I only get the newspaper on the weekends, so forgive me if this advertisement to your left has already left smudge prints on your fingertips. Perhaps you're familiar. See, they're now advertising the bleak sexual Holocaust drama The Reader by way of Kate Winslet's huge PG smile and winner's elation.My memory is like a sieve so maybe this isn't saying much but I can't remember another Oscar winning film replacing their actual ads with Oscar ceremony stills. Furthermore, if you go into this movie expecting "the most uplifting experience of your life" you might be desperately suicidal afterwards (uh, thanks Rex Reed).
I love that the ad is also rubbing right up against He's Just Not That Into You. Winslet looks way happier in her Romantic Comedy (er...) than Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson and Ginnifer Goodwin do in theirs. But then David Kross and Ralph Fiennes were Very Into Her.
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30 comments:
Nat, this has been done before, although I couldn't give you an exact example off the top of my head. But I can definitely recall seeing someone holding their Oscar in a post-victory ad.
That isn't false advertising. Rex Reed is reviewing Kate Winslet's acceptance speech, not her movie.
I'm almost positive Monster's Ball pulled this stunt when Halle Berry won.
Neel -- you found the silver lining. Thanks for keeping me chipper.
in that case I totally agree with Rex Reed (a sentence you'll rarely hear me say)
Monster's Ball: the second most uplifting experience of your life after The Reader.
This ad is ridiculously funny!!
If only Ricky Gervais had called that ad too... he totally could have.
They've actually been using that Rex Reed quote since well before the oscars, and it's been annoying me the whole time. I mean, REALLY? You can't really blame them, I guess, if he wrote it. But what was he thinking??
And now there's a picture that helps validate it. Great. Though it is great to Kate all happy and amazing.
*to SEE Kate, is what I meant to say
They also did that for Hilary Swank when she won for Boys Don't Cry. I'm embarrassed to say it on this site, but I cut the ad out of the Times and taped it up on my wall. Yikes.
It's sad that Kate Winslet will forever go down in Oscar posterity for that vile film. If those Oscar promos get people into theaters expecting some fun, uplifting time at the movies, then God speed to them. They'll get what they deserve for not doing their research beforehand.
Here's a fun parody on "The Reader" that was the one ounce of joy I've found from the entire experience of watching the film. Granted, the parody is far too short.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ezDYkPiGY&NR=1
That is a very odd ad, but hey whatever it takes, I guess. I do wonder how much the Academy is asking to use it though.
Still, my favourite all time newspaper ad is this one for David Lynch's Lost Highway!
"Two Thumbs Down!", Siskel & Ebert = brilliant.
Haha...that Lost Highway advert is brilliant! Way to use negative critical response to your film's advantage.
I too recall seeing stills of Halle Berry's tearful speech in Monster's Ball publicity mats. What irked me even more was subsequent DVD/poster graphics, which show Halle looking all styled & glammed up (i.e. polar opposite of Leticia) -- Billy Bob & Heath remain appropriately white t.
God forbid they go that route with Hannah and likewise do a tacky retroactive number on her.
yeah the LOST HIGHWAY ad was a total gem. It made me love Lynch even more which is to say "wow. didn't know i could"
That does seem kind of odd.
Sean Penn's win for MILK is also being advertised in the same way... at least in the Toronto papers it is.
nate, i saw this first at rope of silicon and was aghast. i'll repeat here what i posted there:
OMG! what a disingenuous ploy to catch audience!!!??? everything surrounding the film has been exactly that —fraudulent. its holocaust revisionism plot replete with factual errors; its bamboozle push to the oscars, dislodging other films from the 5th best picture spot; its actress’ unfair win at the expense of more deserving nominees, ad nauseum…
“the reader” the film is not uplifting at all, but it’s a masterpiece in weinstein-winslet deception strategy.
Despite his longevity in the business of film criticism, Rex Reed's review of "The Reader" -- which was printed in full on the promo material that nearly flooded the lobby at my screening of the movie -- convinced me that he's not only lacking in good taste, but borderline insane.
anon -- do we really want to blame Winslet for any of these perceived deceptions???
Frankly i think a lot of the issues many people have with the movie are misreadings. People keep acting like it's some deeply evil Holocaust excusing tale or something and they obviously saw a different movie than I did and that the Academy did. But then I don't think the movie is exactly a Holocaust movie so much as it's a movie about misdirected shame and inchoate guilt and the damage people pass on to new generations when they're not whole and can't be.
Maybe i gave the movie too much credit but i just really get frustrated with the seething anger directed at the movie.
THAT SAID yes this is ad is ridiculous ;) glad we agree there.
Don't tell people that they "misread" "The Reader." Who are you to make that type of determination? Yeah, all the critics and the tepid fan response is wrong, b/c the ever-knowing Academy took the bait like a trained monkey? No thanks. Save that garbage for someone that's buying it, like you're obviously doing.
anon 9:26. You obviously don't know this site well. Not an Academy apologist. But if you write about film at all it's your job to call it as you see it...
and so i call this one as misreading. I'm not saying the film is brilliant (it's not) but it's certainly not condoning the things that people like to be offended imagining that it's condoning.
The film was garbage, and you making excuses for that awful film is sad on your part. You're no one to tell someone else that they've "misread" anything. Nothing was misread. You just like a shitty film. Just more of your pompous antics at work again.
I'm sorry you didn't like the movie... and like I said I don't love it (this is probably the fifth time I've had to say this but it's SO WEIRD to be defending a movie i don't care very much about. I should shut up ("Yes!" anonymous shouts in response)
but if you don't understand that people SHOULD offer their perspective when they feel like something is being misread or that they have a different take on it... there's nothing to be done.
I was only offering up an alternative read that I think the movie fully supports (i.e. I REALLY AND TRULY believe that the movie is about misdirected shame and generational hand-me-down damage NOT about killing Jews because you're illiterate)
but if you don't like hearing an opinion that never waivers from your own this might not be the right place.
and i mean that in a nice way (it's so hard to get tone in blog comments). I'm just never going to be able to provide general consensus opinion (unless i happen to share it) and you can get that by just perusing percentages at rotten tomatoes anyway.
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how did we get so offtrack here?
we were making fun of this ad which is ridiculous and misleading!
Nat, don't ever think your interpretation is wrong.
And it's generally my experience that faceless anonymous people on the Internet aren't worth the effort.
So for my opinion to be "relevant", I need a name attached to it? Okay you prick, my name is David. Satisfied? That still doesn't change my view that "The Reader" is shit, nor do I appreciate (or anyone should for that matter) being condescended to b/c they supposedly "misread" a film by Nate's standards, or didn't reach Glenn's level of relevance b/c they didn't have a damn name attached to their post. Save your jackass snark for someone else.
glenn don't worry, I don't think I'm wrong. I have been wrong on ocassion I freely admit. But not this time ;) I guess I should have written a real review of that movie that I could just point to instead of having this discussion repeatedly.
maybe one day i shall surmount my review block.
david good to have a name. welcome, and I hope you'll enjoy conversations about movies here in the future without feeling like you're being condescended to because I don't share a future view you might hold. It's kind of the nature of movie discussion to have differences of opinion / interpretation.
I know what the nature of film discussion is on blogs like this. I didn't start doing this yesterday. And you can rank "The Reader" as your number 1 film for 2008 for all I care. That's not the problem. It's telling people that they've "misread" the film for hating it. All the critics that gave the film a 58 on Metacritic "misread" it. The audiences that avoided the film like the plague "misread" it. The people that actually paid to watch it and thought that it was garbage "misread" it. But you're sitting pretty b/c you got it all right. That's pompous and arrogant discourse.
OMG! just to clarify, i'm the anonymous that posted this:
"nate, i saw this first at rope of silicon and was aghast. i'll repeat here what i posted there:
OMG! what a disingenuous ploy to catch audience!!!??? everything surrounding the film has been exactly that —fraudulent. its holocaust revisionism plot replete with factual errors; its bamboozle push to the oscars, dislodging other films from the 5th best picture spot; its actress’ unfair win at the expense of more deserving nominees, ad nauseum…
“the reader” the film is not uplifting at all, but it’s a masterpiece in weinstein-winslet deception strategy."
to which you replied. I AM NOT THE OTHER ANONYMOUS POSTER DAVID.
i'm not hiding, i just don't have an account and didn't realize until now that i could use a name even without URL.
but as my first rejoinder:
yes, nathaniel, i would blame anyone who knowingly benefits from an unfair advantage or allows their name and face to be used to perpetrate a deception.
and i don't share your perspective about the film. it simply cannot NOT BE a holocaust movie ---the holocaust is central, although incipient, to all of the main characters' individual histories and key points in the narrative.
i wasn't, as i imagine some were, seduced by the selling points that it's about inter-generational guilt or misdirected shame or that it's even about a love story (as many misread it to be). those to me are red herrings.
what "the reader" was to me is an experiment in condoning and understanding evil by one who committed evil without asking for remorse for the evil done ---why? because she could not read, as if illiteracy and immorality were one and the same.
anyway, can i at least say that we didn't like "the reader"?
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