This is one of the strangest, creepiest PSAs I've ever seen. Saw's Tobin Bell for the American Red Cross on how they "want your blood":
I guess it's not enough that the movies are "about" "teaching" people to "appreciate their lives." Hey, if I were in any way involved in the making of the Saw franchise, I would want to somehow justify its 100% negative contribution to the world by linking it to a charity, too, but this is just odd. Especially at the end when he says "Remember, if it's Halloween, it must be Saw," which, aside from being awkward product promotion at the end of a PSA that's supposedly about saving lives, implies that we have to live with the Saw movies forever. The takeaway here is that the American Red Cross must be absolutely desperate for blood, so make an appointment today. Please don't tell them Saw sent you.
After the first poster for Zack And Miri Make A Porno was unfairly banned for US audiences by the MPAA, Kevin Smith et. al. have come up with an unusual replacement. Rather than make another real poster or use one of the alternative posters that were surely created by studio designers, they're capitalizing on the censorship as some sort of proof that the movie is "titillating." Full poster after the jump.
It's the first photo from Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor's upcoming movie I Love You Phillip Morris, based on the autobiography of the same name about a man (Carrey) who goes to jail and falls in love with his cellmate (McGregor) and tries to escape after he's released:
/Film says it's been described as Catch Me If You Can meets Brokeback Mountain, but probably in a way where every movie with a gay character is described in terms of Brokeback. We can say what we want, but I think everyone in America (and Candada!) wants Mr. Carrey to succeed, and we seem to like it when he does new stuff, so let's give this movie a chance, guys! It really doesn't seem like another Liar, Liar. At all.
In Hamlet 2, the very-internet-hyped Steve Coogan comedy that opens next weekend, Elisabeth Shue plays a has-been actress who moves to Tuscon to be a nurse. In this interview about her role, Shue reveals that her agents were initially hesitant to show her the script, lest she be offended. It's the most agent-y story straight out of The TV Set that has surprised me only in the honesty of its retelling in forever. No wonder actors are so full of themselves! But my point is: not Elisabeth Shue, who at least 30% of the people reading this still have a huge crush on:
I wonder what ever happened to her brother Andrew.
In the most confusing movie marketing scheme since (maybe) the Montauk Monster, Rainn Wilson has "kidnapped" his Office co-star Jenna Fischer and "won't let her go" until his movie The Rocker, which opens August 20, makes 18.7 million at the box office:
There's a website for these shenanigans called Freejennanow.com, which most recently has "a message from Slash." Conclusion: Jenna Fischer and Rainn Wilson stayed up late smoking pot one night and Jenna was like "How can I help your movie?" and this is what they came up with. It's so crazy it just might work! (Via Cinematical.)
After disability advocate groups raised issues with Tropic Thunder's repeated use of the word "retard" and other offensive terms to describe a role played by Ben Stiller's character in the movie, DreamWorks has agreed to meet with them. It's almost certainly too late to change the actual film, which comes out a week from tomorrow, but Vulture reports that the first casualty appears to be the promotional website for Simple Jack, one of the fake movies-within-the-movie in which Ben Stiller plays a mentally handicapped adult, and which has the unfortunate tagline "Once upon a time...there was a retard."
The only thing more confounding than the total predictability of this news is the fact that the Tropic Thunder red band trailer, which was released in mid-May, contains more than enough clues to the potential offensiveness of the Simple Jack subplot. If advocate groups had acted then, maybe there would have been time to change the actual movie and not just remove a website. Which raises an insane question: is it possible that Tropic Thunder's over 30 million dollar overhyping campaign failed to reach everyone in America?
After last week's double hit of actually-pretty-good pretend websites for Simple Jack and Tugg Speedman, Tropic Thunder continues to roll out (Get it? "Roll" out?) more viral marketing stuff with a new "official website" for one of the movie's characters. This time, it's Robert Downey, Jr.'s character, the Oscar-chasing prestige film actor Kirk Lazarus, who appears as he "was" before applying blackface for his role in Tropic Thunder. The site reveals two of Lazarus's previous controversial movies (Satan's Alley, about a gay monk, and If You Could Hear What I See, about a deaf Nazi), and the bio is full of trivia about Kirk's troubled childhood, like the fact that he was raised by his younger half-sister, which is really funny for some reason. I enjoyed exploring it (well, for the three minutes it takes) so whatever, marketing hype people, you can exist. The movie mock-up posters on the site are funny, but I can't get over the expressions on RDJ's face in the pictures:
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Scott Lapatine Senior Editors Gabe Delahaye Lindsay Robertson Executive Editor
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