• Funny how that NY Times story failed to mention this little bit of cross-branding: The Superficial points to this NSFW Sarah Jessica Parker blow-up doll, complete with dirty Sex And The City pun on the packaging.
• AMC’s Sci-Fi Scanner blog notes that, “for better or for worse”, Southland Tales comes out on DVD. I’m firmly of the opinion that, faults and all, it’s worth a look. See my review here.
• Chuck Tryon points to this story, in which he’s quoted, about an upcoming Luke Wilson film called Tenure, set in the wild world of academia. Tryon, a tenure track professor himself, notes the challenges the filmmakers will have in making his lifestyle cinematic: “[S]ince my ongoing pursuit of tenure typically involves me sitting in front of my laptop until 1 a.m., I don’t know how interesting that would be to watch.”
• At io9, Charlie Jane Anders assesses the problem with sci-fi prequels: “I love small, intimate portrayals of people’s lives. But that’s not what I look for from movies with “Star” in the title. (Well, maybe A Star Is Born.)”

Stuart Elliot at the New York Times reports on some of the many branding deals New Line has arranged to cross-promote the upcoming Sex and the City movie. There are basically two types of deals being made. On the high end, the producers of the film have inserted luxury brands into the narrative, based on what the actual characters might consume; Mercedes-Benz, for instance, has created a special limo for Mr. Big and a giant SUV for Samantha (insert penis substitute joke here). But then there’s a passel of more plebian-oriented brands looking to siphon some SATC cred to sell their products to the film’s target audience. Which is, apparently, suburban moms who tend to have a little too much too drink at faux-upscale family restaurants. Behold:

When it comes to products helping to promote the coming film based on the popular TV series Sex and the City, it seems the sky is the limit. Better make that the Skyy is the limit, as in Skyy vodka, which is being named the “official spirits sponsor” for the movie. Among the tie-ins are drinks made with Skyy to be served at Houlihan’s restaurants and named after characters like Carrie, Samantha and Mr. Big.

Well, at least New Line (or whatever corporate faction is handling these deals at this point) seems to understand a good half of their audience. Let’s just assume The Mr. Big cocktail recipe will make it to the gay bar circuit on its own and sweep up the other half.

I was doing my daily Boing Boing scan yesterday and was reminded of my last visit to a Starbucks, where I saw the film Akeelah and the Bee displayed for sale. (I’m sure many of you have looked at this display once or more a day as you get caffeinated, but for me, Starbucks, like Wendy’s, is something I reserve for travel.)

Anyway. I’ve been intrigued for a while by how the coffee giant has gotten themselves so involved in the music industry, in terms of marketing, distribution, and–let’s face it–two-way brand building. Now they’ve branched out with their first foray into film, with Akeelah and the Bee. Apparently they co-financed the making of the film, in addition to all their marketing and distribution efforts.

Here’s some of what the September 11 Boing Boing entry had to say:

The interesting thing here is the retail opportunity presented by a Starbucks partnership for DVD distribution. In bookselling, research has it that more than half of the people who might buy a book if they spotted it will never set foot in a bookstore or place an online order. In the golden age of pharmacy and grocery-store spinner-racks, more than half the books sold were sold outside of stores. Big-box stores and online stores can put together a much deeper, long-tail-compliant catalog than neighborhood stores or pharmacies ever could, but they can only sell those books to the kind of people who are willing to patronize bookstores.

The thing about selling a movie or a CD or a book in a Starbucks or other popular retail establishment is that it’s entirely positive for the sales of the media: the bookstore people will buy it in a bookstore, or maybe pick it up at Starbucks. The non-bookstore people who have an interest in that kind of movie/book/CD will pick up the title without cannibalizing sales that might have been generated elsewhere. It’s a wholly positive development.

Starbucks has already turned itself into a quiet powerhouse for CD sales for discs that it also owns a stake in — I’m fascinated to see if they manage to do this with movies, too.

I agree with most of this, but I get nervous when I hear things like “It’s a wholly positive development.” At this point, with this film (which is supposed to be pretty good), I can’t see anything wrong with it. But when corporations start tying themselves that publicly to films, and begin branding themselves through those films, how will that affect the art? Does it begin to smack of “special interests?” Will we be co-opted by not-so-great films? I guess my point is that it’s not just about making good films available for purchase at a wider range of places. It’s a more complex issue.