October 16, 2003

He says he wants a Revolution…

The Borg’s assimilation of Captain Cool: Ain’t It Division is almost complete. It seems almost too fish-in-a-barrel to write about. Harry Knowles joins sidekick Drew McWeeney/Moriarty on the Revolution roster of writing/producing talent.

The story broke in Michael Fleming’s Variety column, two days after Harry Knowles posted a “STUPENDOUS EARTH-SHATTERING ANNOUNCEMENT” that was alternatively unable to be loaded or loaded and stated “come back for more news later.” In other words, Harry held the story so it could break in Variety.

And without being too histrionic, that is exactly what is wrong with Ain’t It Cool News, and has been for years. They are alternately inside and outside the system – more and more inside as every day passes – and both studios and talent, looking to take advantage of the alleged teen cache the site carries, also play the game.

When Harry used to write things like “Raimi - this is Harry - You will bring a tape of this to Austin IMMEDIATELY, you can not control yourself... yes... now you are scheduling the flight, yes, feel yourself dialing the Airline... yes, you are coming today, today, to show me this trailer... then give it to me so I can watch it 20,000 times over the next 5 days,” regarding the Spider-Man 2 footage recently shown in Japan, it was cute. Well, some people thought it was cute. But they didn’t have a reasonable expectation that Avi Arad would indeed put someone on a plane with the tape or, even more so, that he already had and that the entire e-mail describing the tape was a charade to disguise the fact that Harry has that kind of access with Avi Arad.

The mere fact that Harry was in negotiations with Revolution’s Todd Garner while his site still claimed independence is what is wrong with this picture. Harry, who I believe to be a good soul, would surely point to this negative review on the site or another. I’m not going to spend the next 48 hours trying to track down the last year of “reviews” on the site. But as any publisher knows, it is as often about what you don’t publish as what you do.

The paranoid attitude at AICN, that somehow it is all about their success and that people question them only out of jealousy or spite, is both true and untrue. Absolutely, some people strike out from a sense of envy. But the Los Angeles Times has been embroiled in a very AICN-like fight of their own lately, with backlash from a last minute story on Governor Arnie’s alleged groping ways. No one is really challenging the facts they published. What is being challenged is the timing and the perceived intent coming from it. Likewise, if you talk to some people, they will question the paper’s commitment to pushing “the company” around in a company town.

We are all open to questions about our legitimacy when we choose to take a position as a provider of information. Ain’t It Cool has always tried to skirt that by making claims of not being journalists - while demanding journalistic access at every studio based on their role as an influencer of journalists. Cute, but a functional lie. Ain’t It Cool has long played both sides against the middle and studios, talent and journalists have been party to allowing it to happen.

AICN has been given a pass from journalists for years because they don’t want to be seen fighting the Gen-X zeitgeist, and because AICN has been seen as a good place from which to mine unsourced information that editors from the New York Times to the Kalamzoo Gazette have allowed their reporters to quote. The day that Bernie Weinraub was allowed to publish an American Beauty “review’ quote from “Anonymous” on IMDB, real entertainment journalism started its descent into the toilet. Like a first-time gambler who has the bad fortune to win in Las Vegas on his first trip, the ultimate critical success of American Beauty made quoting essentially anonymous web site “reviews” acceptable journalistic practice.

The result, which is more the fault of the New York Times than it is the fault of AICN, is a new level of under-the-radar marketing that places what are essentially unpaid ads giving the appearance of being insider or illicit information. Like the tabloids, internet movie coverage has become primarily driven by studio-generated “scoops,” that masquerade as materials coming from the young and the hip. On top of that, formerly legitimate news outlets have started to chase the internet “advantage,” putting “first” ahead or “right” more and more.

Of course, none of this could be happening without the tacit agreement of the studios. And I’m not sure I have an answer for them. They are trying to respond to an out-of-control media that has decided to throw out many of their rules to try to beat the internet to the scoops. In some ways, the results have been advantageous. But in many ways, it has been destructive.

The biggest unintended benefit is that many films now have rabid fan interest for more than a year before release, and that results in early interest across the media board. The Star Wars movies are the most obvious examples, with interest so intense that LucasFilm has developed a paid website for those most desperate to get every detail. But a smaller movie like Hellboy has been getting a lot of web attention, and the ability to get that film into a strong position in the spring or summer previews that will come out at the start of 2004 has been made a lot easier.

The biggest downside is that the traditional media anxiety about getting the story first has given enormous power to anonymous “reviewers” of films whose comments are published by websites, most of which have no clear journalistic ethic. Even when these “reviews,” now often written “anonymously” by friends or foes of films, are not quoted by the mainstream media, they create a predisposition towards these films that is, positive or negative, destructive to the industry.

More and more, features and reviews are written in response to predetermined ideas of what should or should not be expected, based on these anonymous web-based “reviews.” How is this good for the industry? I guess that if you have a film that is well “reviewed,” it is okay. But the biggest trend in movie marketing at the moment seems to be the reduction of expectations. Studios walk a fine line. They need their opening weekends, but high expectations can result in media backlash and, ultimately, audience backlash. Again, it is the media’s fault for paying attention to anonymous “reviews” that may or may not be backed by motive and are inherently statistically invalid. Would any of these outlets consider Harry Knowles an editor legitimate enough to determine their paper’s content? Then why do they quote “reviews” that are published based exclusively on his editorial judgment? These are papers that wouldn’t publish an anonymous letter to the editor, yet…

My point is that while everyone is screaming about the screener ban destroying the quality of films, I still hold that the most damaging thing for the quality of films is anything that makes the success of film dependent on something other than the films themselves. “Quality” is a loaded word. I hear that Roger Ebert is giving Texas Chainsaw Massacre a zero star review tomorrow. I think the film is near perfect within its genre. Nonetheless, the measure of what makes a movie successful is getting further and further away from the film itself. The theatrical exhibition window for movies that are not big openers is now, in effect, less than a month. The four month home entertainment window continues to degrade the theatrical system, though studios don’t mind because the profit margins in home entertainment are higher than they are in theatrical release. And if the media starts in on your movie early, you can easily be d.b.a. - dead before arrival. That is, dead even before anyone writing these stories has even seen the movie.

But the problem with all of this is that the reverse is not true. Great early “reviews” on Ain’t It Cool - or wherever - have not proven to be a boon to films that are heading for distribution. There are certainly overlooked titles that have benefited and gotten distribution because of web sites. And studios have been able to build anticipation very effectively using the web. But I don’t think anyone can point to a single film that did a substantial amount of business based on web “reviews”… or for that matter, any single source of reviews. What “real” critics do deliver is their history. You know how you feel about Roger Ebert or A.O. Scott or even the national and local hacks. Essentially anonymous web “reviews” have no history, no way of being judged. That is the editor’s responsibility. And again… are you ready to put The New York Times in Editor Harry’s hands? I’m not.

I have spent much of the last seven years that Ain’t It Cool has been in business alternately fighting and being friendly with both Harry and Drew. I like both guys when they aren’t enraged and respect them both for their love of film. Even so, there are some very serious philosophical differences in our approaches.

* I do not believe in test screening reviews. AICN has always said that they were just out to push the often-troubling NRG out if the business. That hasn’t happened. Instead, movies are now getting worse because they are not free to test screen, fearing a media backlash before they even start marketing a movie. That is AICN’s legacy.

* I do not believe in piracy of any kind. AICN has always felt free to publish privately owned materials, whether screenplays or images, without regard to the consequences to anyone else. Studios quickly figured out that cease and desist orders didn’t help, since the material was already spread virally on the web and that the fight with AICN simply made them look fan unfriendly. I will credit AICN with teaching studio marketing departments, albeit “the hard way,” that there is a value to early internet marketing efforts and that trying to hide everything until the last minute is not always the best choice. But it gets rather messy after that.

When Drew/Moriarty initially condemned the viewing and criticism of the stolen Hulk pre-release unfinished digital print, Harry publicly suggested that he was off base. Soon after, Drew changed his position and AICN was on record on the site as tacitly supporting the piracy of the materials. Still, Avi Arad arranged an early screening of the film for Harry. And other studios remain in business, quietly, with Ain’t It Cool.

* I do not believe in creating the illusion of giving readers an insight into the studio system of producing movies while only offering a partial view. Of course, no one can report every detail of process. But the range of decisions and internal battles that go into every movie is far more elaborate than you see on AICN or other movie sites, as a rule. What tends to get published are perspectives from one or two parties that have an inherent interest in positioning things to their advantage. Again, I think AICN has most often been well-intended in its positions. But as it has been said, a little information is a dangerous thing.

I was having a chat with another internet denizen about all of this and he took a classic position. AICN is about young, excited people expressing their ideas and passions, unencumbered by “the suits.” Well, it once was. And after years of pretending that he wasn’t in league with them, Harry has now officially joined The Suit Squad. There’s noting wrong with this. I honestly congratulate him. This is something he seems to have wanted for a while, just as Drew/Moriarty wanted to be a paid, working screenwriter. Go with God.

But now is the time to put away childish things. It is not reasonable to expect Jeffrey Wells to rip into Kevin Smith’s movies or into Ben Affleck or any of Smith’s cronies. It’s not a bad thing. It just is. When Variety’s parentally-owned NRG unit sued The Hollywood Reporter’s parentally-owned MarketCast unit, it was reported in Variety and not in The Hollywood Reporter. Is that a surprise?

We are all advertising supported, so that has to be taken into some consideration. In the name of complete disclosure, that is one big reason why MCN/THB’s Oscar advertising offering was a flat package that was the same in cost and exposure for all the studios who bought in, across the board. We need the money to stay in business, but as soon as a business this small gets into the ad side mess of charging more for this placement or that placement, the church/state lines are in danger of being blurred. That’s why bigger companies have ad departments and editorial departments operating quite separately, for the most part.

But back to AICN, this should be the end of one era of AICN. All Sony-distributed product should be off limits to the publisher of the site, period. I don’t care whether it is good or bad. In the midst of all this screener stuff, we should acknowledge Jack Valenti’s greatest skill… the hand flourish that gets you looking in the other direction as he takes the bunny out of the hat. The world’s best liars know how to spice their lies with a whole lot of truth. And Harry knows how to get us all talking about the details of what was up on the site to get away from the big picture conversation.

Forget the past. We are in the now. Right now, Harry Knowles and Drew McWeeney are de facto employees of Revolution Studios. Bernie Weinraub fell in love with a studio executive and was forced off of the entire movie beat. For good reason. But no legitimate media outlet has ever had a studio employee working in an editorial capacity. For good reason. And while Harry can do anything he wants to, it is time for the industry and for the public to stop playing this game.

Of course, nothing will change until there is a “David Manning” level humiliation that tears through some poor marketing department that is just doing what everyone else does. Can’t say I didn’t tell you it was coming…

E ME: Are there any standards left?