I wanted to add an image of this film to the review, but I was lazy and didn’t want to take a picture of the DVD. So I went searching for images of this film online. And I saw the strangest bit of marketing. Check this out
Not only do none of the people on the cover resemble anyone in the film, look who “stars” in the film, according to the box. Not Bob Peck, who gets the most screen time, and who has the most lines. But Ben Kingsley and F. Murray Abraham. Combined, they received a total of, maybe, 5 minutes of screen time. Worse though, and I’m not sure where they got any of those pictures, they’ve mixed up Kingsley and Abraham. They’ve got Kingsley wearing a suit. The only person in the film wearing a suit was F. Murray Abraham, and he’s credited as “Cornelius (at Museum)”. And I’m not sure where they got a picture of Ben Stiller with a moustache and goatee, but it looks great on him. It just doesn’t look like Mark Hamill. And Bill Paxton has short hair in this picture. I think it’s from “Thunderbirds”, another crap film he starred in.
The byline is also quite puzzling. “The winds of change are the future of man”? Well, I guess. It should have been “This film plagiarizes ‘Blade Runner’, ‘Midnight Run’ and ‘Road Warrior'”.
Here’s what my DVD cover looks like:
At least all of the pictures were taken from the film. They’re all bad, sure, but at least they’re all taken from the film. So fine. If we’re going to make movie posters based on random images, let me try my hand at it:
Not bad. Not bad. Still not good, but better than the weird one they’re using now.
Slipstream (1989) – Weird Marketing
I find it interesting that you would devote so much time to a film that you find to be somewhat crappy.
To be honest, I think It’s a case of a film that could have been great, but it got screwed up somewhere and probably the original thrust of the film was taken away due to budget restraints.
What do you think?
Heh. You’d be surprised what kind of crappy films I devote my time to. Actually, for the film review I did, I got a lecture from a friend about the story behind Slipstream. Apparently, the funding ran out part way through shooting, and they had to do some serious rewrites, since their location budget was tapped — also, crappier post-production effects. The end result was a lousy film, but with a good initial premise, and a pretty big cast, considering. I think that’s why this film interests me (despite it sucking badly). Also, the fact that there were no less than 5 films named “Slipstream”
So you’re right, it could have been a really good film. Sometimes that’s even worse than a bad film — a film that could have been really good, but your expectations are too high, the film is done really poorly, Bill Paxton’s in it, and you cry on your way home from the theatre.