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Tim Adkins

Now, A Word From Our Sponsor…Pom Wonderful…and Sheetz…and Mini…and…

by Tim Adkins on May 6, 2011 · 0 comments

It was nine o’clock.

The movie started at 9:20. I was at least 15 minutes away from the movie theatre. I’d have to move very quickly if I wanted to see every frame of Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.

I squeezed some Crest Pro-Health onto my Oral-B toothbrush. Scrubbed my unsponsored teeth. Rinsed and spit into my Kohler sink. Pulled a tattered Triple 5 Soul jacket around my shoulders. Slapped a Kangol onto my bald head. Slid into my Pontiac Grand Prix and zoomed up the I-395 toward the E Street Cinema. I settled into my seat at about 9:23. At least that’s what time my Blackberry registered.

Morgan Spurlock, as you may have heard, has sold his soul. Again. The provocateur’s latest project delves into the mysteries of branding, advertising and film funding to reveal that strategic and aggressive ubiquity is more or less winning the battle against consumer ambivalence. His latest project is brought to you by a cadre of brands including Amy’s, Ban, Hyatt, JetBlue, Merrell, Mini, Old Navy, Sheetz and, of course, Pom Wonderful.

If you’ve seen Super Size Me or FX’s 30 Days, you already know that Spurlock is an earnest entertainer. His documentary and journalism chops are sincere and certified even as they are underplayed in his quests to brave the various treacheries of modern living. His choice to cast himself as the lead creates straightforward narratives that enable audiences to consider some really complex issues. For that, I think he’s pretty smart.

I met him once very briefly at a film screening in LA. I made the mistake of pitching a half-baked idea almost as soon as I shook his hand. He graciously deflected my proposal. Afterward, I wondered exactly how often he was bombarded by such underwhelming pitches. Sitting in the movie theatre before the Pom Wonderful presentation brought that night back to mind. As an indie producer, he is uniquely qualified to understand both sides of what “No thanks, I’m not interested” feels like. We can presume that he knows what it feels like to hear “No” so often that “Yes” is an awkward surprise. We can also presume that he knows the sweet relief of declining desperate solicitations from hair-brained strangers. Those bookends are very large and only rarely offset each other. Most folks know one, but not the other. Few, like Spurlock, understand how precious the squeeze is. There are, after all, only so many ideas that deserve the creative energy of the teams of people it will take to fully pursue and deliver them.

In Pom Wonderful Presents…, Spurlock exposes most of the dirty bits of the process of exploiting a brand’s resources in order to get a film made. We get to see him pitching a variety of brands. Some of the ones who say no get dissed. Most of the ones who say yes have their products prominently displayed, demonstrated and praised as Spurlock delivers his film. We learn about some of the legalities of branding partnerships. We learn what some filmmakers think of the things that happen in order to get their films made. We learn about the neuroscience that is increasingly being used to inform film marketing practices. We learn what some consumers think of all these efforts to attract their attention and, by extension, their dollars. We also get to watch actual commercials for Pom Wonderful, Hyatt, JetBlue and The Original Mane and Tail that star Spurlock and are inserted somewhat randomly into the film.


The film has two rather breezy acts. And then the movie kinda ends. After it did, I re-tied my Asics Tiger Ultimate 81s and walked to the W Hotel in search of a drink. Sipping on Tanqueray and ice, I tried to figure out what I could say about the film. I thought I liked it. It was entertaining. I did learn a couple of things. But it didn’t really have a resolution. By the time the bartender poured my third Tanqueray, it dawned on me: the release of the film was the resolution. Those ads—even though they were scattered about the midsections of the film—were the third act. Spurlock wanted to find out whether he could secure enough brand support to fully fund the film. He did. All he had to do was produce 100-some watchable minutes and release them. Fade to black. Roll credits. Clap clap clap clap clap.

Except, of course, for the unfortunate obligation of demonstrating ROI to all of his brand partners. Maybe that’s the real third act. Or perhaps it is the epilogue. In any case, it is a daunting task. As I post this from my MacBook Pro, I believe I’ve given Mr. Spurlock one of the 600,000,000 media impressions he needs to obtain in order to make good on his end of the sponsorship arrangement. If you’re reading this, Morgan, you’re welcome. And good luck with the other 599,999,999. As a hungry creative type who has bills to pay, I am truly rooting for you, sir. The cost of the lives we choose is a high one. It is rare that we are able to pay for them unaided.

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A Few Thoughts on What Scream 4 Is Really About

by Tim Adkins on April 19, 2011 · 0 comments

Fans are fans. They will do what fans do. They will gush. (Sometimes they will grumble.)

Critics are critics. They will do what critics do. They will criticize. (Sometimes they will praise.)

All of which is to say that whatever you’ve heard about Scream 4 is absolutely true. It’s doesn’t matter what you’ve heard, it’s true. It’s true because someone felt it, thought it, wrote it, said it. That’s all it takes for truth to exist in the age of subjectivity where opinions are commodities and facts are proprietary.

So what will we say here about the fourth film in the Scream franchise? It was mildly entertaining. Far more funny than scary. Gorier than its predecessors. As cartoonish as any Wes Craven film has ever been. We suspect no one will mistake it for a classic.

Go see it if you want to. Or don’t. See it again if you insist. Or again after that. Whatever choice you make, Scream 4 probably won’t change your life. Save, maybe, for one monologue from the film’s denouement.

When we finally learn the identity of the killer(s) in Scream 4, we get Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s critique of Generation Y. If you haven’t seen the film, it is harsh. It appears to be justified. And, as of yet, it is without a rebuttal. Within that monologue are a number of lines that rise to the level of quotable. One in particular stands out for its naked narcissism: “I don’t need friends, I need fans.”

Many hands have been wrung over how much Generation Y loves itself. Some of those hands are the ones that changed their diapers. Other of those hands are the ones that bought them their first beer or taught them to drive. The age-old sport of one generation bemoaning the outcomes of their parental (or sibling) obligations has evolved to become a barroom brawl where Boomers throw chairs at Millennials who are busy smashing beer bottles against the heads of Xers who themselves are looking to land a sucker punch against whatever remains of the Greatest Generation. Culture is often messy. But not like this. Perhaps it is all to be expected when wealth feels as if it is utterly accessible and authorship lacks both tradition and hierarchy. Alas, we’re diverting a bit from the topic of the day.

It’s easy to decry Generation Y as self-absorbed and narcissistic. It’s even easier to blame their parents for breeding such behavior. And easier still to cite the rise of a hyper-mediated culture that demands all of us to become broadcasters as the inspiration for a generation’s egomania. That’s pretty much what Craven and Williamson (a Boomer and an Xer, respectively) did with the final monologue in Scream 4. With that line (“I don’t need friends, I need fans.”), they seemed to be issuing a challenge to the Millennials.

How would the generation under fire respond? Twitter can be a bottomless pit. It may not be the best place to find a thoughtful rebuttal, but you can count on some semblance of a conversation happening there. Predictably, the Scream 4-related Twitter posts have centered mostly on gushing, grumbling and guestimation for what could happen in the next Scream movie. Facebook and the blogosphere have been similarly absent of any fierce rebuke. So far.

If we understand narcissism, we know that those who practice it tend to be immune to criticism. They receive only external affirmations and brush off any idea or fact that contradicts their self-mythology. If the critique of Generation Y were to elicit a response, it would likely contain a nonchalant dismissal. Maybe the Millenial response already lives on some t-shirt. Like this one:


Can it all be so simple? T-shirts are pretty reliable sources, but maybe we should go out and poll a living, breathing Millennial. Which is what we did. Twice. If what is true to one person represents a version of the truth at large, then what is true to two people must be even truthier, no?

The first Generation Yer, a 21-year-old graphic design intern, argued that narcissism is an American tradition. Individual rights, she asserted, are a declaration made by our nation that we all intend to be highly self-involved. The second Millennial, an 18-year-old preparing to graduate high school, reported that she couldn’t imagine trying to survive without her friends. As for how she accepts criticism, the high schooler described the most important trait demonstrated by her best friend as “being available to help me better myself.” Maybe these kids aren’t so lost in themselves after all.

And maybe the reason not one of them has emerged to shout down Craven and Williamson is that they don’t really care what is said about them. They may not have the capacity for critique that their predecessors would want for them, but they’re not exactly hopeless.

Not yet.


LOOSELY RELATED RANT: I found it downright offensive that the term “ghostface killer” was used so freely in Scream 4 without any acknowledgment of the work of Dennis Coles. I don’t remember if that was true of the other three films, but that’s a pretty despicable omission. He slap-boxed with Jesus, son. Jesus.

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Date Night: Hanna (And Other Things)

by Tim Adkins on April 12, 2011 · 0 comments

Two months ago, the Liberian Girl and I were lying in bed trying to fall asleep. The TV, which was trying to watch us, spit out a 60-second spot for a movie called Hanna. After the ad concluded, I mumbled something to the effect of:

“I may be half sleep, but I’m pretty sure I just saw a commercial that told me there was a movie where the Incredible Hulk was gonna teach the Lovely Bones how to be an assassin…”

The Liberian Girl lifted her head and nodded, “Well…that is kinda what just happened…so…when are you taking me to see it?”

Two weeks ago, the Liberian Girl and I saw a matinee screening of Limitless in Georgetown. It was a decent film built on an intriguing idea about drugs, brainpower and acts of extreme brilliance. While I had modest expectations for it, I was a bit worried by the collection of trailers that preceded the film: Fast Five; The Hangover, Part II; Scre4m; Arthur; Thor and X-Men: First Class. One, or some, of those films could be good. Hell, maybe all of them will be. But none of their trailers demonstrated much of an imagination. Each felt so much like a property. Almost like they were commercials for commercials. The meta was pretty uninspiring. Appropriate, I suppose, to set up a film adapted from a novel. As the opening credits for Limitless began rolling, I second-guessed that day’s movie choice. For just a moment. Thankfully, the intriguing premise we gambled on kinda delivered. At the very least, it didn’t feel like a waste of money. Or time. (Thank you, Bradley Cooper, for not making crap movies.)

Two days ago, the Liberian Girl and I bought tickets for a matinee screening of Hanna. In Georgetown. As we took our seats, I remembered the pack of trailers that set up the last movie we saw in that theater. And I grew very curious about what kind of preamble we might get this time. It was a bit more eclectic: The Conspirator; Crazy, Stupid, Love; Captain America; Anonymous and Fast Five. What that said about the anticipated audience for Hanna was anyone’s guess. Mine would be that some marketers believe there’s still room for acts of art to mingle with acts of commerce. Show business is ever the paradox.

Hanna, the main feature, was equal parts character study and semi-classic chase film. The titular character still wears a training bra when we meet her. She is also finishing training with her father to be capable of killing any creature or any combination of creatures. We know that her father did something, that the something involved the CIA and that he needed to hole up somewhere way off the grid to avoid CIA detection. That’s how Hanna and her Papa ended up living somewhere deep in the Arctic woods. Hella far from any kind of civilization, Papa (played by the first feature-length Incredible Hulk) raised Hanna (played by the Lovely Bones) with only the aid of his own warrior expertise and an encyclopedia. Consequently, when Hanna fully matures as a warrior, she is also ill-equipped socially for the modern world.

The chase begins after Hanna flips a switch daring the CIA to come and find her. (You may have seen that part in one of the ads for the film.) The pursuit dashes and dips through Northern Africa and Eastern Europe as a CIA agent and her flamboyant Neo-Nazi operatives inch closer and closer to Hanna. Along the way, Hanna befriends a civilian British family and has to deal with alien appliances like coffee makers and remote control TVs. Lurking at the end of the trail is Papa and…well…we don’t quite know what. I probably shouldn’t say any more for fear of spoiling it.

The quickie analysis is that Hanna is a really well made film. It’s got a solid cast. (In addition to the Hulk and the Lovely Bones, Cate Blanchett plays the CIA lead.) The script gives them plenty of room to explore and discover in the midst of the chase. It also has enough lightness and humor to offset the intensity of the 100-minute chase. The cinematography alternates appropriately between frenetic and patient. The Chemical Brothers score is pretty sick. But the smartest thing Hanna does is to resist the temptation to play up the sexuality of its teenaged female lead. She is presented instead as very icey, yet believably naive. While Hanna has been trained to do battle with the CIA’s best, she has no clue how to go about kissing a cute boy. (The Liberian Girl said he was cute. I wasn’t so sure.)

While watching the film, I found myself thinking, “There’s no way an American made this.” When I mentioned that notion to the Liberian Girl after the movie, she whipped out her Blackberry and quickly discovered that director Joe Wright is British while screenwriter Seth Lochhead is Canadian. We sat at the bar contemplating what that meant exactly. Neither of us was sure. Smart, mature American filmmakers aren’t extinct. Nor are their domestic audiences. After all, the auditorium we sat in for Hanna was at about 70% capacity. Still…something just felt weird about all of it.

Maybe the ultimate takeaway from seeing Hanna had something to do with the gross necessity of marketing. I kept thinking back to the contrasting sets of trailers–and the ad that inspired us to choose to see Hanna in the first place. I understand that studios (or the corporations that own them) need to make sure consumers are A) aware their films exist and B) sufficiently excited so as to go out and see them. But who decided it was a good idea to spend as much marketing a film as is spent to make the thing? I know that Fast Five is coming soon to a theater near me. I been knowing that, actually. And I suspect I’ll spend the next few weeks trying to escape that damn’d movie. (Although I may go see it with the homie if he buys enough bourbon to make it worth my while.) The way the average medium-to-large-budget film is marketed implies there is a fifth (ironically) silent P in the Marketing Mix: Pulverize. As in: “we need to pulverize the sensibilities of our potential consumers.” To what end, I’m not sure. I think I grew numb to all of it some time ago.

[Post-Script: The screenplay for Hanna was selected as one of the best unproduced scripts of both 2006 and 2009. That's a dubious distinction to earn once. Let alone twice. Why it took so long to get made, I don't know. Go figure.]

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Date Night | Blue Valentine*

by Tim Adkins on March 3, 2011 · 3 comments

The Liberian Girl and I were running 20 minutes late for a late Sunday Brunch on U Street with our favorite lesbians. After the light at 12th Street turned green, I whipped into a parking spot. We tumbled out of the car and stumbled into Creme. Our favorite bartender had already poured our drinks. The brunch was chatty, laughy, delicious and drunk like it usually is. We lingered lazily until the dinner menus emerged and our favorite bartender had to clock out.

The E Street Cinema had two early evening show times for Blue Valentine that night: 7pm and 8:15pm. The Liberian Girl suggested that we grab a quick drink at Lounge of III before heading to the theatre for the 8:15. With several ounces of gin swirling around in my belly, that sounded like an act of genius. So we hugged the lesbians goodbye and walked a few blocks up U Street to visit our other favorite bartender–who is known for making the drunkest drinks in the neighborhood. He happily obliged us as we continued on a pre-movie, mini-bender.

I think we scored two seats in the theatre while the first trailer began rolling. Or maybe it was the third trailer. It was definitely before the film started. And it was definitely the E Street Cinema. Also, it was for a screening of Blue Valentine. At least, I think that’s the movie we saw. There was a lot of alcohol involved, so this writer’s memory is probably not to be trusted. (His opinion, however, is always to be trusted. Unless you’re the Liberian Girl. Then you tend to trust it about 40% of the time.)

A bit about the film shall we? Two people from the New Jersey-york-ylvania area meet and become entangled in a working class love affair that…well…the most succinct way to relay the plot of the film is to call it the lovechild of a Bon Jovi song and a Bruce Springsteen song. That may be a lazy summation, but it is apt. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play Tommy and Gina, respectively. (Although I believe the film’s lead characters had names that weren’t chosen by Jon Bon Jovi.) Their relationship plays out via a highly fractured timeline (kinda like 21 Grams). The costuming and make-up departments do a brilliant job of making clear exactly what point we’re at in the relationship continuum so the film is remarkably easy to follow. The two lead actors perform with similar deftness in representing their characters at different ages. More than merely playing assorted ages, both leads deliver performances that pull you into the screen where you are forced to walk alongside them as they take their journeys.

As in all relationships, there is a crisis point in the film that threatens the very fabric of Tommy and Gina’s warm and fuzzy union. After that crisis point, things got a bit fuzzy for me. You could attribute that to the alcohol. But I think it had just as much to do with one sequence where an unplanned pregnancy leads to the contemplation of having an abortion.

The general rawness and intensity of the film would make anyone squirm in their seats. It’s really a two-hour confrontation that challenges the viewer to embrace a fairy tale and a great torment in parallel. But the way it interjected the pregnancy episode with both hindsight and foresight took me to a place I wasn’t prepared to go.

Years ago, there was a different girl who sat next to me at the movie theatre and let me put my arm around her. Early in that relationship, she peed a plus sign onto a home pregnancy test. After she visited her doctor, we did some math and calculated that whomever was growing inside her belly didn’t belong to me. After consulting her ex, they decided to abort. The girl and I decided to carry on with our fledgling affair. I felt a combination of relief and remorse. It was the first and only time I ever personally faced a scenario involving that type of choice. Things didn’t work out with that girl. She and I both moved on. I think she eventually married and had a couple of kids, but I can’t say for sure. I haven’t spoken to her in a few years. And I hadn’t thought of that moment where she made that choice in nearly a decade.

Yet there I was in the E Street Cinema covering my eyes and swallowing tears as Tommy and Gina chased their dreams and wrestled with their nightmares. The Liberian Girl squeezed my knee and whispered to me that it was only a movie. It was only a movie. But it made me think about the real kid who didn’t make it way back when I was cast as a supporting player in a scene where real people had to make unspeakably heavy decisions. And I felt this odd sense of loss that I just couldn’t shake. Thankfully, there was still some alcohol in the plastic cup hanging from the end of my armrest. I gulped that down and excused myself to buy another round for the Liberian Girl and I. She got a single. I got a triple. I’m not sure what part of the film I missed, but I settled very quickly back into both my buzz and the zigzagged narrative.

After the film ended, the Liberian Girl and I peeled ourselves out of our seats. As we crawled up the escalator toward the cinema’s exit, I slapped my forehead and leaned desperately toward the Liberian Girl’s ear. “Um…I have no idea where we parked.” She laughed. “Hon, we didn’t drive.”

She was right. We found the car the next morning right where we had left it on U Street. Before Sunday Brunch. Back when we were stone sober without the help of any of the films playing at the E Street Cinema.

*A lot of facts–along with a number of brain cells–were irreparably harmed in the making of this post.

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