Random thoughts on that Drive trailer lawsuit...

As sometimes happens, I commented on someone else's blog (in this case, David Poland's The Hot Blog) and what was supposed to be a random bit or two turned into a mini-essay.  So for those so inclined, here is my 'official essay on the Drive lawsuit'.  Oh, here is the actual complaint for those who want details that I don't feel like repeating.  And try not to laugh when attorney Martin H. Leaf calls Nikki Finke a "respected film critic and “Hollywood insider”.  Anyway, I do have some reviews up later this week, so apologies for the somewhat second-hand content.  Enjoy.

It’s no secret I kinda hated Drive (review 01 and 02), but I did not even watch the trailer before seeing it, so one cannot conclude that the low (and highly unscientific) Cinemascore grade is directly related to the marketing (IE – majority opinion aside for the moment, it could just be that it’s not a good movie). I didn’t watch the trailer before seeing the movie (I had correctly heard that it was spoiler-filled), but if I had and thought the movie looked good based on the trailer, would I have a cause of action? Most trailers technically make the movie ‘look good’. If the studios have a bad movie, is merely advertising that film in a way that makes it look good a case for fraud?

Review: Drive (2011) isn't 'cool', but rather just an art-house, navel-gazing version of any direct-to-DVD action picture.

Drive
2011
100 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

There is an old Robert Rodriguez interview where he comments about how shocked he was by the positive reviews that greeted the release of El Mariachi.  He hinted at certain biases that critics have toward films that are supposed to automatically be 'better' than the rest.  To paraphrase, Rodriguez thought he was making an exploitation film, but because it was a foreign movie with subtitles, critics found all kinds of symbolism that wasn't really there.  Nicolas Winding Refn directs the hell out of Drive, itself based on a novel by James Sallis.  But the visual poetry is in service of a painfully contrived and hilariously generic narrative, and even said 'coolness' is so overwrought that it eventually turns into self-parody and becomes as boring as the story being told.