One of the great things about teenagers is that, while they may take a "whatever" approach to the fight over privatizing Social Security or successfully naming the mayor of Los Angeles, they are full of strong opinions about the really important things in life, starting with why Jessica Alba is cool and Lindsay Lohan is not.
There is no better way to help decipher the baffling intricacies of pop culture than by corralling a group of teenagers and letting them gab about summer movies. Now in its fifth year, my Summer Movie Posse is an informal focus group of neighborhood kids who watch trailers for the most hotly anticipated youth-oriented summer films. (To make their parents more comfortable and to prevent them from being deluged by Hollywood marketers, Posse members are identified only by first name.)
This year's group of eight teens, assembled by my neighborhood pal Gabe and his younger sister, Ta, would never pass muster as a statistically significant sampling. But as media savvy teens, they represent a key target audience for movie studios. During much of the year they may see only one movie every three weeks. But during the summer, they see a movie nearly every week, which is why studios cater to their whims in pretty much the same way that Vegas hotels roll out the red carpet for a high roller with a wad of thousand-dollar bills.
Studio marketers often argue over whether white Westside teens have the same attitude about movies as kids in South Philly or Oklahoma City, but judging from past Posse juries, their reactions aren't out of sync with the rest of the country. Last year, their favorite trailers were "Anchorman" and "Dodgeball," which went on to be hits. The low scores went to "Soul Plane" and "Van Helsing," which were duds.
At the very least, they are pop culture canaries in a coal mine, offering a sneak peek at who's on the way up and who's on the way down. They loved Johnny Depp before he was in "Pirates of the Caribbean;" they loathed Jessica Simpson long before she had her own reality TV show. If someone jumps the shark, they're the first to know. This year, they were especially dismissive of Lohan, star of the upcoming "Herbie: Fully Loaded." As Alex, 18, succinctly put it: "The only person who [is worse] than Lindsay Lohan is Hilary Duff."
