Call it clever and eye-catching -- or perhaps just shameless self-promotion. But you have to hand it to Francis Ford Coppola. In an era when marketers try to seamlessly and subliminally blend products into movies, Coppola would rather come out and just hit you over the head with a bottle -- literally.
Looking at the full-page ad for "Tetro" in today's Los Angeles Times, it's hard to tell who is the star of the film -- Vincent Gallo or a bottle of Coppola's Claret Diamond red wine. And that's just how "The Godfather" director wants it.
"In a way, everyone who buys a bottle of the wine is a participating producer of my movie," Coppola said in a phone interview from his home in Napa Valley, where the 70-year-old filmmaker lives and for years has operated wineries. "I wouldn't be able to make and finance personal independent films without having a very successful business behind me."
Coppola, a Hollywood outcast by choice, financed and is distributing "Tetro," a family drama starring Gallo and set in Buenos Aires that he filmed in black and white for under $15 million in Argentina on widescreen high-definition video. The movie is playing for a week in limited release in Los Angeles and New York and will expand next Friday into other cities including Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco.
It's just the kind of movie Holllywood studios would sneer at. And, that's just fine with Coppola: "There are very few independent distributors now and everyone is just looking to make money. This is an art film -- an exotic animal these days."
Coppola says "Tetro," which explores the complicated relationships and dynamics of a big creative family, is only semi-autobiographical. "Of course you raid your own life to put flesh on it, but the story never happened that way in my family," he noted.
The other thing that makes Coppola's hybrid movie-wine ad so eye-catching is the juxtaposition of the last name of the film's star and the bottle of Claret: Gallo. (No, Vincent Gallo is not related to Ernest and Julio, in case you were wondering!)
Coppola hopes that if his ad sells enough bottles of wine, he can expand the run of his movie even more than originally planned.
As for the uniqueness of his ad, the writer-director-producer said: "When you're paying the bills you can do what you want. Can you imagine if I had suggested an ad like this to a corporation? There would be 50 levels of meetings."Â
He has a point. Now, please pass the wine.
-- Claudia Eller
Photo Credit: Francis Ford Coppola by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
'Dollhouse' panel at Comic-Con will be super-sized
It has been rumored for some time that there would be a "Dollhouse" panel at San Diego Comic-Con and that the unseen thirteenth episode the Fox show, "Epitaph One," would be screened at the July 23-26 convention.
But how could the screening of the episode and a full-fledged panel with the show's creator, Joss Whedon, and star, Eliza Dushku, fit into the typical one-hour Comic-Con slot?
A-ha! I can confirm three things: There will be a "Dollhouse" panel at Comic-Con, "Epitaph One" will be screened and the entire "Dollhouse" session will be two hours long.
The supersized session will take place Friday, July 24, in Ballroom 20, according to Twentieth Century Fox Television. Dushku and Whedon will be serving up "a no-holds-barred Q and A about what they have planned for Season 2" after the screening of "Epitaph One." (Whedon and Dushku are the only "Dollhouse" folks participating in this panel, by the way. The picture at right is of Dushku and "Dollhouse" guest star Alan Tudyk.)
Happy, Whedon fans? Hope so.
If you haven't seen "Dollhouse" yet, by the way, it comes out on DVD four days after that Comic-Con event.
In this post from Thursday, I listed many of the shows that have been confirmed as participating in the four-day pop-culture convention ("Heroes" is not doing a panel, by the way, though it will "have a presence" at the convention). I thought it might be worthwhile to list every show that's been confirmed, either by myself, by Seat42f or Eonline's Watch With Kristin.
Below are all the Comic-Con TV panels that have been confirmed so far, in alphabetical order:
"Battlestar Galactica: The Plan" (this is at the "likely" stage, it's not 100 percent confirmed)"Big Bang Theory""Caprica""Chuck""Dexter""Dollhouse""Eastwick""Eureka""Flash Forward""Fringe""Human Target""Legend of the Seeker""Lost""MythBusters""Past Life""The Prisoner""Psych""Sanctuary""Smallville""Stargate Universe""Supernatural""True Blood""V""Vampire Diaries""Warehouse 13"Among the "maybes," as reported by those sites mentioned above: "24," "Glee," "Ghost Whisperer" and "Bones."
"Heroes" actors and writers will be present at Comic-Con, but there will not be a panel on that show. For more on that, go here.
Miss Manners:
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm pleased to note how consideration for others seems to be the guiding principle of manners as you promote them, but one rule of etiquette puzzles me: the prohibition of wearing white or linen between Labor Day and Easter.
TV Repairman Weighs Future Amid Digital Switch
The transition to digital television is forcing many electronics service shops to ponder their future. Dan Meijer, who started working in the world of TV repair as a 16-year-old high school dropout, offers his insight.
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