If you follow me on twitter then you can probably guess what I consider to be “the best freakin’ commercial ever.” It premiered (in its full form) during the last Super Bowl and it made me smile whenever I saw it on come on TV. It was a commercial that I loved so much that it took me a few times to realize it was actually selling something (a car, in this instance). Up until then, I just thought the commercial was a showcase for Sockmonkey and his friend, the freaky little red thing.
I’m speaking, of course, of the Kia Sorrento “How You Like Me Now” ad campaign.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should buy a Kia and this commercial left me with absolutely no desire to trade in my beloved Chrysler Sebring convertible but it did inspire me to order sockmonkeys for myself, my older sister Erin, and my niece Shannon.
As great as the song (How You Like Me Now, performed by Heavy) is and as much charisma as that little red monster thingee displays, Sockmonkey really is the star of the commercial. Seriously, I might actually watch the Daily Show if they fired smug, aging badly, oddly devoted to Stephen Colbert, old Jon Stewart and replaced him with tattooed, fast-driving, water-skiing, mad dancing, fast driving Sockmonkey.
(Yes, I said fast driving twice! Because that monkey really drives fast! And, uhmm, not because — as some people claim — I have a five-second attention span…)
The last time I saw this commercial, my friend Jeff commented, “I bet that monkey gets a lot of tail.”
“Silly!” I replied, “He’s already got a tail!”
Later, I realized I may have misunderstood his meaning.
(True story)
But anyway, it’s a fun little commercial whether it makes you want to drive a Kia or not. And, a definite plus, it’s not half as disturbing as those old Calvin Klein jean commercials.
At the risk of committing heresy, commercials (especially older commercials) fascinate me. At their best, commercials are textbook exploitation films. They’re designed to appeal to the audience’s most primal desires and, as a result, are often more truthful reflections of the society that created them than more “mainstream” works of art. A good commercial is a 1-minute journey into the human subconscious. (Of course, at their worst, commercials are just commercials, usually for medicines that have a ton of nasty side effects.)
I was recently searching through YouTube for banned or risqué commercials when I came across these Calvin Klein ads from the early 1990s.
I think I vaguely remember seeing one or two of these commercials when I was six or seven. It may have been the one with the narcissist from Brooklyn because I remember my mom changing the channel as soon as that creepy voice started in with, “You’ve got a nice body.” I can understand why she did because, if nothing else, these commercials give it out a really creepy vibe.
Supposedly (and I should admit that my source for this info. comes from a bunch of anonymous YouTube commentators), these commercials were pulled off the air and its easy to see why. These commercials gave mainstream America what it wanted (good-looking, barely legal eye candy) but did so in a way that emphasized just how sordid most people’s fantasies really are. The creepy and unseen “director” serves as the perfect representative of mainstream, middle-aged America. (Just check out his confusion over the word “mosh” and his complete loss of composure when the one model refuses to fulfill his fantasy.) By leaving the director off-screen, the commercials force the viewer into the role of director. In the best exploitation tradition, these commercials tell the complacent viewer, “This is what the inside of your head really looks like.” At the same time, it also told the young that if they wanted to get the attention of the mainstream establishment, the best way to do so was to tease and offer up implied promises that would never be kept. Supposedly, a lot of people considered these commercials to almost be pornographic. Personally, I prefer to think of them as being subversive in the style of a classic film noir.
While the unseen director is the perfect surrogate for the hidden desires of mainstream America, the models themselves all seem to have wandered out of a Larry Clark film, which is perhaps one reason why I worry about what happened to them after their “interviews.” The first model — Blue-eyed Brandon from Kentucky — is especially cute and I hope he eventually caught the first bus back to Louisville. He doesn’t look to be cut out for the big city and I get the feeling that the narcissist from Brooklyn could kick his ass. I also get the feeling that the older Italian woman ended up making “love on film” with the guy who ripped his shirt in half while the mosher probably ended up impregnating the airhead who wears 30 year-old jeans. I also get the feeling that the mosher may have been the younger brother of the girl who says, “I won’t dance for you.” (And good for her!)
These commercials all feel authentic, even if you’re not quite sure what’s going on. From the grainy film stock to the shabby studio to the disturbingly intrusive voice of the “director,” these commercials can make your skin crawl. You watch and you wonder if anyone ever saw these models again after their audition. Its hard not to suspect that they all ended up either buried in someone’s backyard or maybe on a boat heading to Aruba.
At the same time, these commercials oddly enough do make you want to go out and buy jeans because, while all of the models appear to be doomed, at least they all look really good. As a result, the commercials themselves become the ultimate example of the philosophy of “Live Fast, Die Young, and Leave a Good Looking Corpse”
It looks like Andrew Lincoln’s character of Rick Grimes for AMC’s upcoming horror tv series, The Walking Dead, has finally found it’s wife. According to Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly the role of Lori Grimes has finally been cast with Sarah Wayne Callies (previously seen in the now-cancelled Prison Break). She joins Andrew Lincoln to form the husband-and-wife in the tv series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s popular and critically-acclaimed zombie apocalypse comic book series.
I like this choice in casting not just because Sarah Wayne Callies actually looks like the character, but her previous role in Prison Break looks to have been the perfect practice role for the part of Lori Grimes. Rick Grimes’ wife Lori could only be described as very troubled and keeping secrets of her own during her time away from Rick at the beginning of the series. While I wouldn’t call the character as hysterical she does pose some instability in the group dynamics which Rick has to carefully navigate if he has any chance of keeping his small group of survivors from dying out.
As more and more names get announced as becoming part of the show’s cast it looks like the series (6-episodes ordered for the moment) continues to move towards it’s early summer production start date. The Walking Dead looks to be one of the 2010 fall schedule’s most-anticipated new shows and here’s to hoping Darabont and crew’s initial 6-episodes hit it out of the park and earn the show more ordered episodes.
The good folks over at The Hollywood Reporter have reported that Frank Darabont’s tv series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic book, The Walking Dead, have finally found the actor to play the series’ lead protagonist, Rick Grimes. The actor chosen came out of left field as his name was never even one people were clued in on. Fan favorites like Peter Krause and Mark Pellegrino were not even seen or heard having tried out for the lead role. Other names like Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica’s Lee “Apollo” Adama) and Johnny Lee Miller (Eli Stone and Hackers) were also mentioned as having tried out for the role with the latter seen as the front-runner.
So, it’s seen as a surprise by many following the production of The Walking Dead to see the name Andrew Lincoln come up as the actor chosen to play Rick Grimes. The UK actor has worked in mostly shows and films in his native UK w/ Love Actually being the more recognizable of those he’s worked on. I think the choice was, and is, a good one. This is literally an unknown actor to US audiences so it will be easier for suspension of disbelief to be achieved for those watching.
While the reaction to this news is mostly one of guarded optimism there’s a very tiny but vocal group that seem to cry foul at this choice just for the fact that Andrew Lincoln will be a British-actor playing an American from the South. I think fans at times just think that dream choices for roles in their favorite stories should be the only ones chosen to play those roles whether they actually want to take on the role or not, or if they’re even good for the role.
For the detractors I say give the man a chance to get into the role before you put the man down. Oh yeah, one other thing…just be glad the show is actually being down and with strong creative people behind it. Put the fanboy/girl hat into storage.
It looks like Frank Darabont’s TV adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic book title, The Walking Dead, just got closer to it’s production start. Shock Till You Drop has confirmed with Greg Nicotero of KNB EFX will be part of the AMC horror tv series. Nicotero (w/ co-founder Howard Berger) and the KNB visual effects house has done many of the horror, sci-fi and action films of the past decade. They last worked with Frank Darabont in the 2007 film-adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, The Mist. They’ve also been the premiere visual effects house when it comes to bringing the classic Romero zombie look and gore on the big-screen. Romero’s last three zombie films having been done by KNB.
This news makes me even more hyped to see how The Walking Dead translates onto the small-screen. With zombie films starting to reach a plateau when it comes to quality (Romero’s latest Survival of the Dead being mediocre at best) it will be interesting how a series centered around a zombie apocalypse and the travails of the survivors would be seen by the general audience. Having KNB EFX will at least appease the zombie fans who will flock to see this series. The question now is whether AMC will allow enough of the graphic violence from the comic book series to be shown. I’m guessing they will if their other critical-darling drama series Breaking Bad is a way to measure how far AMC will go.
Here are some of the films KNB EFX have worked on.
Kill Bill, Vol. 1-2
Land of the Dead
Hostel
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
News which may just strike some genre and geekdom fans blind with excitement it look like Dr. Horrible and The Guild star Felicia Day has been tapped to portray the descendant of Little Red Riding Hood in the SyFy Channel’s re-imagining of the Red Riding Hood tale.
SyFy has already done their re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz with Tin Man a couple years ago and have made it known that they will do similar re-imagining’s of classic fairy tale stories with Red their version of Little Red Riding Hood. Ms. Day will play one of Riding Hood’s werewolf-hunting descendants whose family shares the same proclivity to hunting the shapeshifting beasts. Her character of Red brings home her fiance to meet the family but who remains skeptical of their lineage and their werewolf-hunting sidejobs. That is until he himself gets bitten by one of the beasts and now must try to stay away from Red’s family who know what must be done. Red must try and save her man against his curse and her family.
While Ms. Day has had success starring in two of the web’s most popular and successful online series with Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible and her own The Guild, SyFy’s Red marks her first lead role in a production in film and tv. Here’s to hoping this is the sign of better things to come for the internet’s redhead darling.
Australia’s Channel 7 and our own glorious Fox News both featured a man flounder pounding on live television over the past day or two. Can you tell which is literal and which is figurative? I’m still not sure.
(Compliments to BBC World News for bringing the first to my attention. I’ve been reading them daily for a good many years now.)
You know, it would only be fitting to make Miranda Kerr the next hottie of the day…
I am definitely on Conan’s side of the recent NBC-Leno-Conan late-night debacle. I pretty much spent most of my post high school nights watching Conan’s late-night show. I never got into Leno, but I can understand why many people did. He’s a safe comedian whose reputation for treating guests with kid gloves made him a favorite for stars to drop by his show. Stars on the show make people watch Leno’s show.
Leno’s reputation has hit a major low during the last month as he’s become the punching bag for fans of Conan and Letterman. Even Jimmy Kimmel and his followers have jumped on the beat on the Chin bandwagon. Kimmel’s surprise appearance on Leno’s 10 @ 10 show a couple weeks ago was one of the best things to come on late-night in decades. To say that Kimmel emasculated Leno would be the understatement of this young decade.
It’s now been a week since Conan aired his final Tonight Show episode and during that week we saw Jay Leno try to repair his battered image and reputation by going on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah’s daytime show has become the place to go to for people who either have been brought low by other people and need a place to find comfort and support or people who need to apologize about something bad they did. Leno’s appearance could’ve been the latter, but instead he tried to be the former. In choosing this path he might have damaged his image even more than he already has.
Leno doesn’t even make a serious attempt to place some of the blame on himself for what had occurred. Instead he tries to come off as being the biggest victim in the whole shenanigans of a debacle. While not mentioning Conan’s name he even takes a shot at “the other show” which he says was failing (despite numbers showing that after a slow and low ratings early on Conan’s show was steadily rising in ratings). Leno comes off even more fake and disingenious through the whole interview. There were times as if he expected Oprah to be more supportive and throw him softball questions, but instead got something tougher and more probing. He even goes so far as to try and joke about the whole ordeal which just ends up looking awkward at best and pathetic at worst.
I hope Middle America who think Leno was the better host enjoy their bland, battered and bullshit of a Tonight Show host, because it definitely won’t be anything funny, engaging and surprising.
The end of an era just occurred at 12:35am on January 23, 2010. An era of Conan O’Brien on NBC late-night. First 16 years hosting The Late Night Show after the departure of David Letterman for his own late-night talk show on CBS. 2009 marked Conan’s inheriting the coveted Tonight Show from a “retiring” Jay Leno. This next stage of Conan’s career was suppose to last a long time, but instead a major blunder of immense proportions by NBC head honcho Jeff Zucker has ended Conan’s tenure as the Tonight Show host after only 7 months.
Much has been said, argued and screamed about the circumstances which has led to Conan O’Brien’s leaving the Tonight Show. People can find most of those easily on the net. This shall be my brief farewell and see you soon to someone who has made late night fun to watch. Wherever he lands (FOX, Comedy Central, internet show, etc.) here’s to hoping he does so to continue what he did best those 17 years as an NBC late-night talk show host: be funny, irreverent and, most importantly, down-to-earth.
7 months to wait til we find out where Conan shall land.
Just in from Variety is the news that cable channel AMC has greenlit the pilot for the Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd produced adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s critically-acclaimed and popular zombie comic book series, The Walking Dead. The news in early 2009 that Darabont, Hurd and Kirkman have come to an agreement to pitch the series adaptation to AMC (home of Mad Men and Breaking Bad) was one of the big news for comic book fans and the industry.
The Walking Dead is about a band of survivors in a world which has undergone and succumbed to a zombie apocalypse. Police Officer Rick Grimes leads this band of people in search of a safe haven from the uncounted zombies which now roam the devastated American landscape. Author Robert Kirkman has written just under 70 issues of this on-going series, so far. Cast for the series have changed on a regular basis to illustrate the extreme danger of this new post-apocalyptic landscape. The danger doesn’t just come from the roaming undead but from other survivors as well as rules of civilization and society have crumbled away to be replaced by rules of survival.
The series is known for some exceptional writing with heavy emphasis on character dynamics and interactions. While the series does have zombies in it the highlight of every issue for fans and critics alike is Kirkman’s ability to posit moral situations on the survivors which sometimes doesn’t get the kind of answer we’re used to in our protagonists. I think this is what has drawn Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd to the property. Kirkman has taken the societal commentaries inherent in all the great zombie films and stories and has created a series around it. As one guest commentator for one of the trade paperbacks have said about The Walking Dead, “The series picks up after the end credits have started in a George Romero zombie movie.”
With the pilot now greenlit by AMC the inevitable casting call rumors will start to ramp up. Fans of the series are some of the most loyal and have been talking of dream casting the series for years. I’m sure those dream castings will get brought back out into the light with fans arguing if actors chosen for the role are the right ones or not. The one thing this news doesn’t say is how much will AMC allow in terms of violence shown. The Walking Dead is not a superhero series with over-the-top violence. It’s violence is similar to Romero’s zombie films in that they’re brutal and extremely gory. While I can understand that some of the more extreme scenes in the film could be shortened and inferred, I do hope that AMC will allow for most of the brutality in the series to remain intact since they help in creating the tone for the series.
Now, all that’s left is the waiting game and wonderings of when the pilot will air on AMC.
Through the Shattered Lens 