Despite focusing on Michael Moore a mere three days ago, I can’t help but ignore the buzz going on about the filmmaker’s marketing stunt over the weekend. Soon after we got our first look at an image from Moore’s new, untitled documentary about the financial crisis, a teaser trailer hit theaters and the web (as soon as it was online, I updated Friday’s post to include it). But in some theaters there was more to the ad than just an onscreen Jimmy Fund/Will Rogers Institute parody. In select cities the teaser was actually followed by Jimmy Fund-style pandhandling, in which ushers (or interns? volunteers?) wearing “Save Our CEOs” t-shirts walked down the aisles with donation cans.
Yes, people gave money, but apparently Moore is passing that cash and coin on to local food banks — though nobody in the select audiences seem to have been clued into this fact. If there were indeed moviegoers who simply dropped change in out of habit (thinking this was an actual charity or they confusedly thought they were at church for a moment), that wasn’t the only aspect of the marketing of this film that is going a little wrong. If Twitter is a good gauge of this sort of thing, too many people are coming away from watching the trailer and reading about the stunt believing that Moore’s new film is actually titled “Save Our CEOs” (or “Save the CEOs,” depending on the Tweet). I’m not sure if that is an appropriate thing to call the film, but now that it’s garnering buzz under that moniker, Overture Films might want to insist it be the official title anyway.
Check out what the film blogs are saying about the stunt after the jump:
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A few days after unveiling Mickey Rourke as “Whiplash” from Iron Man 2, USA Today brings us the first image from Michael Moore’s new documentary, which is still without a title. In a way, it corresponds well to the earlier photo premiere, because many people think of the liberal filmmaker as the true villain of his own movies. Others believe him to be the superhero, however, which would make Goldman Sachs the nemesis in this picture, in which Moore is once again met with police opposition, likely because he’s attempting to trespass on the financial institution’s property.
Apparently the trailer for the movie hits theaters this weekend, too, so hopefully someone will find a bootleg or copy of that somewhere on the web [update: I've embedded the Jimmy Fund-parodying teaser below]. My hope is it’s appropriately attached to The Taking of Pelham 123 due to that film’s involvement of a stock market scam. For now, though, let’s see what the film blogs are saying about this promotional photo:
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The original film of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was quite representative of New York City in the mid-1970s. Tony Scott’s remake, which opens this weekend, doesn’t have that same sense of space, but even worse than its lack of local relevance is its out-of-date plot, which has John Travolta causing panic on Wall Street in order to make hundreds of millions in a stock scheme. Never mind that the economy is currently in such a state that the terrorist’s plan may be fruitless. Even before the recession this should have seemed antiquated. As David Edelstein writes in New York magazine, “Why would he need to do something so…so…1974 as hijacking a subway train to do what a lot of hedge-fund managers do before breakfast?”
The plot is also tremendously unoriginal, enough to assume Travolta’s character is a huge James Bond fan. But someone familiar with 007 villains, or any other would-be economic terrorists, would have to realize his own scheme would fail. To illustrate why it’s useless to attempt this kind of thing, we present you with ten classic films involving stock market scams, most of which are unsuccessful.
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There’s usually not much to write in response to a release date announcement, but when the film in question is Michael Moore’s, any kind of news is good bait for the haters. The Fahrenheit 9/11 documentarian is back with an untitled film about the current financial crisis, which would seem to be a topic accessible to all kinds of moviegoers. Even the ones who are usually anti-Michael Moore. But when this new doc opens on October 2nd (notably 1 year and 1 day after the $700 billion Wall Street bailout), there will still be plenty of people against it.
Already, Moore has issued a statement in which he reveals the film to be a sort of jab at the rich, so obviously there will be few wealthy moviegoers driving up to the theater in their gold Mercedes in order to see how they’re to blame for the present economy. But will any poor conservatives show up? And what about those of us leftists who’ve grown tired of Moore’s tactics? All I can say is, hopefully this doc at least has as few onscreen Moore scenes as his last major effort, Sicko. But despite the fact that he’ll clearly be focusing somewhat on the auto industry, this still won’t be anywhere near as good as Roger & Me, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this fall.
Let’s see what the blogs and blog commenters have to say this far in advance about the next Michael Moore film:
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Earlier this month, Production Weekly reported that Alex Cox and David Lynch would begin shooting their Repo Man sequel, titled Repo Chick, next month. Fifteen 25 years after the release of the first movie, Cox revealed that it’s a timely revisit, as the new movie will “unfold against the background of the credit crunch and the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, where repossessions of homes, cars and other forms of property is at a new high.”
Coupled with the recent announcement that John Carpenter is producing a remake of his own They Live, the news of a second Repo Man film has us wondering what other ‘80s cult classics should appropriately be remade or revisited now that the economy is shit again. Depending on your definition of “cult film” (many people call Ghostbusters a cult classic), some of the selected films may not be fitting for that term. Regardless, the following ten movies, if redone today, would have definite relevance to these troubled times.
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A few days after unveiling Mickey Rourke as “Whiplash” from Iron Man 2, USA Today brings us the first image from Michael Moore’s new documentary, which is still without a title. In a way, it corresponds well to the earlier photo premiere, because many people think of the liberal filmmaker as the true villain of his own movies. Others believe him to be the superhero, however, which would make Goldman Sachs the nemesis in this picture, in which Moore is once again met with police opposition, likely because he’s attempting to trespass on the financial institution’s property.
