Cinematic Slant

Cinematic Slant is where I write about movies, including the campaign recaps I’ve been doing since 2004 along with other news and opinions.

How About Something New?: Derivative characters are fine, but they seem like a half-measure. Let’s stop rebooting the same handful of existing female action heroes that have been around for a while (a la Tomb Raider) or making new ones that come with the baggage of male predecessors already around their shoulders. Instead, let’s ask for more original characters that are free of what’s come before and are able to stand on their own.

Thinking Beyond Niche Audience Framing: The only lesson to learn from the success of a movie whatever the distribution platform is that it managed to reach the right audience with a compelling value proposition that was hopefully bolstered by subsequent word of mouth.

Come Sunday – Marketing Recap: It’s an interesting moment the movie is being released at. The very nature of Evangelical Christianity is being questioned for its rhetorical consistency, which preaches hell and damnation for those who don’t repent and turn to Christ but which is also more concerned with how a certain president’s multiple sex scandals could negatively impact their social agenda than with (squints at notes) Biblical purity.

A FUTILE AND STUPID GESTURE and How Narrative Constructs Help Biopics: y tipping the hat to the choices that have been made the filmmakers explain to an informed and intelligent audience why they’re doing what they’re doing. The subject matter of Futile and Stupid… allows for this sort of meta-commentary more easily than something like Selma, and that freedom is used to full effect.

Beirut – Marketing Recap: As someone who’s generally a fan of the spy movie genre there’s some good stuff here to get my attention. The campaign certainly wants to sell a movie that’s more action than spycraft, with lots of pulse-pounding moments and heated exchanges of dialogue. Whether or not that’s representative of the movie as a whole remains to be seen, but it’s got some decent buzz (in addition to the negative reactions to ethnic stereotypes) and might be a good example of the kind of mid-grade thrillers studios are slowly but sure moving away from.

Multiple Audience Connections Are Good…Now Go Further: In fact it’s rare to find an example of a multimedia extension actually continuing or expanding upon the story. Novelizations might contain a few additional details left out of the movie but that’s about it. More often than not these are adaptations, not continuations.

Rampage – Marketing Recap: This combination of charm and complete seriousness about what’s being sold will probably help the movie dominate the box-office this weekend, getting in a quick hit that hopefully sustains at least one more weekend before Avengers comes in and burns everything around it down.

Adweek

With ‘Solo,’ Disney Is Changing Up the Star Wars Marketing Machine. Will Audiences Get on Board?: Hang on, everyone, because your interminable wait of (checks calendar) five whole months is over, and we’re about to finally get a new Star Wars movie.

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer and content strategist who lives in the Chicago suburbs.