You don’t mind if I have a little rant, do you?
I saw one trailer the other day which promoted the fact that the star was an Oscar winner. And another that heavily marketed that was laden down with Oscar winners, nominees and, heaven help us, a Golden Globe. Automatically, to me, that has the effect opposite to what the marketing gurus imagine. To me, it means these upcoming movies have a good chance of being duds. It always seems to me a last-minute – or lazy – method of trying to retrieve a desperate situation. As if trailer-makers haven’t cottoned on to the fact that anyone entering the Oscar arena is as likely as anyone else to be unable to string two hits together in a row.
Here’s an unwelcome fact to lob into the equation. Over the last decade, the Oscars have produced 200 nominees. Yes, two hundred, counting in the odd character who has been elevated to these apparently auspicious ranks more than once. So what that makes the Oscars in terms of marketing is “ubiquitous.” Every man, woman and his dog had one.
When the Oscars are such common currency what’s the thinking behind proclaiming an actor as definitely worth seeing just because he or she is one of the (elevated) herd. And here’s another anomaly. The only way these days you’re going to get your name in letters on the screen during a trailer is if you are one of the “elevated.” If that’s not snobbery, I don’t know what is.
What’s more, trailer-makers have decided we don’t need to know who is starring in a picture – even if we’ve never heard of them. So many trailers these days don’t even mention who’s in the picture. so you’re sailing in there blind unless you’re such a regular cinemagoer that you can recognize every personage that passes over the screen.
But there’s one player in Hollywood who is much more worthy according to the trailer-makers of deserving to have their name in words plastered all over the screen. What’s more, they are given the ultimate accolade. One not bestowed by the Academy or even the Golden Globes. They weren’t awarded this distinction by their peers. Some marketing genius just dreamt it up.
Yes, we’re talking about the “visionary” director which, in itself, comes without qualification. Is this a director whose few films have met with critical praise but been duds at the box office? Or someone whose vision is just so barmy that it’s what drives audiences away. I, for one, will be approaching Lance Oppenheim’s You Can See Everything (2026) with some trepidation having been totally turned off by his predilection for giant close-ups as shown by Primetime (2026).
I’m not sure whether being tabbed “legendary” is one step up or one step below “visionary” in trailer terms but the fellow who directed the first movie I mentioned, A Talent for Murder, was provided with that “accolade” in the trailer. So I decided I’d see what this director had done in the past few years to make him “legendary.”
It turns out what’s legendary about this director is that he hasn’t made a feature film in the past decade. It’s been eleven years since any picture came out bearing his name, but if you’re a Depeche Mode fan you might be more familiar with his name since directing their music videos is what he has done in the meantime.
His name is Anton Corbijn. He’s Dutch and he’s directed – wait for it – a total of five movies in his entire career. And he’s not a youngster either. He’s past 70. So you’re going to need to be nifty on your feet to remember him at all, never mind assign him legendary status. There are 119 credits on his Imdb account, but 114 of these are music videos, so maybe in that restricted world he might be better known.
For the record, he’s made pop music biopic Control (2007) starring Sam Riley, The American (2010) with George Clooney as an assassin, espionage yard A Most Wanted Man (2014) and another biopic Life (2015). So movies that are maybe worth a look but hardly cult breakouts or collecting the kind of box office figures that would make us remember them.
Admittedly, he has no Oscar mentions to his name, so presumably “legendary” was the easiest way out for the trailer-makers. Though I guess it’s just going to confuse the normal audience who won’t have a clue who he is and, unlike me, won’t be inclined to tap into Imdb to find out.
The other picture was Wild Horse Nine. And while it starred actors whom the general moviegoer would not get out of bed to see in a starring role, the director has an Oscar, toplined star John Malkovich has two Oscar nominations and Sam Rockwell has won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Tom Waits accounts for the Golden Glone. But of the five films directed by Martin McDonagh I’ve only enjoyed one. I might have imagined I’d enjoy this more because the cast (including Steve Buscemi) all have oddball credentials, but once you start chucking all these Oscars at me I begin to entertain doubts.
And don’t get me started on the insane use of film festivals as a marketing tool. Very few filmgoers will even have heard of Cannes, never mind Venice or Sundance, and least of all events like TIFF.
I don’t usually use this column to rant. But there’s a first time for everything.
