Alright, I surrender. Despite a few polite requests for the Jennifer’s Body trailer, I wasn’t planning to give it any play here — because it’s not going to win any awards except Razzies. But if Indie maven Andrew O’Hehir is going to try to churn up page hits with a shot of Megan Fox in a blood-soaked prom dress, who am I to question what Salon finds fascinating? Besides, it gives me a chance to link the second-dumbest quote from a major movie critic all summer.
There’s been a lot of totally uninformed Internet back-and-forth about whether director Karyn Kusama — formerly an up-and-coming talent who seemed to flame out after “√Üon Flux” in 2005 — and producer Jason Reitman (who directed “Juno”) would somehow render Cody’s script cheesy and trashy. I’m sorry, but those are dumb complaints. If anything, Cody could use some cheesy and trashy.
He’s sorry? I’m sorry. Diablo Cody traffics in cheesy and trashy. It’s her oeuvre. And trust me, with Jennifer’s Body she’s oeuvrelating like an octomom on wheels. How can O’Hehir not see that it was Jason Reitman and his pitch-perfect cast who somehow rendered Cody’s cheesy and trashy script for Juno palatable? Reitman didn’t defile that screenplay, he redeemed it. But Karyn Kusama is no Jason Reitman and — are you gonna make me say it? — Megan Fox is no Ellen Page.
Finally, in terms that I can only imagine must be “a straight thing,” O’Hehir tells us why he’s looking forward to JB:
“…the name Diablo Cody fills me with a mixture of admiration, exasperation and terror, and the only thing I know about Megan Fox is that she represents the hot apogee of hottie hotness in a movie I will never see. Yet their potent and perverse union in the upcoming teen-horror vehicle “Jennifer’s Body” (set for September release) fills me with enormous yearning.”
exasperation + terror + brainless “hotness” = enormous yearning?
Is Andrew O’Hehir still going through puberty?
Frankly, I’m at a loss. So I’ll turn this into a post about the two supposedly “rival versions” of the trailer. See, the story is that Fox (the studio, not the nudio) cut a trailer that made Jennifer’s Body look all scary and stuff. Whereupon the outraged filmmakers threw together their own “underground” red-band trailer, woo-hoo, hoping to show that their movie is just as funny as it is scary. Strictly speaking I guess that’s true, since to me it now looks equally unfunny and unscary. You can decide for yourselves, and read the superhip publicity stunt explanation by “Karyn, Diablo and Jason” after the cut.
“Fox is putting a trailer of Jennifer’s Body in front of Bruno this Friday. Great, right? Only problem is it’s not our trailer. It’s kind of a straight horror preview and while we’re sure it’ll appeal to many of you, we wanted to make sure you guys got to see our cut… Lets call it the “filmmaker’s cut”. We think it captures the comedy and scares of the horror films we grew up on – a kind of nostalgia for when horror films were fun. Can’t wait to show you the whole film… In the meantime, here’s the red band trailer we wanted our fans to see.”
– Karyn, Diablo, and Jason
And guess what? The bootleg renegade underground red-band guerrilla-resistance rebel-alliance cut of the trailer is the only one you’ll find anyplace on the web. Go figure.
The only part of that note that seems remotely sincere is “can’t wait to show you the whole film” — because that means they’ll have tricked you into paying to see it.
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