Furries for Hire

I saw The Hire last night at the MOMA. I’ve been to the auditorium twice before last night. Once was to see the Sleepwalkers discussion with Jim Jarmusch and the other time was to see an Indonesian film. Both were good and thought provoking.

Last night, the showing was just candy. The Hire is a series of 8 short films produced for the internet for BMW. Clive Owen stars as a driver for each one. As for the directors, America's John Frankenheimer, Joe Carnahan, Taiwan's Ang Lee, China's Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong’s John Woothe UK's Guy Ritchie, and Mexico's Alejandro González Iñárritu directed the first five films. John Woo, Joe Carnahan, and Tony Scott directed the last three.

I’m sure they got paid ridiculous amounts to shoot what basically were car commercials taken to the extreme.

Here’s the back story:

In 2000, after doing some research, BMW decided to find a new way to advertise their cars for the sake of advertising. They determined that their customers were, on average, middle-aged married males making $150K per year. They also determined that a majority of their customers chose what kind of a car they wanted to buy only after using the Internet. As a result of this, Jim McDowell, BMW's North American VP of marketing, came up with an idea to create a fast-paced, high-class, ultra-glossy way of showcasing their automobiles: create a series of short films with a central, recurring character who drove a BMW and feature them on the Internet.

Innaritu’s seemed the least commercial. For much of it, a war photographer who had just documented a massacre was bleeding to death in the back of the BMW SUV. Also, this was shot on 16mm. It was grainy and the least stylized.

I liked that one and Wong Kar Wai’s short. WKW has such a sophisticated and unique style. It’s too bad his style has spawned so many jewelry and perfume commercials.

When I got back home, I challenged J to Virtua Tennis, an offspring of Pong, the best game ever. It’s fun to talk street mierda playing video tennis.