Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

ARRRR!

We needn't be told America's consumer-products companies have an obsession with co-producing "entertainment," which is rather like co-producing an upraised middle finger. Certainly we needn't be told they do it sight-unseen, with not even so much as a book of publicity stills. They know what Luke Spielberg did for Reese's Pieces and think if they co-produce movies and slather the fact on every last product this magically BOOSTS SALES. But that was a fluke -- a fluke TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD. There's precious little evidence since that the egregious brand plastering's helped; moreover, as we have said before, it can BACKFIRE, as it most certainly did in the TRAGIC CASE OF AUDREY'S MONSTER, and as it quite possibly has with the almost-as-sad tale of the MAN OF STEEL, which, despite the furious spin, must be counted an underperformer. "Reverse psychology" is not in the marketer's dictionary, but increasingly it's in his repertoire, and that's why ads don't work anymore -- or movie co-productions.

Volvo, Kodak, McDonald's, Kellogg's, Visa, Gibson guitars, MySpace, Verizon, MSN Messenger, Valpak, M&M candies....

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

P. S.

But the problem with the "Pirates" films, and with this one more than the first, is that there's not a genuine moment in them -- no point of human contact (except, perhaps, for the Herculean efforts of Stellan Skarsgard, behind heavy makeup, to provide hints of a tragic dimension as Will's doomed father); they're baldly concocted, confected, engineered....These are the odd films that succeed by stirring neither the emotions nor the mind.

But DEFINITELY the pocketbook. What do you expect from a marketing machine?

(Via RottenTomatoes.com)