Stop the presses! Hollywood in targeting young males shock!

(from LPATCOABA)

Incredibly, it has emerged today that bosses at Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Have decided to focus thier attentions on the profitable 'young male' demographic. Hooking them into money spinning franchises such as Transformers, Iron Man, and Hot Wheels, with the promise of glistening lady parts, sparkly explosions, big booms, and loud noises. Once hooked it is believed that these 'young males' will gladly return again and again regardless of the ever dwindling quality as the succession of identi-flicks lumber on like some bloated and aging musical theatre diva still drawing the crowds in vegas. And lets not forget all the pretty toys that go along with the pictures, the little men made out of clay, the sip along snacks and sit along furniture, and the must-have-it-now-but-only-cos-I-is-ironic 10 year olds branded costume.


This is really nothing new. Way back when in the way old 80s  Arkoff and Nicholson at AIP formulate the 'Peter Pan theory" which pretty much spells it out.


a) a younger child will watch anything an older child will watch;
b) an older child will not watch anything a younger child will watch;
c) a girl will watch anything a boy will watch
d) a boy will not watch anything a girl will watch;
therefore-to catch your greatest audience you zero in on the 19-year old male


Groundbreaking huh? Does this mean we're officially back in the 80s now then? big bangs big boobs and big boys toys?


super.

Creation finally picks up a US distributor.

After receiving a largely warm reception at the Toronto Film Festival it was rather disappointing that the Darwin biopic failed to garner much interest from US distributors. It could have been that the religious right aren't really that keen on the whole 'evolution' thing... so a level or reticence was, perhaps, understandable. nobody wants to inflame that bunch of crazies. That said, it might have had more to do with Jen Con's permanently slapped face.

Indie film floggers Newmarket are the lucky puppies who've picked up the rights, and it should hit cinemas around christmas.

*coughoscarbaitingcough*

This film makes me want to sell shit.

Looks awesome.

Kevin Smith's on my side.

At the recent Comic-con he mentioned Twilight and, when his legions of fans booed and jeered, Smith chastised them roundly:

"That's the next generation of fans!" Smith said. "That's what I love about a comic book convention. People will come to a convention, stand there in a Spock costume, look at someone in a Chewie costume, and say, 'Look at that f__in' geek. How dare you pass judgment on those 12-year-old girls who like vampires!"(newsarama)

It's an interesting phenomenon this anti-Twilight fanboy rage, Vanetta Rogers over at newsarama, looks at the idea that there are inherently differing fan practices at work, with female fans engaging on an emotional level where male fans engage on a technical level. And, loathe as I am to swallow the old 'girls are emotional' schtick, it is a kinda plausible hypothesis. Anthropologist Louise Krasniewicz who  studyies fandom at the University of Pennsylvania observes,

"I've discovered at different comic book conventions that it's more about 'can you top this?' The men know what superhero did this and in what issue he did it. It's almost a competition game. With women, there doesn't tend be as much of a competition where they want to prove they know more. Their discussions are more likely to be about their emotional response to the characters. They want to talk about how the stories make them feel."

Which rings true of my adult self, although my sixteen year old self might disagree. However when Michael McMillian points out that

"One characteristic both [male and female] audiences seem to share is sexuality... In either case, whether it's Laura Croft or Edward Cullen, there are obvious sexual projections onto the characters of these fictional worlds. Genre seems to play a large role in sexual and emotional escape."

It becomes all too tempting to open the can of worms labeled "sex is emotional for wimmins, but not for mens". 

2. Hip/Indie/Difficult. for better or for worse.

I am a film student after all, I can't help that I love Zooey Deshanel more than my own mother, that Ellen Page is going to sing at my funeral, or that the meer mention of a Chloe Sevigny makes me talk kinda funny.
I'm PROGRAMMED PEOPLE.


Whip It. I know I want to like it, i also know that it's terrible. I mean, Drew, sweetie, I love you, 4 eva, but seriously, just because you switch cheerleading with rollerblading, and make the love interest kinda icky looking, it does not an 'alternative' film make. A controlling mum? really? an understanding dad? is there a marginally less kooky side kick? there is?! oh good! You can't just throw Juliet Lewis at a movie and expect the cool to stick.


I'll probably still see it though.







Michael Cera Is every indie film's wet dream. and every alterna-chick's fantasy fuck. I don't really find him sexually appealing but I do find him bloody funny. Youth in Revolt is gratuitously Michael Cera, (it enters the world with nothing but a child like sense of wonder). So it's gratuitously porno/sexual/funny, depending on your perspective. If you like Clark and Michael then you'll love this. And no. I won't give a cursory summary.


and that was a bad intro. but here's the trailer.







Lying looks kinda like the Virgin Suicides, but without all the suicide. except Lying is actually about the women in the film. Three women alone in a secluded house for a weekend, usually spells horror. or porn. this is neither. It's an intensely human narrative, just, women, together, being human. I don't really know what it's about but i know i want it.





Last in this category is The Men Who Stare at Goats, based on a true story (no really) about CIA experiments in mind control, it looks like a now standard Clooney funny politico movie. That is to say, funny... but also political. clever huh? I like the approach actually, I mean Guantanamo/Abu Ghraib was hideous beyond measure, but really, by laughing at the situation surely we can only divest it of it's power? instead of simply lying down in the awfulness and howling in misery, lauging reveals the gross absurdity of the situation. 


...or something.