Readers should have been wary when wonderfully positive blurbs were coming in for such vacuous entertainment dreck as Hollow Man, A Knight's Tale, Vertical Limit and The Animal.
Although this is a new wrinkle on what movie studio publicists usually do it's not too outrageous. Usually they pay someone (in a matter of speaking) to generate a one sentence or word blurb. US Magazine reported a few years back in an article titled "If You Can't Say Anything Nice..." that critics today have become, 'entertainment reporters, celebrity interviewers, gossip columnists [and] PR flacks." The article noted that PR companies now 'will phone critics within hours of a movie's screening to get verbal reactions, which will then appear in advertisments as if culled from a thoughtful, carefully crafted review."
The article goes on to illustrate an outrageous episode where a publicist called a critic and prompted her into admitting that a particular film was, 'sort of Hitchcockian." And then pushed her a little further to say that the film was, 'A Hitchcock for the 90's."
Columbia's recent actions prove that even that contemptible scenario could become outdated since a simple phone call could be too time consuming.
If anything this little stunt proves just how dumb (or maybe lazy) the Columbia publicists are. Finding good movie quotes is as easy as finding gum under a movie theater seat. All they had to do was hop on the internet and find good reviews. Any site will do.
Here's a few:
They could have taken this blurb from Christian Spotlight on the Movies about A Knight's Tale:
"A Knight's Tale is a quirky blend of a 'football' movie, a love story, and a man in pursuit of his dream [and] has a wonderful crafting of the 14th century ideas of Geoffrey Chaucer"
Notice how this blurb (although long) is one that could easily please sports fans, women, Christians and literary types.
**********
Or, just to pique and provoke the viewer's curiosity, they could have used out-of-context thought provoking blurbs for Vertical Limit like this one from B. Fatt and Lazy Movie Reviews
"stunts involve a lot of wheezing, coughing and running."
Or this one from The Los Angeles Times:
"The film's thrills start with..."
This particular blurb leaves the reader hanging (on a cliff so to speak) and most likely would give them a reason to get to the theater and see where the thrills begin.
**********
For Hollow Man the publicist could have attempted to get people to shell out $9.00 with curious yet extravant one, two or three-word blurbs such as these.
"McGyveresque!" Scott Marshall hit-n-run.com
"For God's Sake!" Mark Ramsey, MovieJuice.com
"Freudian!" Bob Thompson Jam Showbiz
**********
Positive blurbs for The Animal suprisingly aren't that hard to find. Both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times give it relatively positive reviews. Instead the publicist could have given us a totally frank and honest blurb that shoots from the hip such as this one from Ross Anthony of Hollywood Report Card.
"The story ... do your really care? 99% of the humor here slaps its stick on the screen...it's funny."
You get the idea. It's easy. Even a PR Flack could do it.
- Matt Langdon
HOME / BOXOFFICE / CREDO