Selling "Reservations" two ways
What is that rancid cotton-candy Aguilera or Spears-like pop song playing all through the trailer for No Reservations (Warner Bros., 7.27). Turns out it's a Liz Phair track called "Count On My Love." Just one listen and I hated it. Screechy and alley-catty with a piercing helium wail.
So now I'm asking myself why a film scored by the great Phillip Glass is sending an entirely different musical message than the one in the trailer? Is the clarinet solo music on the No Reservations website a Glass composition? It sends out a very soothing vibe and accomplishes the opposite effect of that godawful Liz Phair tune -- it makes me want to see the movie.
Are Warner Bros. marketers trying to scare away the fans of Mostly Martha, the 2002 German film that No Reservations is a remake of, and attract the younger women who didn't get all the jokes in The Devil Wears Prada? One thing's for sure: when a movie sends out radically conflicting musical messages in different ad mediums, there's some kind of conflict going on between the filmmakers and the marketers.
I'm told that some LA screenings of No Reservations have been set up, but no one I know has been invited to any. I don't know if the film is good or bad or so-so, but Warner Bros. has almost everyone convinced that there's some kind of problem.
And if this is so, the feeling among the natives (i.e., myself and the people I talk to) is how could this have happened with such great source material to start with? Sandra Nettlebeck's Mostly Martha is one of the all-time best adult romances, best foodie movies and best mother-daughter stories all in one. And how could this have happened with the assistance of Scott Hicks, a once-promising director who delivered the very moving Shine not that many years ago?
This may or may not apply to No Reservations, so let's make it rhetorical: why is it that when Americans remake European films they always feel the need to gloss things up...to make them much broader and dumber and more lower-com- mon-denominator than the original? Are American audiences simply thicker and shallower than European auds? Is the European need for sugar stimulation lower than that of Americans?
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 9, 2007 at 10:38 AM
comment #1
Rob
says ...
It's "Count of My Love," by Liz Phair, who used to know better.
Posted by Rob
at July 9, 2007 12:12 PM
comment #2
Rob
says ...
Sorry, "Count ON My Love."
Posted by Rob
at July 9, 2007 12:13 PM
comment #3
Edward
says ...
The trailer for this seems to present the whole film, so thankfully I don't need to see it now. It doesn't even interest my wife, who generally likes this sort of thing.
Posted by Edward
at July 9, 2007 12:18 PM
comment #4
Josh Massey
says ...
Have you seen any of the films Hicks has made since Shine? That should give you a good signal that this film will be lacking.
Snow Falling On Cedars was an immense bore, and Hearts In Atlantis took one of Stephen King's best books and turned it into a muddled mess. (I still haven't forgiven that film for turning the Crimson King into J. Edgar Hoover, but that's for me and other King fans to bitch about.)
Posted by Josh Massey
at July 9, 2007 12:48 PM
comment #5
mutinyco
says ...
Well...I hardly think they could've gotten away with playing "Fuck and Run"...
Posted by mutinyco
at July 9, 2007 1:03 PM
comment #6
Mr. Muckle
says ...
Don't agree with you on Philip Glass, and if he scored the film I find it completely understandable why they don't attempt to sell it using clips of his music.
Posted by Mr. Muckle
at July 9, 2007 1:41 PM
comment #7
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Mr. Muckle: You're telling me that the Phillip Glass music on the website turns you away from the film and the Liz Phair cut makes you want to see it? It's a movie about trying to setttle in and settle down -- about a couple of professional chefs in their late 30s or early 40s trying to have a relationship work while making great food and taking care of a young girl who's lost her mom. Listen to Glass's music for 10 seconds and it's obvious that he understands the basic mood of what this film tried to be. Listen to Phair's music for two seconds and it's obvious that the ad person who decided to use this track on the trailer is a kind of saboteur, or at the very least a person who's very conflicted and/or very cynical about how to sell a movie.
Posted by gruver1
at July 9, 2007 1:51 PM
comment #8
corey3rd
says ...
Shouldn't these people be wearing hats or hairnets? What happened to the health code?
Posted by corey3rd
at July 9, 2007 1:54 PM
comment #9
nola
says ...
Mostly Martha was great as was L'Ultimo Bacio (the last kiss). Enough with the damn remakes. Some things just don't translate.
Posted by nola
at July 9, 2007 2:08 PM
comment #10
Mr. Muckle
says ...
muckle to gruver: Oh, I didn't listen to the music on the website. But I've heard Glass in things like Kundun and I think some other films, and I have some on iTunes. He has his own ways (unless he's changed), but I feel his music is anti-dramatic -- the repetition and rather mechanical nature of it takes me out of the moment, like my neighbor's goddam grinding air conditioner.
Your observation re: the promoter who made the trailer may well be correct, but I doubt I'll become interested enough to listen to it.
Posted by Mr. Muckle
at July 9, 2007 2:16 PM
comment #11
Mr. Muckle
says ...
muckle to gruver: OK, what the heck. I listened to both of them. I don't think the promoter who made the trailer was trying to sabotage the film. It's a typical teen-type emoting song, isn't it? Doesn't mean anything to me, though. The music preceding that song was also very typical.
The Glass music on the website (if it was Glass, and I think it probably was) has some of his typical manner as well, but is too short to be very offensive. It doesn't have that burgeoning emotionality of the pop song and gives more of a laid-back feeling.
Not having seen the film (have you?) I can't say which better represents it, but I'd certainly bet the pop song sells better to a young demographic.
Posted by Mr. Muckle
at July 9, 2007 2:28 PM
comment #12
hiviper
says ...
I caught the trailer for this thing before Ratatouille, and all I could think was, boy, is it going to suck.
Posted by hiviper
at July 9, 2007 2:51 PM
comment #13
lazarus
says ...
As someone who thought Snow Falling on Cedars was the most underrated film of the great film year 1999, and who also loved what WAS in Hearts in Atlantis (don't read King, don't care what they changed), I'm cautiously optimistic about No Reservations. Maybe Scott Hicks is just trying to get his name in the mix again, maybe he pulled something legitimately great out of this material. I like both the leads to, so it shouldn't be too painful.
As a huge fan of Liz Phair from the Matador days, I remain appalled and disappointed at the shamelessly commercial turn she took about 5 years ago. Like someone said above, she used to know better.
Would Jeffrey be surprised to learn that she was once as underground as his newly beloved Clap Your Hands Say Yeah?
Posted by lazarus
at July 9, 2007 3:09 PM
comment #14
corey3rd
says ...
is there a scene in the film where Anthony Bourdain puts his cigarette out on their eyes?
Posted by corey3rd
at July 9, 2007 3:12 PM
comment #15
Nate West
says ...
I saw this trailer before Ratatouille, too, and the restless kids in the audience seemed pretty enthused about yet another movie set in the world of haute cuisine.
Posted by Nate West
at July 9, 2007 3:44 PM
comment #16
bmcintire
says ...
Jeff, the Liz Phair track does not play all through the trailer. It comes in just past the half-way point. And it IS terrible - but no more so than the wallpaperesque score that precedes it, or the light-syrup (Philip Glass?) snatch of music that populates the website. I haven't seen MOSTLY MARTHA, but the trailer and its music seem to quite accurately represent what this film has obviously turned out to be. It looks even worse than the RAISIN HELEN rip-off from three years ago, and that's saying a lot. Christ, they might as well have cast Kate Hudson all over again.
Posted by bmcintire
at July 9, 2007 4:31 PM
comment #17
Hallick
says ...
I hated almost everything I heard and saw in the trailer before Liz Phair's generic, soft rock requiem for what used to be her ballsy talent ever got rolling. Everything I'm immensly fond of that's in "Mostly Martha" looks 100% sitcom'd, from that "I wanted my steak rare!" bit to the stereotypically ridiculous babysitter.
I think the Phillip Glass score is really the odd duck in this mix, not the Phair tune. Her song might actually outclass this movie.
Posted by Hallick
at July 9, 2007 5:52 PM
comment #18
Hallick
says ...
"What is that rancid cotton-candy Aguilera or Spears-like pop song playing all through the trailer for No Reservations..."
What Aguilera or Spears song sounds anything like this one? It's more "Disney Radio with crow's feet" than their genre.
Posted by Hallick
at July 9, 2007 5:55 PM
comment #19
Movie fan09
says ...
chef with lenny henry was better.
Posted by Movie fan09
at July 10, 2007 12:00 PM
comment #20
Regret1017
says ...
Liz Phair is a complete sellout. 'Exile in Guyville' was one of the best albums ever made, and definitely the best debut album ever made, but to go and call your best work 'crap', alienate your entire fanbase and shit out a pile of ugly and unnapealing pop music is just plain stupidity.
any Jew will tell you that's just bad business
Posted by Regret1017
at July 10, 2007 6:35 PM