"The Reader" (see my comments on it here) is apparently going into wider release today. There's a full-page ad for it in the tabloid-sized weekend section of the Washington Post. But clearly, the big selling point for the critic's favorite is not the moral dilemmas at the heart of the picture (which add up to almost nothing, if you ask me--again, see my earlier comments).
No, the selling point for wide release is SEX.
The ad features a shot of Kate Winslet and the male lead (unidentified in the ad, which tells you a whole lot right there), obviously naked, and engaged in an intra-coital kiss. This still from the movie takes up a third of the page. Under that is a quote from Roger Ebert: "... Director Stephen Daldry portrays them with a great deal of nudity and sensuality...."
Yup, your great directors get that way by "portraying" their characters "with a great deal of nudity." Cos, you know, if you really want to exhibit the layers of emotion, you can, you know, take the long way around and use situations and choices and actions and words or you can, you know, just do it directly and put 'em up there without any clothes on. (I'm being sarcastic.)
I'll have none of it. I don't object to the nudity. I don't object to the sex. I don't object to the sexual appeal of the advertising.
But I do object to pretend-intellectuals feigning depth in a picture when all they're really selling is Kate Winslet's backside and boobs. Please.
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