21 February 2001

Five, Lesson: There is a shelf life on sanity in this job. There are exceptions to that rule. Obviously. In a number of cases, writers I know have become saner after too many years on the job because they achieve a perspective that is much more appropriate. When I started doing this, I had a tendency to judge, harshly, the behavior of those young writers who were so caught up in their roles in the game that they forgot to be human. These people are still not friends - they know instinctually to stay away from me - but I am less angry at them because I have come to see how easy it is to lose perspective. And I see them with more pity than rage. There's an old saw about journalism that it isn't you, it's your outlet. Well, I never believed that. And so, when roughcut folded, there was more panic about choosing what to do than about whether I'd be able to do something I wanted to do. But the basis for most power in this business is your outlet. If you work for the trades, you have one kind of power. The L.A or N.Y. Times, another. Magazines are a whole different hierarchy. And then, there is the web. Hire who you want, but the size of your IPO (or more realistically, your proposed IPO) is what it's all about.

You see, movie journalism is all about reflected light. It's not what you write, but your ability to get others to write about what you write is the source of power. Make no mistake. Anita Busch made a much greater effort trying to get Jim Romanesko from linking to my comments on her than to stop me from writing them. You see, she has no right to silence me from writing the truth, which is all I did last week. But others writing about it was far more dangerous.

And that's the reality that leaves me kind of cold about what I do for a living. It's not bad enough that I have to deal with a ridiculous, baseless legal threat from someone who should have known better than to try to demotivated me with threats. I had to deal with reflections of that story that were not only based on the facts, but on how the writers of those stories felt about me. Or, more to the point, in one case, how that writer felt about my relationship with another movie writer. I have to deal with being accused of being insignificant by one group while another won't give my URL because I am considered "competition" while both embrace the same threat-less entities time after lazy reporting time.

The truth of the matter is, I don’t want to be in the same business as some of these incredibly angry people. I don’t want to be judged by the standards that major dailies are held too, not because I can’t keep up, but because their standards are way too low. The more "important" I become, the more I have to deal with people who have to hate me because I could take their jobs.

I don't want your jobs!!!!

And I don't want to be left alone. I need to have you, my readers, behind me in order to demand a seat at the table. So, I need to be a social animal, not matter how singular the web experience is supposed to be. Because I don’t want to leave you. You are a community that actually gives a damn about what I give a damn about, much like the filmmakers. It isn't that you agree with me all the time. I know that. And plenty of you let me know that by e-mail every day. When I wrote about nasty mail above, I didn't mean just disagreement. The debate of this column everyday is one of the most important parts of my work here. Those people are just being nasty. But so many of you take time out to write thoughtful, insightful comments... this is better than any chat room. We communicate. And I love that.

So, what is the point of all this navel gazing? I wish I could tell you. I'm trying to strike a balance between all the things I want. The Hot Button has been a glorious thing and it's not going away anytime soon. But I have changed careers before. I was a script doctor on some movies that got made and stopped because, in my heart, I hated it. I was in the celebrity ad game and became a self-indulgent ass. (Yes, worse than now.) I was in theater and TV producing and had my head handed to me ...but I gave them up because I wasn't happy even when it was going good. I even gave up movie journalism when an explosive story I came upon got turned down by every major outlet I respected for all the wrong reasons. Ironically, I got into a beef with Bob Dowling at that time when I, somewhat naively, challenged the role of the trades in this industry in a private exchange with him. He eventually forgave my brashness. I doubt he will be as forgiving of this latest clash with his editor, Anita Busch. But it's really all the same argument - where's the line?

Maybe what I really need to do is to figure out a way to go visit Phil Kaufman and Rod Lurie on the set of his new movie and to cover Roger's 3^rd Annual Overlooked Film Festival objectively even though he has been my patron saint lately and still keep my integrity intact. Maybe I need to shrink my Rolodex. Maybe I need to find a new perspective. Maybe I need to keep Sharon Waxman on The Washington Post in mind as she openly admits what she doesn't know about the business she covers while working her butt off to do a complete job as the quality journalist she is. Maybe I need to separate the Orwall/Lippman/Morganstern from the King.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe ... the thing is, I love movies. And that's all that really matters. Let God sort out the rest.

E ME: Give it to me, baby.