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National Treasure: Smarter than I’m Not There?

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 7 months ago
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“My colleagues, students, and wife think I’m nuts to like National Treasure,” admits master film historian David Bordwell. He then launches into an extremely compelling defense of why the Jerry Bruckheimer franchise is “more informative about American history than Fahrenheit 9/11. More brain-teasing, and far more enjoyable, than I’m Not There,” and, perhaps most crucially, evidence that Bruckheimer is “the most astute producer now working in Hollywood.”

Of course, I enjoy the dig at I’m Not There, but the whole post is worth a read, if only for the novelty of watching an academic explain why a “dumb” Hollywood movie is a lot smarter than knee-jerk critical cynicism would lead us to believe.

Trailer Lies

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 8 months ago
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David Pogue wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times last week about the marketing of National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Masked as something of an ad for the Internet Movie Database, the article dissects the movie’s trailers, telling us about the many clips that aren’t actually in the cut we see at the theater. Is this a form of false advertising? Pogue wonders how far Hollywood can take this type of manipulation:

Rearranging scenes in the trailer is one thing. But what about this business of putting stuff in the trailer — a *lot* of stuff — that isn’t in the movie at all? If they can get away with “National Treasure”-style misrepresentation, what’s to stop other moviemakers from putting special effects, witty lines, exotic locales and hot-looking actors into *their* trailers, just to get us to go to a movie that doesn’t have any of those things?

Well, that’s exactly what Justin Lin’s Annapolis did a couple years back. As you can see from the trailer above, the movie promises many scenes involving aircraft carriers and other Naval ships, as well as flying jets, all that could be expected to be in exciting action sequences. Yet Annapolis never really expands its story beyond the U.S. Naval Academy, and so anyone looking for that action movie must have been disappointed.

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Trade Roughage 12/26/07

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 8 months ago
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  • Over the weekend, a few critic groups united in naming No Country for Old Men the best movie of 2007. St. Louis, Utah and Florida all love the Coen Bros. movie, as well as Ellen Page, Amy Ryan, Daniel Day-Lewis and Ratatouille. They managed to mix it up a little bit, though, so as not to be completely identical/redundant/unnecessary. I’d give the most hugs to the gang in Utah for honoring The King of Kong if only they hadn’t disappointed me with their choice for best actress runner-up: Amy Adams. If I was booked to attend that little film festival of theirs next month, I’d totally change my mind and boycott. People just don’t know the lengths I’ll go to complain about this Enchanted kudos crap.
  • Not surprisingly, National Treasure: Book of Secrets topped the holiday weekend box office with $65 million. I would have gone to see it, but instead I hung out at JFK airport for hours on end Sunday night and watched parts of Con Air on my iPod. I’ve decided that Nic Cage is a lot better suited for the small-small screen. Too bad such a strong opening means he won’t be making direct-to-iPod movies any time soon. 
  • Perhaps this is a sign that studios will stop trying to find “the next Harry Potter franchise” and begin trying to find “the next I Am Legend.”: Potter actor Robert Pattinson (”Cedric Diggory”) will star opposite Kristen Stewart in Catherine Hardwicke’s teen vampire flick, Twilight. Too bad the Hollywood Reporter already gave us this story two weeks ago; too bad vampire movies have already been a monstrous trend in Hollywood; and too bad studios will never stop looking for “the next Harry Potter franchise.”