Directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, Your Highness), 'The Sitter' is the first time out of the gate for writers Alessandro Tanaka and Brian Gatewood and, rather than having that rare inspired fresh feel you get from movies by such writers when everything falls into place, this has that by-the-numbers fresh-from-the-factory feel you get when first-time writers throw every silly/nasty/hackneyed gag and embarrassing situation in their arsenal at a plot-driven comedy to see what sticks. Disney-esque but flimsier, raunchier.
The red band trailer, oddly, was released first -- on Thursday. Usually we get the tame intro trailer then, once we're acclimated to the concept, like the idea, and are looking for more, the coarser harsher version is released (anytime from a week to a month later) to give the flick a buzz boost. But, not so with 'The Sitter'. They reversed the normal M.O. and I'm thinking there was a good reason for this approach. While the red band trailer is loaded with cursing and some very rude situational comedy that gave it some appeal and made it seem like something you might maybe could be interested in seeing, this green band trailer, without the f-bombs, mf-bombs, and crude sexual-jokes-with-kids lead in plays plain ole commercial and feels pretty sterile to boot. A string of wink-wink one-liners inform the cleaned-up trailer and it just tries too hard to make us laugh. Now, 'The Sitter' seems more like a rental than something you'd be inclined to see at the theater opening weekend.
Not only that, the green band trailer was released late Friday evening like they were trying to lessen its impact. Almost like they wanted to sweep it under the carpet. Why late Friday? This is the same time of week you announce bad news -- like when the Fed announces it's official and the economy has entered a double-dip recession, or the credit rating for the United States has just been downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor's for the first time in history. You let that out of the barn on a Friday night not Monday morning. Just common practice. That way, by Monday morning, when all the news services kick back into gear and people start paying attention again, you've a) had the weekend to put a positive spin on it, b) can take advantage of the fact nobody was paying attention on Saturday and Sunday because they were pounding beer and grilled cheeseburgers all weekend and, c) there's way less Monday morning water-cooler negative buzz because nobody heard what happened.
So, by releasing this bland green band trailer after the rude/crude red band trailer 20th Century Fox has accomplished a few things:
1) Made us think we like the movie just because of how raunchy the red band trailer is
2) Fixed it so very few of us even watch the dreaded green band trailer which, stripped of all the squirmy sex jokes, plays like another disposable wacky comedy
3) Arranged it so that the green band trailer will be hardly worth noting when all the movie bloggers get back to work come Monday morning
Smart, yes?
Bad signs? Meh. Maybe, maybe not. Good signs? Hell no. Absolutely not.
Does anybody care? Yeah...20th Century Fox.
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