March 14, 2002 Continued...

IN BED WITH HARRY:  My beloved niece Alisa bought me a book while she was in town a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t really need it, so I exchanged it at Barnes & Noble’s.  So, I’m walking around, looking for the “right” books… I never know what’s going to catch my eye.  I just read a great book from Canada called “Then Again” by Elyse Friedman.  I don’t know why it hasn’t been published in the U.S., but it hasn’t and it should be. 

Anyway… I picked up Harry’s book and took a look.  Okay… I guess I have to buy the thing.  I’ve been tough on Harry over the years (read: honest) and I certainly owe him the respect of hearing his story in his (and the boys’) own words.  Besides, I’ve been part of his story.  I wrote the Entertainment Weekly articles he mentions as critical to his popularity.  I was the one who found out the truth about his fake Oscar nomination predictions.  I have forked over freelance dollars to “RoboGeek” and “Smilin’ Jack Ruby,” fought and been friendly with “Moriarty” and was the other web guy who got multiple shots on the Ebert show.  I’ve advised studios on how to deal with Harry and fought with others about how they were dealing with him. 

I took home five books that night, but Harry’s was the one I decided to start with. 

Well… it was an easy read.  So easy that I started and finished it within two hours.  Of course I skimmed parts of it.  It was surprisingly well written, but much of the time, I felt like I was reading an overlong magazine story. 

Harry understood something from the beginning that I have never been willing to indulge.  He sells his legend instead of his reality.  He knows that being “the fat, red headed guy in his dad’s basement” is the best hook in the world… for the same reasons that Drudge wore that stupid “I’m an old fashioned reporter” hat for years.  He’s the only one who does this and the only one who does that… unless you read the dozens of other people who do the same thing.  To read Knowles’ book, he’s the only person out here who really cares. 

And on the major issues, he just doesn’t get it…he still doesn’t get it.  The reason a movie critic is not only free of obligation to research the foundational materials from a film, but would be failing his readership to do so, is NOT because we don’t respect the “fly over” states.  It’s because a film critic reviews films… not scripts, not novels, not business deals.  It doesn’t do a movie audience any good to know what we think about what is around the film.  The film, for better or worse, is its own living piece of art.  The best adaptation or the worse… it doesn’t matter.  What matters is the movie.

I have this argument with Jeff Wells all the time.  I don’t care what he thinks about this script or that script.  I care about the final film.  And I’ll tell you why.  I know how movies are made.  I have actually made films… as a writer, as a producer and as an editor.  Each step in the process has its own life.  Each process has things that go right and things that go wrong.  If you really knew what happened through the whole process of making a film, you would have another film.  There is a reason why William Goldman’s non-fiction books are classics.  (I love his novels also.)  He is one of the few people who actually knew what happened and wrote honestly about it afterwards. 

But in terms of criticism, what matters in the end is the movie… not the process.  As much as I love Eyes Wide Shut, reading about the script and all the other elements after seeing the movie a half dozen times was great.  But I’m thrilled that I didn’t read the Schnitzler before I saw the film.  The film stands.

Likewise, Harry still doesn’t understand why reporting reactions to test screenings is wrong and not helpful to filmmakers.  Screw the studios.  When someone reviews a test screening, it doesn’t just hurt “the bad guys.”  As bad as the situation with NRG is, early screenings are still helpful to filmmakers, even if the numerical analysis of the art is absurd.  Again, anyone who has actually created anything would understand.  While guys like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez celebrate the pirate nature of Knowles’ calling, would either one invite anyone to judge their writing in the middle of a draft? 

Obviously, I have a deep and abiding interest in process.  But by being a walking information hub, I take on a responsibility.  I know, quite well, after years of dealing with Harry, that he is happy to be the arbitrator of what is or is not a responsible action.  The problem I have always had with that is that he is not honest about it.  When he writes about promoting a film by posting lots of false reviews under made up names, he is bragging about what a great guy he is… and I am disgusted that anyone would so blithely betray his readership.  A lie for good cause is still a lie. 

The truth is, between the time that Warner Bros. gave Harry his book deal and the time of the book’s publication, Harry has become a well-defined part of the system.  The last major public debate around Ain’t It Cool News was over the early Gladiator screening almost two years ago.  Harry trashed Rollerball last summer, the first and only time he has ever written against a film that he was given early access to by the filmmakers, and lazy writers credited him with delaying the troubled film which had already been delayed twice by MGM.  John McTiernan hoped to turn MGM’s head using the same method that Paul Verhoeven used the summer before on Hollow Man and it backfired.  Maybe a rave from Harry could have helped Rollerball stay in a late summer slot.  But the failure of Rollerball was writ large long before Harry was flown in for a screening. 

I have no doubt.  Harry is the top geek.  When it comes to teen boys, Harry attracts a key part of the market and studios have figured it out.   Do studios see him as any less malleable than the junket whores that Knowles rips in the book?  Nope.  (And if Harry knew how things really worked, he wouldn’t be writing that junketeers don’t get one-on-ones and sight visits.  The first day of virtually every junket is ALL one-on-ones.  Studios try to get TV press to do set visits all the time.  Oy!) 

The book doesn’t make me feel any differently about Harry.  He’s pleasant enough.  But he is as myopic and self-serving as any film executive I’ve ever met.  Does he love movies?  Absolutely.  Is his story remarkable?  No doubt.  He is a real folk hero.  And he deserves to be a folk hero.  He worked hard to be what and who he is.  Besides, the truth just ain’t that cool.

327 THOUSAND DOLLARS:  That’s how much the State of Connecticut got from Sony to settle their suit over the whole David Manning mess.  Wow!  I have to file more nuisance suits.

WAR IS HELL:  I saw a great documentary the other night.  I guess I should have expected it to be great… it’s one of the Best Documentary nominees for this year’s Oscars.  It’s called War Photographer and it follows the life of photographer James Nachtwey.  Filmmaker Christian Frei not only follows Nachtwey through three of his adventures, but he attaches a micro-camera to Nachtwey’s camera, which makes for some really interesting images.

I feel at a bit of a loss trying to “review” this film.  It’s kind of like that 9/11 show the other night on CBS.  You just have to experience it for yourself.  The images of pain that seem to drive Nachtwey are powerful.  Then you have the camera on his camera, a step away.  Then you have Frei watching from nearby.  Each layer has its own flavor. 

The truth is, it became very personal to me as I watched.  Here was a man who was so in touch with himself and his work that he seemed completely at peace.  I’m kind of craving that about now.  I’ve been blessed with the freedom to do things that I love to do.  I can’t wait to get some more distance from Miami, because there was so much to love about the whole experience beyond the frustration of having to deal with so many people who just don’t understand anything about real passion for the arts.

Anyway… see the film.  Let it be your Rorschach test.   And if it doesn’t show up in your town… if you don’t see it on TV in the next six months… bug your video store… bug your local art house… but take the time to find your peace with the work.

AD WATCH:  Just to live up to the long-standing tradition of this column in covering Hollywood breasts, I caught the Spider-Man ad on TV Wednesday night.  The MPAA clearly missed the speed cut of Kirsten Dunst in a wet dress, completely see-through, complete with an erect nipple.  Brilliant of Sony to include the shot in the TV spot.  But it is more than we saw in that ABC’s pathetic coverage of the Victoria’s Secret “fashion show” where they blurred any areola that might have shown through the material.  (Pathetic that it was on TV at all.  The only thing pathetic about the coverage was that something so overtly perverse was then coy in any way.)  I guess that Spider-Man is for young kids, so it makes sense to give teenage boys something on which to consider nursing.

Oh yeah… about the ad.  It concerns me.  It looks well shot, but the CG in Spider-Man looks like CG… I mean, it really looks like CG.  People make fun of George Lucas creating an all-digital universe in the Star Wars films, but the overall unreality is an advantage.  Here, a CG character flipping through the real New York City… I don’t know. 

Oh well… the nipple looked real.

E ME:  I know that bunch of you are still waiting on a “Best of” list from last year.   I’ll work on it.  Does Showtime, Resident Evil and Ice Age seem like a “real” movie weekend for a change?