Genius Marketing #24 Striking Resemblances #2 Burn After Reading

I guess a simple "homage" tag may be a better phrase than "Striking Resemblances" but I wanted to go ahead and bump up that number a bit before eventually writing about how the 2008-09 Grizzlies will resemble the 2006-2008 Hawks (only they'll be better cuz they'll be more varied and they'll have Ovinton at off-guard). But enough of that. This is about how the Coens, aside from controlling every step of production, must have a say in their marketing campaigns, too. The goofy trailer makes Burn After Reading look like a funny version of the DC-specific elements of Syriana, Raising Arizona-style but this poster makes BAR (?) look like a goofy update on this old Saul Bass creation. I guess the movie could be similar, too, in that the Preminger picture took place in DC, but wasn't that some kind of self-aggrandizing exposé type of flick -- and Pulitzer-winning book? In any event, the poster is simple, the tagline funny, and my fanboy-mode is in full gear. I trust the Coen Brothers to make a picture about the current American "intelligence" quagmire sooner than I do a lot of other pompous lefty sloganeers like, say, Stephen Gaghan or Tony Gilroy -- because they're funnier, better and, on the whole, smarter filmmakers. They know about movement. Among other things. Like guns and dumb blabbermouths and language and editing and hypocrisy and America and low-angle set-ups and hiring Emmanuel Lubezski for their first picture without Roger Deakins since Miller's Crossing. They know their shit. --RWK