Speaking of selling it, Dateline Hollywood does an Onion-esque take on the one-sheet for Stop Loss (the 2nd of 6 Scott Rudin-produced films due out this year, and the first must-see of 2008, for me). The cinematographer is 2-time Oscar winner Chris Menges, who’s shooting The Reader right now, and if the overall gestalt of this poster reminds you of A&F ads, or The Outsiders, or a Bruce Weber fashion spread in Genre, then you’re not alone:
- A class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of America’s teenage girls against MTV Films for deceptive marketing of the new movie “Stop Loss.” “The posters make it look like it’s about a bunch of hot Abercrombie models making out but really the movie is about politics and other lame stuff,” said Amber Elleman, the 14 year-old lead plaintiff.
- The suit alleges focuses specifically on the film’s poster, a washed out photograph of Ryan Philippe, Channing Tatum, Abbie Cornish and Joseph Gordon-Levitt leaning against an old car. All four are wearing perfectly distressed clothes and Tatum and Philippe have their sleeves rolled up to show what the suit refers to as their “hot ass arms.”
- “MTV Films must have known that this poster would imply to America’s teenage girls that ‘Stop Loss’ is a feature-length Abercrombie & Fitch catalog in which the stars would pose provocatively with their shirts and even pants off, constantly on the verge of red hot sexual encounters,” said lead attorney Fran Anderson. “Shocking as it may be, it appears that a movie studio was trying to lure audiences by making a serious drama appear sexier than it really is.”
ha! This would be funnier if it weren’t so true, but the sad reality is that it might be up to the boytoys to spark some interest in a movie about Iraq. Like Alex in Paranoid Park said with matter-of-fact teen ennui: “I don’t really know much about the war. I hate reading the newspaper about war.”
So I say whatever it takes to get kids’ attention and overcome moviegoer’s Iraqnophobia, go for it.
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