The Incongruities: Can the Catchphrase Stay in Vegas?

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Can the Catchphrase Stay in Vegas?

In an unembarrassed failure of imagination, 20th Century Fox has announced it's going to begin production on a film set in Las Vegas titled, you guessed it, "What Happens In Vegas..." Now, you and I know that product and even place marketing and the film industry have a long history together, but actually using an advertising slogan as the title of a movie is, I don't know, crass, even for Las Vegas and Hollywood. Ripping off catchphrases is the provenance of B-movies, and even then it's just for the film's tagline, not its title. And creating films explicitly as marketing ventures for corporate entities used to be the provenance of people like Michael Bay (TRANSFORMERS 7-4-7!) and the three-headed beast of Matthew Modine-Paul Reiser-Randy Quaid (Bye Bye Love, which is set almost exclusively in a McDonald's, if you forgot about that masterpiece.)

"What Happens in Vegas" (I can guess without even reading a plot summary: drinking, gambling, marriage, possibly interaction with strippers and/or Mafioso) will star two paragons of artistic integrity, Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutchner. What I really want to know is, what's next in this creative vein? Will Demi Moore grab the lead role as a corporate chocolatier in a movie set in Derry Township, PA (home of Hershey's) called "Where It's Just Sweeter"? Josh Hartnett in a revenge drama set in Quebec called "I Remember (All the Wrongs Done to Me)" (Seriously, that's the motto, click the link and scroll down to Quebec.)

Just thought you'd want to know.

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One Sentence Movie Reviews

A Scanner Darkly: Fitting that in this movie about a brain divided against itself: sometimes the animation looks really cool, and sometimes it looks like Paint-By-Number art; sometimes Keanu Reeves acts confused, and sometimes Keanu Reeves seems confused; and sometimes the plot is interesting and coherent, and sometimes it makes as much sense as a paranoid PCP-freak reading Beowulf out loud.
Hollywoodland: This movie about the suicide (murder? enter Adrian Brody) of George "TV's Superman" Reeves is kind of interesting, until it is completely not.
Little Children: Beautiful people act like average-looking people, and Jackie Earle Haley thoroughly creeps you out, all in a nice, artistic way, though.
Quinceañera: I am neither fifteen, pregnant, Chicana, a practicing member of an indeterminate sect of Christianity, nor impressed by Hummer stretch limousines, all of which goes to prove that you don't need to have anything in common with the characters in a film to enjoy watching it.
SherryBaby: Maggie Gyllenhal is perpetually braless and fairly compelling (especially while tunelessly singing a Bangles song) in this otherwise dull movie that comes across like a writing-workshop short story; also, Danny Trejo has been working out.
The Break-Up: Too many characters and an obviously pasted-on ending hinder this decent romantic-comedy-in-reverse, which stars the likably chumpy Vince Vaughn and a very pretty Jennifer Aniston.
The Conversation: I'd never seen this super-super-tight 1974 F.F. Coppola film starring Gene Hackman, but it proved to me that the sound editor (Walter Murch is the genius's name) can be as important to a movie as having one of the most amazing cast of 1970s supporting stars you can imagine: Fredo, Shirley, Indy, Inga, and (uncredited!) the Great Santini.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston: Let's call this a decent, visually-appealing documentary about Daniel Johnston, his religion-oriented mental illness, and playing music, without enough music, frankly.
The Good Shepherd: Apparently Larry King really liked this long, boring suckfest of a spy movie, which seems to be about some secrets behind the Bay of Pigs Invasion and inadequate fathers.
The History Boys: An old, fat, probably gay teacher and a young, thin, probably gay teacher alternately have respectfully inappropriate relationships with a group of witty, diverse Oxbridge applicants, all under the watchful eye of an amusingly blustery and utilitarian headmaster and a wise, wizened female history teacher.
The Host (Gwoemul): Do not hesitate to see what might be the best monster movie ever made, which manages to make you laugh, scare the piss out of you, dampen your eyes, and get you to think about western imperialism in Korea all at once, with adequately convincing CGI.
The Last King of Scotland: What you've got here is a charming, horny Scottish doctor, a charming, vicious African dictator, and a real blow to the Ugandan tourism industry.
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen): Well, if you didn't know or didnt remember how bad the totalitarian government of East Germany was, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (check out that name!) reminds you in a really great, compelling movie that manages to humanize at least one individual stasi officer and shows the dehumanizing nature of the State and its Security behind the Wall.
The Proposition: I thought Ray Winstone was great in this character-driven Western set in the Australian outback, circa 1880, and though the film was a real looker with a good premise (written by Nick Cave), I don't know why I didn't really like it, but I didn't.
The Queen: Meh, I was studying in London when it happened, and while this film nicely presents a personal view of an otherwise utterly impersonal monarch, I didn't much care.
Wordplay: A surprisingly good documentary about crosswords and people who do them really quickly, which, at 94 minutes, is over faster than I can do a NY Times puzzle.