Hall Pass: Another Farrelly Flop?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A5zZakDJno

Hall Pass, released Feb. 25th, stars Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers) and Jason Sudeikis (SNL) as two painfully suburban friends who, after being chastised for gawking at other women, are given "Hall Passes" by their psychologically savvy wives - good for one week "off" of marriage to behave however they wish.  I chose this movie because I have long been a fan of Farrelly Brothers directorial comedy, and because it was filmed in my hometown of Atlanta, GA. 

The strength of the movie is that the Farrelly Brothers deliver their usual buffet of quotable punchlines and outrageous shock scenes while employing the usual faces of side characters that frequent their films to emanate the "Farrelly feel" - the tone of light-hearted humor that purveys their signature.

However, the weakness when comparing Hall Pass to it's predecessors is that it lacks the cohesive chemistry that made the classic Farrelly flicks boil. Owen Wilson doesn't carry his usual cool and Jason Sudeikis' character - while more dynamic than Wilson's - still appears flat and unexplored.

Though it admittedly had me bursting out loud at a few parts, I was genuinely surprised that it beat out the family-animated Gnomeo & Juliet to rank the Farrelly Brothers numero uno at the box office for the first time since the much more deserving Me, Myself, and Irene in 2000.

Hall Pass is clearly intended for mature audiences, 25-55, all of whom, married or single, will find humor in the context, and in the sandblasted spray tans - note: the make-up artist should be exiled from tinseltown for making Jenna Fischer's (The Office) charming young facade resemble an old baseball mitt.

Stereotypes enhance the satirization of suburban life to some degree, including tennis-cloned and materialistic wealthy schmucks and the portrayal of all men as walking erections who chauvinize their every tortured thought.

Also we must throw the flag at a gratuitous male frontal scene that stereotypes endowment amongst different races - violation: tasteless and trite. Single older men are depicted as sleazeballs and married men as guppy drones - as though there's no way to grow old without dying inside.

I wouldn't say that this film carries any social significance other than that it sends a message about family loyalty and philandering that is delivered in predictable rom-com fashion. Given the homogenized suburban setting, product prostitutions by Applebee's, McDonald's, Ben & Jerry's, and Five Guys nestled snugly.

The original screenplay was written by Pete Jones, who was propelled into the industry by Project Greenlight in 2001. The Farrelly Brothers reportedly paid a handsome six-figures for the script before injecting their own serum into the plot. I would say that overall the movie made Jones look a little better and the Farrelly Brothers look a little worse. It wasn't as cheesy as Fever Pitch or as heartbreaking as The Heartbreak Kid, but it certainly doesn't match the caliber of Dumb & Dumber or There's Something About Mary.

JJ and I have engaged in this subject by joking about "window shopping" while in relationships and discussing loyalty, but mainly by reciting some of the clever metaphors from the movie. Also, we talked about the Farrelly Brothers and learned a lot about their library of works. We both agree that we'll probably watch parts of this movie again on some distant rainy day (if it streams on Netflix).

We'll recommend Hall Pass as a rental because the strengths generally outweigh the weaknesses for some cheap laughs, but don't waste $7.00 on a matinee like us. And don't expect any epiphanies or complex situational humor; it doesn't delve much deeper than the summary surface. If anything the best reason to view this film is to ogle the excruciatingly beautiful Nicky Whelan - the Aussie model and television star whose Hollywood debut is likely to poster her in dormitories across the country.

In conducting this case study, JJ and I have learned how to view movies - and all media - more critically, allowing us to better understand the material presented and it's relevance to our own lives and how it shapes our thoughts and views of the world.

Sports Illustrated

When you open up a Sports Illustrated you will find yourself in stories that revolve around all different types of sports. Depending on what time of the year you are reading the magazine in, you will be looking at a lot of stories related to the time of year. For example, in the last month there have been a lot of stories surrounding the NFL playoffs and Superbowl. The stories are all about sports and sports related things from youth to professional ranks. Sports Illustrated focuses on big and small stories for all sports and all ages. They have reporters for every sport that focus on getting any story that is important enough for a fan to see and read. Ben and I both that Sports Illustrated would be a good magazine to review because we both read it on a regular basis.

The magazine is organized the same way every week, with certain reports/journalists getting their stories put in the same area every week. Dan Patrick interviews different people every week from sports stars to celebrities about different things involving sports. Throughout the issue you will find it put into different sections with your main headline articles being put in the middle with filler stories around it. Depending on the article and the journalist you will find them being roughly the same length, depending on whether it is a headline article or not. There is a good mix of long and short articles throughout the whole magazine. The website is set up in a very easy to navigate way, with tabs taking you to different sports with stories pertaining to that particular sport.

Throughout the magazine you will find photos to go along with the stories, and it is all in color and has a very good mix of action and still photos that fit with the type of story. The website also offers a photos section where you can separate them by the event and particular sport that it might be involved with. There is a lot of advertising involved with the magazine and online, which are geared towards mostly males with ads such as cologne, NFL gear, drivers, and TV shows. In both the medias there are enough advertisements to get your attention, but not too many that they take over the page and annoy you. They are subtle ads but they are geared well enough towards men, that we feel they would get recognized fairly easily but their target market. This is a good magazine for advertisements for the reason that they can gear it towards a very specific groups of people that would be interested in those ads.

There are not a lot of differences in the two different medias, which include a good mixture of all different types of stories that appeal to the masses. The only difference that we were able to find would be the amount of stories that are available to you when to go online. When you look online you can find stories that are more of a headline story that only comes with about a paragraph of story. One of the other differences is how easy it is to navigate around on the website, which is just a click and read style versus having to flip through the pages and find articles that appeal to you. Overall they are the same stories with just a bigger quantity of them available online. Another good thing about reading the stories online is how much quicker you can get the up-to-date stories that are just happening versus the magazine where you can only get certain stories that are chosen to be put in and you have to wait for the magazine to come once a week.

Sports Illustrated magazine is different than its competitor ESPN, mainly in the fact that it is delivered every week versus every two weeks. ESPN and Sports Illustrated are very similar in everything that they do from the magazines to the layout of the websites. The websites are very similar in their layout and typically have the same stories, just written in different ways by different people. The thing about sports journalism is that you cant really put a lot of opinion in the stories because a lot of things are based on stats and facts, so it is hard for SI to make itself very different from its competition.

There are two really good things about the print on online version of SI, which are that the magazine is distributed once a week and still manages to put together good stories that are easy and interesting to read. One of the other pros to SI is how easy the website is to navigate around in. The website is very straight forward and very user friendly which makes it easy for anyone to come on and use. Two of the bad things about SI are that there is a so called "Cover Jinx" where if you get put on the cover of SI then you do not preform well or live up to the hype that was given to you or your team. One of the other downsides that we found to it was that there is not a lot of variety as far as the structure of the magazine. It can be considered a good thing by some but little differences now and again make it more exciting to read.

When we looked at this magazine and the website we kind of got the feeling that it was geared towards men. The main reason that we got that impression was from the advertisements that are used throughout both, which as talked about earlier appeal to men very well. The ads can be somewhat placed in random areas of both medias, but for the most part they are not out of place with who they are trying to reach. There is probably some method to the way that they do it, which could just be how much people pay, but all in all they do a good job of keeping the ads subtle and not distracting you too much from the stories you are trying to read. Because of the vast variety in the readers, they have to keep their information and stories very neutral and unbiased towards one side of the spectrum or argument.

We found after looking at both and with me being a subscriber to SI magazine, that the online version is better from the standpoint that it is more up to date and easy to navigate to specific sports or stories that you may be interested in. We think that overall the website serves the audience better as well because it is easy to get to and as I said before it is easy to get to exact sports and/or stories that you want to see. The magazine is still very good for what it is, it just gets overpowered by the website by the sheer amount of stories and information that is available to you online versus in print.

Besides just getting the magazine, Ben and I both look at SI.com on a very regular basis to keep up with sports and scores. They also offer a mobile version which allows you to see the website and get important stories sent to your phone for and scores and sports that you wish to keep in touch with. I personally am a mobile SI user and find it to be really easy to use and makes it easier then getting online on my computer to keep in touch with the sports world.

From reading this magazine for a long time, I have become to realize how much it closely resembles ESPN. You are either a ESPN guy or a Sports Illustrated guy as far as which magazine you read. ESPN has an edge over SI with the fact that they have their own TV network as well so there is a lot more money and people behind it. I believe that SI is good because it focuses on every story for every sport, just because it is not important to one person doesn't mean the same for the next guy. Everyone has a favorite team that they want to hear every story about, which SI does a good job of making it easy to see and exciting to read for everyone.

Parks and Recreation: the Ron Swanson Revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULAfBllREZs

-Ron Swanson

"Parks and Recreation" airs Thursday nights at 9:30 on NBC, following "The Office." It follows a standard half hour sitcom format about the Parks and Recreation Department of small-town Pawnee, IN. The show stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, Deputy Parks Director, whose naive optimism often works against her. In this week's episode, however, her hard work ethic was displayed as she fought the flu to make a crucial speech at a town hall meeting in an effort to save the Parks Department, which is under the guillotine--an immediate allusion to our sinking economy and the scramble to stay afloat. Knope proposes to reinstate the town festival to stimulate business by enriching community interaction.

The show is filmed like the "The Office," a scripted reality-style parody in which the characters act as though they're regular people, aware of being filmed, without a laugh track. Most scenes are filmed in studio and phony interviews are staged with the actors like a reality show. This makes it very different from other sitcoms, though very much like "The Office."

Advertisements during the show consist of Glide floss, Toyota cars, Pizza Hut,  Merci chocolates, Geico insurance, etc. which lines up well with the target audience of middle class working people between 25 and 55.

Sterotypes are ultimately what make this show funny. Not racial stereotypes, as the show somewhat lacks diversity--one of it's weaknesses--but particularly concerning politics. Leslie Knope plays an upbeat, aloof progressive who won the homosexual vote in the town by marrying two male penguins at the zoo. She is constantly at odds with her mustachioed, staunch libertarian boss Ron Swanson, played by Nick Offerman, who openly professes his loathing for all government, including his own job, and whose ringtone is a shotgun blast.  A major strength of the show is that the episodes often end with Ron softening up to Leslie's ideas for park programs; the writer's effort to portray "reaching across the aisle," a major issue right now, especially since the Arizona shootings.

Ron Swanson has become a breakout character because of his neolithic stunts like grilling steaks and bacon inside his office, and his classic conservative Man's Man one-liners, like--on nutrition "fishing is for sport only; fish meat is practically a vegetable."

JJ and I engage with this show by watching weekly--and by quoting Ron Swanson. For instance, after this episode my fiancee read from her cousin's Facebook page: "Capitalism: God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor," and I instructed her to reply with another Swanson quote. Her cousin is very conservative and though he is usually laughing with Ron Swanson and I am usually laughing at him, we are both laughing (crossing the aisle on issues).

We hadn't analyzed this in depth before this assignment, so this was a great learning experience. It was very interesting to consider the commercials in terms of the target audience, and also to analyze the show and some of the references behind the writing, like bi-partisanship. If  I were from a foreign country I would probably interpret this portrayal of U.S. culture as being confused but earnest, and conflicted but good-hearted.

Critics have been harsh on the show, particularly Amy Poehler's main character Leslie Knope, accusing her character of being flat and unoriginal, but Rob Lowe has been a great addition to the cast this season and Ron Swanson has been well-recieved as a supporting character. I will admit that this show is an acquired taste and I wasn't impressed during the first season, but it worked it's way back into my diet because of it's time slot after "The Office." Now I believe the writers have found their stride and improved the substance of the show. Though I must point out that complaining about beefy substance in a sitcom is like complaining about fish meat not being filling enough--it's practically a vegetable.

"I was born ready. I'm Ron f***ing Swanson."


Thanks to YouTube for all the above clips.

Geico Commercials

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPPfYKbO-1M

Everyone has seen a Geico commercial at some point whether it be on TV or through the internet. This ad is a standard 30 second slot of their famous Cavemen series that debuted in October 2004. This particular commercial utliizes the bandwagon effect because they make the caveman oblivious to the Geico sponsorship even though everyone else knows and is tuned in to the Geico presence.

Also, it is important to note the use of famous tennis legend Billy Jean King, who has a cameo but does not really give a testimonial. Perhaps they chose her because she was a strong advocate against sexism in sports and society and that kind of relates to the caveman's constant sense of ridicule by Geico saying "so easy a caveman can do it." Also they may have chosen tennis because it has a certain distinguishment as a high-class sport, and the caveman is trying to demonstrate his sophistication, which may also add some snob appeal in subtle fashion.

I think that is possibly the link between the caveman, tennis, Billy Jean King, and Geico. Of course, they might not have intended any of those connections and just meant to strike the funny bone of the unassuming television consumer with the flimsy slapstick of a caveman going McEnroe on the sideline, and Billy Jean’s presence is just a novelty, who knows.

The ad is effective because it definitely shoves the Geico name in your face by showing it on everything in the tennis arena. So it functions to advertise the brand itself, but I think it is ineffective in informing the viewer about the services that Geico provides until the very last second. The creators of this commercial are gambling on the fact that people are familiar enough with the caveman series of commercials that they don't need further explanation, as they neglect to mention the originating caveman link to Geico, being "it's so easy a caveman can do it," which uses the plainfolks pitch. They may be right that people are familiar with the cavemen, but I bet many people have forgotten how it started and how it relates to Geico.

One thing Geico has done well is create several  standing series of advertising campaigns that cater to different comedic tastes. Like the famous Geico Gecko, who dreams of becoming an ad icon on par with the Marlboro Man. Or the irritation method monster Squealing Pig that puts a southern boy like me into a cold sweat of "Deliverance" nightmares. And who could forget the Money, whose googly eyes haunt us plainfolks by showing us how much we could save by going with Geico.

Allstate TV Ad: Flag Mayhem

Sweet photo of lightning.

Image from Veggiefrog on Flickr.

Image test

talk about a house on a hill

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_g_travels/