False Advertising on DVD Covers (new Transamerica cover!!!) (2 Viewers)

[Craig Sherman]

This goes beyond the pale.

The powers that be have decided (according to what I've seen on DavisDVD.com) that Felicity Huffman's Oscar-nominated performance wasn't "pretty" or "marketable" enough to sell DVDs, so they went with a glamour shot, likely from a Desperate Housewives publicity shoot.

I'm trying to recall other occasions where the DVD used an image of the star that in no way represented their appearance in the film... and I'm sure there are plenty of examples.

Anyone think of any off the bat?

CS

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Heh. I've got an old LaserDisc {Crystal Triangle} which has illustrations on it of characters who aren't even in the feature — they appear to have come out of Street Fighter or something. I guess it's nothing new!

 

[RyanAn]

That is just awful. Looks mean everything to some people.

It's not the same, but what about when they have a director's face on the cover like that would spark some revenue? (it did, ha ha)



Ryan

 

[Jesse Blough]

Shaolin Soccer. She does NOT look like that in the movie. :frowning: Heh.

 

[Thomas T]

Stuff like this goes back to the dawn of movie advertising. Just one example of many:

In The Ghost And Mrs. Muir, Gene Tierney plays a prim and proper widow in turn of the century England yet one of the film's posters has Gene Tierney reclining in a low cut blue negligee, a costume she does NOT wear in the film.

 

[Marc Colella]

France DVD cover for What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Anyone remember Leo looking like that in the film?

 

[RyanAn]

"Johnny looks so insightful, Leo is so dreamy and smart, and Juliette looks hopeful... I'm truly going to find what's eating Gilbert..."

Ryan

 

[Andrew Bunk]

Well here's kind of a dumb question I apologize for in advance:

Have you seen Transamerica?

I haven't, but I know she plays a man who becomes a woman. Is it possible the cover represents the "after" look for her towards the end of the movie? I've seen clips where she looked weird, but maybe it is a shot from the film.

 

[RyanAn]

Andrew

While in the end, the character no longer uses as much make-up, which could in a sense be a mistake as the surgery was not on her face. (although she did have surgeries before, according to her speech) - Bree, the character does not look like the coverart in the least bit.

Ryan

 

[David (C)]

 

[Michael Reuben]

Monster's Ball was the first film I thought of.

I've seen the film, and she never looks anything like that.

Still, as noted, it's hardly a new phenomenon, and I understand why the PR people are taking the approach with this film, which is a tough sell.

M.

 

[Mike Frezon]

http://www.cinefacts.de/bild.php?id=...20thCenturyFox

 

[MattHR]

Here's an example I posted to a similar thread in the TV-DVD forum.

(OK -- it's not real. But if it was, I'm sure it would help sales)

 

[Aaron Silverman]

That could be because Bree is played by Marcia Cross, not Felicity Huffman.

I forget Huffman's Housewives character's name.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I don't see this as a hanging offense. The purpose of the DVD cover is to help sell the movie. About 12 people saw Transamerica in theaters. Tens of millions of people see Felicity Huffman on Desperate Housewives every week. If putting a recognizable picture of her on the cover is going to help sell and rent discs and get more people to see the movie, I have a hard time thinking that's a bad thing.

Just putting her name on the box wouldn't have the same effect because I'm sure there are millions of Housewives fans who couldn't tell you the names of all the actors, or all the characters, or connect them up correctly. (That's why the fact that Huffman plays a character named "Bree" in the film confuses some people. She plays Lynette on DH.)

For the same reason I don't condemn DVD covers that use original art suitable to attracting the eye and being read on a 5 1/2" x 7 1/2" keepcase instead of shrinking down a poster designed to be printed a 27" x 40" and hung in the lobby of a theater to that same 5 1/2" x 7 1/2" size and hoping that the title will register when it is on a wall full of other DVD cases.

DVD covers are marketing tools, nothing more and nothing less, and I don't blame a marketing tool for being a marketing tool. Nobody is under oath when designing a cover. As we used to say in the Bronx, "No autopsy, no foul."



Regards,

Joe

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

P.S.

Felicity plays Lynette Scavo in DH.

(I have the same problem with Supernatural where I can't get used to the fact that Jason Padelecki - formerly "Dean" on Gilmore Girls - plays the brother who isn't named "Dean". I think the writers do this sort of thing on purpose just to mess with our heads. )

 

[Nick Shookla]

I don't recall Daniel Day-Lewis looking like this in My Left Foot.




and the Transamerica cover is a lenticular one..

 

[Marc Colella]

That's a truly terrible cover.

It makes it seem like the character changed over from an average looking woman to a very ugly woman. Just have to use the popularity of Desperate Housewives to sell some extra DVDs.

 

[MattHR]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have a question: Does Huffman actually play the character in both male and female identities, or is she seen only in "drag"? I was curious, because it'd be interesting seeing Huffman (the woman) playing a man...pretending to be a woman. (Reminds me of a line from a movie with another Hoffman in a transgendered role.)

The DVD cover is extremely misleading, since (I assume) we never see the character in the film as depicted on the cover (with Huffman's real-life likeness.)

It'd probably be more accurate to show the character morphing from (Huffman's) male likeness to the female one. Of course, that would make a really hideous cover -- one that would surely dampen sales!

 

[Marc Colella]

Matt,

We never see Huffman as a man, only as a "woman" (a pre-operative male-to-female transgender - basicaly a guy dressed as a woman before any operations).

We see a picture of when the character used to be a man, but it's actually a picture of a real man (as far as I can tell).

And we never see Huffman look like her real self (ie. the "before" part of the cover). The morphing is very misleading. However, a morphing from a man to female would be a bit misleading too - since we never see Huffman dressed as a man either.