9 February 2000

But back to berating studio people...it's this simple. Make decisions about the Web, but don't make them based on personal preferences or false perceptions created by other media outlets. I'm not going to name names because that would be foolish and unkind. But I will say this: The day of reckoning is coming for some of you out there, on both sides of the ledger. We are moving towards the line where, once crossed, some of us on the Web will be in a position (some of us already are, even if you don't recognize it) to take something valuable away from the publicists who treat the Web like it is some sort of afterthought. We are moving quickly to the point where people will read movie ads and wonder, "Why isn't there a dot-com reviewer commenting positively on the movie?" We are moving quickly towards the point where the line between dot-com coverage and print coverage are 100 percent interchangeable in terms of readership and influence. We are moving quickly to the point where the revolution is no revolution at all, but just a variation of printing.

But only for the dot-com companies that take the steps to act as legitimate critical resources.

This is a huge moment of transition for all of the movie world. Just a decade ago, movie critics were on the air on TV stations across the U.S. Now, we have a world of "entertainment reporters". Major outlets, like the New York Post, feel comfortable bringing in a new critic from the City desk, while the former one heads into a conservative column. The New York Times hires a critic, who may end up being quite good, but whose entire critical history seems to be a non-critical piece about Martin Scorsese, written for a Website. America Online, now our uber-parent (I guess) theoretically the most powerful voice in the dot-com universe, can't decide whether it wants Entertainment Asylum to be a premiere entertainment site or a publicity adjunct of the movies it covers, raising and lowering its staff levels like a showbiz Panama Canal.

And while I'm sitting here trying not to be too cocky...as though that were possible...I look at this world evolving and I wonder where my vision fits in. Is there any point to reaching for serious quality other than to indulge oneself? If you make the effort, will anyone notice the difference? Who is the audience? How do we make these values evident to the studios? Whose flagpole do we run ideas up?

I am an idealist. But I am also a realist. I know that part of what I have to do to build an audience is to build the level of discourse. I know that we have to offer those of you who are already invested movie lovers something more than you get at other sites. And at the same time, we have to create a filmic "Sesame Street" leading to an "Electric Company" leading to an "In The News" to bring along those who "just want to be entertained." And how does one do that when trying to keep a level of purity through all the slings and arrows and disappointments and miscalculations and bad taste and mob mentality that surrounds us every day?

I'm not sure.

But there's no purpose to writing about Steven Spielberg's "inevitable" death other than to have something to talk about. His family, including his DreamWorks family, has a lot more at stake (and I mean emotionally) than those of us on his periphery do. Any moron who paints Scorsese with the wide brushstrokes that they also use on every kid director who comes along, making judgements on a career based on one film, should be forced to turn in the keyboard. And if you don't love the world you touch every day, seek a new life. If you are smart enough to get a job misleading readers, you are smart enough to get a job you like.

A 33-year-old, physical specimen of a millionaire is dead because his car slid on some ice. You don't even have to go to Bosnia or Rwanda to find real tragedy. But is it as bad? After all, the guy had a great life up until then. Some people live to 100 with fewer great days. Perspective, perspective, perspective....

Of course, the things that keep me up at night aren't civil wars and lost kidneys. I worry about my family. I worry about my lack of a family of my own genetic material. I worry about the fights that lay just hours ahead of me. I worry about that which I can touch. I am as egocentric as anyone. And so I rant. And so I rave. And so I wonder.

READER OF THE DAY: The B-Mer writes: "I think a more interesting question to ask, is whether or not reviewers even matter anymore. The lemming-esque public is clearly going to see (or avoid) whatever they want, regardless of how many critics are panning the film (see Double Jepoardy, Inspector Gadget, and any Adam Sandler film) or praising it (The Insider.) Not to mention the fact that there always seems to be some reviewer out there (if Paul Wunder isn't available) who will say something good about the film, inevitably willing to lavish four starts on some piece of tripe like Snow Day.

Critics can occasionally serve the greater good by trying to bring attention to a lesser-known movie, something like Boys Don't Cry, that deserves to be seen. But let's be honest, most of us are going to see an unknown movie because a friend who we trust has seen it, not because Kenneth Turan thinks it's a gem. And those of us seeing the movie already are plugged in enough to know that it's out there.

Not to mention the fact that reviews are no longer balanced pieces of criticism, but seem more and more to be fueled by personal vendettas and anti-establishment thinking. Now I know I shouldn't be looking in papers like the Village Voice or L.A. Weekly for a balanced review of a film, but those papers' so-hip-it-hurts reviews border on the ridiculous as well. (i.e. Voice's thrashing of Saving Private Ryan, or L.A. Weekly calling Dogma "the best movie of the year." Please. Kevin Smith could film himself taking a dump and the alternative press would knock themselves over trying to find new ways to describe his cinematic brilliance.) That's not to say those papers don't have their place, and in fact that same attitude is what makes them so much fun to read. However, when every studio film is automatically considered a scion of Satan, and an indie film is always a good one, these predictable "alternative" reviews lose their influence as well.

As far as the mainstream reviewers go, I've given up hope there long ago. These reviewers increasingly seem to be unable to write a spoiler-free review, not to mention incredibly uninteresting puff pieces, like the Newsweek article so (deservingly) ravaged in your column. Personally, the only time reviews serve me is AFTER I've seen the film, when I'm interested to read what other people think, their opinions for liking/disliking something or to learn something about the film I didn't catch the first time around."

E ME: I'm making too much of this, aren't I?