Gigli focus group (from The Onion)

Damn, my network - onion is banned so I cant read it

btw, what is gigli ? female gigilo ?

Gigli is the new gangster style romantic comedy movie coming out with Ben and Jennifer. Hee, I will just print it here, but for those who can access the link, the pic of the fake focus group form they show is hilarious...

HOLLYWOOD, CA?-Focus groups at advance screenings for Gigli, a romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez set to open nationwide July 30, have demanded a new ending in which both stars die "in as brutal a manner as possible," sources at Sony Pictures said Tuesday.


"The movie is pretty good, I guess," read one comment card from a test-screening audience in Culver City, CA. "I liked the Al Pacino character, but I had a hard time buying Jennifer Lopez as a lesbian. I also really, really wanted [Affleck and Lopez's characters] Larry and Ricki to die, to get shot or blown up or run over by something. I would prefer to see the blood and the looks on their faces."


Above: Focus-group participants suggest possible violent deaths for characters played by Lopez and Affleck (left).
On Monday, 3,000 people in markets as varied as Dallas, Chicago, Albany, Atlanta, and Seattle screened Gigli, a gangster-themed romantic comedy written and directed by Martin Brest, in which lowly thug Affleck lets his love for hitwoman Lopez get in the way of a high-risk mob assignment. Of those viewers, 2,965 "strongly agreed" that the ending should be changed to include a graphic scene in which its main characters die.

"Many participants wrote 'shot to death' in the space provided for comments, probably thinking that it fit in with the gangster characters' stated realities," Columbia Pictures director of marketing Peter Zitterman said. "Some comments showed a lot of careful thought, such as 'point blank through head from right side,' 'both at once with single shot from elephant gun,' and 'several hundred times, with multiple camera angles showing their bodies jerking as they're shredded with a heavy hosing of lead, spraying the lens with gobbets of meat and bone and blood, with the sheer number of fist-sized exit wounds obviously precluding any sequel.' And shootings weren't the only ideas suggested, believe me."

According to the exit cards, other popular methods of achieving Lopez and Affleck's on-screen demise included car bombs, multiple stab wounds, acid baths, rabid wolf attacks, lightning strikes, and, in one case, a "hammer party."

"We never expected this kind of reaction," Zitterman said. "We've had odd results from focus groups before, but I don't recall an audience ever agreeing on such a sweeping change. If only we had done this survey in pre-production."

Although the various test audiences differed on the preferred methods of death, they seemed unanimous on one point.

"We were very surprised at how many viewers thought that, no matter what, Affleck and Lopez should not be entwined in a romantic embrace at the time of their deaths," Zitterman said. "Everyone was perfectly clear on that."

Although Brest said he is satisfied with the final cut of Gigli, he briefly considered incorporating some of the test audience's ideas into the film.


Above: One of the many focus-group comment cards calling for Gigli characters' deaths.
"The danger here is succumbing to what people in the business call 'option paralysis'?-being caught with so many good ideas that you're not sure which one to use," Brest said. "Getting shot is fine, but what about an automobile fire in which Ben and Jennifer are shown perishing in a slow-motion montage, their newfound love discarded as they try desperately to claw their way past each other's melting bodies, while slowly roasting to death in their own fat? You'd be surprised at how many people came up with that one. Or having them crawl through a field of broken glass while a safely booted and gloved Christopher Walken casually advances on them with a spray bottle of acid and a pair of bolt-cutters? I must say, a part of me loves the idea of them chewing each other to death during a 14-minute dolly shot."

Added Brest: "Believe me, after the singular experience of working with these two for several months, it would be a joy to get back together just to make these changes."

Even if time were not prohibitive, Columbia executives remained skeptical about the validity of the focus-group results.

"I find it hard to believe that audiences would harbor hostility toward such major media figures as J. Lo and Ben," Zitterman said. "With her magazine covers, clothing and perfume lines, and constant radio presence; his roles in Daredevil and Project Greenlight; and their recent joint appearances on Dateline NBC and numerous entertainment shows, how could anyone wish for anything but a resolution that unites these two attractive, highly visible celebrities?"

Insiders confirm that time constraints will prevent the much-requested death-scene additions to Gigli, which already underwent several days of fine-tuning when earlier focus groups noted a lack of romantic chemistry from the real-life couple. In light of the results, however, director Kevin Smith has said he will consider adding a gruesome double homicide to his Affleck-Lopez comedy Jersey Girl, due in theaters next year.

God, I love The Onion!

Ben Affleck was on Jay Leno night before last and I have to hand it to him -- he's good natured. He read some of the bad notices on the movie for laughs. Maybe a sequel is in order. "Gigli Meets Ishtar."

A. O. Scott in The New York Times:


In ''Gigli,'' Ben Affleck is Larry Gigli, a mob enforcer with a vintage Chevy Impala convertible, a closet full of vintage-style rayon shirts and a threadbare, thirdhand wiseguy accent. (Though he is a Los Angeles native, Larry's accent sounds as if he had been raised in the part of New Jersey that's just outside Boston.) Before we go any further, however, we should clear up the question of how to pronounce Larry's surname, and the title of the picture, in which Mr. Affleck is joined by his real-life fiancée, Jennifer Lopez. In places -- especially the long denouement, set on a beach full of bikini-wearing extras -- it is certainly jiggly. And audiences, at inappropriate moments, will find themselves helplessly giggly. But Larry's name is pronounced ZHEE-lee, or as he likes to say, ''rhymes with really.''
As in really, really silly, which is the kindest way to describe this hopelessly misconceived exercise in celebrity self-worship, which opens to nationwide ridicule today. ''Gigli,'' directed by the historically competent Martin Brest (''Beverly Hills Cop,'' ''Midnight Run,'' ''Scent of a Woman''), may be a patchwork of ideas that have been put to better use in other movies -- a glob of ''Rain Man,'' a dash of ''Prizzi's Honor,'' a schmear of ''Chasing Amy'' -- but it has a special badness all its own. Shot in nondescript Los Angeles locations, including a generic apartment where much of the action takes place, the movie has a flat, featureless look more suitable to one of the low-budget, semiprofessional productions that Mr. Affleck helps sponsor through the ''Project Greenlight'' contest.

oh boy
I don't think that movie was that bad, i don't know if it was supposed to be a comedy but i found it quite funny. I like Jennifer lopez a lot, but ben afflack (I probably spelled it wrong) is an idiot, bad actor.