Random Review

I'm totally going to bash a movie I haven't seen and will probably never see, solely on the basis of it's advertising. Based on the billboards and internet banner ads I've seen, Black Snake Moan has to be the worst piece of crap out there right now. (The reviews on Metacritic bear that out, though it didn't score as low as The Number 23.) "Everything is Hotter Down South"?!? Yes, I grew up in the south and I left it eagerly. The weather is gross, the culture doesn't impress me and the accents make me nuts (not to mention the industry I work in is centered in LA). However, there are things to like about the south and it's not really that different from the rest of the country (it's the same endless wasteland of rest stops and strip malls that swarm American freeways across the country outside of cities and farmland). And I can tell you from experience that the San Fernando Valley gets hotter than most places in the south (and dry heat or humid doesn't make that much difference @ 120 degrees). "Everything is hotter down South" tries to evoke the Southern gothic cache of Tennessee Williams or Faulkner. But, while those guys certainly wrote about crazy, libidinous southerners, they never chained a mostly naked Christina Ricci to a radiator. That's overkill. I have to assume that, recognizing the risible result of their billboards, the marketing department thought "It's hard out here for a nymph" was a stroke of genius, calling to mind the (improbable) Oscar winning song from Hustle and Flow, the last movie by this director which I laughed at and never saw. In any case, from the reviews I've read, it's pretty clear the marketing department didn't have much to work with. How else are you gonna sell a movie about Samuel L. Jackson chaining Christina Ricci to a radiator by the director of Hustle and Flow?