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Movie marketing and merchandising is a rather touchy subject for one. One of the reasons I really don’t care for DreamWorks Animation is it’s marketing. For example, every time a Shrek movie comes out, you see that annoying green ogre on every box of cereal, bag of chips, and box of candy for three months before. When it finally comes, you feel like you have to go just to get him out of your head.

Pixar and Disney do marketing, but it’s much less a barrage of the senses from all sides. Also, it’s tasteful. Today I was a the Mall of America, and a couple months ago they added large video screens to the tops of the mall directory stands in the middle of the halls. For a while they promoted the Phase II Expansion, but recently they’ve been running content from CBS Outdoor, including ads and some CBS network content. Well, anyways, today they were running almost non-stop the Ratatouille full trailer. I like that. It’s not plastering the ads everywhere, but it’s hitting you softly with actual real content that will show you what the movie is about.

Which is better? A movie that’s desperate for your attention or a movie that just is offered for your viewing pleasure? Often, you’ll find that the overhyped have little substance but the well-marketed actually are enjoyable and meaningful, I think.

UPDATE: Well, apprently nobody got this post, so I’m going to try again with a bit more context. It’s probably still not as fun if you have to explain it. First of all, my boss seems to love almost every action movie (except maybe the ones I like the most). He often asks me what I think of the new movie that came out the past weekend because, undoubtedly, he’s already seen it. So, when he came up to me this morning, I wasn’t too surprised he had seen Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the latest action-superhero B-list movie. As you may be able to tell from the conversation below, he was rather surprised that I was not excited about the movie, and maybe even a bit more surprised that I unashamedly gave him a hard time for even thinking I’d like the movie. See, I told you it’d be boring if I had to explain it.

My Boss: So, Dan, did you see the Fantastic Four movie?
Me: (indignantly) No!
My Boss: Dan, I’m surprised you’d respond in that way.
Me: (somewhat condescendingly) That’s too bad.
My Boss: Haha, nice.

My Boss: (as I was walking away) Yeah, well, it was mediocre.

I wrote a post on inReview.net about this summer’s movies. Check it out:

Summer is fast approaching as the last couple days have been in the 70s even here in Minnesota. No doubt, as there is every summer, there will be lots of fluff to keep us entertained, not the least of which is the end of the movie hat trick. With new episodes of Pirate of the Carribean, Shrek, and Spider-Man, Hollywood hopes to bring everybody (and their friends) back for another million or so. Plus, I’ll outline the others not to miss this summer. Here’s my thoughts on this summer’s movies.

Read the entire article.

To be honest, last year I went to some blockbusters just to get into an air-conditioned building (well, and to hang out with friends). We’ll see what actually happens in this summer’s movie watching.

So, well, this week was quite the exciting week for movies and, well, Lisa asked.

On Sunday I received the DVDs of A Mighty Wind, Waiting For Guffman, and Best In Show for my birthday and we watched A Mighty Wind that night. These are a bunch of fake documentaries where the actors are playing realistic yet still over-the-top characters. A Mighty Wind is a documentary that shows a folk reunion concert of these 60s folk artists. Really funny music and really funny characters ensue.

Friday night the guys went to see Children of Men at Coffman on the U of M campus. The video quality was, at best, painful - but the movie itself was amazing. It was an amazingly thought-provoking movie, although it definitely wasn’t easy to watch.

Last night after most went to bed I watched Robin Hood: Men In tights. It was the first time that I had seen it in years, and well, Mel Brooks always has some great (but sometimes crude) jokes.

This evening we went to see TMNT, the new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. It was pretty good. I thought the animation was pretty nice and it had a pretty good amount of action. It definitely wasn’t the best movie of the week, though.

The guys over at The Digital Bits have been covering the wide world of DVD for a whole decade now. I’ve always enjoyed that they find out the advance word on DVDs. Plus, their in-depth reviews tell me all that I want to know - if the video and audio quality is good and how many special features are on the disc.

This week they announced their yearly awards for the DVD format, The Bitsys. This year, of course, they also branch out to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray related awards. It looks like there’s great stuff here: I want to see the beautiful new copy of Seven Samurai from Criterion. Bill Hunt has talked up the extended cut of Kingdom of Heaven a lot too - apparently it’s a well-made movie that suffered from excessive cutting for theaters. Of course, they rightfully moan about George Lucas and Star Wars as well. Plus, for the kid at heart in you, there’s even an award category for “Best DVD - Retro Saturday Morning”. I mean, who doesn’t want The Animaniacs on DVD?

Renowned movie director and producer James Cameron has announced that his production company is going to show a documentary where they believe they found the bodies of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and a son of theirs. No doubt most, including even the writers/directors of the documentary, are still a bit skeptical, but hey, this will work well for getting big TV viewership. Too bad I don’t watch TV.

This reminds me of an independent movie that was reviewed on my site a while back called The Body. Olivia Williams plays an archaeologist who believes she may have found the body of Jesus and Antonio Banderas plays a Roman Catholic priest from the Vatican who is there to investigate. It’s a nice drama of what may happen if a supposed body was found. Many persons struggle with the idea that Jesus may have died and not risen, but in the end, it’s still something that we just have to keep our faith in.

I’ve always been a fan of animated movies, but everyone knows my favorites are from Pixar. Found via digg, here’s a detailed look into the history of the company and the rise to a film studio. It’s pretty amazing that John Lasseter started creating Toy Story with no feature film experience at all. Also, I had no idea that animation from The Wrath of Khan was so amazing for it’s day.

Hey, friends, anyone want a subscription to Paste magazine? It’s pretty darn cheap.- 11 issues for $15. Contact me if you’re interested. Remember that each issue comes with a 20-song sampler CD and tons of musically-informed reading.

Two-thirds of the way through the amazing movie Everything Is Illuminated, this conversation happened soon after Peter walked in:

Peter: This movie doesn’t make any sense.
Me: That’s because you didn’t watch the first part of it.
Peter: That’s what people say about every movie.
Me: Yeah, and that’s probably why they made the first part of the movie as well as the end — so it makes sense.

Oh well, I thought it was funny at the time. If you want something better than my jokes, just pick up a copy of Cars this week. I know I did.

If you’re a fan of Christopher Guest’s movies (A Mighty Wind, Best In Show and Waiting For Guffman), then you gotta check this out. This trailer for For Your Consideration is the preview for his new movie. It looks like a fun bash on Hollywood and all its craziness. I enjoyed it. You should too.