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Under discussion:

The Dark Knight  (2008)

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?

Under discussion:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall  (2008)

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?

Under discussion:

Star Wars  (1977)

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace  (1999)

Fanboys  (2007)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  (2008)

Two of the biggest stories populating the movie blogs this week have to do with George Lucas. Well, the Fanboys controversy has less to do with the Star Wars director, but obviously he’s connected in some way. The other story has to do with Lucas’ statement that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is (gasp) just a movie. Here is the quote, from USA Today, that’s putting fear into the minds of movie geeks throughout the galaxy:

“When you do a movie like this, a sequel that’s very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it’s going to be the Second Coming,” Lucas says. “And it’s not. It’s just a movie. Just like the other movies. You probably have fond memories of the other movies. But if you went back and looked at them, they might not hold up the same way your memory holds up.”

Yes, he goes on to reference the reception of The Phantom Menace, which is obviously fair, but also a bit unbalanced. Certainly our disappointment with the Star Wars prequels had enough to do with their stand-alone quality (or lack thereof), in addition to but separate from them coming with such high expectations.

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