Mystery marketing is no substitute for good filmmaking

Last week the hype for Christopher Nolan’s third Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, moved into top gear with the launch of a clever and mysterious publicity campaign. On Thursday the 19^th of May the official website became active, only to reveal nothing but a black screen and the sound of chanting. By the following morning, the most dedicated and geeky intelligent of fans, had filtered the noises through various ingenious programmes that visualise sound waves, revealing the Twitter hashtag #TheFireRises. To cut a long story short, the more people that Tweeted the hashtag, the more of an image from the film was revealed. Eventually a genius with time on their hands managed to expose the whole picture, giving the world its first glimpse of Tom Hardy’s beastly Bane.

As exciting as all this was for fans eager to learn about the sequel to The Dark Knight’s phenomenal success, such high concept viral marketing is not a new idea. Christopher Nolan in particular should know this, after previous films of his have utilised the growing trend for such campaigns. Most notably, last year’s Inception generated enormous hype with lots of vague waffle about the “architecture of the mind” doing the rounds on forums before any plot details had emerged. The official Facebook page for the film released clues to the whereabouts of Inception merchandise and tickets, sparking races across British cities for the treasure. There was also a special app for the film.

Even The Dark Knight had seemingly legitimate websites, both pro and anti Harvey Dent, calling for support in the Gotham city elections for District Attorney. But the undisputed king of mystery, minimalist marketing is Lost creator JJ Abrams. He produced 2008’s Cloverfield, which was perhaps the first project to truly embrace the public lust for speculation and a hunt for clues. It was promoted with the merest slither of information and talked up as a story that blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction, claiming to be comprised of “found” footage from real home videos. Lost too, made the most of secrets to stir debate amongst fans.

Abrams is the director of this summer’s much anticipated Super 8, which is co-produced by the tantalising team of him and Steven Spielberg, and the trailers have adopted the same old tricks which we’ve come to expect. During the flurry of Super Bowl trailers earlier this year, Super 8 remained the only real enigma amongst a pack of blockbusters, which undoubtedly made it stand out. But there are also drawbacks and limitations to such cryptic and vague promotion.

A few weeks ago a select group of journalists and critics got to see the opening 20 minutes of Super 8. And whilst many of them had positive things to say, those that have already written about their snippet of Abrams’ creation pack their articles with questions and a tone of scepticism as they look to extract the substance from the chorus of theories. Several commentators have said that the uneven blend of a heart warming buddy movie, a scary alien attack and effects heavy blockbuster, doesn’t satisfy the hype.

Without all the frustrating teasing, perhaps the writers would have been more inclined to focus on the film’s positives. How can the product ever live up to unrealistically heightened expectations? The trailers have already been ripped apart, frame by frame, for the slightest of clues. Cinemagoers with regular internet access may have heard of Super 8, but by the time of its release its barebones promotion may have left them either uninterested or so frustrated that they seek out an idiot who has leaked detailed spoilers.  

Such saturation of the web certainly gets people talking and immersed by the ideas of a film. But it’s not a standalone guarantee of a box office hit. For one thing, despite its all conquering swell, the internet still does not reach everyone. Even some of those that use it may not wander into areas dedicated to film or have the time and desire to unravel marketing mysteries. Other media such as television and newspapers remain a vital tool for more instant advertising reach, rather than a slow burn.

There have also been failures that are too reliant on viral campaigns, even when those campaigns are successful. Disaster epic 2012 caused such a stir about the end of the world that NASA had to set up a special page to reassure people. But after it bombed with critics and the public, the big budget project was still a flop. Countless low budget releases think that cheap online methods will assure sufficient publicity but without a breakthrough in more traditional media, most of these languish and pass unnoticed in the cyber shadows, even when they have their merits.

The fact remains that viral marketing often only helps increase the hype for an already much anticipated film. The Dark Knight Rises will be a box office success regardless but the occasional prod from the filmmakers will cause sizzling talk to increase the takings still further. JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg are names that will attract attention because they are accomplished storytellers, not marketing magicians.

In the case of Abrams I would hope that the motivations behind his teasing details and whiffs of mystery are noble; he wants his audience as absorbed as possible by his fictional world and genuinely surprised by its twists and turns. Abrams, Spielberg, Nolan and others know that what matters in the end, after the hype, is the film itself. Get this wrong and the publicity will be a curse rather than a blessing.

An EPQ Comparitive Essay: Introduction – Focusing on the Cold War, how does the work of Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick challenge dominant historical perceptions of America?

Yesterday I dusted off some work from the archives of my laptop and gave it a new, backup home on the world wide web in the humble dwelling that is Mrtsblog. Today I’ll continue the trend with a more academic piece. This essay was the fruit of a summer of reading science fiction, histories of the Cold War and comparisons between the American and Russian ways of life. Originally I also intended to write about Ray Bradbury’s works. Whilst I did enjoy The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 immensely, and they really are beautifully written with fantastic ideas, I could not accommodate his writing with my theme. Perhaps it was better I left Ray’s work alone and in the drawer of pure enjoyment in my brain.

Anyway in the end my essay, for an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) at A-Level, became a comparison of the work of Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick. Looking back on it now there are things I wish I had done better and it’s not as well as written or argued as I hope to be in future. But I do miss the satisfaction of both academic study and essay writing now and again, so these posts will remind me that I am capable of it.

The first post (this one) will be the introduction, with the two parts on Huxley and Dick to follow. I really enjoyed marring my interests in literature and history with this essay, and as it was primarily written for English sizeable chunks about American history had to be removed. Unfortunately it’s still quite a drawn out read, with as I say, a lot of weaknesses despite a good mark. I don’t really expect any readers to consume the whole thing, but as I say, will add it to my online archive of work regardless.

So here we go:

Focusing on the Cold War, how does the work of Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick challenge dominant historical perceptions of America?

 

Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick can both be loosely linked under the banner of “science fiction” writers. However the two men have extraordinarily different backgrounds and influences. Huxley was an English intellectual living in the shadow of the First World War, whereas Dick was an anti-establishment Californian who came of age as the Second World War ended. The literary outputs of the two men are also poles apart in a number of ways. Huxley wrote satires of the English upper classes but Dick’s mainstream successes were realistic portrayals of the average American dealing with extraordinary circumstances. Huxley’s most celebrated work, Brave New World, is regarded as a “novel of ideas” and Huxley himself admitted that he struggled to find the balance between plot and information. Dick did not have Huxley’s scientific heritage, but approached writing fiction with a strong knowledge of philosophy, psychology and Eastern Religion. These influences are all evident in Dick’s most highly regarded novel, The Man in the High Castle, along with an excellent original premise and believable characterisation. Whatever their differences however, both men continually challenged accepted thinking in their writings and in particular questioned the reality of the Cold War world. Both men are also best known for cautionary messages that prompted readers to remain vigilant about threats to their humanity from any source, totalitarian or otherwise.

Huxley and Dick were both rightly influenced by the division of a post-war world into two separate ideological camps. Huxley was deeply concerned by the methods of totalitarians and the worrying susceptibility of the masses to their tactics. Dick was amongst the first to recognise the destructive potential of two nuclear armed adversaries and the implications of impending doom on human existence. However what sets them apart from the rest is their refusal to allow their thinking to be consumed by the scale of the Cold War and the evil of the Communist threat.

Both men had the awareness to keep one eye turned inward on the frailties of the Western world, at a time when democratic governments were getting an easy ride on a wave of unity against the tyranny of the Reds. Neither man succumbed to the temptation of oversimplifying the world around them into a good vs. evil struggle. They equally recognised the potential for right and wrong in each individual human being. A Communist was still a person capable of good, just as an American had the potential for bad. Both men touched on this theme in their work, Huxley with his “Savage” outsider and Dick more specifically with his almost – human androids.

The underlying warning was that a capitalist citizen could be as easily exploited as a Communist drone if they neglected their freedom to think and question. In life both Huxley and Dick were determined never to do so. Huxley fretted about ignorant modern lives, lived to purely satisfy the senses. He questioned the very idea of progress, warning against unnecessary and deceptive changes. Dick led a tortured life, lurching between periods of depression, paranoia and addiction. Through it all he maintained an intellectual curiosity with the abuse of power and perceived reality. There was hope for both of them in freedom of expression.

Memento

Ideally I like to write my reviews shortly after I’ve watched a film, as I’m doing now. First impressions are important right? I think recording that instant reaction can be valuable, especially for readers dithering over whether to see something. Of course taking more time to chew over the substance of a movie can also have its advantages. It might help me to get my head round it and make some more insightful points. But somehow I don’t think I’ll ever get my head round Memento.

The protagonist of Memento, Leonard (Guy Pearce), certainly couldn’t make it as a film reviewer. And I’m not saying that because it’s a particularly difficult task with insurmountable challenges. In fact normally I’d take the view that anyone could do it and that’s what makes cinema so engaging in the first place. But Leonard is not just anyone. For him remembering the plot of the most transparent Hugh Grant picture would indeed be an insurmountable challenge. There’s an advertising slogan that reads “Impossible is nothing”: this is literally true in Memento. It would be impossible for Leonard to write a review because he would remember nothing about the film. Not even Hugh alternating between “gosh” and “golly”.

Leonard suffers from a rare condition which basically means he can’t form new memories. I say “basically” but if you watch Memento it’s rapidly clear that his day to day existence is not a simple matter. Repeatedly Leonard tells us, via voiceover or mysterious conversation, that through his mastery of routine, instinct and a system of writing down “facts” as they happen, he has conquered his inability to save memories to the mainframe of his brain. But as the story progresses things that seemed certain prove to be far from it. Leonard’s quest to find his wife’s killer, and the man who whacked the talent of remembering from his skull, gives even the most ordinary encounter life and death importance. If Leonard draws the wrong conclusion from something and writes it down for future reference, he could end up on a path that causes him to kill the wrong man.

With last year’s hit Inception, Christopher Nolan reminded us that before his skilled reinvention of Batman for the mainstream he had a reputation as an experimental narrative trickster. Inception was his first film since The Prestige, which had twists and turns aplenty in the plot, to tell a daring story free of the Gotham city universe. The hype for the “dream heist” thriller was hysterically huge. I and countless others positively salivated at the sound of the concept. The possibilities of such an idea were endless. Sadly the film is one of the most overrated of recent times. Whilst good it did not compete with the whirring of imaginations kick-started into life by the premise.

Memento is much better than Inception when it comes to realising a tantalising idea. This is despite the fact that Nolan’s relative inexperience as a director is evident in a handful of lacklustre shots; one drab and overlong focus of Pearce strutting away into a building stands out. The acting isn’t always brilliant either, with what seems like half the cast of The Matrix on show and in hit and miss form.  The script however is superb, bouncing themes and tension around the scattered narrative structure. I was never bored. And I never knew what was going on.

As well as being extremely gripping and exciting, Memento has its other strong points. Leonard as a character is an engrossing figure, complete with those striking memories in tattoo form (which Steven Moffat recently adapted in Doctor Who for the monsters you forget when you look away). He is trying to make sense of his life, in one sense with nothing to go on but also with endless notes and information he’s amassed for himself. We’re all trying to settle on a purpose and the excess of notes could be an interesting symbol for information overload in the modern age. Clearly Memento has its insights on memory given the driving force of the story but it also comments on the nature of fact and perhaps the notion of history. Leonard insists he only collects facts and this ensures no one takes advantage of him. But his “facts” are manipulated. And what’s the point in revenge if he can’t remember it? Is it enough that “the world still exists when I close my eyes”, as he says?

Memento gave me a headache. I may have had one before sitting down to watch but after having the pieces inside my head jumbled about until my brain moaned in pain, it didn’t help matters. Nonetheless I enjoyed it. The overwhelming strength of the film is its originality. The execution was certainly there, which is why this was Nolan’s breakthrough picture. But the real genius lies with the idea behind the story. And the script was based on a short story by Christopher’s brother Jonathan Nolan. Perhaps he is the real mastermind behind the family’s success and the endless plaudits should be more evenly shared.

Mrt’sblog First Anniversary Special: An ignorant review of The A-Team

A year ago this month I started this blog. I had always written and always wanted to write. I’d always imagined my life with some form of writing in it and hoped that I could do it for a living. And now thanks to this online archive of my work, I do live to write; about films, politics, football, books, television and more. I lack a particular speciality but so many things interest me that even if it hinders the expansion of my readership I cannot see myself settling on the one subject. And even with my scatter gun approach this blog has grown into something I couldn’t have envisioned a year ago.

I write regularly for a film website, Flickering Myth, that’s stuffed full of quality contributions. Recently it celebrated its own anniversary, a second birthday, not long after placing high in several online polls of movie sites. Occasionally I contribute to the national football blog, and epicentre of passionate debate, Caught Offside. My political pieces join those from other politically active and intelligent thinkers of the younger generation over at Demo Critic. Links to all these sites that are worthy of regular visits, can be found in my blog roll to the right.

I suppose I should update the “About” section for this blog, written over a year ago now. It’s very vague and as I’ve already said I still lack a specific focus; but I do now commit a great deal of time and hopefully productive energy to these articles and reviews. In the coming months I plan to attempt progressively more ambitious projects for the site. I’m aware that my blog is still perhaps only properly read by a few sympathetic friends and the odd one-off viewer. But for even one person to find my work and appreciate it means an awful lot. Perhaps someday the better pieces in this catalogue can provide a helpful showcase of my promise and interests.

I know this post is proving to be rather self-indulgent. It’s a bit of a drawn out and elaborate begging routine I suppose; a plea for anyone who likes anything at all they see here to come to stay at the virtual home of my mind again sometime.  It’s especially grovelling when I throw in that today I’ve attempted to connect the blog to Twitter, a social phenomenon I’m unfamiliar with, in order to spread the word. You can “follow” me, like the obsessive and drooling delusional stalker you are, by clicking this link: http://twitter.com/Mrtsblog#

For me, writing this post is also quite soppy and loaded with sentiment. Because a year on from the start of my blog, my life is very different and drastically altered. I have both changed and remained the same. My views and opinions have evolved, whilst some values remain steadfastly in place. Most pathetically of all, I am far happier than I was a year ago. To quote half an advertising slogan, “the future’s bright…”. Against seemingly gloomy odds I’ve found a chunk of satisfaction and a handful of essential ingredients I had always lacked to be happy. This blog was part of the undulating and youthful, but ultimately tame, journey of the past year for me. At one time I felt the need to vent on here as if it were a diary. Now I look back on that as naive and immature. That part of me has evaporated and I look to the future with a grateful smile on my face. Older and wiser with those that I’m close to.

“SHOOT ME NOW!” you cry with stinging tears of irritation burning your angry face. Unfortunately I still have a tendency to ramble on a bit. I apologise for that overemotional detour. But I assure you I’m getting to the point. In fact, I’m about to get this infant’s birthday party started (it’s ok because I’m the parent). If I have such a thing as a “regular reader”, they may have wondered, and continue to do so, why this blog is called “Mrt’sblog”. I know from the handy stats tool provided by Word Press that every now and then the odd fan of The A-Team or Mr T stumbles across the green expanse of my page , via Google or other equally able (but let’s face it less well known) search engines, probably only to leave rapidly with a sense of disappointment. You see I never watched the original TV series of The A-Team and I’m not even much of a fan of Mr T himself.

The incredibly snappy, but uninteresting story behind this blog’s name, that proves brevity is rarely a virtue, goes as follows: an old History teacher of mine, one I still have fond recollections of, started calling me “Mr T” at some point during lessons, purely on account of my surname beginning with that letter of the twenty-six strong crew that is the alphabet. There was lots of what a certain type of annoying person might call, “legendary banter”, in these lessons. I cultivated with unhealthy and unnatural pride a slight cult of celebrity around this Mr T persona at school, with those in my class fully aware of my hotshot funny man status, solidified by the teacher’s jokey approval. It’s a level of fame I miss. Yes reader I live a narrow and dull existence. But then when starting out in the mysterious entity of the blogosphere, stretching tentative tentacles in exploration, unsure of what exactly to do with my own blog, I recalled the nickname from school and adopted it on a whim. Anything was preferable to exposing my shy face as it is to the world.

As I’ve said then, there is no connection to The A-Team. The music of course is iconic. As are some of the catchphrases. But for people from my generation the tune is unavoidably accompanied by two moustachioed fun-runners singing “ONE-ONE-EIGHT! ONE-ONE-EIGHT!” in oddly booming voices, offering to solve rare and strange occurrences. Equally the more memorable one-liners and personalities that no doubt originate in their best and purest form from the TV series, have tended to only crop up for me in adverts. Such as Mr T urging me to “Get some nuts” and rush out to buy a Snickers from the turret of a tank. Unfortunately I don’t own a tank and I don’t think my arms would be long enough to reach down to the counter and pay from way up there, perched on the gun. So I declined his command. Also I don’t like nuts.

Knowing that my blog’s birthday was coming up though, I decided its present would be a short and ignorant view of the film The A-Team from last year. I promptly elevated the DVD to a top priority title on Love Film and hoped it would arrive before the end of the month. Luckily I just about scraped the deadline. Hopefully my blog won’t hate me too much for missing the precise date.

THE A-TEAM opens spectacularly and the action is pretty much non-stop throughout. The bigger action set pieces are heavily reliant on shameless CGI effects. Normally this would ruin a film for me, but the core characters that make up The A-Team are so likeable and funny, bouncing off each other and generally not taking things too seriously, that you can look past the blatant lack of realism or stunning visuals most of the time. There’s something inexplicably endearing about these men falling about inside a tank as it supposedly hurtles through the air. At times I swear my eyes just saw actors mucking about in front of a green screen, but that’s still funny right?

I think I’ve stressed quite enough I know nothing of the original A-Team, so I am judging this film purely on its own merits. For all I know it could be an absolute travesty for fans of The A-Team, but to me the casting of the key players and the dynamic between them worked well. Liam Neeson is always assured in my opinion and here we see a funnier side to him. The suitably named Quniton “Rampage” Jackson takes on the Mr T, B.A. Baracus role, and more than looks the part. Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley are excellent as the quirkier members of the foursome.

The highlight of The A-Team for me was a scene in which the loony Murdock, played by Copley, is broken out of an asylum by his fellow team members. Murdock is sent a film to watch with 3D glasses and the film plays with a jeep hurtling along a road, only for it to burst through the wall to the amazement and delight of the patients, sporting their retro 3D specs. Murdock promptly escapes, wearing his set of specs, exclaiming as the team are shot at that the bullets look so lifelike in 3D. In a film full of simple gags, here was some physical, action packed humour that also doubled up as cutting satire of the current 3D trend.

All of the action in The A-Team is fun, if not groundbreaking or gripping. A scene with abseiling, gun toting baddies on Frankfurt skyscrapers with lots of smashing glass is quite inventive and hard hitting though, whilst still having the laughs present throughout the story. The plot itself is fine but uninspiring, as the gang attempt to clear their name and reclaim some stolen plates for printing US dollars. Patrick Wilson as mysteriously named CIA agent Lynch is particularly wonderful and amusing. He gets many of the best lines and delivers them in the believable style of a man with the heart of an easily impressed teenager. Watching an explosion from a satellite view, he gasps “wasn’t that just like Call of Duty?”. I may have missed many A-Team in jokes, but there were lots like this one that were up to date enough for the modern generation. Generally Wilson plays a refreshingly cynical and hilarious shady villain.

The A-Team was a film that exceeded my expectations. It’s a perfect pick me up and two hours of harmless fun with even recurring jokes like burly Baracus’ reluctance to fly, still making me smile by the end.

Happy first Birthday blog! Finally a post relevant to your name.

The Social Network

It’s 3am or a similarly ridiculous hour. The sane and the content are asleep in the warm darkness of their beds. I however ignore the tension in my forehead, the heavy strains choking my eyeballs. I sit eagerly forward, glowing in the light of my laptop, waiting. Waiting for that friend request to be confirmed, waiting for someone to comment on my attention seeking status, waiting for the boyfriend of the girl I love to slap another obscene, boastful, sexual comment triumphantly on her wall. I trawl mindlessly through the indecipherable, identical and idiotic ramblings of countless school colleagues; people I might have spoken to once or twice, but are now destined to provide endless commentary of their life’s ups and downs direct to my inbox. This is the grim everyday reality of Facebook, The Social Network.

It’s a reality that rarely rears its ugly head throughout David Fincher’s latest project, only truly doing so at the end of the film with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, masterfully played by Jesse Eisenberg, reduced to hitting refresh on a friend request, hellishly bound to his own creation. However whilst this is a glamorised tale of unnaturally razor tongued geeky geniuses that can feel artificial at times, The Social Network does not lose sight of the fact that all the boardroom drama and billions of dollars stems from the clever exploitation of darker, depressing human traits lurking beneath the surface of brilliance.

Thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s script of lightning paced, sharp and witty dialogue though, brilliance is a prominent feature of the movie. It’s ironic given the reams of pointless, idiotic dribble vomited onto Facebook each day that every other line in The Social Network is a cool summary of the times or a cutting riposte. Ironic too that the film reveals the drunken origins of Facebook as “facemash”, a crude tool for comparing the attractiveness of Harvard undergraduates, conceived as the ultimate retaliation to be being (deservedly) dumped. The brutal simplicity of this drunken prank would foreshadow the darker changes a fully evolved Facebook would impose upon our lives.

For all the grand ideas and themes raised in Sorkin’s excellent script there is also brilliance in the characterisation and storytelling; fundamentals for an enjoyable cinema experience. There are countless superb one-liners and the film opens with a quick, emotionally charged and frustrating verbal duel, culminating in Zuckerberg being labelled an arsehole. The film ties together nicely with a neat structure when he is acquitted of being an arsehole (kind of) at the end. There are bags of humour and tension to be had in the court scenes, which flashback to the Harvard days of creating “thefacebook”, which are beautifully shot and capture the frenzy as the idea spirals beyond the imaginings of its authors.

Whilst critics may agree that Sorkin’s script is the most brilliant feature of The Social Network, there are numerous other marks of quality ensuring it is being talked about as one of the films of the year. David Fincher’s direction has been singled out for producing a visually stunning production. He is also responsible for getting the best out of Sorkin’s script by having it read faster than intended at times, perfectly matching the machine-like detachment of the computer nerds’ personalities. These nerds are also brilliantly portrayed by some outstanding acting. Eisenberg seems perfectly cast as the strangely likeable, slimy architect of the whole thing, Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Timberlake has been widely praised for an assured performance as Napster founder Sean Parker. For me young British actor Andrew Garfield, star of Channel 4’s Red Riding and recently cast as the new Spiderman, was most impressive as co-founder but intellectually and morally out of his depth business student Eduardo Saverin. Garfield’s character is the audience’s way into a world of untouchable smart arses and elites and his performance is pitch perfect from the giddy highs to the panicky, incomprehensible lows. Armie Hammer provides the humour as the Winklevoss twins (his face was digitally reproduced onto that of another actor) and the film is also mesmerizingly scored at times, from the intoxicating party scenes, to moments of corporate despair and sporting drama.

All in all The Social Network is a film that for once largely lives up the cleverly marketed hype drummed up around it. It may not be entirely factually accurate but it is all the more entertaining and meaningful for telling a dramatic story with engaging characters, as opposed to slipping into documentary mode at times as Fincher’s previous work Zodiac was prone to do.