I suppose if you were to dissect the marketing for Good Luck Chuck, you could technically categorize it as a success. I mean, for as infantile and unfunny as the movie posters are, they are eye-catching. Eye-catching in the sense that you can’t believe the hint of felatio is considered acceptable advertising.
I don’t mean to get all puritanical on you, but I fail to see how the posters have anything to do with the movie they’re schilling for. Nevermind the B.J. posters. Have you seen the completely non-sensical “parody of the famous John Lennon/Yoko Ono Rolling Stone cover? It doesn’t even look like Dane Cook and Jessica Alba were in the same room together, let alone Cook cradled on top of her. I can smell a Photoshop job a mile away.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. The television advertising can’t seem to get the message straight, either.
If you look up the plot synopsis over at IMDB, Good Luck Chuck is about a guy (Cook) who is unlucky in love. That is until he finds out that a string of ex-girlfriends ended up finding the men they ended up marrying shortly after breaking up with him. Word spreads and women are knocking down his door for casual sex so they can get on with their lives and find the man of their dreams. In essense, he becomes their “good luck charm.” Hence, Good Luck Chuck.
A real charmer of a plot, isn’t it? It’s like a modern update of The Philadelphia Story.
The movie’s B-plot has to do with a woman Cook’s character meets (Alba) who is the walking epitome of Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong with this woman will. But Chuck falls for her and doesn’t want to sleep with her out of fear that she’ll leave and marry the next guy she meets.
Okay, points for setting up an unique conflict. Although I’m sure the movie will betray it’s tawdriness with a sugar coated ending – “I’m such bad luck, the curse must not affecft me! Tee hee!” End credits.
So that’s the story in a nutshell, right? You wouldn’t know it by looking at the ads. Watch closely. Every one of them is either about making fun of fat girls, “hilarious” prat falls or Jessica Alba’s skirt being torn off in a car door. *GASP!* To me it comes off a much more mean and derivitive version of The Wedding Crashers. Take a goofball premise, sex it up, but leave out all the charm.
I know I’m being snotty about this, but I’m making a stand. Look, I’m all for boob jokes, I’m all for Jessica Alba in tiny underwear. I’m all for an honest-to-goodness R-rated comedy that doesn’t pull any punches.
But at the same time, I’m not an idiot and that’s what I feel like the ads and posters for this movie treat me as. Be ribald – go for it! But don’t shove it in my face. Don’t make the core of your marketing effort all about that. It makes you look desperate… and sad. It makes me think there isn’t a brain in this thing. Maybe there doesn’t need to be. But if you’re going to entice me to shell out my hard-earned dough, don’t lob me softballs. Pretend for a minute that I’m not a dumb as you think I am. I appreciate wit, not smut. Or even witty smut. If I wanted that, I’d read Maxim Magazine. It’d be a hell of a lot cheaper and I wouldn’t have to embarass myself in public.
So, yeah. I’m not seeing Good Luck Chuck this weekend.
That’s about all I’ve got for you. Keep your eyes and ears open next week. I’ve got a stack of free DVDs I’m going to be giving away and not just on Monday’s Triple Feature talkcast. I’ve got so many, I’m going to be giving them away THROUGHOUT the week and I’m coming up will all sorts of fun activities for you that can put you in the running.
Hey, who doesn’t love free crap?
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend!
Talk about advertising to the lowest common denominator!
It isn’t sexy, witty or interesting!
Who falls for this crap?
Stop looking at that!