Misleading award boasting in advertising

Trailer and advertising pet peeve: when they tout somebody as an Oscar-winner, even when they aren't using the skill that won them the award in said picture. One of many examples is the trailer for the upcoming The Company Men, which lists Academy Award winners Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper and Kevin Coster in the all-star cast. Tommy Lee and Cooper won their trophies as actors, so fair game, but Affleck won his as a screenwriter and Costner as director. Since Affleck had nothing to do with the script and Costner didn't direct it, touting them as Oscar Winners is, to me, annoying and intentionally misleading. It is technically correct, they are indeed Oscar winners. But if you are going to this movie to enjoy some of Ben's Oscar-caliber writing or might be scared off from Costner's overlong Oscar-style directing, you'd be misinformed.

But, they know most moviegoers can't remember who won the awards last year, much less exactly what somebody might have actually won for over the course of their careers, not when watching a preview. It's just a brand-name "prestige" title, Academy Award Winner, that they exploit and therefore even further devalue.

A small, meaningless thing, I know, but I'm pedantic that way.

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Interesting topic..

I totally agree with his, I even finding it annoying when they say it.
I have seen the mention of Ben Kingsley as an oscar winner for best actor in b-movie type trailers.. & he acts pretty bad in those as well..

That's coz he's stopped playing pacifists (I was never that sold on his beast in Sexy Beast, for example. But that seems to be just me.) At least he's actually won an award for that discipline tho.

I'm also left a bit non-plussed by 'From the Executive Producer of...' taglines. It's not like they normally have a huge input on the artistic side, as a rule.

But perhaps no 'from' is more ominous these days than 'From the mind of M Night Shyamalan' ...

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I personally can't stand Kingsley, my friends keep telling me how awesome he was in Sexy Beast. I try my best to avoid it.

I agree with the "executive producers" as well, Bruckheimer uses it a lot. Maybe he wants to be related to his films than the directors.
I know many people who will identify PoTC & Prince of Persia as Bruckheimer movies, they wouldn't be able to name the directors.

I remember I had to convince some of my friends that 'Hero' (the one with Jet Li) was NOT directed by Quentin Tarantino. Same with Hostel. I told them it would help of they actually read the little text on the back of the dvds.