LA Times on ATHF-C-MFFT

In Gina Piccalo’s carefully worded puff piece in today’s LA Times Sunday Calendar section (“Aqua Teen Jumps to Big Screen”, April 8th, 2007), even the one die-hard Hunger Force fan they got to go on record, Chuck Warren of Long Beach, couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the so-called “colon movie”:

Aside from the band of drunk frat guys next to them, Warren said the crowd response was pretty tame. As far as the film itself, Warren considered it just another poke in the ribs from Maiellaro and Willis.

“It’s them saying it doesn’t matter,” he said. “As a fan, I kind of liked that. They threw it all in your face and you had to take what you wanted.”

The LA Times article is typical of the kind of publicity stories placed by the movie studios each week, prior to a film’s release, in hopes of generating some box office numbers on opening day. But even by puff piece standards (which are pretty low), this one has a hard time marshaling anything positive to say about the film. (It was reviewed on the Brew, March 17th)

The jist of the piece is that AQHF-C-MFFT is a feature film is based on a TV “cult” hit that, before the Boston bomb scare incident, most people never heard of. And that most viewers either love it or hate it.

Ms. Piccalo has seen the movie, and you don’t have to read between the lines to get the idea that she is warning you to stay away. She sums it all up in this one sentence: “To an outsider, this is either self-indulgent bad writing or fodder for bong hits and acid trips.”