August 5 , 2004

Update: 1:30pm
Yesterday: Part I

I don't know Jeffrey Levy-Hinte. But he scares me. He starts his very precise, master's thesis-esque piece with this…

"The awards screener ban instituted last fall by the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) clearly showed that it and the Major Motion Picture Studios (MMPS) that it represents had no compunction about pursuing policies that were inimical to the interests of the independent filmmaking community."

And he ends with…

"Fortunately the screener ban was handily defeated; unfortunately it is going to take much more than a lawsuit to undo the profound damage that the MPAA has wrought over the last several decades. It will take the concerted efforts of creators and consumers to re-shape the current copyright regime. Independent filmmakers - who both love cinema as a wonderfully varied and creative art form, and who strive to express their feelings, thoughts and desires through this art form - need to place themselves at the center of this effort. Otherwise we run the risk of allowing the powerful and avaricious corporations that dominate the production and distribution of motion pictures to use unfair business practices to stifle and subvert, legislate and litigate it out of existence."

Without making this whole thing about Levy-Hinte himself, let's start with the fact that his first six producing credits are for films that did not get major studio or dependent distribution. Only two of the six got any theatrical release at all. Then, the amazing and underrated Laurel Canyon, Lisa Cholodenko's follow-up to her art house hit High Art (distributed by October Films), got picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, a dependent. The film was released in the spring and got lost, in spite of screeners, come Oscar time. The next year - last year - his Thirteen was set up at Fox Searchlight and succeeded in getting one nomination… a supporting actress nomination for Holly Hunter that was predicted by many Oscar prognosticators from the start of the season, regardless of the disposition of screeners.

What is significant about all of this is twofold. One, screeners have not had much effect on the awards opportunities of any of Mr. Levy-Hinte's films. But, more importantly, this producer's greatest success has come with the financial backing of the MPAA signatory companies whose "decades of damage" he is so anxious to undo.

This also speaks to the biggest question of the fight over screeners and the depth of anger expressed by the "independent filmmakers." What is an independent film? The true indie distributors were, as always, free to send out screeners. Lions Gate and Newmarket did just that and reaped the benefit of their efforts. In fact, in making the decision by the trade association to restrain itself the MPAA membership was giving a competitive advantage to the true indies.

It is so easy for people to attack the industry - as represented by the MPAA - as the guys with the black hats. And, no doubt, the pursuit of money first and art second doesn't make for the best fairy tale. But what fairy tale is Levy-Hinte living in? Thirteen was made for about $1.5 million. If a company with financial backing as significant as that of News Corp hadn't picked the film up, would the film have had a realistic shot at making as much as the $4.6 million it made domestically?

Thirteen was the 161st highest grossing film in America last year. Only 12 films of those 160 grossing more than Thirteen were distributed by true indies. (Spellbound, Luther, Nowhere in Africa, The Cooler, Boat Trip, La Grande Seduction, House of the Dead, Confidence, House of 1000 Corpses, Whale Rider, Cabin Fever and Monster… in reverse order of box office.) Half of the titles were released by Lions Gate, the biggest of the true indies and not controlled by the screener ban. Half of those were exploitive horror films. Were those three films made by those "who both love cinema as a wonderfully varied and creative art form, and who strive to express their feelings, thoughts and desires through this art form?" Was Boat Trip?

Another two films were released by Bob Berney and Newmarket Films… both major awards contenders that were not inhibited by the screener ban. Three were foreign language films. That leaves only Magnolia's release of the documentary, Spellbound, as the highest grossing small indie film in the domestic market last year with $5.8 million.

My point here is that the evil old MPAA signatories are not interested in using "unfair business practices to stifle and subvert, legislate and litigate (indie films) out of existence." There isn't enough money or power involved for them to even worry about these companies - with the exception of Lions Gate, which is the only full-scale unaffiliated mini-major in the game right now.

The entire screener debate, on the allegedly high-minded side, last year was over 25 titles… The Unscreenered 25. Six studio divisions. 25 titles. Miramax led the way with seven titles. Paramount Classics was in the rear with just one. But these were the 25 titles that were actually being defended in the Holy War against the screener ban.

They were:

MIRAMAX
The Barbarian Invasions
The Magdalene Sisters
The Human Stain
The Station Agent
City of God
Dirty Pretty Things
Kill Bill, V1

FOX SEARCHLIGHT
The Dancer Upstairs
The Good Thief
Thirteen
In America
Bend It Like Beckham
28 Days Later

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Owning Mahoney
Monsieur Abraham
The Fog of War
The Triplets of Belleville
Winged Migration

FOCUS FEATURES
Sylvia
Swimming Pool
21 Grams
Lost in Translation

UNITED ARTISTS
Assassination Tango
Pieces of April

PARAMOUNT CLASSICS
The Man on The Train

It's amazing how holier-than-everyone guys like Levy-Hinte can get when they think their payday is going to be hurt by corporate policy.

But Levy-Hinte is not just fighting for the Unscreenered 25. As arrogant and self-indulgent as it is to proclaim a jihad against the MPAA because one is worried about their home entertainment revenues, you can't blame a guy for wanting to put food on his table. But this extended Filmmaker piece he wrote exposes that he has a much bigger agenda to push… and this is where it gets dangerous.

Jeffrey Levy-Hinte thinks that the issue of movie piracy is a non-issue that is somehow about the quality of films. He cites, late in his piece, the example of Russia's black market being driven by overpriced retail home entertainment product. But it is a specious and cynical reference at best. When an industry professional throws such absurd ideas on the wall, waiting to see what sticks, it is hard for an outsider to determine whether the act is simply ignorant or horribly manipulative. I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt. So I will refrain from assigning motive.

My sense is that Levy-Hinte misses the mark by a considerable distance in assessing the significance of five areas of this discussion.

1. Understanding Valenti - Levy-Hinte pulls comments from Jack Valenti out of the hat and offers them without any context. But worse, he has no understanding of Jack Valenti, one of the master showmen of his generation. Valenti is the virtual embodiment of "Don't trust anyone over 30." He speaks in flourishes, dropping names and quotations and multi-syllabic words like a peacock selling a used Volkswagon.

But no one has done more to make this business safe for artists and businessmen in the last 30 years.

What people like Levy-Hinte don't get - and I must admit, I didn't get in my first few years covering the film business - is that Valenti is not and has not been a filmmaker or a studio executive. Jack Valenti is a politician hired by the industry to protect its interests.

Why do we have a CARA rating system? Jack will tell you it is a service to parents. Bull. It is so that every state in the union doesn't have its own rating system, making distribution of more adult material a major nightmare for filmmakers and distributors. Malaysia just decided that only Christians can go see The Passion of the Christ. If you are happy that such absurdity is not happening here at home, you can thank Jack Valenti.

Am I endlessly upset that a country with as much freedom as we do have does not have a rating system that reasonably accommodates the fiscal aspirations of serious adult material? Absolutely. Is the system getting more and more convoluted as the board tries to figure out what ever-shifting community standards are in this day and age? Yes. But would I close CARA tomorrow if I could? Not a chance.

Ironically, Levy-Hinte and his followers have been dealt a severe blow in their crazy conspiracy mongering this year with The Passion of The Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 doing such big business. You can look at these films as glass-half-empty if you like… but you would be a fool. No MPAA signatory would distribute either of these films. So true indies did… and they succeeded beyond all expectations. The actions (or inactions) of the MPAA signatories did nothing to keep those films from making huge amounts of money. Roadside Attraction's Super Size Me will soon outgross Sony Classic's 2003 hit, Winged Migration. How, again, has the MPAA destroyed opportunity for indie filmmakers?

Levy-Hinte sneers: "The fight against piracy is an avowed personal obsession for Valenti - it is "the dominant issue which has consumed my life" - and where level-headed analysis and an examination of the facts are obviously required for proper public policy analysis Valenti gives us "fungus," "pillaging" of the "crown jewels," "a blunder too dumb to comprehend," and the "full powers of the state."

Is Levy-Hinte so myopic and arrogant as to believe that these verbal flourishes are the depth of examination Jack Valenti and the MPAA have made into piracy? How can a movie producer - especially one whose film advertised itself by aggressively exploiting the sexuality of two underage girls for shock value, though the movie itself is far more complex - not understand that not all that is on the surface reflects all depth? Or perhaps he'd rather not know.

Instead, he compares Valenti to McCarthy, a flourish so heinous and so loosely thrown around that it could be actionable.

2. Understanding the VHS - Levy-Hinte makes the foolhardy comparison of the VCR boom to the current piracy situation. Valenti was indeed doing his Chicken Little dance over the proliferation of the VCR and the danger of more-than-fair-use. But while Levy-Hinte notes that Valenti was lobbying for financial remuneration for the studios in the firm of VHS tape tariffs (much like the recording industry uses to pay artists for radio airplay),

Levy-Hinte trills: "Needless to say Congress did not create the sought after royalty arrangement and the movie industry went on to profit hugely from the proliferation of the VCR - so much for Mr. Valenti's ability to accurately predict the consequences of technological innovation."

But what he fails to understand is that Valenti's job was always to give studios a chance to earn more. Of course he was lobbying to put a tariff on video tape. And, of course, when that didn't happen, his next role was to find the next solution based on the then-current playing field.

As for the success of the VHS business, Levy-Hinte is not interested at all in the complex evolution of that business from its early days as a rich person's indulgence to sell-through to the split rental/sales industry to the dense release system currently in place for VHS at major retailer/renters to the DVD sell-through revolution.

The punishment for Jack Valenti being on the front lines and participating in helping an industry find a way to make great strides in a difficult and scary situation is to have Jeffrey Levy-Hinte throwing garbage from the gallery. I would never make the argument that Jack Valenti or any other industry leader was always right. Not only are they often wrong, but in their arrogance, many good opportunities are lost.

That said, what would have happened to the VCR business had Valenti has his way at the start? Not much different than happened, I suspect. Except that the studios would have shared a few addition billion dollars in revenue from the tariffs. What a maroon!

3. Understanding DVD - The VHS business bottomed out about 7 years ago. Companies like Blockbuster were on their way out even faster than once anticipated. Studios helped Blockbuster and others prime the pump by selling more copies of new titles at a lower price so rental could surge, which would lead to low-price sell-through within two months of each major new title's release. That worked. Unfortunately, it also flooded the market with lots of copies of every title at incredibly low prices, effectively killing the margins in the sell-through market.

When DVD came into the picture, retail renters wanted the format to operate very much as video was. But the studios said "no." They had learned their lesson from the various profit models for the VHS business and decided to commit to DVD as a sell-through market. Was this decision collusive? Of course it was. But unofficially so. And with this decision came the birth of the next great income boom for the film business.

With the DVD boom, another phenomenon began. Studios started to see the potential of even higher profit margins from "independent" films. Conspiracists see only Oscar wins in the eyes of moguls. But there is money in that thar' DVD. More than ever expected.

If there was no DVD market, would major studios be as willing to invest in "independent minded" arms? Well, the risk would be greater and the upside smaller. Paramount Classics, for instance, has yet to be given the real opportunity from its parent to chase one of their movies into "big hit" status. Jon Dolgen just wouldn't allow the necessary P&A. But Paramount Classics hasn't had a losing year since its inception either. It's not as glamorous or profitable as some other dependents. But thanks to home entertainment, the division is solid.

Does Jack "Chicken Little" Valenti get credit for leadership in the DVD business and its huge impact on the industry, for better and worse? Apparently not.

4. Understanding International Piracy - The world of international piracy stems not from MPAA members sticking it to the little guy in other countries, but from basic underscreening across the globe. Hollywood product has survived in these territories primarily by way of the pirates. Now we are chasing these markets aggressively. But putting the genie back in the bottle is no mean feat.

That said, isn't it simply logical - and moral, even - for studios to want to find a way to revive their interests in these countries and to - Oh my God! It's horrible! - seek financial rewards by selling their product in countries where respect for copyright has not been the norm?

5. Understanding Digital Piracy - This is where Levy-Hinte starts to read like a smirky teenager instead of a man who takes responsibility for million of other people's dollars on a regular basis.

First, Levy-Hinte defines "Piracy" (the capital "P" is his) for the industry. He cites no source for this definition. Essentially, he is setting up "regular people" as victims of the industry, even though there is little indication in reality that the industry is concerned about stopping "fair use." Levy-Hinte yelps:

"In the battle of Good versus Evil it is easy to lose site of the operative definition of piracy that is embedded within Piracy. In the context of Piracy, piracy is considered any form of "unauthorized" copying of motion pictures or fragments of them. This formulation conveniently ignores statutorily protected fair use rights and the conventionally accepted first sale rule, but its most profound feature is that it axiomatically defines all unauthorized copying as theft."

Levy-Hinte continues by combining the ostrich argument with absolute ignorance of the massive flexibility of today's actual technology:

"For instance, in a single stroke, the teenager who spends six hours using Morpheus to download a .mov file of a film fragment so that he can "enjoy" watching and sharing a fuzzy, postage stamp-sized picture on his home computer, is conflated with the criminal syndicates that illegally manufacture DVDs in massive quantities for retail sale."

Where is the line for Levy-Hinte? One copy? Seven copies? Twenty copies? "Massive" suggests hundreds of copies might be the only way to offend Levy-Hinte's sense of "fair use."

He continues:

"A downloaded film is not a realistic substitute for other (more expensive) versions of the film, but a separate product with its own market dynamics. In the language of micro-economics, the demand curve for downloaded film is undoubtedly flat and inelastic which indicates that there would be very little downloading if the price rose above free."

And:

"Piracy assumes that every download is money out of the pocket of the copyright holder, which is invariably one of the MMPS. It is assumed, but never stated or proven, that but for the ability to download, the erstwhile "file stealer" would have otherwise purchased a movie ticket or bought a DVD. This assumption is fundamentally flawed. There is no empirical evidence that the "file-stealers" would otherwise have spent any money seeing the film, or that they did not already, or eventually will, pay to see the film in the theater or see it on television."

Again… how much is too much to Mr. Levy-Hinte? He wants to squeeze the whole piracy argument down to "young people who have a lot of time on their hands," but doesn't seem to be interested in the thought that these very same young people are the primary consumers of both exhibition and home entertainment.

Oh! Not for Levy-Hinte's movies, you say? Well, the entire industry probably should be reconfigured to maximize Mr. Levy-Hinte's cash flow. Oops! Forgot again! He is not interested in money… just art. After all, screeners aren't a marketing tool meant to garner awards that sell more theatrical tickets for DVDs, but an opportunity to share good work with the thousands of industry film lovers! Right?

Is every "file stealer" representative of lost revenue to the copyright owner? No. Is pirated material a guarantee that the "file stealer" committing the theft will not pay for a ticket or buy a DVD in spite of free ownership? No.

But where Levy-Hinte misses the mark completely is in suggesting, repeatedly, that the entire world of file stealing is one of poor quality and limited resources. The fact, as he must know, is that the price of acquiring downloaded materials has risen above free and that people are buying films downloaded via the web, put onto DVDs, and sold on the black market every single day.

In fact, flip the script a bit. People are wiling to buy inferior quality goods in order to see movies early or cheaply or simply out of convenience. Regular folks. Decent people. Happens in every city every day.

What percentage of the industry is Levy-Hinte willing to concede to piracy? Jack Valenti argued during the screener ban fight that even one part of one percent coming from awards screeners was too much to allow. Obviously, Levy-Hinte is willing to allow for that. (Other people's money is always easy to give away.) But what is his cap?

In another intentionally snippy and misleading graph, Levy-Hinte states:

"One might suppose that the MPAA would be prepared to refute the hypothetical scenarios outlined above with an objective empirical analysis that demonstrates the actual economic impact of unauthorized motion picture copying on the copyright holder.
Actually, the MPAA has consistently demonstrated that it has no interest whatsoever in developing a factual basis for its claims regarding Piracy. The MPAA Web site simply states that 'Due to the difficulty in calculating Internet piracy losses these figures are
NOT currently included in the overall loss estimates. However, it is safe to assume Internet losses cause untold additional damages to the industry.' Translation: we have no hard evidence of "Internet piracy losses," and we will simply speculate them into being (and hope nobody notices)."

I would like not to think that Levy-Hinte is a liar. But if he made any effort to talk to any of the people involved with piracy discussions inside the MPAA signatories, especially at Fox, where Jeffrey Godsick's office is about 300 yards from Searchlight's offices, he would know just how aggressively the MPAA signatories are trying to quantify and control piracy by working with investigative companies on the web itself.

Moreover, the MPAA web reference he makes is to a profit and loss analysis by the industry's trade association. He also refers to numbers in Valenti's annual speech to exhibitors at ShoWest. But anyone who is in the slightest way knowledgeable about the business knows that the MPAA's published figures are a starting point for discussion, not the be all and end all of industry analysis.

Levy-Hinte, like all great propagandists, is working backwards from his predisposition when writing his tale. Piracy in America is, primarily, a threat to the DVD market, not the exhibition market. But DVD is where most films - including Levy-Hinte's - turn their profit. Again… how much of the pie is Levy-Hinte willing to give to the pirates? 10,000 units? 50,000 units? 100,000 units?

And, of course, Levy-Hinte never in his article feels the need to even explain how the screener ban might hurt "independent film." He is so convinced of his correctness that, much as he accuses the MPAA of doing, he doesn't seem to feel a need for any facts. I am sympathetic to his plight, since there are no facts to offer. The argument might hold water - but there is no way of quantifying the position. Only the assumed conspiracy of a "cabal of studio executives" out to destroy the business in which they invested (Disney to the tune of $700 million in fiscal 2003) because… what is the argument?… that they wanted more Oscars?

Details are very dangerous to a guy like Levy-Hinte. Look at News Corp, where the push for the ban was heaviest and coincidentally where their Dependent had, at least in perception, one of the best indie years ever outside of Miramax. 20th Century Fox was pushing Master & Commander for Oscar, a $100 million adventure whose biggest drawback was that it was too arty. No wonder. The filmmaker was Peter Weir, one of the great art house directors - who has long worked with studio budgets - of all time. Meanwhile, at Fox Searchlight they were pushing the $12 million In America, made by the great Jim Sheridan, who made two of his first four films for majors and who will make his next film for another major… Fox.

Now, could there have been a conspiracy inside of News Corp to promote Master & Commander more intensely than In America? Sure. Was there? Very dubious.

How about this stat? Both movies, though M&C was nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director and In America was limited to 3, added about $5 million to their domestic grosses after nominations were announced. Of course, that was a 50% bump for In America and just a 6% bump for M&C. That $5 million didn't cover the awards marketing costs for M&C, but much of In America's $5 million went right to the bottom line of the film.

Nice conspiracy.

Levy-Hinte continues, burying himself and his cause, by coming close to arguing that studios should be barred from using any protective coding on their retail DVDs because it might infringe on the rights of "honest citizens who are not technologically savvy." He might complain that I am stretching his words… and I am… but arguing that software that allows people to break the anti-piracy coding should be readily available and that if it is restricted that "fair use rights (are) radically eroded" seems to be arguing against any coding at all. After all, if you should be free to copy DVDs to your "fair using" hearts content, why should you have to acquire software for that purpose at all? Why should there be any cost of entry?

He really hits his stride with:

"If common sense ruled the day, then we would be talking about introducing alternative regimes - such as a collective licensing scheme - that are designed to cultivate innovation, consumer satisfaction, and efficiency instead of marshalling the punitive power of the state to protect the current outmoded and entrenched structures."

You can almost break that thought down word by word.

1. If common sense ruled the day, no one would invest in movies at all. Again, Levy-Hinte argues that the system is rancid. But this is the same system that he argues is strong enough to withstand piracy and has nothing to worry about. Which is it?

2. Alternative regimes? Alternative for what reason? And on whose authority? And isn't Levy-Hinte arguing for collusive action in making that kind of industry wide change? Does he like collusion when it works for him and hate it when it seems to be working against him?

3. Collective Licensing Scheme - The marketplace understands and embraces that idea when it is profitable. Netflix had a great "collective" idea that has since been embraced by other retailers. Who is stopping these new ideas?

4. "Designed to cultivate innovation, consumer satisfaction, and efficiency instead of marshalling the punitive power of the state to protect the current outmoded and entrenched structures." Who says that any idea in a commercial marketplace would, should or could consistently cultivate innovation, customer satisfaction or efficiency?

Of course, a indie/dependent studio is, in many ways, a collective licensing scheme. Peter Rice gets X number of dollars from News Corp to purchase or make and market an undefined number of movies of his choice every year. The purpose of this collective, as opposed to the one that makes The Day After Tomorrow, is that News Corp knows that its larger studio would have a hard time making the most of smaller movies since the natural economic hierarchy showers greater attention of the most expensive films. This is also true at the indies and dependents. In this season, Mr. Rice cannot afford to look at the movies in which his company has invested and decide which one he personally likes best and push the others aside. (See: True Indie and then Dependent Miramax) The $18 million investment in Sideways makes that film a high priority, no matter how it fits among the other Searchlight product. (Fortunately, word is very good on the film.)

Now, I would be disingenuous to suggest that I am not a strong believer in change in the industry in response to the very real threat of piracy. I have repeatedly called for studios to push for a resurrection of second run theatrical as an added source of revenue, protecting against the inevitable downturn in the popularity of sell-through DVD. I believe that the industry has to cultivate the act of going to the movies and must understand now - as the record business did not - that the cost of access is the most significant element in controlling the growth of a piracy market in this country. If it costs a family of four $35 in tickets alone to go to the movies on a weekend and buying the DVD four months later costs $20 and can be experienced over and over for no additional cost, how quickly will we stratify the movie loving public, essentially forcing people to choose not only the specific movies, but the kinds of movies they will pay to see in theaters?

Alternatively, I feel that the idea of charging more for movies based on demand could destroy the film business and cause many to embrace piracy further. Consumers will revolt when they feel they are being abused. But given the opportunity to embrace choice, given the right choice, they will grab it all day long.

Levy-Hinte goes on about the issue of copyright extension, coining the phrase Super Copyright. And while I tend to disagree with him, the argument can be made on both sides of the issue with some logic. I would suggest that the copyright rules were put into place in a time long before anyone conceived of the ongoing exploitation value of films or other media. Does that inherently mean that corporations or individuals deserve the right to engage in that exploitation? That is the argument. But I would say that the ability to finance movies - especially the riskier ones that Levy-Hinte makes - would be enhanced by a longer period of copyright, since the longer opportunity to exploit the product means, presumably, less risk.

Levy-Hinte saves his last blast of energy for "tentpole movies." His final scam… his last push. After all, who can argue that "tentpoles" (a completely invalid term in today's film economy, though it has recently returned to vogue for no logical reason) don't suck for the most part? But like so many things, attacking what you know is unpopular can still be a lie.

Levy-Hinte has revved himself into a froth to the point where everything in the film business is a conspiracy… as in "the MPAA will stop at nothing to make the world safe for the tent-pole movie."

But even in Levy-Hinte's paranoid, misguided, convoluted notion of the film industry, this makes no sense. The business of film is simple, much like any other business. Maximize profits. I wish it weren't so. But there is an element of all of this that Levy-Hinte chooses to pretend does not exist.

Movies cost money. For movies to continue to exist, they need to make money.

Why did Thirteen cost more than $1.5 million to produce? Ten years ago, when indies were indies, it would have been a $250,000 project the was discovered at Sundance. You can't get more out there aesthetically than Vinnie Gallo, but why did The Brown Bunny cost $3.5 million to make? Was that great artistic vision and passion or greed and stupidity?

Every studio has a slightly different take on how to spend their money in pursuit of more money… and a little artistic enjoyment on the side. But I would argue that the tentpole experience of Lord of the Rings… a very expensive tentpole series made by a very independent-minded foreign filmmaker… whet New Line's taste for being honored and that led directly to their high bid for Alejandro Amenabar's Out to Sea a couple of weeks ago.

But the real bottom line is that any studio head in the business would be thrilled to never make a "tentpole" again. If they were comfortable that they could make only smaller movies and some would make huge profits and most would break even, the release of daily stress alone would make it preferable… even before the profits started rolling in.

And this great incestuous business is evolving every single year as it is. The significance of the international market and the power of home entertainment have already turned things upside down and their roles in the industry continue to evolve. Two major pictures this summer were saved financially and made profitable by international box office after weak showings here. That's never happened before. The biggest indie in America last year, Kill Bill, V1, was driven into its split by an oversized budget and the home entertainment value of two films as opposed to one. The Passion of The Christ spent less than a quarter of what Van Helsing did - including P&A for both - and will make hundreds of millions in profit while Van Helsing will have to fight to get out of the red.

Yes, the film industry wants to have control of its product. Yes, your art film, Jeff, is product… cheap, more interesting product, but product nonetheless. Yes, they want the government to protect their interests. Yes, they want to maximize profits. Yes, they make a lot of crap that panders to the public. Yes, the public is more interested in Dodgeball than they are in The Door In The Floor.

You don't like it? Fine. You have two films in production now. Who is crushing your artistic integrity?

Want to talk about phantom paranoia? I'll take Jack Valenti's fear of piracy over your fear of Jack Valenti ever single time. Jack may be the (elegantly dressed, highly paid) rodeo clown who keeps the bull from goring the cowboy, but not only does he know it… he is saving "lives."

Is Jeffrey Levy-Hinte the savior of independent cinema? Is he the renegade of the future? Or is he just another guy who wants to have every tool possible at his disposal to sell his movie and who has little downside to worry about, unlike the higher budget players?

Levy-Hinte wants black hats and white hats and little in between. I am exasperated by this guy. If he were a real independent… if he weren't feeding at the trough that he is so enraged by… so enraged that he would throw the trough over so others could not eat… I guess I could stomach his foolishness. But the hypocrisy… oh the hypocrisy!

E ME: I can't believe you read the whole thing.