Drama on the borders of the critical community continued this week, as some sloppy reporting on an e-mail sent to Fox by the Chicago Film Critics Association, led by Dann Gire, leaked out just as Fox was figuring out how to handle the issue raised by the letter, when and how studios screen movies for critics who are not amongst the studios
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
As a self-made movie critic who publishes exclusively on the net, I have no problem with not being on the first press screening guest list. I do accept there is a critic hierarchy, and accept my place in that hierarchy… although I always did get giddy whenever I found myself in a screening room with the likes of Elvis Mitchell or Jack Mathews or Jami Bernard when I lived in New York City. I understand I will almost never get to beat Todd McCarthy to a review of the latest Hollywood film, because he will always be given first crack at a title, whilst I will be somewhat down the list.
What I DO have a problem with is when a publicist lumps me and others who do play by the rules in with the asshats who do rush to their computer and gets their insta-reviews up as soon as inhumanly possible. You’ll almost never see me get a critique up within 24 hours of seeing a movie, because I like to swirl a film around my head for a while, not unlike a wine connoisseur with their bottles of Bordeaux. It’s more important for me to understand why I reacted to a movie the way I did before I write, and that’s something that I feel most modern critics are not able to do on an hour’s notice.
What I would like from publicists is for them to recognize the professionalism of the onliners who do play by the rules, and I want them to come straight out when they do invite me to a screening and say exactly when I must hold my review. “Save for opening week” isn’t good enough. “Please hold until no earlier than 9AM Pacific Time on the Monday before release” tells me exactly what they expect.
For a bunch of communicators, it’s a shame we (the critics and the publicists) can’t just talk to each other like civilised human beings.
Is it really fair to say the New York Times broke an embargo? The review says they bought the book off the shelf at a store that put it out early.
So the news that Fox just pulled out of Comic-Con has nothing to do with their continued paranoia of press/people actually seeing their footage?
Coincidental.
Here’s a solution for Fox, which seems to be gun shy about showing its product: Stop making movies.
fox pulling out of comicon is huge. it echoes things ive been hearing for awhile now: a belief from the studios that these events are far more costly in terms of control of the property and not worth the effort.
It’s unfortunate that is had to happen, but these cell phone cameras and eight thousand websites that run these stories have frustrated the studios because they just can’t control them. they have the main film sites on lockdown and can filter content to them easily, so why bother screening for a few thousand convention atendees and lose control.
Spiderman 3 is a fine example. They showed a venom clip at Comicon. It showed up on the web over a hundred time on youtube and other sites. So the first glimpses of venom people get is a 2 megapixel camera phone.
Couple things… 1. Yes, Eric, it is fair to say that NYY and Balt Sun broke embargo. Embargos are agreed upon by content owners and the media. It is the mindset that “if I can see it, I can write about it” which makes studios so appropriately paranoid.
2. People need to start understanding that this issue is not just about how a studio feels about their product. In the case of The Simpsons, I have been convinced that the paranoia is really about spoilers… not because it makes sense logically, but because each of these movies has a team of people behind the scenes, each of which has their own personalities. There are producers who should be showing their movies who won’t, some who shouldn’t be showing their movies who do, and some who are just plain difficult. This is why I feel that consistency on the studio set by accountability on the part of the press would be a hugely positive step.
3. Making a ComicCon thread…
This is a small point and not really worth arguing about, but… really? You’re saying the Times can break an embargo imposed by a publisher on the sale of the book by booksellers? An embargo the Times, as a third party, never agreed to?
I pretty much agree with everything else you’ve written above, but for some reason this nit makes me want to pick.
Do you think that The Times’ book review doesn’t have relationships with all the publishers and embargo agreements… especially as the NYT often is given the advantage of being first out of the gate?
Obviously, all book reviewers are getting copies of books well in advance of the publication dates. The effort is more than 2 hours and writing time. And unlike movies, it seems to me to be fairly standard to review before the book is available to the public by a few days. But like the movies, this is all agreed to.
That is why the NYT is rationalizing their review break by arguing that some schmuck broke the rules so they can… same at in Baltimore, where some guy got a delivery a few days early, so BOOM, all bets are off.
Now, I would happily discuss whether NYT would have gone had The Baltimore Sun not have gone.
Is you nit scratched now?
I see what you’re saying, but the embargo here amounts to a deal to hold publication of a review in exchange for the privilege of an advance copy of the book. And you’re right, the Times almost certainly had been given a review copy. But the review, for the purposes of this discussion, was not written from that privileged copy– it was written about a book that apparently anybody in New York could have bought off the shelf. The “information” obtained by the Times was not a part of the original deal and would therefore not be subject to the same agreement.
Agree to disagree on that point, I suppose. It probably doesn’t deserve the time already devoted to it.
What do you think, would the Times have gone ahead in the Sun hadn’t? I don’t think the Sun’s decision affects the ethics of the Times’ decision either way.