I’ve always been a fan of the kind of reflexivity employed in Hollywood-set films and TV series where we get a glimpse of a title, a poster or even a trailer for a fake movie existing only in the world of the characters on the screen. Often these mock productions are spoofs or otherwise parodic in some way, and they provide great humor to the entertainment we’re watching. I’m not always a fan of these gags being used for viral marketing purposes, however, especially if the clips we see on the web are the same we end up seeing in the movie. It kind of ruins them for when they’re put into the context of the whole story. The whole practice also seems to be overdone nowadays. Between last year’s overload of mock films in Tropic Thunder and the failed attempt at using such marketing for How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, I think Hollywood should take a break from the self-parody for awhile.

Judd Apatow, who often uses viral marketing for his films, dropped his latest fake production on us this week, though it’s not for a fake film; it’s a double-edged look at the fake NBC series Yo Teach! And besides coming along after the concept has been done to death, it also seems to miss the point. While seemingly trying to come off as a parody of sitcoms, it actually looks like something a lot of people want to watch. As a Head of the Class fan growing up, I’m one of these people. As lame as the show is in concept, it’s pretty decent in execution. And it makes us kinda wish Jason Schwartzman — and Apatow — were back doing TV work rather than the depressing comedy that Funny People, for which this fake TV show was invented, threatens to be. These viral videos are basically a bullseye, just on the wrong target.

A great many other film bloggers would also like Yo Teach! to really exist. See the responses after the jump:

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Everyone was talking today about how Mark Wahlberg’s long-delayed boxing movie The Fighter is finally back on track now that David O. Russell has been tapped to direct and Christian Bale is set to co-star. Some have obviously noted the potential for problems during the shoot, since both new players have had their share of outbursts on film sets, but otherwise most of us are excited about Bale reteaming with the producers of 3:10 to Yuma and Russell back together with Wahlberg for their third collaboration (following the terrific Three Kings and the disappointing I Heart Huckabees).

Anyway, because I’ve been looking at viral marketing gimmicks all day long, I have a crazy idea for Paramount Pictures’ promotion of the “Irish” Mickey Ward biopic: live reality series. Let us watch as the whole thing unfolds, unedited and raw, via webcams. Will Russell and/or Bale shout at a cast or crew member? Will the film be shut down due for financial reasons (even if Reality Media has enough money, it should pretend it doesn’t, just to create drama out of Russell)? We’ll all be tuning in. And then we’ll probably also show up to see the finished product when it hits theaters, too.

Other blogger reactions to the latest Fighter news after the jump:
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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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You’d think a movie about YouTube users would have a great viral campaign, but the trailer for Chuck Potter’s I Want My Three Minutes Back is rather simple. I think it’s in the documentary’s best interest, though, to have a series of spots, each created by a different YouTuber showcased in the film. One trailer would be made by Kevin Nalty (“Nalts”) and employ a lot of fart noises. Struggling filmmaker Nick James (“nickynik”) could do something awkward and reflective. And Cory Williams (“Mr. Safety”) could do a music video for an original rap he’s written about the film. Other users featured in the doc should contribute their own personal take, as well. While we wait for that to happen, though, check out the basic trailer (via YouTube, of course) below.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: when is this film going to get a proper release? And I wonder, too, when we’ll be able to see this thing for free on YouTube. Well, for now it’s apparently being submitted to the festival circuit, so it may be awhile before it’ll be available in its entirety online. Wouldn’t it be ironic, though, if some big studio like Paramount bought it at a film fest and then refused to allow it to be uploaded to YouTube? If they can believe Cloverfield is worth seeing on a big screen, they’d probably go with a theatrical release for this thing, too.

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The Circuit points to the news that a Los Angeles art gallery has mounted a show of the paintings of Adele Lack, the estranged wife of Caden Cotard, whose portrait graces the catalog for the show. Which is interesting, because both Lack and Cotard are fictional characters, played by Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, NY, which not coincidentally opens in New York and LA on Friday.

Even more interesting, a number of art and culture blogs have written up the opening of the show without noting even the connection to the film, never mind the fact that the paintings themselves are movie props and the artist to which they’re credited doesn’t actually exist. One site even includes an image of Keener from the film, without indicating that they’re aware that it’s a publicity still not of an artist, but of a sort-of famous actress playing an artist.

It certainly seems like clever surreptitious marketing for the film — especially for this film, which resists relegraphing its intent or meaning –– but maybe it’s *too* clever? If the show itself is as free of Synecdoche signage as many of the blog posts about it, at what point are patrons of the show (which ends on Sunday) going to make the connection?

This new bit of internet marketing for the forthcoming Tropic Thunder claims to be a trailer for a fake documentary about the making of the fictional movie that Tropic Thunder is also about the making of. Wait, what? On the one hand, I love the piling on of ridiculously self-referential layers, but on the other hand, isn’t this a bit confusing? Let me try this again, Tropic Thunder is a fictional film about a film production where the director decides to put his (fake) actors in real (fake) danger. And Rain of Madness is a fake mocumentary about the fake movie, or about the real movie about a fake movie?

Well, whatever the case may be, the above clip proves two things: One, Tropic Thunder would probably be better as a mockumentary, rather than a fiction film about a fiction film. And two, Danny McBride is hilarious: “I just beat nature today.”

Now that War, Inc has topped the specialty box office two weeks in a row, using the unfunny “incendiary political cartoon” (the poster’s words, not mine) as a stick with which to beat the “critics are irrelevant!” dead horse has become the new hotness.

“Despite the negative reviews, I found War Inc. innovative and subversively ironic,” Vicky Ward writes at Vanity Fair.com. Noting that Cusack was able to cull poster quotes from like-minded famous friends such as Arianna Huffington and Diablo Cody (the latter’s a new development, as she apparently hadn’t delivered her blurb as of the taping of this clip), Ward positions the success of the film as an instance of “the audience” rising up against the bullies of the critical establishment:

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Yesterday, we presented a clip pretending to be a film from the ’60s. Now, here’s a clip that’s pretending to be from the ’90s. Are the ’00s really that bad that we can’t own up to making films in this decade? Perhaps, but I still love both retro recreations. Today’s video is part of the viral marketing campaign for The Wackness, a movie set in 1994. And fitting for its period, the promotional clip is in the form of a mock public-access show hosted by the film’s protagonist, teenage drug dealer Luke Shapiro (as played by the film’s star, Josh Peck).

It’s been a long time since I last watched public-access television (though it had to be more recently than ‘94), so I never thought about the idea that it was almost like the predecessor to YouTube, on which we are now all watching this fake public access spot. Think about it: Wayne’s World today would be about two guys taping an internet-based talk show; Tom Green would have been famous first on YouTube; and ten years ago, all your favorite YouTube stars would have had to go to the local college in order to broadcast themselves. Only they wouldn’t have reached a fraction of the population they reached through the internet.

There’s an article in The Hollywood Reporter today (speaking of which, anyone besides me hate their new site layout?) about how viral marketing “has gone positively bubonic.” And I’m glad someone is writing about how annoying it has gotten. Not only is it too common nowadays, but the THR piece discusses how “exhausting” the campaigns are, too, claiming that suddenly following a movie’s marketing feels like doing homework.

After watching the video (above) of an MTV intern’s experience of Monday’s Dark Knight viral marketing stunt, I have to give its puzzling game (which I had mentioned I’m too lazy patient to bother with) a little more credit, yet I still am flabbergasted that so many people are so invested and have so much time to waste that things like this actually work. The thing is, though, that it might only be working for people who are already anticipating the movie being marketed:

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Last week, I wondered when the presidential campaign and Warner Brothers’ campaign for The Dark Knight would merge. Today, the political and the movie promotional have become fully intertwined, although on a much more local scale than I had originally predicted.

According to the Village Voice (via Gothamist), Queens Councilman Hiram Monserrate is lobbying to officially brand New York City with the nickname Gotham City in time for The Dark Knight’s July release. Apparently, Monserrate thinks associating his city with a fictional flying crime fighter and a deranged, make-up wearing lunatic will be good for tourism. “I see that as a marketing tool,” he told the Voice. “‘Come visit the real Gotham City,’ taking advantage of this movie which will be one of those gate-breaking, record-selling movies like it always is.” He then mumbled something about how how Christopher Nolan’s Chicago-shot movie will help New York’s “art community to strengthen its reconnection to being a Gotham City,” and also something else about how frappuccinos embody the spirit of Batman.

Check out the full crazy at the link, and then tell us: if a studio were to, uh, make it worthwhile for a city official to sponsor a crackpot resolution involving one of their films, would that be bribery, or just really, really good viral marketing?

Resolved: “viral” (I know, I hate the word too) movie marketing peaked with Cloverfield; we are now watching its record-fast decline towards rock bottom as regular marketing guys shove regular campaigns into unimaginative, unconvincingly “alternative” wrappings.

Exhibit A: At Movie Marketing Madness a couple of days ago, Chris Thilk detailed the many ways that Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s campaign rubs him the wrong way. From the no-comments-allowed fake character blog to the billboards and bus ads that wreck any chance of playing as organic interventions by incorporating URLS and MPAA ratings, Chris says, “If this is the best a studio can do in terms of social media then…marketers have no place in this space.”

Exhibit B: Defamer points to this “ad” (maybe a generous assessment for a piece of paper taped to a tree) which takes the Sarah Marshall campaign’s familiar, Sharpie-scripted petulant, turns it away from the title character and towards said tree. I missed the film when it premiered at SXSW, but I have to wonder if this is an effort to fix another problem cited by Thilk, in that the fake blog posts “seem to exist after the events of the movie”––is there a bit in Sarah Marshall about a tree that this could be slyly referring to? Either the studio is responding to such criticism by steering the campaign towards attention-grabbing non-sequitors,  or they’ve been detourned by actual, semi-inventive spontaneity on the part of their annoyed audience.

I’ll leave the discussion up to you, but I will say that it does strike me that worrying about Marshall’s marketing is just a manifestation of total indifference to the movie itself (as Defamer commenter ricker puts it, “I think I’m going to forget to see Sarah Marshall.”) With the Judd Apatow backlash gaining steam with each successive disappointing release, maybe Sarah never had the chance to dodge the increasing taint of lameness bestowed by its brand-name producer. After all, aren’t we about at the point where a new Apatow-associated product is, like, the Destiny Turns on the Radio to Knocked Up’s Pulp Fiction?

Anne Thompson points to the above picture documenting a “viral” Dark Knight marketing stunt described by a tipster thusly:

I saw these guys pull up on a corner, in a van right in the middle of downtown with big signs and bullhorns shouting to people to vote for Harvey Dent as D.A. The van was covered with Harvey Dent posters with Aaron Eckhart’s picture. Of course people had NO idea what they were talking about. They probably thought it was a real campaign.

How far in advance of the movie’s release do you think Warner Brothers will pull the correct strings in order to allow the Dark Knight campaign and the presidential campaign to merge? When can we expect Harvey Dent to endorse McCain? Or vice versa? Now that Warner Brothers is taking advantage of election season to sell their Batman sequel, at what point will real politicians start taking advantage of a new Batman sequel to sell themselves?

I honestly don’t know what I find more disturbing. The I Drink Your Milkshake Infant Bodysuit:

Or The I Drink Your Milkshake Classic Thong:

Let’s clear our heads by contemplating whether or not P.T. Anderson meant to reference Hippolyte Flandrin, shall we?

Eventually Judd Apatow’s schtick will no longer be fresh. But it may continue to be funny, even after the viral marketing backlash. Case in point: this new sketch/advertisement for Walk Hard, which takes Apatow’s viral brand to a mega-meta level. As much as the idea of fake fights involving Apatow and his actors is now a tired concept, the video is hilarious. And as much as Apatow’s self-referential jokes about being self-referential about being self-referential are as obvious as they are mind-wrapping, the video is still hilarious.It helps that this time around, there’s more funny guys involved and more going on at once. It’s not simply funny to watch Craig Robinson chasing after Judd Apatow because he’s pissed about being in another one of his “fucking commercials”, but it’s comedic gold to inter-cut it with Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill and Justin Long realizing they no longer have to talk about Apatow’s movies and can freely discuss their desire to see Michael Clayton.

Funny is funny, regardless of the situation or the motive.

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