why thumbs do not mislead us
I came across an ad for the film Kinsey that used the quote "Sexy fun", attributed to Thelma Adams of Us Weekly. I was very confused by this, as the film (despite its plusses) is neither sexy nor fun. Well-acted, Oscarly, maybe even one of the top 50 films of the year...but "sexy fun"? No.
Now, to me, this either means that Adams didn't see the movie but guessed from its potentially titillating material that it was sexy and/or fun, or she misinterpreted the film's cold, clinical displays as sexy and/or fun, or she has some serious issues about what is sexy and fun in life. Of course, the culprit could be (and more likely was) that those wonderfully adept folks in the Fox Searchlight Marketing team decided to extract whatever catchy words and phrases they could from a possibly mediocre review to punch up interest in the film just before award season plays itself out. They may have seen a sentence like "This film makes tedious drama look like sexy fun," and felt that maybe that last part would be best for selling movies to practically every demographic...which it probably would have been, had the photo beside it not been of a cuddling Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, who, aside from their terrific talents as actors, are not the poster children for the word "hot". I would opt that it was probably Marketing and not Thelma Adams who made this error.
But then I stray down the same page and see, in the ad for White Noise, that David Edelstein of www.slate.com has been quoted as saying "I screamed louder than I've ever screamed in my life." I like Edelstein's reviews, both on Slate and on NPR, but the quote doesn't really tell me anything other than: David Edelstein is really a little girl. And he screams in movie theaters. And while that is amusing to me, it really tells me nothing about the film, whether it's so good that one might scream like a girl, or that it's so bad one would scream to make it stop.
Quotes are really best if they are of one of two camps: there are the factual ones that you cannot dispute, like Devon Wooster's reliable "National Treasure was number one 3 weeks in a row, and is bland enough not to frighten the children." Then there are the quality exclamations, which can include lists ("One of the year's ten best!"), genres ("One of the best talking animal features this decade!") and comparisons ("Like The Usual Suspects, Fight Club and Amelie, Spanglish has end credits!").
All of this to say: I think that Roger Ebert should be applauded for the brilliance in his thumbs. An up- or down-directed opposable digit is the height of sheer rating simplicity. You can take it as an absolute ("Must see!" / "Must not!") or a more casual recommendation ("Hey, this was pretty good...give it a try."). You can't really misread, misconstrue or more importantly, misrepresent a thumb.
Even if you're the very best the Marketing department has to offer.
Now, to me, this either means that Adams didn't see the movie but guessed from its potentially titillating material that it was sexy and/or fun, or she misinterpreted the film's cold, clinical displays as sexy and/or fun, or she has some serious issues about what is sexy and fun in life. Of course, the culprit could be (and more likely was) that those wonderfully adept folks in the Fox Searchlight Marketing team decided to extract whatever catchy words and phrases they could from a possibly mediocre review to punch up interest in the film just before award season plays itself out. They may have seen a sentence like "This film makes tedious drama look like sexy fun," and felt that maybe that last part would be best for selling movies to practically every demographic...which it probably would have been, had the photo beside it not been of a cuddling Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, who, aside from their terrific talents as actors, are not the poster children for the word "hot". I would opt that it was probably Marketing and not Thelma Adams who made this error.
But then I stray down the same page and see, in the ad for White Noise, that David Edelstein of www.slate.com has been quoted as saying "I screamed louder than I've ever screamed in my life." I like Edelstein's reviews, both on Slate and on NPR, but the quote doesn't really tell me anything other than: David Edelstein is really a little girl. And he screams in movie theaters. And while that is amusing to me, it really tells me nothing about the film, whether it's so good that one might scream like a girl, or that it's so bad one would scream to make it stop.
Quotes are really best if they are of one of two camps: there are the factual ones that you cannot dispute, like Devon Wooster's reliable "National Treasure was number one 3 weeks in a row, and is bland enough not to frighten the children." Then there are the quality exclamations, which can include lists ("One of the year's ten best!"), genres ("One of the best talking animal features this decade!") and comparisons ("Like The Usual Suspects, Fight Club and Amelie, Spanglish has end credits!").
All of this to say: I think that Roger Ebert should be applauded for the brilliance in his thumbs. An up- or down-directed opposable digit is the height of sheer rating simplicity. You can take it as an absolute ("Must see!" / "Must not!") or a more casual recommendation ("Hey, this was pretty good...give it a try."). You can't really misread, misconstrue or more importantly, misrepresent a thumb.
Even if you're the very best the Marketing department has to offer.
posted by scn at 7:39 AM
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