Word: jammed
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...make no bones about merchandising's importance. "It's something we all live with every day of our lives," says Richard Cook, chairman of Disney's motion picture group. Time Warner chairman, Gerald Levin, was perhaps excessively frank when he recently talked up Warner Bros.' big holiday release. "Space Jam isn't a movie," he averred, according to the New York Times. "It's a marketing event...
...with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes stable, has generated more than 200 spin-off items that Warner is hoping will eventually pull in $1 billion. That would be on top of the $3 billion already generated annually by Looney Tunes paraphernalia. But Space Jam is different from most movies in that it not only feels as if it were inspired by a TV commercial, it actually was (by Nike's Hare Jordan...
...Space Jam's biggest competitor on the paraphernalia front will be Disney's new 101 Dalmatians, which hits theaters this week. The movie has a more traditional, if no less disheartening, provenance: it is a blowsy John Hughes-produced remake of the gently witty 1961 Disney cartoon--a live-action remake that would have no reason to exist except that Disney knows the sight of 99 Dalmatian puppies will be irresistible to children and licensees alike. That would seem to be borne out by the fact that more than 130 companies are involved in various Dalmatians products and promotions...
Look, we're not about to knock a family movie that offers wholesome entertainment, the smartest menagerie in cartoon history, and Michael Jordan--as gorgeous a figure in movie closeup as he is on the basketball court. Well, maybe a little knock: Space Jam, the first feature with all new footage of Bugs, Daffy and other Looney Tunes immortals, is on the wan and sanctimonious side--less a good movie than a safe place to park the kids on a mall afternoon...
...plot, Space Jam is akin to the new Star Trek picture: evil aliens (here the Nerdlucks) try to steal the souls (the talent) of the galaxy's most complex life forms (NBA stars Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson and token white geek Shawn Bradley). If Jordan doesn't renounce his infatuation with baseball and agree to play a basketball game against the aliens' Monstar team, civilization will be imperiled. Not to mention some very fat Nike contracts...