Those Damn DirecTV Movie Tie-In Ads - Offensive To Film Buffs?

To cut to the chase - yes. Those commercials (most running for 30 seconds) that re-create a scene from a well known movie oft played on cable with an actor re-outfitted in their old characters duds and mugging to the camera about the better picture quality benefits of DirecTV have been irking me for some time now. Let's take a look at a few of them shall we? :

The first of these that I have seen wasn't too bad - it had Christopher Lloyd dressed and made up to look like his 1985 Doc Brown character from BACK TO THE FUTURE (Dir. Robert Zemeckis) in this ad designed to make you feel like you're coming back from commercials to a movie you forgot you were watching. Lloyd hams it up saying "I forgot to tell Marty when he gets back to the future he needs to get DirecTV HD!" As Wikipedia notes "Marty would not actually be able to get DirecTV once he got back to the future as it did not exist in 1985 and the Doc of 1955 would obviously have no way of knowing about it. However, this blatant illogic can be regarded simply as a joke." Uh - okay!

You can't really fault Charlie Sheen for turning a fast buck revisiting his MAJOR LEAGUE (Dir. David S. Ward, 1989) role of Rick 'Wild Thing' Vaughn. It's a movie that seems to always playing on some cable channel (mostly TBS) and he was likable in it which is seriously unlike just about all of his other films so he and DirecTV are in the clear here. Major points would have been added if Dennis Haysbert (who played Voodoo practicing Cuban defector Pedro Cerrano in the 1989 film and its sequels) did some add-on shot (he's probably too busy doing AllState ads) - but I'll still put this in the acceptable pile.

Now those were somewhat cute - if you stick to mainstream movies and B or C-list celebrities popping up in mock scenes from their movies sure we can look the other way but Sigourney Weaver resurrecting her female-empowering alien-ass-kicking heroine Ellen Ripley in this ALIENS ad attrocity that just starting airing recently really gets my goat! To see this classic character who was named by the American Film Institute as the #8 greatest hero in American cinema history shilling for DirecTV is just depressing. Maybe we can tell ourselves that it's one of Ripley's clones from ALIEN RESURRECTION - no, it's still sad.


I mean it makes some kind of marketing sense to have Jessica Simpson break the 4th wall from her role as Daisy Duke in the apocalypse-warning signpost that was THE DUKES OF HAZZARD (Dir. Jay Chandrasekhar, 2005) and chastize her leering viewers by taunting them by saying "Hey - 253 straight days at the gym to keep this body and you're not going to watch me on DirecTV HD? You're just not going to get the best picture out of some fancy big screen TV without DirecTV." Though incredibly eye-rolling inducing it makes some kind of sense because it's a completely disposable commercial movie and nobody will care if a character steps away from that kind of cinematic enterprise to do a sales pitch for a company. Speaking of stepping away from the Enterprise ...

"Settling for cable would be illogical" Captain Kirk (William Shatner) says to Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) grimace. Shatner is surrounded from footage from STAR TREK VI mind you in this commercial. Not the first time he's acted reacting to nothing and it won't be the last. This one is understandable because Shatner with his Priceline.com pitches, MCI, and the UK Kellogg's All-Bran cereal ads has been a commercial spokesman * almost more than he's been an straight actor, no wait he's never really been a straight actor. Still, I get a bit pissed off watching his laconic walk-through in this ad I'm reminded by comedian Patton Oswalt's put down from Shatner's Comedy Central Roast -when he held up a paper bag and dared Shatner - "Could you act your way out of this?"

* To see the hilarious origins of Shatner as a commercial spokesman checkout this hilarious Commodore Vic20 Ad.

I just feel like we're one step away from having Ralph Fiennes popping up as his evil Nazi personage Amon Goeth in a mock scene from SCHINDLER'S LIST looking right at the camera and saying "don't you want to see me personally execute masses of Jews in the crystal clear clarity of DirecTV? Don't you?!!?"

Okay, maybe that was a bit over the top - none of the ads so far have been from serious dramas or Oscar-caliber prestige pictures but I think these ads are bad for the film community. Okay, maybe just the online film community. Okay, maybe just me. Now this one with Pamela Anderson playing her iconic character C.J. from the television show Baywatch is just about right - hear that DirecTV! Stick to TV shows and low-brow comedies that were cheesy to begin with and all is forgiven. Okay?

Postscript : I know I haven't covered all of those damn ads - Leslie Nielsen revisited his 1980 Dr. Rumack performance in a AIRPLANE! one, Ben Stein again asked "Bueller? Bueller? ..." for a FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF throw-back, Bill Paxton once again chased a tornado in a TWISTER take, and shortly before his death in Pat Morita brought back Miyagi from THE KARATE KID ('86). If there are any others that irk you or that you actually like - send 'em on in to :

boopbloop7@gmail.com

Oh yeah - I read somewhere that Bill Murray was all set to re-Carlize himself for a spot from CADDYSHACK ('80) but he was either out of the country working on a film or he came down with a case of integrity...

More later...

10 Sequels That Don't Suck

After the response, both good and bad, to The Top 50 Sequels That Should Have Never Been Made (March 12, 2003), it seemed like it was time to take a stand the sequels that don’t suck. It’s a much shorter list, but a damn good one:

10 Sequels That Don't Suck

1. THE GODFATHER: PART II (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Undoubtedly the greatest sequel because it was better than the original, won a best picture Oscar, and because unlike all the sequels on the top 50 worst list it actually has more story to tell. The casting of Robert De Niro as a young Vito Corleone didn't hurt either. Like Part I this was written by Mario Puzo who also wrote:

2. SUPERMAN II (Dir. Richard Lester, 1981)

This supreme sequel works as a follow-up because it's actually an extension of the first film. It was filmed at the same time for the most part (there was a bit of a rough transition from director Richard Donner to Lester, resulting in some controversail re-shooting) and it satisfyingly concludes the Krypton villains’ subplot set-up from the original.

3. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN

(Dir. Nicholas Meyer, 1982) 

It wasn't hard for this one to be better than the first because the first one (1979’s Robert Wise-directed STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE) was an overblown bore. Meyer’s follow-up jettisoned the celebral egghead exposition of the original, and brought on the shoot 'em up back to sc-fi basics with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and the rest of the iconic crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise facing off against the genetically engineered super-villain Khan Noonien Singh, portrayed by Ricardo Montalbán in a career best performance. Still considered the best of the series.

4. STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (Dir. Irvin Kershner, 1980) Despite the numbering of this as “Episode V,” I still think of this as the second STAR WARS movie. Whatever the case, this is a dark and layered entry luckily not directed by Lucas.

5. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (Dir. Peter Jackson, 2003) After GODFATHER: PART II, this was the second sequel in Academy Awards history to win Best Picture. 

6. THE EVIL DEAD II (Dir. Sam Raimi, 1987) The third one, 1992's ARMY OF DARKNESS is pretty kick-ass too. Let's hope Raimi pulls off another great sequel this summer with SPIDERMAN 2.

7. IN LIKE FLINT (Dir. Gordon Douglas, 1967) Many forget Flint James Coburn's suave American equivalent to 007. They really shouldn't because this is some sharp slick '60s stuff.

8. INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE 

(Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1989) 



Dennis Miller once joked on SNL that Star Trek VI ought to be subtitled “The Apology” (you know because of the Shatner helmed fiasco of Star Trek V), but this is the sequel that really should have that subtitle. This was a pure return to form after the way-too-dark TEMPLE OF DOOM. And 007 himself, Sean Connery as Indy’s father really seals the deal. The word that there may be a 4th Indiana Jones movie is troubling though.

9. MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (Dir. George Miller, 1982)

10. ALIENS (Dir. James Cameron, 1986)



Honorable mentions: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, TOY STORY 2, and A SHOT IN THE DARK.


More later...