On Flushing, just past Metropolitan, I see a billboard on the side of a building for the soon-to-be-released He’s Just Not That Into You. Having just watched the trailer, I assure you it’s pretty much whatever you think it is.
My beef is not with the movie, but the curious placement of this ad. The building it was attached to houses an auto parts store. And not a Napa or a Pep Boys, but one of those dingy, oily places that sells used carburetors and wallpapers itself with centerfolds.
On one side of this building is another auto parts store–bigger and more well lit, but in the same spiritual ballpark.
On the other side is a yard of some kind. I can’t tell what it houses–lumber, granite, sheetrock, construction equipment–because the yard is fenced in by a 15-foot-high brick wall topped with razor wire. For good measure, there’s a black metal watchtower in the middle of the yard. Any resemblance between this and a prison is purely intentional.
The entire surrounding neighborhood is intensely industrial, full of the kind of businesses no one ever thinks about. Like truck tire patchers, or fake crystal chandelier suppliers. I would be shocked to find out that more than five women work in this neighborhood. And out of those five, four of them probably run the only bodega in a 20-block radius.
In other words, I’d like to suggest to the folks at New Line Cinema that their advertising budget would be best spent elsewhere.
