November 11, 2003

Can I come up with an affirmative set of suggested rules for film criticism in this era?

I don’t know. But I did take a look at the Dogma 95 Vow of Chastity - inspired by a doc I saw at AFI called The Purified - and about the four directors who took the vow. I will admit upfront that I have broken a few of these rules in recent days. But I will give up these cheap and selfish habits if others will.

THE VOW OF CLARITY

I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by INSIGHT 20/03 (pronounced “twenty aught three”):

1. Writing must be done based on my own ideas about the movie. The arguments of other writers must not be used to buoy my ideas, though the ideas of writers who are not film critics may be quoted.

2. Arguments about the social implications of the film must never be confused with the analysis of the artistic values of the film. (Marketing must never be mentioned as though it has anything to do with the content of the film itself.)

3. The writing must vary with the quality of the film. Any movement or immobility attainable by a genuine feeling about the film is permitted. (The review must not be based on a predetermined word count; word count must be based on the number of words appropriate to sum up your valuation of the film being reviewed.)

4. The writing must be comprehensible by a moderately intelligent human being. Special words used only to make you look really smart are not acceptable.

5. Phrases intended to attract the attention of quote pullers are forbidden.

6. The review must not contain superficial jokes.

7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say, that the review takes place here and now and not in 1971, 1939 or any other film year you idolize.)

8. Genre bashing is not acceptable.

9. The review format on or before opening weekend must be spoiler free or well marked so as not to keep your readers from having the pure experience that you, as a critic, experienced.

10. If the director is credited, you must credit the screenwriter as well.

Furthermore I swear as a film critic to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer the sun that the world revolves around. I swear to refrain from creating a “blanket observation,” as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of myself and my understanding of the intent of the artist. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations.

Thus I make my VOW OF CLARITY.
Los Angeles, Tuesday 11 November 2003
On behalf of Insight 20/03, David Von Poland

As you might expect, I started doing this as a smart-ass exercise. But after writing these rules and looking over them a few times, I think that it could well be a vow signed onto by many of the top critics in America and the world. And I think that film criticism would be improved. I know mine would.

PIRACY: Patrick Goldstein wrote a front-page piece in the L.A. Times on Sunday about the theoretical march to the movie business by the Pirates Of The Internet. I week before, CBS’ 60 Minutes did their piracy piece. Both were interesting overviews.

But I am concerned that there is this “asleep at the wheel” positioning about the film business and piracy. It is simply a false notion. The MPAA and every studio have been studying piracy and prevention methods for a long time now.

Why didn’t anyone talk to Patrick about the MPAA committees on piracy? Why didn’t anyone fess up about the specific costs of anti-piracy methods currently available? Why didn’t anyone take Patrick into the world of the anti-piracy strategies being used that were mentioned on 60 Minutes? I don’t know.

But since the music industry started pointing at the internet as their primary nemesis, the movie business has been on it. And powerless to do much that wasn’t self-destructive, short of preparing protective legislation. But what is the playing field?

The music industry argument must be deconstructed, since the lessons for the film business are not the ones that people often cite when talking about the record business. As Marc Geiger so accurately pointed out to Patrick, the film business starts in a far better place than the record business did. There are a wide variety of media platforms for movies at all ranges of cost. The wider the range of legitimate opportunity, the less the instinctual choice to steal access.

But what seems to be constantly overlooked is that the piracy issue wasn't the instrument of destruction. The record business built the very petard on which it was heisted. The business was flying too high for its own good before the fall. Deals for artists got too rich. Video budgets got too high. Development losses went way out of control. Selling 3 million CDs was not enough to make record companies financially viable. They were hooked on the mega-hits.

Sound familiar?

The danger is not as much in the piracy itself, but in an industry that can’t make a dollar without it burring a hole in its collective pocket. The stakes are constantly being raised. Grosses are, in many circles, seen as more important than the net… a terrible business attitude.

It’s simple math. The average revenue for a studio movie has never been greater. International box office is higher. Broadcast, cable and satellite revenue is down, but that is more than made up for by the massive rise in revenues from home entertainment, now driven by the DVD. So what do the studios do with all this extra revenue? They spend it on making movies that are more expensive and making more expensive movies.

As a result, the boon of the DVD sell-thru has turned into the life support system for the industry. Studios have quickly come to accept the idea that most of their films will not hit profit (in reality, not in accounting, where nothing is ever in profit) until home entertainment. There is something deeply demented about this.

Beyond piracy, there may be a slowdown in the DVD sell-thru business at some point, even without pirates increasing their percentage of stolen revenue. Has anyone thought of what happens then?

I have made the call for an industry-wide investment in second run theatrical. The expansion of the IMAX first-run business is another revenue stream that can never be replaced by a pirated DVD. Putting movies on the internet is a silly strategy. But a more serious attack on the still lame PPV business is critical. The industry acceptance of the Digital video recorder (Tivo/Replay TV) and the strategizing of its benefits to the industry are critical.

We are, in my eye, entering an era of everything on demand. The technology and access that allows this to become commonplace – ironically, reflecting the very thing that is so beloved about peer-2-peer systems – is the industry’s ace in the hole. It will not be long before you can buy network television programming without ads for a monthly fee. The freedom to allow people to pay $130 a year to watch the NFL game of their choice, with all the commercials intact, has tuned DirecTV into an industry leader. The ability to recall a 1930s Warner Bros. film for $1 and watch it as often as you like will create a new revenue stream while you can still watch AMC or TCM or whatever packaged units you choose to watch. Just because the economies of scale will change does not mean that the change needs to be feared.

There will always be people who beat the system, just as there are people who beat coin operated newspaper racks and others who walk out of busy restaurants every day without paying their checks. But they are never the rule. They are the exception. Even in the record business. If you can’t make money on the sale of a million albums, you are a crappy businessperson. If you need to adjust how you find recording artists in order to remain in the black, maybe you should. There are no birthrights in business.

The first rule of fighting piracy in the film business is not fighting the pirates, but ourselves. The tentpole is dead. Loss leaders don’t build anything but in-house perception anymore. Move along. No one is really buying it. Look at this last weekend’s box office news. People were busy whipping The Matrix Revolutions for grossing just $48 million, while hoisting up Elf for grossing $31 million. Black is white, white is black.

File the lawsuits. Continue to pursue the technology. Ban the screeners. These will always be half measures. As long as the industry reacts instead of leading with action, they will be in danger. At $85 million-plus per movie, trend following is suicidal. The studios that will thrive in this era will anticipate the financial damage to come and design financial strategies that will allow them to weather the storm comfortably and find new solutions without being thrown into panic mode.

The record business was a business in which paying off Mariah Carey to the tune of $60 million was cheaper than making some albums with her. Think about that. Now start waving your finger at pirates.

The reason why movie piracy can be kept in reasonable financial ranges is the same reason why many technologies fail. People want to do the right thing. People are willing to pay for convenience. People do see the value of the work. The lesson of the record business is that people have to be pushed into doing the wrong thing. I was an early adapter to CDs. And I still blanch at the idea of paying $16 for a CD. Even worse, those expensive CDs left music lovers without less expensive alternatives, as tape prices grew to match the price of CDs before virtually disappearing.

The reason that the industry may still shoot itself in the foot is greed. If PPV is made into a major revenue source by taking the price point down to $2, it may cannibalize the DVD sales business. So they won’t do it. Second run theatrical might expand the time between theatrical release and the home entertainment window just as it is shrinking to three and four months. There’s more money in DVD. So they won’t do it. If you stratify network television into the have-commercials and the have-not, it will upset the ad sales game. So they won’t do it.

Slowly, the greed becomes a gun to the head of the consumer. Stealing becomes justified, little bit by little bit. And somewhere, someone is still pointing at the pirates and wondering how these people were raised.

The best defense is a good offense. Play to win. The field is wide open. Fearing habit and comfort is a strategy for all times, not just for dangerous times. But when things get tight, people tend to hide in their six-figure shells and expect someone else to handle the problem.

We have seen the enemy… and it is us.
- Walt Kelly

READER OF THE DAY: GOLD BAR MAKER writes: “"Which is not to say that only smart people like the Matrix sequels and only stupid or short-sighted people do not."

Only smart people like: Dr. Strangelove (sorry Spielberg), the doc Spellbound, Memento, The Freshman, Raising Arizona, Scarlett Johansson, This Is Spinal Tap, Swimming Pool, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Wes Anderson films, the music of Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips and Pavement, the first Austin Powers movie only, tv series The Office, Conan OBrien, and Twin Peaks, Agatha Christie mysteries, Bruce Campbell, the west coast of Italy, Carlsbad Caverns, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, food like thin-crust pizza, Woodchuck Ciders, Ovaltine and Key Lime Pie.

Stupid people really really like live action versions of Dr Suess stories, Kettle Chips and CSI: Miami. It's just like CSI... but with humidity.”

HOSEN-THIS GUY: “I think it all comes back to a point made in SHATTERED GLASS. Glass is hosting a party. Two guys are talking about PEOPLE and TIME magazines. One says you won't be able to tell them apart, if that's not the case already.

The focus on entertaining is primary, with everything having to be "the best ever" or "the worst ever". A lot of critics have fallen into this trap as they seem to be auditioning their Don Rickles routines rather than delivering thoughtful criticism.

As someone who has been a film critic for seven years, I claim you can plot film quality according to the bell curve regardless of the year. (This assumes you're seeing, say, 200 films per year.) The top ten percent comprises the year-end best of lists (with a top ten and honorable mentions), and the bottom ten percent makes up the worst of list. The vast majority in the middle range from good to fair, just above or below mediocre. I know I see a lot more movies that provoke a small reaction than those that get strong responses from me one way or the other. So it's with a skeptical eye that I read the weekly praisings or admonishings, knowing that opinions are getting cranked up in an effort to be heard above the din.

As for the screener ban debate, my observation is that it has helped me do my job. Being in a mid-sized market that tends to be a few weeks behind in getting the platform releases, I've found that we've been getting press screenings more in advance than is typical. I never relied on screeners—I didn't get them until a couple trickled in for the last awards season—and while it is nice to have them, the spacing out happening right now is going to make things much easier for me by the end of the year. If it means more critics or voters seeing films in the theater, it's a terrific outcome, even if the push behind the move is incredibly faulty. I'd love to be able to revisit some of these films again in screeners, but it isn't the end of the world.”

E ME: You know I’m waiting… and I do read them all…