Trailer Wars
George Lucas recently announced that screen trailers of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones will premier along with Pixar Animation’s Monsters, Inc. tomorrow.
“I have great respect for Pixar and deep admiration for John Lasseter and his team,” said Lucas. “I’m thrilled to be able to show audiences their first glimpse of Episode II with Monsters, Inc.”
The arrangement was made without going through the films’ respective distributors, Fox and Disney, who fear this will be the start of a veritable orgy of trailer favor-swapping and breakdown of studio control.
Disney is also concerned that the addition of the trailer will dillute Monsters, Inc.’s impact: the humor of a name like Attack of the Clones offers too much competition.
Britney Gets Dirty
Britney Spears is under fire from parents offended by the content of Spears’ upcoming record; songs on the self-titled album contain words like “hell” and “damn.” Spears responded to the criticism in a recent interview by saying that if parents don’t want their kids to hear those words, they shouldn’t buy the album.
“It’s not my intention to leave my young fans. I just want an older generation to pick up on it as well,” she responded. “I couldn’t do … ‘Baby One More Time’ number three. I had to change it up and pray people think that’s cool.”
Spears added that she’s not interested in being a role model, saying “I trip and I burp and I fart, like everybody else.” The difference is that there’s a legion of skanky fans waiting to buy her farts on eBay.
So parents are more concerned with dirty words than Spears gyrating on-stage in skimpy clothing singing lyrics like “I’m a Slave 4 U?”
We’re All Perverts
Child pornography laws are generally considered to be a good thing, but the Supreme Court is wondering if current laws are too broad. In their current incarnation, anyone who’s viewed movies like Traffic and Titanic may be considered sex offenders.
A 1996 law that made it a crime to sell or possess “any visual depiction” that “appears” to show “simulated” sex involving actors who may be minors was the topic of contention this Tuesday.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that the Oscar-winning film Traffic could fall under the law’s broad definition of illegal pornography. One scene portrays a teenage girl having sex with a drug dealer.
Movie-makers are not in danger, O’Connor noted, as long as they can show that their actors are at least 18. But there is no similar defense for those who buy or rent such films.
“What great works of Western art would be taken away from us,” Justice Antonin Scalia quipped during Tuesday’s hearings, “if we were unable to show minors copulating?” Justice John Paul Stevens interrupted to cite Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.