It's sacrilege! It's funny! It's blasphemy! It's advertising! It's your call.
Submitted by claymore on Wed, 02/07/2001 - 06:15.
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This has been an interesting find -- Never before have I found a(n) homage to advertising that has created such enthusiastically opposing responses from those I have shown it to. Produced in 1998, it somehow remained underground... until now.
It's a short film entitled New Testament, created by the folks at Swankytown. It won a handful of US film festival awards, received a nifty write-up by Apple, and miraculously cost under two grand to make.
Their synopsis: New Testament is an outrageous special-effects-filled comedy that targets corporate advertising by asking the question: Is there any taboo the free market won't trample over in order to pursue its profit? The answer comes in the form of a gleeful nightmare of a TV commercial that involves a dancing Jesus Christ, twelve lascivious Apostles, and a very sexy Mary Magdalene singing the praises of a curiously red wine-cooler called New Testament, "the favorite brew of the King of Jews!"
To view, go to Underground Film and enter "New Testament" in the films search field on the left side of the page. Then click "view" under the appropriate result that pops up. Once you're at its page, I recommend choosing the best view movie option, if your system/connection can handle the meaty 16.7Meg file. Check it out, be sure to sit through the credits to take in the very special "Believe in the Profit" ditty, then come on back and share your view. You'll be ubercool and found undeniably attractive by potential romantic interests if you do.
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Interesting reference to Rodney King in there - thats not exactly "news" and therefore not topical. Does the director have alterior motives for this film? Make a film that is guaranteed to upset them bible-belt christians, throw in a "funny gag" of Rodney and make them see that what they should really be worried about is not films such as these - but humanity itself.
Or am I far too deep this morrning? The idea was funnier when I read about it than when I saw it. Clay, you are always funny.
Ahhh, Shika - You're a tough entity to please in the morning. Your temporal topicality argument is not without merit - that's why I made it clear right from the start that it was a 1998 production. There is a discussion of God, Creationism, Christianity, Ethics, Morality and Creativity currently going on in Adland's Adlist, so I posted this little article to be timely and relevant, not necessarily newsworthy. Heck. I even used dabitch's groovy "Ad Critic" icon instead of the "News Scoop" one. Plus, I was curious as to what my fellow feisty industry opinionators had to say about it - such volatile fodder is always good for a few exuberant rants.
Oh Clay I didn't mean you being not topical/late - I just thought the reference in the film was old..OR..Eh, I had a bad clientmeeting this morning actually. That was it. I thought the musical bits were the funniest - the film only reaches halfway there somehow. The way you describe the idea is far funnier than the result.
No fret Shika - all is cool and fine and dandy. Clients will do that to a person ;-) Anyhoo... I still thought the idea was kinda novel and funny. If they woulda cut it down to under three minutes, it would have even better tho. Still, not too shabby for two thousand smackers and a bunch of volunteers.
...I wonder if that total included tithe...