Also this issue:

Don't Stop, Just Go
A South Philly neighborhood has an uphill fight against a malt liquor shop.
-Daryl Gale

Gale Warning
Katz Scratchin' and Keel Haulin'
-Daryl Gale

The District
-Mary F. Patel

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

July 17-23, 2003

city beat

fineprint

Less words, more story.

The Tao of Tea

Stadiums named for companies? Took a while, but we’re learning to accept it. But now, it seems as if the last voice of pure, modern-day philosophical wisdom as been corrupted by the beast of corporate advertising.

In an effort to better reach its target audience -- read: sarcastic 18- to 24-year-olds -- the Snapple Beverage Group may have already infiltrated your favorite Chinese restaurant by sneaking its name into fortune cookies, of all things.

Sure, the delicious sugar-cookie exterior remains unadulterated but deceptively concealed therein is the wit of the Snapple bottle cap rather than words from the ancient Mandarin sage who once sent mystical insights into daily life via the crunchy after-dinner snack. And yes, the message comes complete with a plug for Snapple.

The fortunes, says Vincent Ly of Yu Hsiang Garden restaurant on Germantown Avenue, are "almost as bad as the ones that are actually in fortune cookies." So now in more than 90 restaurants, pseudo-philosophy has been replaced with messages like "You will blame something on your dog," or "Your new catch phrase, ŒIt's bok choy, baby!' will not catch on." Then, of course, there's the classic, "Dinner with an investment banker will be chow-not-so-fun."

The ads are part of a massive advertising blitz that entails everything from Snapple-ized pizza boxes, napkin holders and deli bags to logos on lifeguard towers and banner planes downashore. Proud of the move is Maura Mottolese, vice president of marketing for Snapple, who says the unique advertising barrage that started in May has already proven fruitful.

"The campaign has been received extremely well," she says. "It really interrupts consumers' lives in unexpected ways."

Interrupting lives to hock sugary wares? We suspect Confucius would say company that go too far for profit deserves fiscal tummy ache. —Morris Bracy

Professor Reeves' Digital Lesson Plan

The Franklin Institute will never make moviegoers forget Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, but officials there are currently pondering a bigtime pop-culture move. When the third installment of the Matrix saga opens in November, Neo-heads may not need to go any further than the Institute’s 350-seat Tuttleman IMAX Theater to get their fix.

Though the Institute is already talking to the IMAX folks about showing the movie, the idea could get caught on contractual snags -- how do they cast The Matrix Revolutions as an educational offering?

"When we are having these very preliminary negotiations with IMAX, one of the things we are looking for right out of the gate is if the contract is going to mandate that we run their film weekdays during regular work hours where our business is primarily school groups," explains Andrew Wood, the Institute's theater director. "If so, then it is something we are just going to have to pass up ... [but] if we can get away with running the Matrix just on evenings or weekends, that is a lot more attractive to us."

Normally, for regular films to make that IMAX leap, they have to be digitally remastered from their traditional, 35 mm format. But since this film will be simultaneously released in both styles, the Tuttleman has become an enviable location. In the past, they've shown such big-screen features as Ultimate X: The Movie (made specifically for IMAX in summer 2002) and The Lion King (December 2002). But the Star Wars films, Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia didn't pass educational muster. (Ticket prices rise above the $8 charge for educational fare since IMAX sets its rates by the film's length.)

"Even educators were very excited to have us run The Lion King. I think they wanted to see how we would incorporate our educational mission into our decision to run the feature," Wood says, noting that Disney provided a curriculum guide covering lessons on everything from character building and music appreciation to geography and biology. "Some of these other films are going to be a stretch, in particular something like The Matrix." — Erin Zlomek