October 2, 2003

How can you take this away from me? How can you do this?

It’s your childish attitude. You hurt the team!

Team? Ah, Christ’s sake, B.A., we’re not the team!!! They’re the team! These guys right here, B.A.… they’re the team. We’re the equipment.! We’re the jockstraps… the helmets. And they just depreciate us… take us off the goddamn tax returns! That’s what that is.

-- North Dallas Forty
Screenplay by Ted Kotcheff & Frank Yablans and Peter Gent,
From Gent’s book, North Dallas Forty

And so goes this week’s ongoing conversation about the MPAA screener decision. Sides are quite distinct. But for the group of you who just sighed unhappily when you saw that the column was going in this direction for a second day in a row, I have to tell you, this is a lot more than an issue about screeners. The sociology of this industry, from the bean counters to the most outré artists, is being examined in the process… at least, by those of us who are paying attention and not simply espousing a predetermined position.

Entitlement is a real issue, on both sides. There are those who feel entitled and those who are clearly enraged at the entitled.

The significance of seeing a movie on a big screen is appropriate. But this decision has nothing to do with pushing Academy members into seeing every film on a big screen.

There is no reasonable argument that says that this is not unfair to studios and staff responsible for awards campaigns. But it is a fair question to ask, whether the Oscars really matter anyway?

In other words, this is Rashomon. Every perspective is very real to the person who has it. And no one has the entire truth.

Personally, I will miss the screeners enormously. Only a small percentage of what arrives on my doorstep represents films that I have not seen and will only see thanks to screeners. But more than anyone else I know, I use the screeners for second and third screenings, to look at details of the work in some films, to pull quotes for the column, etc, etc, etc. I am extremely cautious about lending anything out for at least the first month of the time I have the screeners, because I am using them to do my work.

But I’ve gotta tell you, I am already fed up with organizations putting out statements about how we are the ones who really need the screeners. There is plenty to debate here. But “we really need the screeners” is not among the worthy topics. Funny how professional journalists can get through nine months of the year without screeners and how we can’t do our jobs at the end of the year without them.

One of the other troubling arguments is the “there isn’t enough time” argument. Yes, getting to screenings means extra hours of getting to and from screenings and waiting for something to match your schedule. On the other hand, let’s not delude ourselves into believing that every movie gets a viewing just because the screener shows up. For every The Pianist, you can be sure that there are 20 Possessions that will never be cracked open by 90% of the people who receive them. The advantage of screeners is not that everything gets seen, but that Oscar consultants have little time bombs in voters’ homes, waiting to be set off by good buzz or some great reviews or an event or whatever that makes voters say, “I need to watch this one.”

And then back to the big one... why does any of this matter? There is a reason why there are IFP Independent Spirit Awards. Academy voters have somewhat narrow tastes. Bingham Ray might think that Katie Holmes could get nominated for Pieces of April, but it really is an Indie Spirit movie. That said, Bill Murray’s potential nomination for Lost In Translation really could be effected by the lack of screeners. When the next wave of “gotta check it out” happens for Lost In Translation in December, voters jammed up by December movies will be challenged to get to theaters. And the movie, actually, is certainly better the first time around on a big screen, where the distractions are minimal.

I was a supporter of the Academy decision to move the awards up a month. I feel the shortened season makes it less of a political race and hopefully, more about the movies. But I also believe that by rushing this decision, the MPAA has brought a lot of companies up short. Just days ago, people were amazed by the choice to move Gothika by a month less than three weeks before its scheduled release. There are a lot of changes to be made. When Gigli moved from a Wednesday to a Friday release, there were a lot of things to change. Company after company, large and small, made advertising and distribution decisions based on the set of rules that existed as of last March. Now it’s “Good luck, bub.”

But does it really matter? Won’t people simply adjust? Of course. Should distributors, of any size, be attaching their financial hopes to awards? No. But that doesn’t mean that a decade of this system does not need to be acknowledged and considered.

Would anyone tolerate the MPAA suddenly saying, “There will only be one movie with a budget over $80 million released each week of the summer?” After all, it would be better for the movies. There would still be competition, but it would be less severe. “Sorry, Universal, we only have space for three of your big movies… Hulk or Seabiscuit… make a decision.” It would never happen.

I don’t buy into the conspiracy against indies theory. But I do believe that the indifference to the plight of those companies is real and is really offensive.

Of course, back on the piracy front, if you want to feel the record industry analogy, read about Disney’s set top box PPV program, MovieBeam. Why did music piracy get out of hand? In great part, it was because the pricing of albums was onerous. What price structure is MovieBeam offering? $4 for 24 hours will a movie, after a $7 monthly service fee. At the local video store, it’s less than $4 for a three-day rental and no service fee. With Tivo, you can get the PPV for $3.95 and keep it on your Tivo for as long as you like. So why is Disney reinventing Tivo and Blockbuster at a higher price than either? I don’t know. You want to beat piracy, offer all the benefits for less than Netflix, not more.

But I digress…

Don’t forget, we’re still on the shakedown cruise here, kids. I have heard at least a half dozen strategic ways to get around the spirit of the ban from various studios today. One suggested that they’d be making a major strategic move as soon as next week. The indie meeting in New York may be spitballs against tanks. None of these companies can afford to tell their parent companies to sod off. Theories about Miramax only make sense if you believe that the company has already decided not to re-up with Disney and plans to go on its own merry way. But I have to say, Miramax has a lot more reasons to stay with Disney than to leave… even if Eisner has sown up the top of the parent company’s purse lately. Baby, it’s cold outside.

Bu October 17, the landscape of the awards season may well change dramatically again. We just don’t know. All we do know is that we have been thrown into an odd little battle and our behavior on the field of showbiz will define us for years to come. So take a deep breath. We’re just getting started.

READER OF THE DAY: Most of the industry types didn’t want to be named. So, here are some reactions, nameless.

LETTER #1 - As one who loves film, I hate, hate having all the good adult oriented films being released, ie, "positioned" at the holiday season. I have friends, family, year end work projects, shopping, decorating... a million and one things to occupy my time that time of the year. If I'm lucky I can see a movie a week in December, maybe two in the week after Dec 25.

I think it's fair to assume that those in the film industry have similar diversions. Yet they're being expected to drop everything else and attend theater screenings of all the movies up for award consideration, even if they live far away from the NYC and LA areas. It can't be done. These professionals have come to rely on the distribution of DVD's and VHS tapes. They can catch a film at convenient times, spend a bit of time over it... go back, whatever. It's been a good thing.

While I'll be the first to decry piracy, it's certainly not the small art films that will be pirated and sold on Canal Street nyc or down loaded from the net. It is, as you say, the big blockbusters, the Rings of the world.

In an earlier column you mentioned the strong likelihood that voters would be more likely to attend screenings attended by "talent". I think you're right. So, why not just ban those appearances?

Another advantage for some films is an earlier release date, because, as you say, the film will be in the stores for rent and purchase already. Maybe this will be a good thing. Maybe more films will be released earlier, like Gladiator was, or Nemo. There is no reason for the early fall hump season. It seems to me it should stop being a dumping period. Let us see some good films. I enjoyed Matchstick Men, Under the Tuscan Sun, American Splendor and Lost in Translation in Sept. Very refreshing. Let's have more of this going on. Maybe it will happen now.

With all the technology available, I am very surprised that the MPAA hasn't utilized some.... like self destructing DVD's, imprints, codes, etc.... it can be done, and should. Until a more well thought out system exists, it's time to call off the dogs and allow distribution of films this year, putting new solutions in place next.

LETTER #2 - I applaud Valenti for making a decisive move to change a lazy status quo.

Being a member of the Academy comes with responsibilities and prior to the practice of sending out screener tapes and DVDs, one of those basic responsibilities was to see the movies being nominated for their annual awards.

The Academy Awards are not about the best home entertainment experience, they are about the best *theatrical* experience and how can you possibly vote and critique that experience viewing these amazing films at home. The difference of seeing movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings and other epic films in the theaters equipped with THX and Dolby Digital technologies to viewing them at home is staggering. If Academy members don't respect the thousands of their industry peers that spent their precious time and money to create these features by doing their basic duty in properly reviewing these nominees, they should leave their card at the door.

LETTER #3 - Why don't they just make people have to send the screener back to the studio, and include a paid return package (a la Netflix) for them to do it with? Since everyone who are in these various organizations and groups make a living (or have made a living) because of the movie industry, why wouldn't they be keen on protecting that very industry that puts food on their table? They ought to be keen enough to be willing to put it in an envelope and send it back anyway, no? Yeah, now studios would have to deal with all the screeners being sent back, but if they already have the machinery to send out all those screeners they ought to be able to accommodate the return of the discs and tapes using the same people who ship them out.

Then they might say that the films can still be pirated while it's out and about, but from what I understand, it's often (or rather always) not the actual person who gets the screener who pirates it, but a friend of a friend who sold it or something like that. It's not like it's the Hollywood hotshots who take his screener and rips it then puts it up on the internet.

I understand that Valenti desperately wants to stop piracy, even if it's just "half a percent" as he apparently said about the screener ban, and while this might some very little miniscule effect, I can't help but feel like he's going at this the wrong way. Screeners being sold seems to be the smallest of his problems, and that problem could easily be fixed with the screeners still in existence, and he could focus his time and effort on truly solving the piracy problem.

LETTER #4 - This will surely be a simplistic view of this entire screener debacle of 2003. However, I blame the people spread the Two Towers screener dvd around as one of the biggest instigators of this new rule.

The Two Towers screener reached everyone and their mother thanks to it's distribution from Academy or press member on down. Hell, the version of the film available for downloading earlier this year had New Line screener tags all over it (no I did not download the film, but I know people who did).

If anything, the way the Two Towers screener got around, had to throw a red flag to someone at the MPAA. It might be one of many causes, but the Two Towers screener demonstrates how out of hand this screener thing seemed to be getting.

I admit, the MPAA's reaction to this situation does seem drastic, and a tad harsh. However, some of the people receiving these screeners, were acting downright roguish with them. Sending them around to family and friends or even people they did not know who run certain sites.

Some of the people who received these screeners simply did not respect what they were receiving in their mailboxes each year. They treated it as a gift, that they could share with anyone they wanted. And in this day of ripping, burning, and piracy this idea simply is not feasible. It makes no since to distribute screeners, if some of the people who receive them simply do not respect the shinny disc in their hands.

The MPAA should only bring back the screener process if there is some way to guarantee the screeners stay with those who are supposed to get them in the first place. It seems unlikely their could be a system that would be affective enough to keep screeners out of the wrong hands.

However, the MPAA maybe should think about using a private site somewhere, to download movies to Academy members and press via assigned passwords. Make the downloads only viewable once or twice, and everyone still has there chance to check out films they might not be able to see in a theatre.

Yeah it is a far-fetched idea, but not as far-fetched as hoping screeners only stay with those who had them mailed to their houses. Have a nice day.

LETTER #5 – I cover home-video as well as theatrical, so I get a number of Oscar candidates on VHS or DVD every year before the "official" screeners go out as a matter of course. But as a member of the Toronto Film Critics Association, I found the studios' generosity with Oscar screeners to be a big help in the week before our vote, when we were seeing three or four films theatrically every day.

See, this is the thing a screener lets you do that a booked screening time does not: If you want to pull out the tape, or the disc, and watch a portion of a film that's been kicking around in your mind -- Nicolas Cage and Alison Lohman's final scene in "Matchstick Men", say -- then you can do it at your leisure. And if you want to watch the whole movie again at one in the morning, you can do that, too.

Our 2002 ballot deadline was midnight on a Friday. A lot of us filed it fairly close to that deadline, and I'm quite sure the screeners were very handy for precisely that sort of last-minute assessment. I'm equally sure we can put our 2003 ballots together without screeners, but that a number of smaller films will suffer for lack of access.

When Marcia Gay Harden won her Oscar for "Pollock", she thanked the Academy for watching the tapes. Javier Bardem's "Before Night Falls" nomination was surely a tribute to the screener movement as well. And this year, if Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson and Sofia Coppola are unrecognized for "Lost in Translation", I'll be the first to make sure Valenti's paranoid crusade gets the blame.

LETTER #6 - I have never liked the idea of screeners. I've always been a "get off your ass" guy. Agreed, piracy isn't much of an issue here. It's somehow not right that films should be judged by folks sitting in their homes watching TV. That's what the Emmys are for. Forcing people to turn off their sets and get into a screening room sounds like a good idea to me. Even if that screen is in someone else's house. Hell, sounds like a cue for a swell string of parties to me. What's everybody bitching about?

Sure, braving the sunlight might prove a challenge for the crypt-dwellers in the HFPA, but I'm sure they can be mollified with a few free bagels or something.

You guys in the BFCA might want to decide if your final goal should be influencing Oscar nominations or honoring what you think the best work of the year was. It might not be practical to try to do both anymore.

LETTER #7 - The decision to ban Academy screeners is a massive overreaction. It's as if the government banned matches because they're used by arsonists.

Granted, the best way to see a film is in a theater, but if a significant percentage of the Academy prefers to watch the films at home, attention must be paid. Is the absence of screeners really going to make that big a dent in the big piracy picture? I have a co-worker whose current film library includes Finding Nemo, The Rundown, Pirates of the Caribbean and Underworld. I doubt whether any of those bootlegs can be traced even to a critic's screener, and they certainly weren't put out by an MPAA'er.

Why not distribute screeners through some kind of Academy-only version of Netflix, which loans for a month and then demands their return? Anyone who fails to give back a screener can be permanently banned from ever receiving them again; same deal with anyone whose screener is found to be a bootlegger's master print.

As for the Oscar prospects of that smaller films apparently benefit the most from screeners, there's probably something to that. Over the last few years, the Academy showed a spread-the-wealth attitude with its winners. Without screeners to help level the playing field, will two or three films dominate the winners list? January should be a very interesting month...

E ME: Tell me like it is!