\u201cThe Naked Gun\u201d and \u201cSpinal Tap II\u201d. Two films, both alike in indignity, on a cinema screen near you, where we lay our scene \u2014 and where one I\u2019m ignoring, one I\u2019m waiting for.<\/p>\n
I am just fascinated by this: I may be a little wary of the Spinal Tap sequel, but there is not one pixel of a chance that I\u2019ll go see the Naked Gun in cinemas, specifically because of how they\u2019ve been marketed. Sometimes it feels as if you have a film and you have the marketing campaign, which are two separate things, and other times the pair work together well.<\/p>\n
So for instance, I am certain that a reason I went to see \u201cBarbie\u201d was because of its absolutely applause-worthy billboard that was simply solid pink, no images, and just the release date in the corner. Because it was precisely the right pink you instantly recognised what it was advertising and that poster fitted with both the rest of the campaign and the somehow joyous feel of the film. Utterly perfect marketing, I think.<\/p>\n
With Spinal Tap and The Naked Gun, they\u2019re both based on 1980s films. They\u2019re both being made so that they come out at a time when enough of the original audience is feeling nostalgic, or at least enough of them haven\u2019t died yet. They of course want a new and young audience, but they\u2019re trading on the familiarity, the popularity of their original versions.<\/p>\n
Now, it seems to me that The Naked Gun is solely doing that. There doesn\u2019t seem to be any in-story reason for it existing. Whereas with Spinal Tap, the conceit is that if this rock band does not perform again, they will lose the rights to their material. It\u2019s nice gag that plays to the age of the group, and so to the age of the audience, and if it\u2019s surely as contrived as The Naked Gun revival, it\u2019s very well contrived.<\/p>\n
So that was the first word of the Tap sequel, although it followed years of really tremendous wish-I\u2019d-thought-of-it jokes. Such as in 2009 when Tap performed a one-night-only World Tour. Or in that same event, they appeared as their own support act, in the guise of The Folksmen from another of the team\u2019s films, A Mighty Wind.<\/p>\n
The Naked Gun has had nothing except for continual posting to YouTube of clips from the original TV show it was based on, Police Squad! Those clips convey the silliness of the first show, but also some exceptional writing. The interview of Sally Decker<\/a>, for instance. To this day, if anyone speaks about having filled in for someone, I\u2019m left thinking \u201cPhil Din? He\u2019s the night watchman, Frank.”<\/p>\n Or the precision of the overlapping conversation as a suspect is interrogated<\/a> in the foreground while in the background an officer brings in lunch.<\/p>\n And to this day, decades later, if I\u2019m in a conversation where someone goes, I don\u2019t know, \u201cLet\u2019s say you knew all about it.\u201d When that happens, it takes enormous, just enormous physical effort for me not to turn to an imaginary camera and say \u201cYou knew all about it.\u201d<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s interesting that Police Squad! keeps circulating on YouTube and, in what the algorithm shows me anyway, there isn\u2019t so much from The Naked Gun films.\u00a0<\/p>\n Until recently, when the trailer<\/a> for the new film came out and to my mind, it\u2019s a trailer for the wrong film. I\u2019ve seen clips since that seem better, but the tone of the trailer, the jokes it shows, it\u2019s peurile. I question how young you have to be, how easy an audience you have to be, to find Liam Neeson wearing spotted underware to be hilarious.<\/p>\n Whereas in the last week or so, the trailer for Spinal Tap II<\/a> dropped and I\u2019m in. It\u2019s new and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just a repeat of the original, the way that Star Wars films do. Yet the flavour of the trailer is right, the tone of it is right.<\/p>\n Spinal Tap II could be dreadful. The Naked Gun could be brilliant. But the perception their marketing has given me is so different. One of these films seems certain to be a two-star movie at best, while the other feels like it has a chance to go to 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe Naked Gun\u201d and \u201cSpinal Tap II\u201d. Two films, both alike in indignity, on a cinema screen near you, where … Continue reading