Bee Season trailer music

So I keep seeing that people are coming to MMM after doing a search for the music used in the trailer for Bee Season. Apparently it was composed and performed by a guy by the name of Scott Malone, whose page on MySpace you can view here. The song is called “What Are We Made Of” and you can listen to it on his page. I have to say that it works a lot better on its own then it does when Richard Gere is flitting around while it plays. Anyway, check out Malone’s page and listen to some good music.

King Kong theatrical trailer

So after writing a big long King Kong omnibus piece earlier today and needing to leave out the trailer since I hadn’t watched it, I finally watched it. In short it rocks. We get lots of Kong, lots of Jack Black as Carl Denham and a wonderful amount of Naomi Watts (never a bad thing.) Kong looks meaner and nastier than he did in the teaser. It sets up the story in a similar though not exactly as the teaser does and actually seems a little less rounded out. The effects, though, are markedly improved and the picture in general seems sharper. This is no doubt because Weta has had a bit more time to work on it. Check it out for yourself.

For those of you going to see Jarhead this weekend I received an email from Universal saying this trailer will be attached to that flick (Jarhead is also from Universal). You may want to call ahead to your local theater as this may change on a screen by screen basis.

Bloggers are smart

There’s a cautionary tale for any marketers considering “buzz” or “viral” tactics that are sneaky and covert that I posted on AdJab.  Check it out.

Munich trailer to debut before King Kong

According to Karina the trailer for Steven Spielberg’s Munich will premiere before King Kong. An interesting choice but one that could raise awareness of this drama significantly. Of course, as Karina mentions, this is coming on the heels of news that Spielberg is struggling to get the movie finished.

Movie Marketing Madness: Jarhead

Chronicling the experiences of a Marine stationed in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, Jarhead stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, making this the second Sarsgaard movie I’ve reviewed this week. Jarhead appears to be about how absolutely boring it can be to be a fully-trained and eager soldier given no outlet for his or her aggresive tendencies. If that sounds a bit hard to swallow as we look at over 2,000 dead soldiers in the current Iraq War you’re not alone.

The Poster

Pretty good for what it is. A pair of dog tags hanging against a black background with the tagline “Welcome to the suck.” Seems that’s the nickname for where the soldiers were stationed at the time. The poster always struck me as more appropriate to a satire than a serious film, but maybe that’s just me.

The Trailers

The teaser trailer starts off with Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy” playing against the images of war and soldiers in what might be the most obvious use of the song amongst all the obvious uses of that song. There isn’t much that differentiates the teaser from the theatrical versions as they both use some of the same footage and the teaser doesn’t really “tease” anything.

The main problem with both trailers (and I’m afraid this extends to the entire movie) is that it can’t seem to make up its mind whether it is a drama or a satire. Some moments are surreally ridiculous others drastically earnest. There’s no consistent tone to either trailer as they both present scenes of Gyllenhaal in a Santa hat mixed with soldiers hiding from fire in trenches.

The Website

Extremely slow loading, this website contains very little that’s unique or interesting. If you click on “Film Info” from the main page you get the usual mix of Production Notes, Media (which contains the trailers) and all the rest of the usual content. Features was the one area that looked a bit different. In that section you can get into the history, jargon and other details of the Marine Corp. It’s a nice part that rounds out the reality behind the story.

There’s also an “Experience” you can launch that seems to think it will take you deeper into the site and it’s content. In reality I clicked two of the sections and advanceed through quite a bit of graphics Gyllenhaal provided voice over from the movie and all I got was stuff that had been repurporsed from other sections of the site. Not worth it, if you ask me.

Note, though, that the “Welcome to the suck” is appended for no real reason to the end of the website’s URL.

Overall

There’s not a bit of the “gayness” that I’ve heard so much about in regards to this movie in any facet of the campaign. If the trailers didn’t suffer from multiple-personality disorder I might give the campaign a higher grade but as it stands it just gets an “alright” and a shoulder shrug from me. The poster is pretty cool and the website unremarkable but harmless. It’s the trailers that kill it. That and the fact that the website is so graphics heavy it severly slows down page loading time.

Shopgirl clips

It opened in select cities a couple weeks ago but Shopgirl, with Steve Martin and Claire Danes (hmmmm) goes wider this week. For those who haven’t seen it yet here’s a clip from the movie. Also, if you missed it, here’s my Mini MMM piece from just before it opened.

• Quicktime small
• Quicktime large
• Windows Media small
• Windows Media large

Winter's End website

A small independent film, Winter’s End tells the story of Amy Rose, who lives on a small Irish farm with her two brothers. The older brother, Henry, is unlucky in love and has a violent temper which will culminate in his holding an innocent man hostage for no reason. The younger, Jack, is mildly handicapped and incapable of seeing past the unaltering love his older brother shows him. When Henry kidnaps a visitor to a local concert Amy must decide between the loyalty she has for her family and the life of an innocent and confused man.

The movie came to my attention after I can an email from producer Damian Donnely and sounds interesting. The movie appears to have been, based on the production story on the website, a labor of love for Donnely and his fellow filmmakers. Originally conceived in 2000 and filmed and edited between 2001 and 2004, the tale they tell of arranging financing and such is quite the story.

If there’s a shortcoming to the website it’s that there’s no story synopsis available except in the form of a PDF download. The link labled “The Story” talks in depth about the production but that’s not quite what I was expecting. Still, the website is a good effort for the movie. What I liked most about it was the “Links” section where they provide links to the software you need to view the site’s content and to those associations and companies that helped make the film from either a logistics or hardware/software point of view. It also links to the IMDB.com entry for the movie. That’s such a simple step that almost no one takes on their websites.

Thanks to Damian for alerting me to his movie. Best of luck to you and I’ll look forward to seeing Winter’s End.

King Kong trailer and other marketing items

King King will undoubtedly be one of, if not the, biggest movies of the year. Certainly it’s the tentpole of the December release schedule and the most high-profile Oscar-fodder movie opening in the winter. Universal Pictures and director Peter Jackson are going all out in promoting the flick in a variety of ways.

First, the official video game of the movie (which, as Adam points out on AdJab, has the ridiculously long name of “King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie”) will get bi-coastal events at its launch. Skull Island will be recreated and stations setup where people can get in and play the game. Since game tie-ins are becoming more and more of a money-maker for studios and the companies which produce the game it’s no surprise that they’re making a big push to promote this.

Next up is an announcement by Pocket Books that not only will there be (at least) two books chronicling the making of the movie but also a prequel novel in which Kong does not appear. It’s all about setting up the back-story for Skull Island. An interesting concept and, as the post notes, a departure from the usual tie-in novel approach.

Jackson and Universal are also putting Kong’s face on tickets for the New York State Lottery next week. Apparently Jackson himself demanded (and got) approval of the final images to be put on the tickets. The game will be labeled “Kong Millions” and was negotiated through the Lottery’s ad agency DDB.

All of this is, of course, on top of the already announced DVD set of Peter Jackson’s Production Diaries. The discs will repurpose the video-blog posts that Jackson and his production team have been doing online for a while now. The classic King Kong series is also being released by Warner Bros. on DVD about three weeks before the new movie opens in a coattail-riding effort.

Lastly, there is a new trailer out. I saved this for last because I haven’t watched it yet (no Quicktime at work) but will this evening and get back with my review. Just wanted to get it out there for you all.

Pink Panther trailer

There’s a new trailer for the Steve Martin led remake of The Pink Panther. I have to say this one works a bit more for me than the original. That’s in no small part, likely, to more of Martin and more Jean Reno being in it. The ridiculousness of Martin’s Closeau really takes center stage in this one and gets presented in a way that’s almost consious of being so silly. It gives me hope that it won’t be as bad as the buzz (proddeded along by the date changes) have made me think it will be.

Ulitimate Avengers new poster

How much does it say about the current state of Marvel Comics’ film projects that the one I’m most looking forward to is the animated, direct-to-DVD Ultimate Avengers? It’s actually not that surprising since the Avengers were always my favorite corner of the Marvel Universe when I collected comics. Never got into the X-Men or Fantastic Four, but the Avengers rocked. You can view the excellent Thor-themed poster for the DVD here.