Movie Marketing 101

Possibly to justify the monthly subscription fee and the many hours I've devoted to watching Law & Order: SVU, I like to think that I've learned a lot about the movie business through my Instant Netflix subscription. For example, I recently became aware of a surefire movie marketing strategy for poster design. It is this:

Title: "The (noun reflecting a group of certain kind of individual)"
Graphic: The torso of one of those individuals, who is ripping away his or her clothing.
Tagline: Something related to business that sounds like it's trying to be a play on words but isn't actually a play on words at all.



I'm pretty sure this formula will come in handy when I design the poster for my future blockbuster hit, "The Superheroes," "The Strippers" or "The Victims of Cardiac Arrest Who Need To Have That Shock Thing Done On Their Chests."

So I'm taking this writing class...

And our first assignment was to write 2 or 3 monologue jokes! Fun right? I think more kids would like school if assignments like that were more prevalent. Anyway, here are the three I came up with in about half an hour before class. They're not stellar, but at least you all can enjoy watching me learn. Or something.

"The FCC said Tuesday that it will review the incident involving a fleeting glimpse of pop singer Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Superbowl. Janet Jackson's breast could not be reached for comment, which is not surprising since it has not been seen or heard from in over 5 years."

"In Washington state today, a few cattle participating in a local parade veered off course, entering a convenience store. A pair of cowboys was forced to enter the store on horseback to drive out the cows, who emerged with 2 dozen taquitos and a Battle Berry Slurpee."

"Investigators reported today that a shipwreck off the Italian coast may hold radioactive waste sunk by the mafia. This came as a surprise to officials, who had not realized Glenn Beck was missing."

"Defying Gravity" Defies Longevity

ABC has announced that Sunday night's episode of the space-based drama, Defying Gravity, will be the show's last. In the absence of an official cancellation announcement by ABC, rumors are swirling that the show, which stars Ron Livingston, was not in fact canceled, but has been asked to come in on Saturday.

Aw, what's the matter, little brain? Are you gonna cry? Does wittle bwain want his mommy bwain?

In honor of back-to-school, a brain teaser! What's the missing number in the sequence?

3 , 3 , 5 , 4 , 4 , 3 , 5 , 5 , _ , 3

My current "wish list":

- The Flip
- Honda CR-Z Hybrid
- An iPhone (I hear they're thinking about a model with projectors!)
- The digitally remastered Beatles albums being released in September and/or "The Beatles: Rock Band"
- The Kindle

Sometimes the lists I make reflect my socio-economic background all too clearly...

You know those "this makes sure you're not a computer" things?

Where you have to get really close the computer screen to decipher what letters/numbers are in a graphic so you can type them in so you can comment on your friend's blog?

Sometimes, I wish those words were real words.

Take "bortne." I think bortne would mean something like, "dissatisfied acquiescence." For example, "Tanya reacted to her boyfriend, Malloy's, desire to see 'Terminator' with a certain degree of bortne."

A really bad idea:

This.

Why: First, a lot of people - especially ones you don't know that well - will be grossed out if you up and hand them a slice of meat. Second, wallets are warm places. Those business cards are gonna start getting smelly and bacteria-y. Not only will your smell drive away some potential business contacts (or pretty ladies), but if you actually manage to hand someone the card, they'll probably get sick and die shortly thereafter. Of course, there might be one person who won't be driven away by your smell, won't die from bacteria exposure and won't be grossed out by you handing him or her a slice of meat. But the type of person that wouldn't be grossed out by that, who would find that sort of thing fun and/or respectable, is also exactly the type of person who would eat that business card, thus losing all of your contact information. Fail.

Then again... meat and lasers...

OK, I'm buying some of these. And then I'm gonna make lots of friends at the "Star Trek" opening !

Facebook says I may know a guy named Ironheart

For every fifty people Facebook suggests "you may know" and actually do know but have been actively trying to avoid (and who are clearly actively trying to avoid you since they're probably getting a message saying they might know you too... the door swings both ways, kids), there is one person who you do not know at all and really really really wish you did. For me, that person is a dude who goes by the name Ironheart. I refuse to click on the picture that links to his profile because I'm sure I'll be disappointed (maybe he works in Finance; perhaps he's friends with those kids I hung out with orientation week who refused to expand their social circle as college progressed - save to include Ironheart - and who would quickly look away whenever I passed them on campus for fear that we might make eye contact and they would have to deal with the sad truth that, at least for a week, they had thought I - a person who wanted to form relationships with people for reasons other than our shared experience of having our parents pay for us to attend the same scholastic institution - was cool; possibly, his name is not actually Ironheart). Nope. In exchange for repeated suggestions of people I may know that remind me of high school friendships gone sour, potentially lovely relationships gone awkward and other moments of missed opportunity, I'll keep an image of me in another world, chilling with my pal Ironheart. We'll be watching "Howard the Duck."

World's nicest dog meets world's rottenest kid

Shallow Musings

You should take pains to not over-dissect, lest you may destroy that which you sought to understand. Like a frog's innards.

Some Notes In My Notebook (and what I think they meant)

"Two golden candy wrappers (Reese's perhaps) rolled into perfect balls and placed in the center of two adjacent subway seats." I like to imagine that these were actually underdeveloped Golden Goose eggs, and that two really negligent Golden Geese were randomly sitting next to one another on the R train when they simultaneously and totally unpredictably each laid a golden egg weeks before their due dates. The really negligent Golden Geese, embarrassed by the incident but touched by their mutually shared experience, ran off together, encouraging one another to throw caution to the wind and waddle away from the responsibilities imposed on them by society.

"Asian newspaper front page photo." I'm not sure which Asian language this newspaper was in (apologies), but the guy next to me on the train one morning was reading a cover story with two accompanying pictures. The larger photo was of a man standing between a bed and a wheelchair, leaning on neither. A smaller photo was superimposed in the lower right hand corner; this photo was of a man's hand reaching for one of a myriad of pill bottles arranged on a mahogany shelf. The arrangement of these two photos seemed to imply, to one who could comprehend the text in no reasonable fashion, a cause/effect relationship, with the stupendous recovery of the man from paralysis being attributed to his consumption of an inordinate amount of medications. If this was actually a huge medical breakthrough, the photo caption seemed like a letdown to me: Man takes plethora of pills... celebrates medical miracle by standing near two things he usually sits on.

"Mr. Pellequin looked like a pelican and also like a penguin." I'm pretty sure a person I saw on my commute one morning inspired this note. I think I was going to use that statement as the introduction to a very uninteresting short story. I'm tempted to write that short story anyway, just to prove to my early morning uncaffeinated commuter self that I wasn't completely wrong.

"Instinct... that freak out at the theatre with the shoe, the purse string snake on the subway and the dolphin-shark." I think this was a late-night commute note. A couple weeks ago, the glint of light hitting the shoe of a improviser doing a side-kick onstage freaked me out because I thought something was flying at my face. This was unfortunate for the people around me as I spazzed out. A couple days later on the way home from work, the tassles on my new purse had wrapped around my thigh and for a split second I thought I saw a snake crawling up my leg. Again spazzed out, again unfortunate for innocent by-sitters. I have no idea what the "dolphin-shark" bit is about.

"NordicTrack open on iPod." Got me?

Is it creativity or is it crack?

It's kids like this one that actually make poppin' one out seem like an OK idea.

Who's a good Slumdog Millionaire? Yesh you are, oh yesh you are!

Who's da Bestest Picture of da year? Isyou, isyou, isyou, isyou, isyou! Would you like anothah tweat? You would?! Of course you would, of course you would! Who's da best at cinematogwaphy, diwecting and editing? Is it... Slumdog? Yesh it's Slumdog! And who has da bestest owiginal score and bestest owiginal song? ... It's Slumdog!! What a good picture, good film! And who's got da bestest Sound in da whole wide entertainment industwy? Isyou, isyou, isyou! Oh, what's dat, Slumdog? Am I forgetting somesing? Oh, how siwwy of me, who's da bestest at wighting in da categowy of scweenplay based on matewial pweviously pwoduced or pubwished? Whadda good Slumdog!

Tom Hanks to Blow Up World

Despite years of playing heroic figures onscreen in hits such as Road to Perdition, Saving Private Ryan, The Da Vinci Code, Apollo 13, Philadelphia and Splash, Tom Hanks has recently announced his intention to destroy the world and potentially other large chunks of the universe by turning on the Large Hadron Collider operated by CERN near Geneva when repairs have been completed. He then immediately apologized for exposing the LHC's nearly limitless destructive power to the world before confirming the existence of such abilities with the LHC first.

In related news, Kevin Kline has signed on for a new romantic comedy to be directed by Frank Oz, tentatively entitled Machine Designed to Simulate the Big Bang & Evil Underground Scientific Lair That Will Create Black Holes Destroying the Earth and Its Surroundings (Paramount Pics).

Times Are Tough

It's true. But in trying episodes such as these, it is absolutely imperative that we all take a moment to remember that this happened and was amazing.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

The beauty of blogging

Is that if you remember a really great and applicable word exists weeks after writing an entry, you can go back and plug it right in. You can then blog about how great it was that you were able to transcend time like that, how you were able to travel back to a moment where you went, "OK, 'christened' will do," and say to yourself, "No! You will not settle! You will reflect and find the perfect word, that ideal thing that will capture the very essence of what you mean to express in a concise collection of sounds!"

Yclept.

Is it just me?

Or does President Obama's shadow appear to be mockingly waving goodbye to Dubya in this picture?

Hmm.

Within a period of two months, two separate friends who have never met one another sent me cards. The first card has a picture of a beagle staring up to a table with a pie resting upon it. The second card has a picture of an unidentifiable dog staring up to a table, his attention fixed on a cupcake. I don't really know why cards with dogs staring at pastry laden tables remind people of me, but I'm gonna take it in stride.

Warning: Spoilers Abound

Not for nothing, but this made me giggle. Then I realized the same guy is responsible for the existence of "Two and a Half Men." Such is life.


Addendum: While I was aware of Chuck Lorre's vanity cards and other TV ventures (Dharma & Greg, omg!@**#!), I did a little more research on the guy after writing the above. Seems dude composed (along with Dennis Challen Brown) the music for the Teenage Mutant Ningja Turtles TV series in '87. How the mighty have fallen.