A 'Village' Sized Lie

madison avenue fudges the truth -- again

The new commercial for M. Night Shyamalan's film "The Village" has a massive lie in it. It says, literally, "Ebert and Roeper call it one of the year's best movies." The only problem with that is Roger Ebert hated "The Village." Don't take my word, click here and listen for yourself. The one who thought it "was one the best movies of the year" was Roeper, and Roeper alone. When they said "Ebert and Roeper call it..." they were referring to the title of the TV program not the people. Clearly from the wording the studio was trying to make you think they both loved it.

Heads up -- if it does not say "two thumbs up" then only one of them liked it. Accept no substitutes.

Update: I just saw yet another commercial for "The Village." They have changed it. This one said "Richard Roeper of Ebert and Roeper calls it...." Did someone get on their case? Or are there multiple versions of the ad, some deceptive and some not? Either way, the admonition remains the same: If it doesn't say "two thumbs up" one of them disliked it.

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A couple years back, a movie studio got in trouble for having fake interviews after the movie and making up quotes from newspapers. The same thing when movie studios know they have a turkey on their hands, they won't screen it for critics.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

and here i thought it took a village...

studio got in trouble

sony wasnt it?

they won't screen it for critics

unfortunately that good will doesnt extend to the unfortunates who have no choice but to say 'wow...best thing ive seen in years' and hope the prevacid dont let ya down.

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I don't mind a little hyperbole. In fact there is so much hyperbole these days that if a product doesn't have some you begin wondering what is wrong with it. Most studio gimmicks are easy to see through if you're in the least bit hip to the game.

What bothers me about this little tactic so much is that if you hadn't seen the "Ebert and Roeper" show or caught them on the Tonight Show (so that you knew what Ebert's real feelings are) it would be very easy to be fooled. "Two Thumbs Up" obviously still carries a lot of weight. Most people would have seen this and interpreted it in their minds as being two thumbs up. That's just wrong.

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Ebert Responds:

'Beneath the large letters saying "Ebert & Roeper," they ran the name "Richard Roeper" in very small type -- so small that I heard from more than 30 readers who missed it, and felt the ad misrepresented my opinion, as it was probably intended to do; studios use a similar strategy in using large fonts for words of praise from quote whores, whose names are microscopic.

'The guidelines for quotes from our show suggest that when only one of us in being quoted, the name come first in a similar type size: "Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper." After we pointed this out, the ad was changed.'

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the village sucked.....big time.

That is all.

Trinitie:-||

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the village sucked.....big time.

I only see every other Shyamalan film in theaters. So round about my local library getting the DVD release, I'll be back to agree with you.

(Because so did Shyamalan #2: Unbreakable.)

P.S. The "Night" part of his name is a totally made up affectation! I just read that. What a wanker!

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I liked the village. I think all his movies rely on "twist", maybe this one more than others, but it was still a good movie. If you think about how badly a movie with this plot could have been done by a bad director or a bad cast, it shows how good M.N.S. is.

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