Truth in advertising

Not surprisingly, the Philippines is one of the places in Asia cited by the US as rife with intellectual rights piracy. Hey, it’s practically a floating galleon of bootleg DVDs, CDs and knockoff designer fashion items. All that’s missing is the eyepatch and the parrot mounted on the shoulder. Oh, and someone going "Arhh, arhh..."

But that doesn’t mean that DVD pirates, to give them credit, are against telling the truth. Yes, there is an interesting display of truth in advertising on the sleeves of bootleg DVD jackets here, if you happen to notice. (Not that I would ever purchase or endorse other people buying such illicit items, nor would I venture into the DENS OF SIN where such pirated merchandise is available.)

I’m talking about those wonderful movie reviews that get splattered on the front and back of bootleg DVD covers. Usually, as movie consumers, we get only the selectively positive, glowing reviews ("A gem of a movie!" "Two Thumbs Up!") for films like Lord of the Rings or Chicago. Never a bad word is said about such films.

But try selling a movie like Anacondas, and see what you get. This sequel to the J-Lo-starring horror movie about killer ‘condas in South America boasts no big stars, and apparently no scares, either. The sole review printed on the DVD jacket of Anacondas contains two words: "Absolutely hilarious!"

I have the feeling the makers of Anacondas weren’t going for the effect of hilarity, but isn’t it great to know what’s really in store when you buy this dud? And hey, you might even get a few laughs to boot!

The problem for these DVD bootleggers, it seems, is tracking down good reviews. Many times, they scour the Internet to get some good buzz (places like movieboy.com, or filmthreat.com), but all they come up with is rotten tomatoes. Still, you’ve got to admire their dedication.

(Actually, it’s much more likely that the DVD pirates simply rip whatever review information they can from whatever source is available – good or bad, they probably can’t tell, and don’t care – and the Chinese hired to type up the jackets can’t read English anyway.)

Sometimes, even high-profile films are a hard sell – things starring Oscar winners like Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman and based on Pulitzer Prize-winning novels by Philip Roth, for instance. The Human Stain (2004) asked us to believe that Hopkins was half-black and that Nicole was a janitress who swept up cigarette butts and other debris at a college post office. No wonder no one bought this film. In fact, the DVD jacket is spot-on in its pirated review ("An impersonation of a fine movie that never for a moment convinces you that it is one").

Talk about truth in advertising. The funny thing is, these reviews are usually placed on the front jacket, locked in quotes, and often ending with an exclamation mark: "Yes, we’re excited to tell you that this movie sucks!"

Take a dud like Against the Ropes, a boxing saga from 2003 starring Meg Ryan and Omar Epps that hit the mat faster than Hilary Swank in Million-Dollar Baby. You get not one, but two bad reviews on this pirated DVD: "Fails to earn credibility as it fails to engage us," and "A soft, undernourished biography that plays things too safe."

Or what about the icky A Home at the End of the World, based on an improbable Michael Cunningham novel and starring Colin Farrell in a really bad wig? The author of The Hours may have been thinking "Oscar" with this pile of drivel, but the DVD jacket I saw suggested otherwise ("An initially touching story that wilts under its own insignificance").

Or take the Miramax movie Les Choristes (The Chorus), a French touchy-feely "art" film in the vein of Mr. Holland’s Opus and The Full Monty. It failed to win an Oscar as Best Foreign Film last year, despite Harvey Weinstein’s determined campaigning. Halfway through watching it, I glanced at the DVD jacket, read the proud review ("Drenched in syrupy sentimentality") and understood why.

The sad reality is, such bad reviews often contain writing that is way better and sharper than the writing contained in the movie. Let’s face it: it’s so much easier to massacre a bad movie with inventive prose than it is to create a good one.

Sometimes, the film pirates seem to lift jacket copy from any old source. Take a look at these episode descriptions for The Sopranos (Fifth Season) and you’ll see what I mean:

"EPISODE 57: Oh come on! When Adriana said that she did a Google on irritable bowel syndrome, I almost fell off the sofa! Also Christopher was getting drunk on Stolichnoya Vodka."

Or: "EPISODE 59: Everyone was drinking Coke in this episode. Also, Tony enjoyed some Remy Martin VSOP."

While this doesn’t actually tell you what happens in the Sopranos episodes mentioned, it does tip you off on the rampant product placement that had heretofore gone unnoticed in The Sopranos. (Clearly, the DVD pirates had accidentally raided a bitchy little blog site for information on the episodes. Maybe they shoulda gone to Amazon.com instead.)

And what are you to make of this lukewarm review for the big-budget Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow ("You can see where the money was spent")? Or this one for the Michael Keaton séance dud, White Noise ("Enjoyably slow-paced")? At least this review for the Ashton Kutcher-Brittany Murphy turkey Just Married ("An ungainly and witless comedy") tells it like it is. No sitting on the fence for that reviewer.

Sometimes it’s better not to praise at all than to damn with faint praise, as do the reviews for America’s Sweethearts ("Just funny enough, just romantic enough and just satiric enough to be good"), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous ("Deliriously funny, if instantly forgettable") and the Tom Cruise vehicle Far and Away ("Well, it was better than Days of Thunder… sort of").

Far from being an economic menace, maybe these pirates are doing us all a big service – saving us the trouble of watching weak, half-assed movies. In a way, it’s refreshing to know that video thieves are offering what politicians, the government and advertising in general rarely do: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Arhh, arhh…