Film One of my dvd watching habits is to pause the film during moments when a newspaper or magazine passes by to see how good the prop department were -- or rather to see if the copy on the page follows the plot, basically says nothing or is something which has been thrown in on the day of shooting because they were rushed for time. Every so often creativity really abounds and you find out something which adds imeasurably to the story. Then there are times like these, when the film makers are really having fun.
Alexander Payne, the director of Election, a sort of high school political comedy, says on his audio commentary that he hates it when there are films which have dummy instead of real stories, so he sat down and wrote everything in print in the film. During his description he invites us to pause and read gus work and so in crystal clarity we find out the details of the aftermath of what happened between Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) and Tracy Flick (Reece Witherspoon). But there in the middle, surely as a joke is the following...
"If you've paused the film in order to read this entire article, your time could be better spent renting "Citizen Ruth" from your local video store.I'm sure you have. And I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often. Its all very well for companies to shell out for product placement in films (which seems to be more subtle than it used to be but I'm sure its still there) but why don't film makers put in more subliminal advertising for their other work (and I'm not just talking about George Lucas putting THX on anything that moves). Seems like a perfectly reasonable way to talk up the films people have been less exposed to. If anyone's noticed anything like this happening in Payne's next movie, About Schmidt, let me know.
Do you know how hard and unthankful a task it is to write thise fake few stories for newspaper movie props? I've got better things to do."
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