Charlie Jane Anders, writing at io9, has compiled a list of eight things that actors, directors or producers may say while promoting a movie that indicate the movie itself is almost guaranteed to be lousy. She is dealing with movies generally, and refers to things like actors talking about how they were doing all kinds of green screen work that meant they couldn't really tell what they were doing. Or how their character in the final onscreen product was a change from the character as it was originally presented to them. These are valuable and probably mostly correct, but the list feels incomplete. My additions:
1. "I'd like you to meet the man who wrote the story we adapted, Dan Brown."
2. "This installment will blow all of the other Saw movies away."
3. "We went looking for a director, and Paul Haggis was available."
4. "I think we've done a great job of getting Sean Penn's vision on the screen."
5. "Well, teaming Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler just seemed like a natural, and when we heard Cher was looking for a role..."
6. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Eli Roth."
From the article - Every time I hear "serviced" used as a verb, it makes me think of another use of "serviced" as a verb. As in, "getting the cows serviced," in other words, artificially inseminating them.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a PERFECT metaphor, but....
Also, the whole "We're REBOOTING X" where X was something that was pretty good in its first version - I just expect the reboot to be a disaster that might overwrite my happy memories of he original X.