Wednesday, 25 February 1998

RANTING AND RAVING
Thank all of you who wrote in about my "biting" (sarcastic quotation marks by reader, Geoff W) commentary on Harry Knowles and Burn Hollywood Burn (click here to see yesterday's column). Some of you were kinder than others about it, but all of you were accurate. Harry was improperly quoted by Disney and thus, this retraction of sorts.

But now I have something to rant about. Harry too. He wrote me to state his case and is certainly the Reader Of The Day. Harry Knowles wrote (in full):

"Hey Dave: Well, gosh. I see you can read the L.A. Times, but if you read the site, you would realize that there was an apostrophe after my name, which denoted a possessive. (editors note: The ad read: "An A+! It rocks! I can't wait to take my girlfriend." Harry Knowles' Ain't It Cool Network") You see, I never wrote those 'Disney words.' In fact, it's from a review that appeared on my site on December 7 of 1997. If you read the site, you would see I took Burn Hollywood Burn to task for the blatantly misleading quote that was attributed, in a roundabout way, to me. If they were to quote that review they should have credited Agent Apple Crisp. Well, Disney contacted me yesterday, they said they were pulling the ads, and changing the credit to: Agent Apple Crisp, Ain't It Cool News. There, now I don't know about you, but the concept of Disney quoting a pastry which can be found across the street from Mann's Village in Westwood in a Donut shop called Stan's Donuts. Well, it's hilarious."

It's not hilarious. It's damage control on top of the damage control Disney is already exercising on a movie that they decided was all but unreleasable many months ago. And thanks for the lesson on possessives. The apostrophe doesn't mean anything except to an equivocating Disney legal department trying to avoid a suit. I read your site after going to press. Thus, this retraction of sorts. And I prefer the banana and peanut butter donuts at Stan's. They've been adding to my waistline for more than a decade.

Harry continues: "It also invalidates any criticism that Walt Disney Corporation could level about test screening reviews, and how they shouldn't be allowed. Because now they themselves have quoted from them as if it were The Hollywood Reporter."

Not quite, Harry. As I pointed out in my column, Ain't It Cool was quoted in the company of Martin Grove, Stephen Farber, Charles Fleming and MPAA President Jack Valenti. Only Farber can be legitimately called a critic. If The Hollywood Reporter (or any other major outlet) had printed a decent review (as opposed to the pull from Groves' butt-kissing column), Disney would be running that. However, you are right. Disney blinked by including your site and they should be embarrassed. They clearly meant it to be funny. It wasn't.

And in closing: "15 minutes? Not hardly. I've been doing this in the limelight for a year now, and trust me, you ain't seen nothing yet. P.S. Thanks for your concern though."

Well, Harry, you are about to learn the harsh reality of show business. Things change. I'm not really concerned, one way or the other. You typify what is great about the Net, but you also prove out many of the fears people have about the Net. You have created a new form of covering the industry, running stories that major magazines wouldn't even consider news. And at the same time, you are mostly running gossip, sent to you via e-mail from people who are, when you think about it, being disloyal to their employers for the sake of their own amusement, which also means that it's all biased, naturally. And you don't have any way of confirming it before it runs on your site. Sometimes it's right and sometimes it's wrong, but who will ever know because most of it is so premature that it's going to change six times anyway simply as a matter of the way films are made.

Ultimately, it just doesn't matter, as long as people take it with the grain of salt it deserves. It's when people -- and you -- start to take yourself seriously that you could be considered a menace. That's where Matt Drudge finds himself. His site has a lot of value, except when every "scoop" is about how Matt scooped everyone else and isn't getting enough credit. All he really did in this Clinton mess was to print an e-mail from a pissed off Newsweek staffer. You aren't in Drudge's ego league. Not yet.

You know, I was part of the media rush that legitimized you a year ago. I wrote at least two articles about you for Entertainment Weekly. Got to chat with you. You seem like a very nice guy. But you don't know much about what is really going on out here. You will be remembered in history books as a groundbreaker. I mean it. But you are no reporter. You are no insider. And you've already gotten more key strokes than you deserve in my column. Thanks for writing. Sorry about the mistake.

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E ME: What do you think, gang?