Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Remembering The Classics: The HIRE

I dig through my backcrates of movies like a DJ digs for a record of choice, and in my search, I came across a classic collection that you can't find at the local Redbox... BMW Presents THE HIRE, an incredibly cool web series originally conceived not only as a marketing pitch to promote BMW's new line of cars, but to hype the powerhouse filmmaking collective, PROPAGANDA FILMS. ( Remember when IMAGE formed back in the early 90's? Same thing)

The web film series also increased the visibility level of CLIVE OWEN to superstar status (Until he pulled that SHOOT'EM UP stunt)... Anyways, the series was narratively brilliant (telling a complete tale within 10 minutes better than most flicks running at 90 minutes), visually exciting (JOHN WOO, JOHN CARNAHAN, TONY SCOTT, WONG KAR WAI... End of discussion.), and perhaps one of the best uses of multimedia marketing I've seen in a minute... The success of the series spawned 2 comic series (DARK HORSE and DC), as well as it's full length counterpart, THE TRANSPORTER (Clive declined on the role that JASON STRATHAM was only too happy to accept). Ah yes, PLANET GRIFFIN remembers the classics. You should too.


2 comments:

Brian Miller said...

Ahhh I remember this one! Been a while since I've seen it. Very cool.

RodBuddah said...

The narrative storytelling in this one is my favorite (with Woo's 'Hostage' right behind it)... The visual action is great, but suspense is king here--- you actually ROOT for the hero to make it.

Besides, note how Clive takes the parking lot, and you have a good visual of me making it to work on time.