Something that’s been on the brain…
All this “Inglourious Basterds” news has hit and it’s good news for the fans of Quentin Tarantino (no major cuts to the film, some soundtrack notes) but we haven’t even got to the iffy partnership announced late last week.
The Weinstein Company’s dubious attempt to cross-market their film, “Inglourious Basterds” to young, meat-headed Ultimate Fighting Championship fans is just a very peculiar, perhaps desperate proposition for a picture that has already suffered luke-warm Cannes reviews, a campy trailer and pre-release prequel talk that most likely exists just to hold the public’s interest. Obviously they’ve had some financial issues this year and just yesterday some more bad news hit when it was noted that Liberty Media’s Encore/Starz likely wouldn’t be investing any funds into the company.
So, set to be marketed tomorrow evening in Vegas via animated billboards, advertisements inside of the ring and a trailer to be shown to the 11,000 fans in attendance at Mandalay Bay for a pay-per-view event, is oddly enough director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film.
These are people who love tits and beer. The same goons that want to rip “Bruno” to pieces in the feature film (you’ll know what we’re talking about after the weekend when you see it). Meanwhile, ‘Basterds’ is set in WWII, and features long, drawn out conversations in French and German over milk and strudel and only minimal amounts of bloodshed. Talk about disconnect.
The bait and switch-type marketing has been happening since day one and all studios attempt this to an extent — mis-sell their films — but The Weinstein Company seems particularly careless here (or reckless even) and they’ve already tested the limits with schlocky posters and trailers alluding to a lot more action and violence then is actually in the picture. If executed correctly, bait and switch can grab the attention of audiences who wouldn’t have normally been interested and ultimately, get extra asses in the seats. “The Road’s” trailer, with its shameless insertion of stock destruction and news footage is a recent example of bait and switch, but one that will most likely end with more tickets being sold to a hard-sell, artsy flick. The insertion of apocalyptic destruction is tweaking things, but it’s also there for all of three seconds. It’s not revamping the movie.
However, in the case of “Inglourious Basterds,” the Weinsteins may have finally pushed the cross-marketing a little to far. By aligning the union of UFC (which as bad as that shark jumping moment when Billy Corgan was on the WWE) with Tarantino makes Basterds look like it’s a Dimension film’s like Eli Roth-esque actioner. Basically dumb and dumber from the groin. However it’s largely nothing like that, it’s an European-feeling talk-fest done through Tarantino’s highly reflexive movieness and his distinctively American filter (it’s more Tarantino doing Truffaut’s “The Metro” with a few firecracker outbursts than it is QT making a traditional war picture, or even creating an homage to traditional “guys on a mission”flix). It’s not a B-movie like the 1978 original, nor is it an action flick (nor is it an art-film either). Regardless, you can only bait and switch so much with a product that like before audiences wise up and begin to hate you.
The whole thing just smells like disaster in the making, even “Kill Bill 1” had a vague UFC connection, or at least, if it was positioned that way the audience wouldn’t have ripped out the seats and hurled them at your head, but imagine trying to sell the slow pace of “Jackie Brown” to that crowd? That actually might provoke more violence that’s already in the ring, especially because you know they’re going to show the UFC crowd only the action moments.
It could end up hurting the gross from both ends, the UFC crowd will certainly be disappointed by the inert talk fest with its requisite knowledge of classic cinema and the original art-house crowd will be put off by the film’s aggro marketing strategy. The already hurting Weinstein’s are going to end up worse off after this expensive last ditch effort than they were before they spent their first dime marketing ‘Basterds.’
Worse off, aligning the ‘Basterds’ with dunderheads like UFC does a huge disservice to the film itself and feels rather like an insult. We didn’t particularly love “Inglourious Basterds,” but Jesus Christ it’s still a million times better than the TNT Monster-Truck-like garbage these guys are generally putting down over brewski’s with the boys.
