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Portfolio points to this short film starring Robert Evans, designed to promote a line of luxury sunglasses inspired by the legendary producer.?? Mind Games, styled as a trailer for a film noir, briefly summarizes the Evans character’s infatuation with a cool blonde described by Fred Schreurs as “a raging, memoir-typing harridan on the order, one guesses, of some of Evans’ seven ex-wives.” I read it as a straight Ali MacGraw thing??????”Whatever was in her eyes, it sure wasn’t love,” Evans says, in the hindsight of a betrayal, and then, in his trademarked rhetorical-inquisitive manner, admits to having been cuckolded: “Was I smart? No, I was dumb, with a capital ‘d’.” But any read is probably more than this guilty, late afternoon pleasure deserves??????it is, after all, an ad for sunglasses that you and I cannot afford.

Under discussion:

Stephen King's The Mist  (2007)

The Signal  (2007)

The Happening  (2008)

I’ve already written about trailers for each of these films, and I didn’t really want to revisit either one. Even if they did have second trailers released — as most movies do — it’s typically hard for me to find the new versions in a format that I can embed here (I guess I got lucky with The Happening video above). But both of these movies have special marketing circumstances regarding their new, second trailers, that I figured they were worth noting.

The new trailer for The Happening, unlike the one I wrote about previously, seems more interested in exploiting the 9/11 and terrorist-threat angle. As if we hadn’t already guessed that Shyamalan was dealing with that kind of subject matter. Of course, the first trailer was just fine at selling the movie as a sci-fi/horror thriller, which I imagine is much more appealing to a wide audience than anything relating to 9/11. Still, I kind of understand why they decided to go this route, as well. The first trailer just made the movie look like a clone of The Mist and the upcoming horror flick The Signal. Perhaps the studio wanted to distinguish itself more as a deliberately relevant and topical genre picture. (more…)

Under discussion:

Brief Encounter  (1946)

Today we’re taking a look at Brandon Linden’s Bootleg Wisconsin, which is screening in the Emerging Visions section at the SXSW Film Festival. It’s a drama about the summer relationship between Katherine, a married woman from Chicago who spends her summer vacation visiting outlet malls, and Billy, a younger guy who works in the Wisconsin mall that Katherine visits. There’s a trailer above, as well as tons of clips on YouTube. Brandon answers the 4 Questions We’re Askign Everybody below.

Tell us about your movie. Who did you work with, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.

Bootleg Wisconsin is the story of a young man who works at an outlet mall outside Kenosha. The store he works at is about to be closed. He starts up a relationship with a woman from Chicago who shops there and we see how it effects the two of them, and his friends and family.

My concept of it would read something like this: “If a Swedish director watched too many Naruse films drunk and then decided to do a near silent remake of Brief Encounter in a Midwest outlet mall you would have my film.”

I wanted to make the film after visiting the outlet mall with my wife, who was shopping. I got bored and started to talk to some of the kids who worked at the brand new hotel next door. They told me how the hotel was supported by people visiting the mall.

I started to think about the differences, social and economic, between the people who worked at the mall and those who visited it, and why anyone would stay overnight at a place just to shop. I wanted to make a film about this that was quiet, compassionate, and real.

(more…)