Idiot America strikes again. We've all had that feeling when we've left a movie that perhaps the studio has sold us a bill of goods. That perhaps a trailer presents a film in a totally different way than it plays out on screen. It happens, and while I don't like it I understand the reasoning behind it. Certain genres bring in bigger dollars, and playing up those elements of a film makes sense. However I have no sympathy for people who go to a movie and leave disappointed. There are literally thousands of reviews one can read before buying their ticket. If you have doubts, then do your homework.
I especially have no sympathy for people who go into a film which has been marketed accurately, but due to the expectations they themselves heaped upon it walk away less than thrilled. Such is the case with Sarah Deming, a Michigan woman with an IQ equivalent to her shoe size has filed a lawsuit against FilmDistrict, the distributor of the Ryan Gosling action flick Drive, because it lacked Fast and the Furious type thrills. The suit claims the trailers "promoted the film Drive as very similar to the Fast and Furious, or similar, series of movies."
Um, no. This has been a frequent topic of discussion and heated debate between myself and my colleague John Nolan. He maintains a similar viewpoint as Deming, while I think he completely misread the trailers and TV spots which presented an accurate portrayal of the film. Check out the trailer in question below....
Other than the fact there is a car, a road, and a pair of sunglasses, in what way does this resemble Fast and the Furious? Any of them?
Say what? Seriously, lady? The Drive trailer features a couple of car chase sequences, and one of Gosling's character flipping his ride as part of his day job as a stuntman. That's pretty much exactly what you get in the movie, a couple of well shot chases, followed by bursts of violence by lots of shady people. Deming is a moron, pure and simple. Her suit also claims that the film is anti-semitic because....well, I dunno. The slur "kike" is used once...by a Jew, referencing the way he's been slighted over the years. So her claim there doesn't make a lick of sense, either.
I suspect that Deming, and anybody who backs this idiotic lawsuit, is someone who has repeatedly injured herself eating pudding with a rubber spoon. Or perhaps a doctor left a sponge in her head after major surgery. Whatever the case may be, let's hope a judge throws this suit and Deming out on her ass. She's seeking a refund on her ticket, plus the halting of all future "misleading movie trailers". Yeah, good luck with that. The intent is to turn this into a class-action lawsuit, which could be problematic as it would open the floodgates to any loser who ever walked out of a movie with a bitter taste in their mouths. Let's hope the judge throws Deming and her frivolous lawsuit out on her ass. [THR]
