00 Am during a Furries convention:
(I didn't post the actual video because it's minutes of everyone dancing while the guy dressed as a taco yells "Go Taco!" which gets old exactly as quickly as you would imagine.)
You can read the official hour by hour recap here.
Speaking of Advertising and Conan, I have been trying to find one of my favorite ever fake ads. Its an old Conan from back when the used to get preempted by the NBA on NBC and end up being on at 3am or some such nonsense.
Since they tape the same day and knew when this was going to happen, they started a segment called, "No one's watching," which made fun of the fact that they could do anything they wanted. These included appearances by the always controversial masturbating bear and jokes about how so few people where watching the show they couldn't even get anyone to buy advertising timeslots.
Below is one of the fake ads that Conan said was from the biggest sponser they could get for that evening. Unfortunately whoever loaded it chopped off the punchline so i will have to describe it to you after the video.
After the guy falls down the title card for the name and address of the store comes up and is read by the announcer. It read as follows:
Really. Trying going to it. Conan said it on air as an ad lib and NBC bought it to make sure they weren't retroactively advertising something obscene.
So Conan may have been fired and NBC took down all videos ever of him, but he will live on anytime anyone accesses the NBC main site by typing in Hornymanatee.com
Conan. I salute you.
Also this week in Conan advertising news: Team Coco had two really clever forms of non-traditional promotion this week that I thought I should address:
1. A god damned actual blimp that is flying around the country. with a website you can track it on here. (My favorite part of the site, is that at night when the blimp is docked at the airport the status updates to "The Blimp is sleeping." This makes me visualize a bunch of little blimps covered in blankets snoring side by side like the baby elephants in dumbo.
2. A live feed of the production offices for 24 hours straight which included puppets announcing the guest lineup for Conan's first week of shows, along with a contest to vote for who his first guest should be (below)
The 24 hour live feed's final minutes were what appears to be footage from the hotel lobby at 2:00 Am during a Furries convention:
(I didn't post the actual video because it's minutes of everyone dancing while the guy dressed as a taco yells "Go Taco!" which gets old exactly as quickly as you would imagine.)
You can read the official hour by hour recap here.
Speaking of Advertising and Conan, I have been trying to find one of my favorite ever fake ads. Its an old Conan from back when the used to get preempted by the NBA on NBC and end up being on at 3am or some such nonsense.
Since they tape the same day and knew when this was going to happen, they started a segment called, "No one's watching," which made fun of the fact that they could do anything they wanted. These included appearances by the always controversial masturbating bear and jokes about how so few people where watching the show they couldn't even get anyone to buy advertising timeslots.
Below is one of the fake ads that Conan said was from the biggest sponser they could get for that evening. Unfortunately whoever loaded it chopped off the punchline so i will have to describe it to you after the video.
After the guy falls down the title card for the name and address of the store comes up and is read by the announcer. It read as follows:
Shoes!
Down by the street next to the big building.
But what really sells the gag is the voice of the Conan staffers they had read it. It uses the same two unlike voices reading a small amount of text gag employed by Conan's Secrets* videos. The guy who says "Down by the street next to the big building" mumbles it to the point of incoherence. Conan, It will be good when you are back. Glad I have Craig and Colbert and Stewart to keep me warm at night till then.**
Footnote(s)
*What was that sketch? vola:
**That got creepy at the end there.
This Guy Love Sluts. Who are We to Judge?
For a while now, I've been meaning to do a post on the worst of MTA subway station ads (Dr. Z, the weird ad for foot surgery, etc) but haven't figured out a way to take pictures in a subway car without looking like a stalker.
I have also been wanting to do posts on clever vandalism of subway station ads, but hadn't seen any clever ones since I decided to take pictures of them. While I normally find graffitti juvinille and destructive, switching the heads of the lead actors on a Katherine Heigl billboard is more of a public service than vandalism.*
I will still try to take pictures of those when I see ones worth noting. But since it looks like High School being back in session has stemmed off the clever subway vandalism for now, Here is an awesome rundown of 40 billboards improved through graffiti on Buzzfeed .
Some of them are woefully stupid, but enough are really funny that I would recommend looking at all 40.
My four favorites were these three below and the one at the top of this page (That guy just looks so happy to have found sluts at the Santa Fe Station Casino).
Footnote(s)
*The Heigl She-Beast is now officially the "you guessed it, Frank Stallone" style go to punchline on this blog. But to be fair, my friend Ben** mentioned he saw that done with the heads on that terrible poster for The Killers starring the Heigrendal which I complained about in the spring.
**(Oh and Ben I put up the Slayer one with you in mind.)
Social Network Trailer Parody
I haven't seen the Social Network, yet despite the rave reviews from every human being ever. Partly because I have no interest in the story, and partly because the trailer was overwrought and melodramatic and just made it look like it was gonna be two hours of hipsters bitching at each other.*
The fact that they trailer was so bleeding from the nose with unearned gravitas makes this parody video by the comedy group "Prussian Sunsets" titled, "The Video Site", all the more funny and awesome: (Thanks to Kerry for showing me this video.)
Footnote(s)
*Actually I from all accounts it was accurate in the hipsters bitching at eachother aspect, my friends who have seen it are just trying to convince me it is somehow interesting to watch this happen.
The fact that they trailer was so bleeding from the nose with unearned gravitas makes this parody video by the comedy group "Prussian Sunsets" titled, "The Video Site", all the more funny and awesome: (Thanks to Kerry for showing me this video.)
Footnote(s)
*Actually I from all accounts it was accurate in the hipsters bitching at eachother aspect, my friends who have seen it are just trying to convince me it is somehow interesting to watch this happen.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Home and Garden Channel Presents: The Katherine Heigl of T.V. promos.
I really truly make an honest effort not to get all condescending when I think about or discuss reality T.V.. I try to look at programs like "Rock of Love" through the same lens I think about WWE wrestling through. Its something I'm not into, but I think its silly to try and judge someone's escapism. If something exists purely for entertainment that how is watching the Situation on "Dancing with the Stars" any more worthy of judgment that me watching just the opening The Living Daylights for the third time in a row.
That said, the ads for HGTV's "Property Virgins" are idiotic, and if this show is half as badly written as these ads, I severely judge everyone who watches it.
Actually. It wouldn't be possible for this show to be anywhere near as bad as these ads. The problem with these ads, in addition to the obviously problem of them being brain meltingly idiotic, is that they are so obviously scripted and the punchline is o telegraphed that they act as some kind of anti-advertising, causing everyone who sees them to not only not want to watch this show, but to give them a strong desire to avoid Home & Garden Television as a whole, just to prevent themselves from possibly having the misfortune of seeing one of these ads during a commercial break on the channel.
Really dumb obvious dirty jokes can be funny, and some of my favorite movies prove that they can be get even funnier was stretched out for way to long. The problem with this ad, is that there is no frame of reference for the viewer. Its and ad for the Home & Garden Channel, so we know the couples talking to the camera aren't talking about sex. And the script for what they are saying is only witty in terms of it being phrases which could vaguely describe both sex and buying a house.
Since we know they are not talking about sex, and the dialog itself is boring and not at all compelling, all the viewer can be expected to do is to wait, bored, until the big reveal 25 seconds into the ad.
To determine which ad is best in the Super Bowl, USA Today does a yearly poll where they use devices to measure the second by second reaction to an ad by the subjects of the test.* I think picturing a viewers second by second response is a great way to explain way this ad is terrible. The viewer might click positive once on this ad, early on when it becomes clear the couples are all saying things that sound dirty but must not be.
Not only is this ad stupid but its not even vaguely original. I'm sure there are numerous other ads it is ripping off, not to mention the countless jokes enjoyed by middle schoolers it outright plagiarizes from, but what first jumped out at me was that is was almost exactly the same format and set up as a 1998 overstock.com ad.
I was gonna post that ad here, but I can't find it. Which is okay, since my whole point was going to be that it is just as bad as this HGTV ad, and also pretty much the same ad. The ad consisted of cuts between different women bed, all with their romantic partner screaming and raving and carrying on about how "its getting smaller!" "I've never seen it go this low before" and then the big reveal was that it wasn't all footage of women yelling about their man's tiny dick, but actually women in bet looking a computer under the covers where they were excited about the contantly lowering prices at overstock.com. I was 13 when this ad came out and even at that age thought it was stupid and juvinille. So who was this ad aimed at? People younger than I was wouldn't have been buying shit off the internet and people older than me who found something that dumb funny would be to dumb to understand who to purchase something off the internet in 1998. (To which you might reply: But danny every idiot uses the internet. But bear in mind this was back in 1998 when you would still regularly Television News reports speaking with hushed tones about a recent crime that was carried out using the internet, and how the internet was going to murder your childern.**)
Then there was some feeble joke about the O in Overstock.com being a "Big O." Which or course begs the question: Does anyone outside of a TV sitcom say Big O to describe an orgasm. To whom are you describing your intimate moments to that you are simultaneously worried will be afraid of your potty mouth if you say the word "Orgasm."
As someone who loves dick jokes and dumb humor, it pained me to see them treated so poorly. To make up for making you have to think about these two dumber-than-a-bag-of-hammers commercials. I will end this post with something that is stupid and sophomoric which goes on way to long also funny as hell. By which of course I mean. I clip from Jackass. I was trying to find the Urban Kayaking clip, but I couldn't find in an embeddable video, but instead I have a clip that even better demonstrates dumb jokes down awesomely. I leave you with, the Robot mime fight from Eurotrip.***
Footnote(s):
*This system is obviously flawed because: 1, it uses way to small a sample size to reveal anything, and 2 the system used ends up giving higher scores mediocre 60 second ads over good 30 seconds ads, but I'll save that rant for January.
**Obviously these types of TV News reports still exist, but at this point they are only reported on by Glenn Beck and only believed by your Grandma's bridge club.
***Voted the finest film of 2004 by the National Society of Film Critics Who are Me.
That said, the ads for HGTV's "Property Virgins" are idiotic, and if this show is half as badly written as these ads, I severely judge everyone who watches it.
Actually. It wouldn't be possible for this show to be anywhere near as bad as these ads. The problem with these ads, in addition to the obviously problem of them being brain meltingly idiotic, is that they are so obviously scripted and the punchline is o telegraphed that they act as some kind of anti-advertising, causing everyone who sees them to not only not want to watch this show, but to give them a strong desire to avoid Home & Garden Television as a whole, just to prevent themselves from possibly having the misfortune of seeing one of these ads during a commercial break on the channel.
Really dumb obvious dirty jokes can be funny, and some of my favorite movies prove that they can be get even funnier was stretched out for way to long. The problem with this ad, is that there is no frame of reference for the viewer. Its and ad for the Home & Garden Channel, so we know the couples talking to the camera aren't talking about sex. And the script for what they are saying is only witty in terms of it being phrases which could vaguely describe both sex and buying a house.
Since we know they are not talking about sex, and the dialog itself is boring and not at all compelling, all the viewer can be expected to do is to wait, bored, until the big reveal 25 seconds into the ad.
To determine which ad is best in the Super Bowl, USA Today does a yearly poll where they use devices to measure the second by second reaction to an ad by the subjects of the test.* I think picturing a viewers second by second response is a great way to explain way this ad is terrible. The viewer might click positive once on this ad, early on when it becomes clear the couples are all saying things that sound dirty but must not be.
Not only is this ad stupid but its not even vaguely original. I'm sure there are numerous other ads it is ripping off, not to mention the countless jokes enjoyed by middle schoolers it outright plagiarizes from, but what first jumped out at me was that is was almost exactly the same format and set up as a 1998 overstock.com ad.
I was gonna post that ad here, but I can't find it. Which is okay, since my whole point was going to be that it is just as bad as this HGTV ad, and also pretty much the same ad. The ad consisted of cuts between different women bed, all with their romantic partner screaming and raving and carrying on about how "its getting smaller!" "I've never seen it go this low before" and then the big reveal was that it wasn't all footage of women yelling about their man's tiny dick, but actually women in bet looking a computer under the covers where they were excited about the contantly lowering prices at overstock.com. I was 13 when this ad came out and even at that age thought it was stupid and juvinille. So who was this ad aimed at? People younger than I was wouldn't have been buying shit off the internet and people older than me who found something that dumb funny would be to dumb to understand who to purchase something off the internet in 1998. (To which you might reply: But danny every idiot uses the internet. But bear in mind this was back in 1998 when you would still regularly Television News reports speaking with hushed tones about a recent crime that was carried out using the internet, and how the internet was going to murder your childern.**)
Then there was some feeble joke about the O in Overstock.com being a "Big O." Which or course begs the question: Does anyone outside of a TV sitcom say Big O to describe an orgasm. To whom are you describing your intimate moments to that you are simultaneously worried will be afraid of your potty mouth if you say the word "Orgasm."
As someone who loves dick jokes and dumb humor, it pained me to see them treated so poorly. To make up for making you have to think about these two dumber-than-a-bag-of-hammers commercials. I will end this post with something that is stupid and sophomoric which goes on way to long also funny as hell. By which of course I mean. I clip from Jackass. I was trying to find the Urban Kayaking clip, but I couldn't find in an embeddable video, but instead I have a clip that even better demonstrates dumb jokes down awesomely. I leave you with, the Robot mime fight from Eurotrip.***
Footnote(s):
*This system is obviously flawed because: 1, it uses way to small a sample size to reveal anything, and 2 the system used ends up giving higher scores mediocre 60 second ads over good 30 seconds ads, but I'll save that rant for January.
**Obviously these types of TV News reports still exist, but at this point they are only reported on by Glenn Beck and only believed by your Grandma's bridge club.
***Voted the finest film of 2004 by the National Society of Film Critics Who are Me.
The Greatest Thing Ever (Old Spice ad update part 139.)
So to preemptively answer your question: No, I will never get over the awesomeness of the Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice ads. All things related to those ads will be covered on this blog without question.
I love everything about this ad. I love that the sweater falls from the sky over grover's shoulders but just lands on his head. i love that Grover's bathroom has monogrammed towels. I love that the cow at the end of the ad says "Moo" in a human's voice instead of the sound a cow would make.
The only regret I have is that I will never get the opportunity to feature an ad as awesome as this again on this site. Since this ad marks the highpoint for advertising and creative output from humanity in general. 1000 years from now, future generations will have a calender where the eras of time are represented by B.G.O.S.A and A.G.O.S.A, to demarcate for humanity which events occurred before this Grover Old Spice Ad was gifted onto society by the folks at Childern's Television Workshop.
In conclusion:
(Above Photo also brought to my attention by Charlotte.via: here)
This, as you my have garnered from my subtle title to this post, is the best ad related to those Old Spice ads, and also the best ad I will ever cover on this blog. Its a promo for Seasame Street starring Grover as the Monster Your Man Could Smell like.
Grover was always my favorite muppet as a kid so this ad was pretty much written for me. (Thanks to John Nappi and Charlotte for sending this to me. You are both my heros.)
I love everything about this ad. I love that the sweater falls from the sky over grover's shoulders but just lands on his head. i love that Grover's bathroom has monogrammed towels. I love that the cow at the end of the ad says "Moo" in a human's voice instead of the sound a cow would make.
The only regret I have is that I will never get the opportunity to feature an ad as awesome as this again on this site. Since this ad marks the highpoint for advertising and creative output from humanity in general. 1000 years from now, future generations will have a calender where the eras of time are represented by B.G.O.S.A and A.G.O.S.A, to demarcate for humanity which events occurred before this Grover Old Spice Ad was gifted onto society by the folks at Childern's Television Workshop.
In conclusion:
(Above Photo also brought to my attention by Charlotte.via: here)
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Copyright info
Hello, your visiting the copyright info for this blog. If you want to reprint my stuff or use one of my videos or part of it, or use one of the podcasts or any audio from it in something you are doing you must contact me first. I would do the same for you. If you use anything from this site which I own (words, original photos or photoshops, audio, video, and ANYTHING ELSE) without permission it is within my rights under U.S. and international copyright law to sue you for compensation.
To contact me about use of any thing i have created message me through my blogger id or my youtube id and we can probably work something out.
If you are just here because you wanted to read it for fun let me paraphrase Modern Humorist's legal page from the turn of the century and ask if you have considered going to law school?
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Strictly Commercials by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
Copyrights for videos created by author:
"Big Blue"
Big Blue Music video by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
"Roy's in love"
Big Blue Music video by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
"An evening of Turner Classic Cinema"
Big Blue Music video by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
"Thor's Hour of Thunder Podcast"
Thor's Hour of Thunder by Daniel Scully & Shaun Malleck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at anemailforyousir.podomatic.com.
Additional videos copyright (encompasses all videos made by Danny Patrick Scully or owned by him:
Daniel Scully Videos ( including but not limited to "Special Effect for Michael Toscano" "Town Hall Music Video and Associated Drawings" ) by Danny Patrick Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.youtube.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-info.html.
To contact me about use of any thing i have created message me through my blogger id or my youtube id and we can probably work something out.
If you are just here because you wanted to read it for fun let me paraphrase Modern Humorist's legal page from the turn of the century and ask if you have considered going to law school?
Creative Commons copyrights:
Strictly Commercials by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at strictlycommercials.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
Copyrights for videos created by author:
"Big Blue"
Big Blue Music video by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.youtube.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
"Roy's in love"
Big Blue Music video by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.youtube.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
"An evening of Turner Classic Cinema"
Big Blue Music video by D. P. Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.youtube.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/.
"Thor's Hour of Thunder Podcast"
Thor's Hour of Thunder by Daniel Scully & Shaun Malleck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at anemailforyousir.podomatic.com.
Additional videos copyright (encompasses all videos made by Danny Patrick Scully or owned by him:
Daniel Scully Videos ( including but not limited to "Special Effect for Michael Toscano" "Town Hall Music Video and Associated Drawings" ) by Danny Patrick Scully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.youtube.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://strictlycommercials.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-info.html.
Monday, October 4, 2010
One Last Thing About Movie Trailers
I have been finding I enjoy a lot of big summer tent-pole movies more in trailer form than I enjoy them in actual movie form. Partly I'm sure this is because big action movies are on average getting lazier and worse. But this will happen to me even with movies I like. Where I see it and like it but liked it better as a two minute short film of explosions and catch chases. I guess the problem is that for big budget action movies, you often times are only seeing them for the cool set pieces, and maybe a few snappy lines of dialogue. Since a really well cut trailer can provide you with a perfect distillation of little bits of every action sequence, the rest of the movie kind of seems extraneous by comparison.
I realize this kinda goes against everything cinema as an art from stands for, but since most summer movie explode-athons contain very little artistic or cinematic in them anyway, I stand by my opinion.
Though its always a bad sign of I have the same opinion as a satirical segment from Stephen Colbert from the Daily Show in 2002.
Actually, after watching that again. I agree with most of those jokes as valid opinions.
Footnote(s)
I just wanted to use this space to thank comedy central for having every single second of the John Stewart and Colbert accessible online. I was trying to find a great clip of Ian McShane on Conan to use in my previous post, only to have what was supposed to be the video, instead be an error message from NBC's portion of Hulu stating, "This video is not longer available we suggest you enjoy these related clips instead." All four of the related clips, where, I kid you not clips from Leno's 2010 version of The Tonight Show. This selection was probably determined by a computer program, but I kinda think NBC is just trying to convince people that Conan never had a TV show. I assume if they could, NBC would send the T-1000 back in time to 1962 to kill Ruth Reardon before Conan is born.
I realize this kinda goes against everything cinema as an art from stands for, but since most summer movie explode-athons contain very little artistic or cinematic in them anyway, I stand by my opinion.
Though its always a bad sign of I have the same opinion as a satirical segment from Stephen Colbert from the Daily Show in 2002.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Trailer Hitch | ||||
| ||||
Actually, after watching that again. I agree with most of those jokes as valid opinions.
Footnote(s)
I just wanted to use this space to thank comedy central for having every single second of the John Stewart and Colbert accessible online. I was trying to find a great clip of Ian McShane on Conan to use in my previous post, only to have what was supposed to be the video, instead be an error message from NBC's portion of Hulu stating, "This video is not longer available we suggest you enjoy these related clips instead." All four of the related clips, where, I kid you not clips from Leno's 2010 version of The Tonight Show. This selection was probably determined by a computer program, but I kinda think NBC is just trying to convince people that Conan never had a TV show. I assume if they could, NBC would send the T-1000 back in time to 1962 to kill Ruth Reardon before Conan is born.
A DoubleHeader: the folks who made the Case 39 trailer could learn alot from the Paranormal Activity 2 trailer
If you haven't seen the movie Paranormal Activity, don't watch the trailer for the sequel since it begins with the ending of the first movie.
I have not seen the Blair Witch Project, so which obviously more or less created this "Captured footage" horror sub-genre, because the marketing for Blair at the time it came out made it look pretty boring. I had no incentive to see a 90 minutes of some 20something yearolds lost in the woods.
I was once lost in the fake woods of central park for 20 minutes at sunrise on July morning while i tried to find where the line was to wait for free tickets for Shakespeare in the Park. So I can attest from that experience that being lost in the woods is pretty damn boring. Its Just boils down to lot trees and birds chirping. I did however run into two 20something year old guys and asked them for directions. They were polite but awkward and as I left it dawned on me that they had clearly just exited from the deep foliage after most likely having sex there, so I felt bad for interrupting. Based on the trailers for Blaire Witch Project I pictured it as being exactly like that experience, except even more boring since no one had sex in the woods in Blair Witch.
But the promos for Paranormal Activity made it look awesome and minimalist and suspense filled. This new promo is just as effective. It gives you a tease of the new plot developments (lots of surveillance cameras, a baby) without giving too much away.
Total Film magazine says the baby is sometime only visible in the mirror but not in the crib, which is a cool creepy effect, which I didn't notice until they pointed it out. I just re-watched the trailer that is indeed true. Though it took me 2 tries to spot it, even knowing its there.
Compare the subtle marketing of both Paranormal Activities movies, with clever use of actual audience footage in the first one, and the feeling of hype created by the second, with the trailer for Case 39. What is Case 39 you may ask? as I did when a promo for it started to play on top of an already playing video I was watching at metacafe.com, which would have been a strange thing for a video site to do except for the fact the metacafe's main goal with their layout seems to be to convince you to leave their site immediately and watch stuff on vimeo or youtube.
Let me wrangle my prose back in and get to the point: Case 39, based on this ad is apparently a generically titled supernatural thriller from Rene "Does Everyone find my squinting as annoying as Danny does?" Zellweger. It also somehow has in it both Bradley Cooper and Ian McShane and the awesome british guy who was the lead in Deadwood, despite the fact that those actors are neither annoying or terrible, which based on the trailer, appear to be the sole qualities possessed by these movie, and which are known to be the qualities exuded by Ms. Zellweger in movie she has been in since 2002.
And if you are thinking, "Danny this movie may have a terrible trailer, but you are being pretty hard on Zellweger, she's not really that squinty and annoying right? that's just a family guy punchline?" To this I respond thusly:
Wow. That is much much scarier than anything in this trailer. Anyway, I'm sure Ms Zelleweger is a nice person, but no one's face does that without some one concentrating really hard on holding the muscles around their eyes as tight as possible. So Ms Zelleweger obviously has to put effort into doing this, so at some point she decided or was told the best look for her was to look like a chipmunk. Look this shot of her from Jerry McGuire. This is the same person.
Anyway enough about Zelweger's devolution into acting solely using her eye muscles. The 30 second trailer that is being used for her new film (Case 39, incase you forgot after my long detour), is pretty terrible in every possible way.
I would embed it hear so you could see for yourself but the website doesn't have anyway to embed the trailer. They do have a button to send the link url for the trailer to your twitter account as a tweet. If you clink that link it helpfully provides you will the text "Just watched the creepy trailer for Case 39" I would mock the marketing folks behind this for including this text since presumably the twitterer (twittian? twittite?) should be able to explain themselves why they thought this trailer was worth posting. However, given the actual context of this trailer, the marketing people presumably correctly assumed that anyone who actually thought this snooze inducing trailer was worth sharing with their twitter followers probably wouldn't have had the guile to put together a sentence as descriptive as that totally bland one the marketing guys came up with.
(I just reread the previous sentence in an effort to edit it to make it shorter and easier to understand, and I ended up making it longer and worse, so I'm gonna quit editing that sentence before it gets so long that it becomes it's own post.)
The 30 second trailer, (which you can yawn through here) Starts out with the comically written line, "People Die around her. Not by her own hand. THEY. JUST. DIE." This line both starts and ends with an ominous "bong" sound, which doesn't do its presumed job of adding intensity and making this line not sound absurd.
Rene Zellweger at least keeps her squinting to a minimum in the 30 seconds they chose to show of this movie. In the next scene of the trailer we see Zellweger talking to a priest played by Ian McShane, who based on the trailer is criminally underused. I know that's a bold statement to make, but if i was directing this movie and realized how bland and generic it was, I would have had McShane play both the starring role Zellweger currently occupies, as well as the role of the little girl Zellweger is protecting. Watch the trailer, then picture the version where Ian McShane plays everyrole. In this version you should imagine McShane doing the Zellweger role in his Al Swearengen grizzled American accent from Deadwood, and playing the little girl by doing his equally grizzled actual British Accent. Don't try to tell me you would not be 100 times more likely to see that movie I just described for you.
The remainder of the trailer degenerates into a series of jumps to clips of what one is sadly forced to assume are the scariest images in the movie. This includes CG bugs coming out of someone's mouth, which would be vaguely clever if Stephen King hadn't used the exact same action in the Green Mile, shot pretty much the same way. The "bong" sound happens in between each of these cuts, again failing to generate any sort of suspense, though it did kind of make me want to got to a music store and play with their gong. I bet hitting a gong is fun. I bet hitting one for 90 minutes would be a lot more suspenseful and fulfilling that seeing the movie Case 39.
(If you are a manufacturer of gongs who stumbled upon this site feel free to post this quote from me on the box for your products: "This gong is way more fun than watching the movie Case 39!!!!!!" -Strictly Commercials)
My favorite shot in these quick cuts at the end is the one of the little girl sinking into the bed. I guess the rest of the scene would be someone having to save her from the bed suffocating her*, but in the short glimpse we see in the trailer of this scene, it just looks like she is lying down onto a really fluffy and comfy memory foam mattress. I want a bed like that. This movie makes me want a giant fluffy bed and it makes me want to somehow get Ian McShane to side on the corner of my bed and read me "Goodnight Moon" until I fall asleep.
After typing that my new main goal in life is to somehow convince Ian McShane to do an audio book of "Goodnight Moon." This replaces my previous goal of getting Ian Mckellen to read aloud the entire Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Footnote(s)
*Maybe the bed is supposed to be eating her. First they rip off Green Mile, now they go after another classic suspense film Patton Oswald's favorite movie Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People (If you for some reason haven't heard Oswald talk about that actual movie, you should listen to it (Warning: He says naughty words.)
I have not seen the Blair Witch Project, so which obviously more or less created this "Captured footage" horror sub-genre, because the marketing for Blair at the time it came out made it look pretty boring. I had no incentive to see a 90 minutes of some 20something yearolds lost in the woods.
I was once lost in the fake woods of central park for 20 minutes at sunrise on July morning while i tried to find where the line was to wait for free tickets for Shakespeare in the Park. So I can attest from that experience that being lost in the woods is pretty damn boring. Its Just boils down to lot trees and birds chirping. I did however run into two 20something year old guys and asked them for directions. They were polite but awkward and as I left it dawned on me that they had clearly just exited from the deep foliage after most likely having sex there, so I felt bad for interrupting. Based on the trailers for Blaire Witch Project I pictured it as being exactly like that experience, except even more boring since no one had sex in the woods in Blair Witch.
But the promos for Paranormal Activity made it look awesome and minimalist and suspense filled. This new promo is just as effective. It gives you a tease of the new plot developments (lots of surveillance cameras, a baby) without giving too much away.
Total Film magazine says the baby is sometime only visible in the mirror but not in the crib, which is a cool creepy effect, which I didn't notice until they pointed it out. I just re-watched the trailer that is indeed true. Though it took me 2 tries to spot it, even knowing its there.
Compare the subtle marketing of both Paranormal Activities movies, with clever use of actual audience footage in the first one, and the feeling of hype created by the second, with the trailer for Case 39. What is Case 39 you may ask? as I did when a promo for it started to play on top of an already playing video I was watching at metacafe.com, which would have been a strange thing for a video site to do except for the fact the metacafe's main goal with their layout seems to be to convince you to leave their site immediately and watch stuff on vimeo or youtube.
Let me wrangle my prose back in and get to the point: Case 39, based on this ad is apparently a generically titled supernatural thriller from Rene "Does Everyone find my squinting as annoying as Danny does?" Zellweger. It also somehow has in it both Bradley Cooper and Ian McShane and the awesome british guy who was the lead in Deadwood, despite the fact that those actors are neither annoying or terrible, which based on the trailer, appear to be the sole qualities possessed by these movie, and which are known to be the qualities exuded by Ms. Zellweger in movie she has been in since 2002.
And if you are thinking, "Danny this movie may have a terrible trailer, but you are being pretty hard on Zellweger, she's not really that squinty and annoying right? that's just a family guy punchline?" To this I respond thusly:
Wow. That is much much scarier than anything in this trailer. Anyway, I'm sure Ms Zelleweger is a nice person, but no one's face does that without some one concentrating really hard on holding the muscles around their eyes as tight as possible. So Ms Zelleweger obviously has to put effort into doing this, so at some point she decided or was told the best look for her was to look like a chipmunk. Look this shot of her from Jerry McGuire. This is the same person.
Anyway enough about Zelweger's devolution into acting solely using her eye muscles. The 30 second trailer that is being used for her new film (Case 39, incase you forgot after my long detour), is pretty terrible in every possible way.
I would embed it hear so you could see for yourself but the website doesn't have anyway to embed the trailer. They do have a button to send the link url for the trailer to your twitter account as a tweet. If you clink that link it helpfully provides you will the text "Just watched the creepy trailer for Case 39" I would mock the marketing folks behind this for including this text since presumably the twitterer (twittian? twittite?) should be able to explain themselves why they thought this trailer was worth posting. However, given the actual context of this trailer, the marketing people presumably correctly assumed that anyone who actually thought this snooze inducing trailer was worth sharing with their twitter followers probably wouldn't have had the guile to put together a sentence as descriptive as that totally bland one the marketing guys came up with.
(I just reread the previous sentence in an effort to edit it to make it shorter and easier to understand, and I ended up making it longer and worse, so I'm gonna quit editing that sentence before it gets so long that it becomes it's own post.)
The 30 second trailer, (which you can yawn through here) Starts out with the comically written line, "People Die around her. Not by her own hand. THEY. JUST. DIE." This line both starts and ends with an ominous "bong" sound, which doesn't do its presumed job of adding intensity and making this line not sound absurd.
Rene Zellweger at least keeps her squinting to a minimum in the 30 seconds they chose to show of this movie. In the next scene of the trailer we see Zellweger talking to a priest played by Ian McShane, who based on the trailer is criminally underused. I know that's a bold statement to make, but if i was directing this movie and realized how bland and generic it was, I would have had McShane play both the starring role Zellweger currently occupies, as well as the role of the little girl Zellweger is protecting. Watch the trailer, then picture the version where Ian McShane plays everyrole. In this version you should imagine McShane doing the Zellweger role in his Al Swearengen grizzled American accent from Deadwood, and playing the little girl by doing his equally grizzled actual British Accent. Don't try to tell me you would not be 100 times more likely to see that movie I just described for you.
The remainder of the trailer degenerates into a series of jumps to clips of what one is sadly forced to assume are the scariest images in the movie. This includes CG bugs coming out of someone's mouth, which would be vaguely clever if Stephen King hadn't used the exact same action in the Green Mile, shot pretty much the same way. The "bong" sound happens in between each of these cuts, again failing to generate any sort of suspense, though it did kind of make me want to got to a music store and play with their gong. I bet hitting a gong is fun. I bet hitting one for 90 minutes would be a lot more suspenseful and fulfilling that seeing the movie Case 39.
(If you are a manufacturer of gongs who stumbled upon this site feel free to post this quote from me on the box for your products: "This gong is way more fun than watching the movie Case 39!!!!!!" -Strictly Commercials)
My favorite shot in these quick cuts at the end is the one of the little girl sinking into the bed. I guess the rest of the scene would be someone having to save her from the bed suffocating her*, but in the short glimpse we see in the trailer of this scene, it just looks like she is lying down onto a really fluffy and comfy memory foam mattress. I want a bed like that. This movie makes me want a giant fluffy bed and it makes me want to somehow get Ian McShane to side on the corner of my bed and read me "Goodnight Moon" until I fall asleep.
After typing that my new main goal in life is to somehow convince Ian McShane to do an audio book of "Goodnight Moon." This replaces my previous goal of getting Ian Mckellen to read aloud the entire Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Footnote(s)
*Maybe the bed is supposed to be eating her. First they rip off Green Mile, now they go after another classic suspense film Patton Oswald's favorite movie Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People (If you for some reason haven't heard Oswald talk about that actual movie, you should listen to it (Warning: He says naughty words.)
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