Through one of the smartest film promotions I’ve seen in awhile, Disney has already sold 500,000 advance tickets to its little nature doc-for-kids, Earth, by promising to plant a tree for each audience member who pays to see the film during its first week (starting tomorrow and ending Tuesday, April 28). Never mind that all those people could just plant a tree themselves, and that families may ultimately be disappointed to find the movie is less focused than the ads would have them believe (the “three animal families” narrative is often abandoned for a broader look at the planet’s ecosystems) –– the fact that Disney managed to come up with such a successful marketing gimmick, and incentive, that has no necessary web-related elements is extremely commendable in these mostly viral-campaign-obsessed times.
Of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with online movie marketing, and it’s worth pointing to another new film opening this week, Obsessed, which has a fun little gimmick utilizing personalizing technology we’ve seen in plenty of prior viral promotional tools. It may not help save the planet, but we actually had more fun making this video, in which we made Ali Larter seem to be obsessed with SpoutBlog editor Karina Longworth, than we did watching Disney’s Earth. Then again, we at least saw the documentary, primarily because of its promotion, yet we probably won’t be seeing the very banal-looking Obsessed.
Ignoring whether or not they were successful, we picked ten other favorite viral gimmicks, many of which were more enjoyable than the movies they promoted:
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Earlier this year, I thought that it was way too late for a Sex and the City movie. But then it made a ton of cash, so I guess I was wrong. Still, I’m going to continue similarly thinking it’s too late for another X-Files movie. And even if I’m proven wrong and the masses get out to theaters this weekend in search of the truth, I’ll keep on believing that X-Files: I Want to Believe is way past its time.
To celebrate Mulder and Scully’s tardiness, here are 10 other movies that came out too late:
- The Godfather Part III (Released in: 1990; Should have been released in: 1976) - Never mind the fact that had this third installment been made years earlier, Sofia Coppola wouldn’t have been cast and therefore wouldn’t have given her terribly infamous performance. The more important matter is that sequels arriving more than a decade after the previous installment are almost always doomed. The longer the wait, the higher the expectations, and the greater the disappointment. Of course, not everyone agrees that it was also too late for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Live Free or Die Hard, Rambo, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, etc.
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After 18 years, is there anything new to say about The Simpsons that hasn’t already been said? Possibly, but if so, A.O. Scott isn’t saying it. At the Vulture blog, Dan Kois and/or Lane Brown (no byline on the post) notes that the film critic has basically spent his entire tenure at the New York Times dropping obsequious references to The Simpsons in places where they probably didn’t belong. To herald the arrival of Scott’s review of The Simpsons Movie, in which the critic leads off by announcing his contention that “the entire history of American popular culture — maybe even of Western civilization — amounts to little more than a long prelude to The Simpsons,” The Vultures round up eight examples of this, which stand in addition to Scott’s 2001 Simpsons hagiography, Homer’s Odyssey.
All of this begs the question: when a critic has shown an inordinate bias for or against a director/star/brand/topic/theme, should they then be recused from reviewing its associated products? Is it possible for even a professional critic to apply their usual acumen to a cultural product that they’ve already professed to being deeply in love (or hate) with? I don’t know. My long-burning crush on Clive Owen didn’t keep me from thinking Sin City was another soulless bit of hack-work from Robert Rodriguez. Whose films I uniformly can’t stand. So, uh, yeah, maybe.
The WGA has 
