Junket Whore II: The Studio Strikes Back
Previously I wrote about running into my pal Eric D. Snider, formerly of the Provo Daily Herald and now a free-lance critic living in Portland, Ore., at the Seattle mini-junket for "World Trade Center."
Eric was surprised to see me, so surprised that he lied and told me he drove up from Portland. In fact, he flew to Seattle and was staying in the swank hotel where we were interviewing Oliver Stone & Co., and that Paramount Pictures was paying his expenses. (For the record, I flew there on the Tribune's dime, and flew back the same day without a hotel stay.)
Nearly any time you read a story in a mid- to small-circulation paper with a New York or L.A. byline interviewing movie stars - or you see a TV interview where the poster or the movie's title is prominent over the star's shoulder - it's from a press junket. And some percentage of print reporters, and the vast majority of TV reporters, are there because the studio paid for their plane ticket, hotel and cab fare. The studio usually also provides buffet lunches and a goody bag of stuff.
The junket process is not widely known to the public, as if the entertainment journalists have adopted the rules of "Fight Club." ("Rule 1: You do not talk about the junket. Rule 2: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE JUNKET.") It's something of a racket, with studios and certain entertainment journalists maintaining parallel fictions: The studios pretend they're not buying off journalists, and the journalists pretend they're not being bought off.
Eric broke the cardinal rule of the junket: He wrote about the junket. Rather humorously, in fact, in this article on his web site, "I Was a Junket Whore."
Now the studio has exacted its revenge. According to Eric's blog, Paramount Pictures has barred him from future screenings. So has the regional ad agency that represents Paramount and organized the junket - and since the ad agency also represents Miramax, the Weinstein Co. and Dimension movies, Eric is out of luck on those screenings, too.
Now Eric's a big boy, and I'm sure he saw this coming (and if he didn't, he should have). But it points out, as writer and filmmaker Bilge Ebiri argues in this blog on Nerve.com, the widening gap between the folks who make movies and the folks who critique them.
So far this year, 12 movies have opened without benefit of critics seeing them in advance - and we have five more coming in the next month: The kiddie superhero movie "Zoom," the horror thriller "Pulse" and the much-hyped "Snakes on a Plane," the horror remake "The Wicker Man" and the action flick "Crank." That's 17, and it's not even September yet. Last year there were 11 total.
Then there are other tricks studios and publicists play. Two recent movies, "John Tucker Must Die" and "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," were screened for critics only on the Wednesday night before opening - and those screenings were not open to all critics. (In those cases, only two Utah critics - me and Jeff Vice at the Deseret Morning News - were invited.)
In contrast, when the studios have a good movie - one they're pushing for an Oscar run - they are all over the critics to see the movies early, interview the stars, and otherwise provide all the free publicity we can.
They love us, they hate us, they schmooze us, they abuse us. And we critics (and I include myself here) too often just take it.
Eric was surprised to see me, so surprised that he lied and told me he drove up from Portland. In fact, he flew to Seattle and was staying in the swank hotel where we were interviewing Oliver Stone & Co., and that Paramount Pictures was paying his expenses. (For the record, I flew there on the Tribune's dime, and flew back the same day without a hotel stay.)
Nearly any time you read a story in a mid- to small-circulation paper with a New York or L.A. byline interviewing movie stars - or you see a TV interview where the poster or the movie's title is prominent over the star's shoulder - it's from a press junket. And some percentage of print reporters, and the vast majority of TV reporters, are there because the studio paid for their plane ticket, hotel and cab fare. The studio usually also provides buffet lunches and a goody bag of stuff.
The junket process is not widely known to the public, as if the entertainment journalists have adopted the rules of "Fight Club." ("Rule 1: You do not talk about the junket. Rule 2: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE JUNKET.") It's something of a racket, with studios and certain entertainment journalists maintaining parallel fictions: The studios pretend they're not buying off journalists, and the journalists pretend they're not being bought off.
Eric broke the cardinal rule of the junket: He wrote about the junket. Rather humorously, in fact, in this article on his web site, "I Was a Junket Whore."
Now the studio has exacted its revenge. According to Eric's blog, Paramount Pictures has barred him from future screenings. So has the regional ad agency that represents Paramount and organized the junket - and since the ad agency also represents Miramax, the Weinstein Co. and Dimension movies, Eric is out of luck on those screenings, too.
Now Eric's a big boy, and I'm sure he saw this coming (and if he didn't, he should have). But it points out, as writer and filmmaker Bilge Ebiri argues in this blog on Nerve.com, the widening gap between the folks who make movies and the folks who critique them.
So far this year, 12 movies have opened without benefit of critics seeing them in advance - and we have five more coming in the next month: The kiddie superhero movie "Zoom," the horror thriller "Pulse" and the much-hyped "Snakes on a Plane," the horror remake "The Wicker Man" and the action flick "Crank." That's 17, and it's not even September yet. Last year there were 11 total.
Then there are other tricks studios and publicists play. Two recent movies, "John Tucker Must Die" and "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," were screened for critics only on the Wednesday night before opening - and those screenings were not open to all critics. (In those cases, only two Utah critics - me and Jeff Vice at the Deseret Morning News - were invited.)
In contrast, when the studios have a good movie - one they're pushing for an Oscar run - they are all over the critics to see the movies early, interview the stars, and otherwise provide all the free publicity we can.
They love us, they hate us, they schmooze us, they abuse us. And we critics (and I include myself here) too often just take it.
9:29 AM
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