Soundtrack September: 10 Favorite Fake Film Bands

As a concluding piece for Soundtrack September here's another patented Film Babble Blog list. Despite that this is something that's been covered a lot on the internets (see fakebands.com for example), I decided to put my own personal spin on it. Now, I tried to avoid bands that began on television, like, say, The Blues Brothers or Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, but #1 on this list itself originated on a TV special so that was difficult to do. For the most part though these are fictional groups introduced to us on the silver screen. So here they are:

Film Babble Blog's 10 Favorite Fake Film Bands

1. Spinal Tap from THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984)

I know, it's an incredibly obvious choice but this list wouldn't exist without David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) as one of England's loudest bands and stars of Rob Reiner's cult classic rockumentary. Their soundtrack set the template for music parodies while the film's faux documentary style is still a vital formula today (see The Office). Now celebrating their 25th anniversary Tap still tours, usually with the Folksman (also consisting of the same folks) from A MIGHTY WIND opening and have just released a new album: "Back From The Dead" so the line fine between fantasy and reality gets more and more blurred as time goes on, or is it the fine line between stupid and clever I'm thinking of?

2. Max Frost and the Troopers from WILD IN THE STREETS (1968) James Dean lookalike Christopher Jones fronts this great group of rowdy rebels (including future Ohio Senator Kevin Coughlin and future famous funnyman Richard Pryor) in this teen exploitation flick that's as ridiculous as it is fun. Here's a clip of Jones, Jim Morrison style, lip synching "Shape Of Things To Come" which was actually a #22 hit on the US Billboard charts:

Incidentally songs credited to Max Frost and the Troopers were on the soundtracks to the Dennis Hopper film THE GLORY STOMPERS and Jones' AIP film followup THREE IN THE ATTIC.

3. Circus Monkey from BANDWAGON (1996) As the focus of a funny and touching portrait of a indie band just starting out, Circus Monkey (Kevin Corrigan, Steve Parlavecchio, Lee Holmes, and Matthew Hennessey is an endearing quartet of indie underdogs. I'm biased about their inclusion because the movie was filmed in my area by NC native John Schultz (formerly a member of the Connells) with a gig set at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro as well as a climatic concert filmed at the Rialto theatre in Raleigh, but I still strongly stand by the choice - their songs (especially "It Couldn't Be Ann") are catchy and their story a heartfelt one. Sadly it has never been released on DVD but here's the trailer to tide you over until it is:

4. The Fabulous Stains in LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS (1981)

A great girl group shoo-in from one of my favorite could be cult films that came up in another recent list. Again in the interest of space check out my original review.

5. Eddie and the Cruisers in EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS (1983)

My pal "Pinball" put it best in his essay for Soundtrack September in the previous post. Read it here.

6. The Wonders in THAT THING YOU DO! (1996) Tom Hanks directorial debut features the fab fascimile of The Wonders - literal one hit wonders (like you couldn't figure that out) that had one catchy ditty that actually became a real life hit (# 41 on the Billboard Top 100). The band consisted of Tom Everett Scott ("the smart one"), Johnathon Schaech ("the talent"), Steve Zahn ("the fool"), and Ethan Embrey (uh, the unremarked upon one). The film is a guilty pleasure I usually stop on when changing channels - the title song is so damn catchy!

7. The Five Heartbeats in THE FIVE HEARTBEATS (1991) Robert Townshend's homage to the heyday of Motown, with obviously the Four Tops and Temptations as template, is another film that wore its way into my heart through multiple cable airings. The music and merit within definitely give DREAMGIRLS a run for its money - "A Heart Is A House For Love" recorded by the Dells (another obvious influence) is a Helluva song.

8. Stillwater in ALMOST FAMOUS (2000) This 70's arena rock band was concocted out of stories about interaction with such bands as the Eagles, the Allman Brothers, and Lynyrd Skynard (among others) during Cameron Crowe's days as a teenage journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, but they still seem like a real living breathing entity mainly because of his angsty autobiographical angle. Stillwater, which features Jason Lee and Billy Crudup as its Plant/Page or Glimmer Twins or what have you, only had one song on the official soundtrack: "Fever Dog" written by Heart's Nancy Wilson (also Crowe's wife).

9. Citizen Dick from SINGLES (1991) Matt Dillon's Cliff Poncier is definitely in the right place at the right time - in a grunge band in Seattle in the early 90's. With a wardrobe and songs written by Green River/Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament as well as all of Pearl Jam as fellow band members, Dillon has more than a little help from his friends. None of Citizen Dick's songs are on the soundtrack but "Spooner" written by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell can be heard in an acoustic version can be heard in the background at one point.

10. Otis Day and the Knights in ANIMAL HOUSE (1978)

Another seminal band that started out fake but got real after the fact. The Delta's toga party favorites, fronted by Dewayne Jessie, put out an album produced by George Clinton called "Shout" in 1989 and have been touring as "the number one party band in America" to this day.

Okay! One last special mention: Autobahn in THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The nihilist Kraftwerkian band consisted of Flea, Peter Stormare, and Torsten Voges. Sure we never hear a note of them * but damn that album cover ought to count for something!

* Correction: We do actually hear "Wie Glauben" - supposedly an Autobahn tune in the movie and the soundtrack album. From composer Carter Burwell's notes at carterburwell.com: "The story also involves a band of nihilist Germans, and in their final scene their music is playing on a boombox. For this I wrote "Wie Glauben" ("We Believe" in German) a techopop tune."

More later...

Aging Struggling Metal Band Hasn't Spinal Tapped Out

ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (Dir. Sasha Gervasi, 2008)

A handful of rock documentaries including METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER and DiG! have been dubbed "the real life Spinal Tap" before, but this examination of who one fan calls "the demi-Gods of Canadian metal" definitely comes the closest to resembling that seminal 1984 hard rock doc satire. From the shining silver lettering of the band name to their over the top stage antics (I can totally see Nigel Tufnel playing a guitar with a dildo) to the mishandled gigs and then there's even the drummer's name being Robb Reiner, so we've definitely got a winner in the true-life Spinal Tap sweepstakes. Hell, their amps actually go to 11 and they even go to Stonehenge - not just sing about it.

The thing is, these are real guys who have struggled in the low tiers of heavy metal for years and through all the hilarity a touching pathos forms for their perseverance. Now in their 50's, guitarist/frontman Steve "Lips" Kudlow works for a children's catering company while Reiner does odd construction jobs between tours that are becoming less and less frequent. Lips is the de facto narrator taking us through a disastrous European tour complete with a screaming irate manager, poor attendance, and non paying promoters. A bit down, but not out, they return home to focus on making their 13th album which involves raising a hefty sum in order to secure studio time with infamous metal producer Chris Tsangarides.

They squabble during production yet are immensely proud of the disc they deliver. Trouble is, no record label wants it so they distribute it themselves. In the end, just like in THIS IS SPINAL TAP, there's always Japan. Filmed lovingly by a former roadie (who incidentally went on to co-write the screenplay for one of Steven Spielberg's worst movies: THE TERMINAL), ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (love that wonderfully redundant title) isn't just one of the best rock documentaries of the last decade, it's one of the funniest films I've seen in ages - I laughed so hard that tears flowed at an 80's clip of Anvil appearing on some afternoon "issues" TV show (think a destitute woman's Sally Jessie Raphel) with the lyrics of an early crude song ("Toe Jam") being soberly recited. And speaking of tears, I was surprised to see so many shed by the participants (mostly Lips and his family members) throughout this film.

It's weird but, I actually care about this band now (honestly though, I don't think I'll listen to their music) and think it's great they are on the movie map. Metal heads and casual movie-goers alike (which means just about everybody) ought to dig it. It's a hilarious and touching movie about pursuing one's dreams, at all costs (or none), even if they appear to be adolescent pipe dreams to a huge portion of the population. Pete Townshend once said: "Rock 'n roll can't solve your problems, but it can help you dance all over them." With ANVIL! make that "fist-pump and thrash" all over them too.

More later...

10 Movie Posters That Completely Co-opt Others Original Designs

This is a sequel of sorts to a post I did earlier this year (10 Of The Most Misleading and Mis-representing Movie Posters Ever!) with one of the same posters mentioned and the same theme of mis-marketing dominating. Recently the publicity for the new pop-doc AMERICAN TEEN included a poster that directly recreates the iconic poster image for the classic 80’s teen angst flick THE BREAKFAST CLUB. The similarity was so blatant that it made many folks (including me) think it was a retitled remake:

You see? To be fair AMERICAN TEEN has another poster design out there that’s more original but that above is still still close for comfort. This is a pretty common device that calls for another patented Film Babble Blog list:

10 Movie Posters That Completely Co-opt Other Poster’s Original Designs

1. THE BIG ONE appropriates MEN IN BLACK and suffers legal action for it - That’s right the image for Michael Moore’s self indulgent book tour doc was ruled too similar to the design for the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi vehicle so a judge ruled that Miramax had to remove the posters from distribution. The taglines: “Protecting the Earth from scum of the universe” from MEN IN BLACK and “Protecting the Earth from the scum of corporate America” from THE BIG ONE would probably be dismissed by most of us as parody not copyright infringement but Columbia Pictures’ lawyers thought differently.

2. FLETCH LIVES for some reason regurgitates GONE WITH THE WIND - This lackluster sequel did itself no favors by placing Chevy Chase’s Irwin M. Fletcher character into the framework of one of the most famous films of all time. Not sure the thinking here, did they really think it was a good idea to equate the camera-mugging wise-ass with a suave Rhett Butler in the thralls of a tragic romance while Atlanta burns? I suppose the GONE WITH THE WIND design is just a device for selling the ‘Fletch inherits a Southern Plantation’ premise and I should cut them some slack for trying to wrap a failed follow-up in something resembling a classy package.

3. WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA BIN LADEN? macks on the art for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK - Meticulously copying the entire design right down to the typefaces and every detail of the amazing Amsel painting done for the 1982 re-release of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Morgan Spurlock’s much lambasted quasi-poli-doc tries to align itself with the same globe trotting heroic splendor of the Spielberg classic but just ends up looking desperate. I haven’t seen WHERE IN THE WORLD... but not being a fan of SUPER SIZE ME or Spurlock’s television work makes me ambivalent at best to it with this uninspired poster design putting me off even further.

4. THIS IS SPINAL TAP jumps on the back of AIRPLANE! - This one I wrote about before in the Most Mis-leading Movie Posters post mentioned above, noting that director Rob Reiner remarked: “They marketed it with a guitar flying in the air with a twisted neck which looked like the poster for AIRPLANE! It looked like it was trading on

another film”. There were many more comedies that were marketed with crazy ‘flying in the air’ imagery - the Zucker Bros. own NAKED GUN movies kept the concept alive for another decade after SPINAL TAP.

5. PROBLEM CHILD crassly copies PARENTHOOD - A mere months after Ron Howard’s family comedy was a hit came this tasteless anti-family comedy with a poster design that mocks the former’s switching the roles and supposedely doubling the laughs. Not a bad advertising approach mind you, I'm sure many rented one after glancing at the video box thinking it was the other.

6. DEAD HEAT duplicates GOODFELLAS - This one is really annoying. Same dark design with 3 protagonists posing above a street scene and the same typeface

shows a complete creative bankruptcy on the side of the promotional department. The utterly forgetable Keifer Sutherland crime thriller that somebody on the IMDb message board called “SEABISCUIT meets GOODFELLAS” could not come close to competing with Scorsese’s masterpiece so seeing them try is painful.

7. ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL re-amps NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE - Lots of crude sloppy comedies have likewise Mad Magazine derived designs but the folks behind marketing the Ramones’ film debut didn’t look very far for an angle here - they just went with what worked for the previous years teen gross-out blockbuster. Squint and you’d think you’re seeing the same picture (especially with the tiny examples I’ve provided here).

8. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY redoes ANNIE HALL (as does the movie) and begat a flood of rom com movie marketing - A couple in a hesitant yet sexually tense moment always makes for a good poster picture for a romantic comedy,

right? Well just add a city skyline (most often New York, duh!) underneath and now you’re talking. Dozens upon dozens of recent rom coms have used this type imagery including SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, TWO WEEKS NOTICE, MAID IN MANHATTAN, ALEX & EMMA (also Rob Reiner), etc. Oh yeah, the Dudley Moore / Mary Steenburgen movie actually named ROMANTIC COMEDY had a similar image too.

9. CLOVERFIELD marks on THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW’s territory - The Statue Of Liberty gets a lot of abuse in the world of movie posters. In CLOVERFIELD its head gets blown off (same thing is shown

on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK’s poster incidentely) and a long shot view shows us a stormy New York in turmoil. Looks a lot like the same painting style and tone used in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW’s the Statue Of Liberty under ice image. The poster for the upcoming sludge through bad pop culture spoofs DISASTER MOVIE features our long suffering statue getting drowned in a tidal wave. Hard job it is being a giant symbol of freedom I guess.

10. TRANSFORMERS apes PLANET OF THE APES - Why would anybody want to recall the roundly rejected Tim Burton remake of the Charleton Heston “damn dirty ape” classic with a poster image that looks nearly identical? It seemed like TRANSFORMERS would’ve had its own shiny take on the aesthetics and wouldn’t have to stoop to this so was it unfortunately unintentional? Did somebody think the look and angle of the Ape design was cool and thought it was either forgotten or needed to be re-done and re-purposed? Whatever the deal, I can still barely tell them apart.

Okay! Now, I know there are lots of movie posters that have co-opted the designs of others that I missed so feel free to comment away.

More later...

Exile On Mean Street Part II - Shining A Light On Scorsese & The Stones Yet Again...

At the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year Mick Jagger made the joke before anybody else could: “I want you to know that SHINE A LIGHT is the only (Scorsese) film that 'Gimme Shelter' isn’t played in.” I had written before about Martin Scorsese's Stones obsession with “Gimme Shelter” singled out in Exile On Mean Street - Or Scorsese & The Stones Together Again (October 22nd, 2006). In that post I speculated about the proposed concert film/doc and how it may capture the definitive performance of “Gimme Shelter” - well alas, as Jagger quipped this is not to be. No matter - the prospect of America's greatest director taking on the greatest rock band in the world (just go with their own self generated hype on this will you?), in a ginormous IMAX feature no less, is enough to wipe away such pop culture pigeon-holing persnickety. So let's get on to the show:

SHINE A LIGHT (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2008)

The Rolling Stones are no strangers to being the cinematic subject of famously impulsive control-freak film makers. Jean-Luc Godard, The Maysles Brothers, and Hal Ashby have had their turns at capturing the legendary rockers on celluloid but now the British hitmakers have met their match with Martin Scorsese - not because he is a more of a meticulously-minded master director than those luminaries but because he is more of a giddy hardcore fan of the band in the spotlight. As the film begins in grainy black and white Scorsese is seen scurrying around trying to get the setlists for the 2 Stones shows at New York's Beacon Theater he is preparing to shoot, with 18 cameras * mind you, and comically getting the rock star brush-off from frontman Mick Jagger. This opening has a frenetic almost SPINAL TAP-ish quality to it but when the Stones hit the stage splashing into full color with the picture expanding to the full screen I was swept up into the cross-fire hurricane of the ferociously jolting “Jumpin' Jack Flash”.

* Helmed by such cinematographers and behind the scenes A-listers as Robert Elswit, Robert Richardson, John Toll, Emmanuel Lubezki and Albert Maysles (GIMME SHELTER!)

As the Glimmer Twins (the nickname and producing credit of Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards) and their mates tear through their classics (“Sympathy For The Devil”, “Brown Sugar”, “Start Me Up”, etc.) and a few obscurities for the faithful (like “Far Away Eyes” for one) Scorsese's cameras swoop down and around the band, barely ever pausing to rest lest anyone would get bored with a shot. Scorsese's scrupulous sense of timing and exciting effective editing rocks as hard as his subject material making this the best concert film since Jonathan Demme's STOP MAKING SENSE. It's awe-inspiring to watch Jagger conducting his fellow Stones, the back-up singers, the audience, and all the cameras into a riotous groove then drive it into a frenzy over and over again. The effect was so powerful and absorbing that I had to refrain myself from clapping at the end of several songs, having to remind myself I wasn't in the audience at the Beacon - I was just one of a handful of people at an IMAX theater in Raleigh.

The 2 shows (Oct. 29 and Nov. 1, 2006) this film was constructed from were star studded affairs - both onstage and in the audience. Former President Bill Clinton, whose 60th birthday was being celebrated by this charity benefit, introduces the band (which is fitting because he was called the first “Rock 'N Roll President”) and Bruce Willis can be seen but despite this Scorsese thankfully keeps audience shots at a minimum. What's more notable is the musical guest stars - blues legend Buddy Guy calmly appears to throw gas on an already raging fire by duetting with Jagger on Muddy Waters' “Champagne & Reefer” and a starstruck Jack White (from The White Stripes) joins the band for a infectious moving rendition of “Loving Cup”. Christina Aguilera helps bring out the raunch in the lusty “Live With Me” gyrating then grinding with Jagger while long-time Stones sideman Bobby Keys's saxophone levels out the showbiz sleaze with some pure class. The only minor quibbles I have would be with some of the archival footage from old interviews that serve as segues between some songs. They are brief though and only cut into one song (the Keith Richards sung “Connection”) so they don't hold up the proceedings much.

Living in a town of snarky hipsters (Chapel Hill, N.C.) I am highly aware that many have long ago dismissed the Stones (especially their recent output) as overplayed Baby Boomer bombast long past its expiration date. I wish those folks would get their bed-heads out of their asses and make the trip to their nearest IMAX theater to see SHINE A LIGHT. It's as fast paced and exciting a concert experience that can be imagined on the big screen (no, I haven't seen U2 3D!) and it is powerful enough to re-ignite the fanatic spark in even the staunchest Stones cynic. Sure, they've become part of the machine they used to rage against with inflated ticket prices and infinite rehashes of their greatest hits but they're still THE ROLLING STONES. When these grand old men who can still bring the rock are seen through the loving lenses of Scorsese I doubt many rock movie lovers will complain that they get no satisfaction.

More later...

10 Of The Most Misleading & Mis-Representing Movie Posters Ever!

In this interview with Pitchfork Academy Award-winning Irish songwriter Glen Hansard complains about the photoshopped makeover the poster for his film ONCE got on its recent DVD release:
"They have us holding hands, which we never do in the film! Those legs aren't mine. Those legs are like three times longer than my legs. It's a completely new body. They literally just used my face...If you look at my head, my head looks totally weird, because whoever did the Photoshop job was sh-t. My head looks really weird, they took my hat off, and they gave me an entirely new body. It's completely bizarre. And they made Mar [co-writer/performer Markéta Irglová] much taller than she really is. You can look at the original cover and then what they did to it and spot all the crappy differences. It's awful. It's a real shame."

Hansard is understandably upset because he designed the original poster and DVD cover himself. Some of the changes are more annoying than offensive but the "holding hands" deal - anybody who has seen the film knows how freakin' misleading that is! Also Hansard's comment illustrates how wide the gap is between who makes the art and who martkets it so it got me to thinking about misleading and downright mis-representing movie posters. Many have irritated me throughtout my years as a film fan. Now, it can be argued that most movie posters are misleading because that's their job - to make the movie look bigger and better than it is so it's a bit silly to pinpoint such offenses so call me silly as I make another patented Film Babble Blog list:

10 Of The Most Misleading & Mis-Representing Movie Posters Ever!

1. KING KONG (Dir. John Guillermin, 1976) As for trying to make the movie look bigger and better than it is, this one really takes the cake! Sure, there was a lot that was bogus about the 70's remake of the 1933 classic but the overblown spectacle depicted on this poster doesn't resemble what happens on screen at all. First off, Kong looks to be 5 times his size in the film - large enough to stand balanced between both World Trade Center Towers - he had to make a running leap from one to the other in the actual scene. Second, there were only helicopters in the movie so his crushing a jet plane (notice the size of it in perspective as well). Third, this sequence takes place at night. Fourth, this was not "the most exciting original motion picture event of all time". Okay, so those last 2 were nit picking but no less than Saturday Night Live pointed the former offenses out in a Tom Snyder show sketch with John Belushi as Dino De Laurentiis. Snyder (Dan Aykroyd) questions the producer: "Sir, the advertising for your movie, the billboards and so on, depict King Kong crushing jet planes in his hands, but, sir, there is not one jet plane in the movie...isn't that kind of a hype?" The elusive De Laurentiis by way of a slick slimey Belushi impression avoids the question by bringing up the hype of his competition - Jon Peter's A STAR IS BORN ("your monkey can sing!" De Laurentiis says he told Peters) but we all know that he's been satirically called out.

2. STAR WARS (Dir. George Lucas, 1977) This one always irked me as a kid. None of the characters look right - even Darth Vader looks a bit off. The image, while I'm sure some will grumble at it's inclusion here because it is inarguably iconic, doesn't really reflect the look and style of the record breaking blockbuster. Resembling 70's sci-fi pulp novel jackets with it's overly ripped muscular hero, overly sexy heroine (neither of which look anthing remotely like Mark Hamil nor Carrie Fisher), against a backdrop of battle, this poster most likely bugged me back in the day because the exact concept was redone a few times by other artists and never really improved upon. In the next few years when STAR WARS * was re-released several new poster designs appeared which were better in concept and presentation of the leads. Han Solo was even allowed to show his mug. Seems like it was only after it was a big hit with audiences did they figure how to market the movie. Or more accurately re-market the movie.

* Again, I'm not calling it EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE damnit!

3. THIS IS SPINAL TAP (Dir. Rob Reiner, 1984) This one is especially off-putting. Rob Reiner's debut film is made to look like a sight-gag filled laugh-a-minute spoof, and while it did have some of that to it - it was really a different comic model than the film its poster was referencing. Reiner in an interview from Mojo magazine (Nov. 2000) recalled how he hated the concept: "They marketed it with a guitar flying in the air with a twisted neck which looked like the poster for AIRPLANE! It looked like it was trading on another film. It was one of the reasons why I started Castle Rock because I wanted control over marketing." The image remained on the first video release of THIS IS SPINAL TAP (pictured to the left) but was replaced later but a plain black cover for the DVD releases. Glad to see it's gone.

4. BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (Dir. David Lean, 1957) The excellent blog Cinemania called this one to my attention. Dan Jardine wrote: "And could there be a more misleading movie poster?" It is pretty absurd in that it mis-represents the feel and focus of said Best Picture Winner. Not sure why Holden is billed above Alec Guiness either. I just saw this film for the first time all the way through (seems like it's been on TV my whole life but I never sat down and watched it all) so this caught my eye as being pretty notably non-complimentary.

5. SOYLENT GREEN (Dir. Richard Fleisher, 1973) Actually I think I like this poster better than the movie! It's more exciting and I can understand why they would want to draw attention to population controling monster trucks to fake moviegoers out about what SOYLENT GREEN really is. In fact you've got to give them credit because without all the misleads in the marketing and the film itself the quotable twist ending would not have been as effective and this would not be the sci-fi cult classic that it is.

6. CLASS (Dir. Lewis John Carlino, 1983) This may be a fairly insubstantial film, especially in the company on this list, being a mostly forgotten 80's drama/comedy (hate the word 'dramedy') but I think it makes a good point about mis-marketing. A popular genre of the Reagan era was the teen sex comedy (epitomized by such schlock as PORKY'S, THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN, PRIVATE LESSONS *, etc.) and while this film did contain some college party shenanigans it really didn't fit into that genre. That didn't mean that it couldn't be marketed as such - with a stupid poster that not only mis-represented the characters it gave away the only interesting plot-twist! The poster image may be hard to read - it says: "The good news is Jonathan is having his First Affair. The bad news is she's his roommate's mother!" Makes it seem like wackiness ensues, huh? Well, let me tell you - it doesn't.

* Not linking to any of that crap.

Dishonorable Mention From The Same Era: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (Dir. Amy Heckerling, 1982) This also mis-represents majorly by making it look like Sean Pean's character Jeff Spicoli is the protagonist when he is a small player in an ensemble. His head appears to be cut from another picture as he is joined by two models who don't appear in the film at all. Like CLASS, the film had a good bit of depressing drama so the over selling of the sex really didn't clue in audiences. It also has a stupid tagline: "At Ridgemont High, Only the Rules get Busted!"

7. SCARY MOVIE (Dir. Keenan Ivory Wayans, 2000) This one is here for one reason only - the worthless promise of its tagline: "No mercy. No shame. No sequel." Did you get that? "NO SEQUEL!" There were 3 damn sequels to this should've been a one-off throwaway. Sure, you can argue that they didn't plan on a sequel until the movie became a hit but that's a possibility you know they were aware of. For the SCARY MOVIE 2 they ad campaign addressed this: "look, we lied!" but the damage was done. I liked it better when Mel Brooks' lame Python rip-off HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I didn't gather enough acclaim or box office to warrant a sequel. Ah, those were the days...

8. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (Dir. Robert Wise, 1951) This one is great as a piece of 50's sci-fi B-movie pop art but incredibly misleading on all fronts. Hell, some even complain that the title of the film is misleading but I won't go there. I won't bitch about a color image for a black and white film, that was pretty much the norm then, but the depicting of action that never occurs and that, uh, what looks like a monkey's hand on top of the Earth image is, well, just plain dumb. I do love the tagline though "From Out Of Space...."

9. JABBERWOCKY (Dir. Terry Gilliam, 1977) Another from my childhood that really pissed me off. Although it followed the likewise Medieval MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and had Michael Palin as the star this was not a Python project - it was Terry Gilliam's solo directorial debut but was not billed as such. Wikipedia says: "For its American premiere the film was initially advertised as 'Monty Python's Jabberwocky', but this was dropped following protests from Gilliam." It wasn't immediately dropped though - for years posters and videocassette releases and many international showings had the Python credit. It confused me back in the pre-internet 80's when I was devouring all things Python. Watching it without the proper info that it wasn't really a Monty Python movie I felt like I was a victim of cinematic false advertising. Gilliam seems to have been successful in ridding the world of the inaccurate billing - The only image I could find was the Greek one-sheet (available from MoviePictureArt.com for $45.50!) above.

10. 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (Dir. Michael Winterbottom, 2002) This is a more recent title that annoys me terribly. It's one of my favorite films of the last 10 years and it's extremely rewatchable so I see the DVD cover a lot and hate that it has a close-up of a girl dancing showing off her tongue-stud when no such image is in the film. Maybe I blinked and missed it so if you saw such please let me know. Otherwise the image makes the film look more like a modern era ecstasy-rave movie than the spunky smart-ass 80's Manchester rock portrait it really is.

So, since there are zillions of misleading mis-representin' movie posters out there - please let me know your personal choices.

More later...