I know it’s not that special in this hollywoodland of movies to see films before they are released in the cinema, but this country girl still thinks it is out of this world.
That is one of the reasons I’m a member of Australians in Film. You get to see many films before they are released, and if you conveniently forget that you paid a membership fee, then they are free! You also get to see the stars of the film at the event, and whilst I’ve never actually spoken to any of them, I’m quite starstruck.
Last night I took along My Friend Who Puts the A in LA to see Sucker Punch. The marketers have spent a fortune on this campaign with billboards and ads everywhere. It’s been all around me and I expected it to be a Kill Bill meets Scott Pilgrim type film – like, super cool with lots of awesome fight scenes and a video game fantasy element. It sadly didn’t live up to my expectations. It was stylised to the nth degree, which looked awesome, but didn’t draw me into it. There was minimal dialogue and I found the contrast between the action sequences and the mental asylum inmate camaraderie too extreme. I was also disappointed that the almost solely female cast were then placed in an even more demeaning situation than the mental asylum, a whorehouse (ostensibly to attract a male audience with action and chicks in minimal clothing). I really wanted to be surprised and like Sucker Punch, but it wasn’t to be.
Emily Browning who plays the lead character BabyDoll and Abbie Cornish who plays Sweet Pea introduced the film and I have to say, from a marketer’s point of view, that Abbie is PR gold. When she had the microphone, she then moved to in front of the sponsor banners so the photographer would get them in the background and she addressed the audience in the eye. She answered all the questions so well and really made us want to get suckerpunched.
So even if I didn’t really like the film, the screening still rates on my cool meter.
a little cameo 