EVERY DAY WE STEP closer to the glorious, Taco Bell-scented future promised to us in Demolition Man. I speak not of Wesley Snipes’ blond-fade-and-OshKosh ensemble (although I wouldn’t be surprised to see such styles stalking down SE Hawthorne), but of a future in which the prevailing visual art form is advertisements.
But said vision doesn’t need to be as crass and cynical as all that—if you’re cool with paying a couple bucks for 90 minutes’ worth of the UK’s best ad firms trying their damndest to sell you everything, the Northwest Film Center is screening this year’s 2010 British Television Advertising Award winners, and there’s some damned clever filmmaking to be glimpsed in these 30-60 second stories. True, it’s a little jarring when something quietly beautiful wraps up with a McDonald’s logo—but this is the country that also spat out Benny Hill, after all, so stuff like a Dr. Pepper spot consisting of a single, extended dick joke shows up too.
With spots like the already famous one for The Beatles: Rock Band and Keira Knightley’s domestic abuse PSA, this reel is more entertaining and evocative than most legitimate films this year. Demolition Man awaits; I go toward him gladly.
