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The Reviewer Who Wasn't 164

Posted by michael from the better-than-Cats dept.
An anonymous submitter sent in a pretty timely link as we enter the summer hype, er, summer movie season. Let the ticket-buyer beware...
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The Reviewer Who Wasn't More

The Reviewer Who Wasn't

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  • It's OK (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But if you want to get away with influencing spending decisions with bogus identity and bogus opinions, you have to use usenet. If you just want to use bogus opinions and a pseudonym, but otherwise pretend to be a real person, you can be a columnist for a major computer magazine or trade paper. If you have no use for your real self and are willing to simply sell your name and body to a bogus identity, you can be a very successful politician. What's the difference?

  • All these bribed reviewers... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and the quote they use on the box for "Battlefield Earth" is "Interesting Scene Transitions..." from Joeblo's Movie Emporium.

  • Re:Fake reviewer (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I couldn't remember what he looked like, but you're right. That dude IS fucking creepy! (Joel: http://www.wchstv.com/abc/gma/joelsiegel2.jpg [wchstv.com])

  • I always get the same feeling... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 03, 2001 @04:52PM (#179487)
    ...whenever I see all these people here saying, "Download the Mozilla nightly builds! Best browser ever!"
  • Mad Magazine used to do these "out of context review quotes" as a regular feature in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Did Dave Berg write them? I can't remember.

    Some things never change. :)

    - Robin
  • I'm more disturbed that a commercial for this movie involving bestiality made it through the ad department and got onto a kids' show in the first place. Where and when did you see it?

  • Name 1 movie last year that was better than CTHD.

  • Then don't see any movies at all. That's what I do, unless I hear from reliable sources (friends or family, not critics) that such-and-such movie is really great. The last movie I saw in a theater was Shrek. Before that, I think it was Crouching Tiger.

  • not the problem. The problems are dishonesty and greed. The historical record is pretty clear that these flaws are not peculiar to any one economic system.

    One could argue, if one were a supporter of capitalism, that at least that system offers you the choice not to see Sony's films as a punishment. Under socialism the government owns virtually everything, making a boycott impossible no matter how outrageous the behaviour. As I said, one could argue...

  • Everybody can attend a "G rated film ,but perhaps not everyone would wish to. Perhaps, this too, is marketing. "2001" (1968) was rated "G"

  • "On the Media" did a similar story (Score:3)

    by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:12PM (#179494) Journal
    The public radio program "On the Media" did a recent story [wnyc.org] on how the studios manipulate quotes in film related advertising. Apparently, Jeff Craig of "60 second preview" is quoted a great deal. Maybe he's a shill for the movie industry.

    I've never quite trusted film marketers-- but these are outright lies, and might interest the FTC.

    On an interesting sidenote: it seems that the film revenues for "R rated" films have gone down ever since the movie industry started "enforcing" their ratings. It used to be, of course, that "Rated R" was a draw for certain types of violent films, but now the MPAA has "learned" that such restrictive ratings tend to reduce profits. I'm not sure who to support. (I believed that a trademarked "NC-17" rating might free the artistic impulses of directors--but I guess marketing considerations will probably doom us all to kiddie safe films. sniff)

  • That's a silly reason to read /., a better reason is so that you don't have to read the mainstream news at all! With /. you don't have to sift through all the boring, irrelevant crap about who shot who, who switched political parties, etc. I mean, who really cares what Jim Jeffords does or what Trent Lott or Tom Daschle has to say about it? What have they coded lately? What part of your operating system are they responsible for? If nothing, then what could possibly be newsworthy about them?

    --

  • One could argue, if one were a supporter of capitalism, that at least that system offers you the choice not to see Sony's films as a punishment. Under socialism the government owns virtually everything, making a boycott impossible no matter how outrageous the behaviour. As I said, one could argue...

    Of course, one could also argue that, as corporations become bigger and more powerful snd start branching into more economic sectors (how many entertainment companies does Sony own already? Columbia, Sony Pictures Classics, (the former) CBS...), it becomes more and more difficult to avoid their products...
  • Oh, yes. Don't see any movies at all.

    And while we're on it, don't listen to any music at all. Don't watch any TV. Don't buy petrol from any company. Don't buy any food. Hell, don't breathe at all.

    (And BTW, the point of boycotting a certain studio wasn't about whether their products are good or not, but about their unethical practices).
  • There was an NPR story on this a month or so ago, it's standard practice. Half the review-bytes in a newspaper ad are fake like this one, the other half are taken wildly out of context.... the possibility of an actually-good movie notwithstanding ;)

  • Same thing in the computer industry (Score:3)

    by Old Man Kensey ( 5209 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @06:15PM (#179499) Homepage
    Computer trade rag columnists get taken on junkets like this all the time. Microsoft's name comes up most in such accusations, but the truth is everybody does it; it's also fairly common for "articles" or "reviews" to be nothing more than canned press releases from the company making the product.

    Much of the time a magazine big enough to have several columnists cover an issue will let one or two say bad things about a major advertiser's products as long as there are sycophants on staff who can be counted on to "balance" that bad press.

    There are also apparently professional interviewees who give whatever comments are required to fit the slant of a particular story. Eventually you notice these guys cropping up more and more as word gets around that they can be counted on to deliver.

    There was also the more benign case of Jerry Pournelle, who never called a tech support line that didn't like him when he wrote for BYTE. Everybody knew who he was so they treated him like a demigod, and it skewed his view of customer service in the industry.

    Fun net.lore: How Jerry Pournelle got kicked off the ARPAnet [catalog.com]

  • The article even said... sometimes these quotes make people wonder if the reviewers are even real... which I've wondered before too. At first I thought omg... but I guess it really isn't surprising. Whatever, movies with good reviews usually suck anyway.

    ---

  • Re:Duh (Score:3)

    by CMiYC ( 6473 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:09PM (#179501) Homepage
    > Are there really people that thought those quotes were real?

    Oh yes there are. In fact, I'm sure there are people who still think it was the best movie of the year when it comes out in January.

    The interesting thing is, though, that none of those people (generally) read slashdot. . . .

    ---
  • Being in the SCA, Ill give you my opinoin of A Knight's Tale.

    2 minutes into it, I leaned over and said "this could get better any time now"...25 minutes later we walked out.

    Bad costuming, oddball fight scenes (the lists were good, however), and terrible acting...OY!

  • Re:Fake reviewer (Score:3)

    by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:17PM (#179503) Journal
    Joel Seigel once did a review of "Benji" on the air, panning it in every way he could. Then, as they were going to a commercial he said "and now, it's time for this message."

    The movie poster quoted him "It's Time for this Message!"

    I'm not making this up.

    thad

  • [because it's what's available whereever one happens to be.]

    In some industries, retailers figured this out a few decades ago and started charging manufacturers for shelf space.

    If a manufacturer can't persuade us to buy brand A of product X, they can sometimes pretty much force us to by paying the retailers to (only) carry brand A of product X.

  • Re:Sony, say hello to the FTC (Score:3)

    by jonbrewer ( 11894 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:16PM (#179505) Homepage
    And what exactly was deceptive?

    "This year's hottest new star!" (for Heath Ledger of "A Knight's Tale") and "another winner!" (for The Animal") don't say anything at all. They don't say anything bad about any other movie. They don't promise you'll enjoy the film. They don't even say that either of the films were good.

    I don't see how anything they did violated any laws. Possibly the trust of the people, but give me a break, who trusts commercials? Or movie reviews? The MSNBC (oooh! reliable trustworthy news in itself!) article says it all:

    "The real question is why Sony had to conceive the counterfeit critic to begin with..."

    The article [msnbc.com] goes on to say that film reviewers are bought and fed appropriate quotes as a standard practice.

    Now that I think about it, the invention of a fake reviewer wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe it was political commentary by some jaded ad creative. Or possibly just desperation. The end result is a nothing. Just a bunch of embarrassed LA film execs. Nothing the FTC would worry about.

    (oh yeah. I have a degree [rock-chalk.com] in Advertising.)

  • Re:omg (Score:2)

    by Zico ( 14255 )

    Well, most of 'em are true, the movie studios have just always found a way to take them out of context and add a few exclamation points. The taken out of context thing is pretty much assumed, but there was a case a few years ago when one of the major studios got in trouble for cutting random words from a poor review and pasting them back together into a sentence which lauded the film. They ended up retracting the quotes from the ads when people got on their ass about it. Given how many living and breathing junket whores are out there willing to exchange a good review for some nice trinkets and a sushi dinner, these movies must be pretty hideous that they actually had to make up reviewers.


    Cheers,

  • Well, Joel's creepy mustache and hairdo do tend to leave some doubts, but some friends of mine at ABC have assured me that he really is an actual person.


    Cheers,

  • ...if I've got this right:
    1) Sony uses advertising to push it's films.

    2) Advertisements are a pack of lies.
    So what exactly is new?

    The big shock to me is that there are fools out there big enough to believe that there was even a vague possibility the advertising was honest!
  • Sony won't actually get in any trouble over this. Why not? Because they discovered it and voluntarily (and quickly) retracted the offending ads. They didn't knowingly break the rules, though the FTC will probably tell them to be more careful in the future. Personally, I never read the crap on the movie ads anyway, it's an ad, they're SUPPOSED to make you want to go see the movie.
  • It was worse when cartoons had laugh tracks back in the 60s. Try watching The Flintstones and think of the Simpsons quote: "Very few cartoons are broadcast live, it's a terrible strain on the animators' wrists."
    Pope
  • Mass Media Ethics? I'm stunned that the power of that oxy moron didn't destroy the entire campus.

    I'd be very interested to read your references, if you have them handy.
  • The marketing research agencies who get paid to find out that marketing works do studies that prove conclusively that marketing and advertising works. Does this surprise you?
  • The public radio program "On the Media" did a recent story on how the studios manipulate quotes in film related advertising. Apparently, Jeff Craig of "60 second preview" is quoted a great deal. Maybe he's a shill for the movie industry.
    Yes, "60 Second Review" (or was it preview) is notorious for shilling for the studios -- they frequently supply quotes to the studios without actually having seen the film. See any of Joe Queenan's books for details on shoddy practices like these. Twoflower


    --
  • Yeah... it was late and I didn't proofread very well. I had a hot soldering iron in the basement waiting...

    Rick

  • I know what you're talking about. I could probably dig some out because I have a few of those paperback collections they used to (and probably still) put out.

  • You'd be amazed at how companies can legally get around most of these FDA rules with "weasel" words and tricky wording. OK, maybe you can't flat out lie, but you sure can be deceptive.

    A couple of quick examples before I get back to work:

    "No preservatives added" doesn't count the fact that they pump the packaging full of preservatives.

    The FDA rules allow for 30% error in things like fat content. Now I would bet big money that food companies will pay labs to create tests that are, say, accurate within 5% and fudge the other 25% deliberately.

    I think the FDA is well-intentioned and generally does a good job, but also I think their food labelling rules leave a lot to be desired.

    p.s. I think it would be incredibly cool to meet and talk to a food chemist!

  • In yer dreams... (Score:3)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:04PM (#179517) Homepage Journal
    Wishful thinking... what advertising isn't deceptive?

    "100% Natural"?
    "No Artificial Colors or Flavors"?
    "Lite"?
    "New and Improved"?

    Any of the hundreds of movies that are 88.5 minutes of filler wrapped around a good-looking trailer?

    This is Madison Avenue/Hollywood S.O.P. Nobody (who can change things) cares and nobody (who has any influence) is going to do anything about it.

    I bet two tickets to the next Adam Sandler movie that this is the last time you hear about it in the media.

  • Typical review. (Score:5)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:23PM (#179518) Homepage Journal
    This film is the biggest pile of trash I've ever witnessed. The plot was predictable, the acting was wooden and even the editing was weak. Five minutes into the movie, I was wishing the trailer was still running. In fact, I enjoyed the jingle about not smoking and throwing out your trash better!Everyone around me seemed to agree as there were wise-cracks and booing from most of the patrons in the theater. In fact, you can tell this film is bound to fail by the amount of talking and complaining before, during and after the show. The only positive thing they could talk about was the fact that Junior Mints were only $3.75 in the lobby. It's a real shame that the director has no concept of what a romantic comedy should be. Pairing up the oafish Sam Cheeselog with the shrill and grating Gretel Necessary would thrill no one, but then have them take a six day train ride across the Siberian tundra takes the cake for sheer ineptitude. In fact, you'll consider it a triumph if you make it through this 183 minute piece of trite crap without losing your lunch, spending half of the convulsively gagging, or losing faith that there is any goodness left in the human spirit. Whatever you do, don't go see this movie.

  • The page linked to is a news report that Sony's advertising agency created fake movie review quotes using a nonexistent reviewer.

    Confusion is understandable, as the /. story is in the headline. The /. summary sounds as if the link is pointing at a summary of summer movies.

  • Now you can expect to be sued for attempting to reverse-engineer Sony's encrypted copy-protection method. Sony tried to protect their copyright on those movie reviews by hiding the fact that they held the copyright (because they were the author). Now you're creating reviews and hiding their origin too.
  • Nonsense - Mr. Cranky just uses something vaguely connected to the film he's 'reviewing' as a launching point for one of his comedy schticks. As least Filthy actually reviews the films.
  • Yeah, I saw "A Knight's Tale" on friday, and it was basically just bland - I didn't get drawn into the story at all, and it really seemed that Heath Ledger's character should have ended up with the blacksmith chick, not the high maintenance society bimbo he ended up with where there was zero chemistry (i.e. lousy acting). I've never read the book - it was probably a whole lot more fun, as Chaucer can be quite raunchy.
  • Yeah, the key is to find a movie reviewer who's taste consistently agrees with your own. I got put off seeeing a lot movies I'd probably have enjoyed before I also settled on Roger Ebert's web site as the only one I pay attention too.

    http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert.html [suntimes.com]
  • '"... engaging .... I couldn't put it down!"
    - Edmonton Self-Examiner'

    The real review
    "I would rather be caught engaging in questionable sexual practices than be caught reading this book. I couldn't put it down the garbage chute fast enough!'
  • Pearl Harbor got absolutely horrible reviews and it's made $120 million dollars in two weeks. At the same time a movie like Memento gets stellar reviews and can't even get a widespread release.

    A blurb from some non-major paper like the Ridgefield Press is generally a sign that they are desperate for any positive blurb at all.
  • Difference: no one is getting paid (either directly or by "perks") to say that Mozilla is great (and it is, which is why I'm posting this using Mozilla nightlies). When you see a glowing quotation attached to a movie, it's because someone was almost certainly paid to say it.

    Getting back to the topic, this is why until recently, I've been a huge fan of Ain't It Cool News [aint-it-cool-news.com]. But even Harry seems to be slipping into the machine. He recently wrote an entire series of articles [aintitcool.com] based on his trip to the set of Lord of the Rings. It really smacked of the "we'll fly you to New Zealand and show you a good time, you just write whatever you want," sort of approach to tainting idealistic reviewers.

    But AICN is still the best place to get movie news that's anywhere near honest and biased only by artistic concerns (which often include number of zombies ;-)

    --
    Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
  • I'd have to say the only thing surprising about this is that it doesn't happen more often. Haven't we all come to expect rather shady things from advertising? (I *hope* we have, anyway) In the days when Ain't It Cool News makes it on tv ads for quotes, something like this just can't shock me.

    Personally i'm far more outraged by the results of tonight's iron chef bout. It was fixed, i tell ya, fixed!
    --
  • A few years ago I read a story on the British rating board, and the story was saying that out of the films that were recut, and then sent back to the board to be re-rated, about 60% had a higher rating, and about 20% a lower one. In other words, the distributers are more likely to be upset by a low rating than a high one.
  • I apply that rule to all advertising. I got called by a telemarketer doing a survey of car ads on TV. I figured since I had just bought one, I'd take the stupid thing. After about 20 minutes of asking me inane questions like "which phrases do you associate with the following car companies..." they gave up in what seemed to be the middle. Apparently I wasn't enough of a slave to jingles as they were looking for.

    Does advertising work? The older I get the more I think it doesn't.

  • These adds aren't a lie, they're entertainment! We at Sony want to produce the best advertisements possible, so that you, the consumer can have the best movie-ad-reading experience! We found that 'reality-based' review quotes weren't giving the quality of pablum our devotees expect, so we began creating custom pablum which is 100% pure bullshit! Now the movie-ad-reading public can be assured that no depth goes unplumbed in our search for the smelliest turds to leave on your doorstep!

  • Really bad examples there, dude. (Score:5)

    by devphil ( 51341 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:28PM (#179531) Homepage


    While I agree with your conlusion -- no one cares -- you picked some really crummy examples.

    The FDA has very, very strict rules on what can go on the labels and packages of food, right down to minimum point sizes of fonts. To use your example, if the package says, "no artificial colors," then you can bet your career that it contains no artificial colors. (You can bet yours, because the entire upper and middle management of the food company has bet theirs by saying so.)

    Another example: ever see a dessert marked as "no sugar added" and wonder why they don't save some ink and use "sugar free" instead? They don't have a choice. Many dairy products (yogurt, ice cream, ice milk (and there are rules on what must be called ice cream vs ice milk)) have the no sugar added mark because milk contains lactose, another natural form of sugar, which means that "sugar free" yogurt would be deceptive.

    (I could go on for hours. You can learn an amazingly cool amount of stuff when your dad has a master's in food chemistry.)

    Unfortunately, the watchdog organization for movie reviewers is a little more open to money-greasing than the FDA is.

  • One of the best reasons for a rating ever: Last night I saw an ad for a new Disney movie called "Cats & Dogs". The rating at the end was "PG", and under the "PG" logo it said "Animal Action & Humor". Which can only lead me to believe that "Animal Action", whatever that may be, is a potential corruptor of our youth!
  • Just to add one more to the record, what about Tom Brokaw's nightly news series "The Home of The Brave" -- it's a marketing ploy for his "The Greatest Generation" book and its sequels, of which there are now two (I believe). Just listen for how many times he uses the phrase "the greatest generation" or mentions the books during the pieces.

    But not only is NBC News letting one of its employees use the nighly news program to push his own book(s), NBC has a deal with the book publisher that entitles them to a proportion of the profits from the book sales. I don't remember exactly what the numbers are, so I won't guess at them. But it doesn't matter; anything over zero is unethical....

    We talked about this last summer in the Mass Media Ethics class I took. If anyone cares, I'll try to dig up a reference for them....

    Nate

  • I don't really see how ads can affect the sale of existing products, however. One doesn't drink Coke instead of Pepsi or vice versa because of their respective adds, one drinks one because of the taste, or merely because it's what's available whereever one happens to be.
    Instinctively, I know that's true, but.... how do you explain the millions of dollars Coke and Pepsi put into that kind of advertising? Some of the most high-profile ads in the last 50 years have been by those two corporations. Can they really be so wrong, or are they doing research that shows these things work? Can someone in the advertising industry set me straight here?
    ----
    "Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."

  • Re:Duh (Score:1)

    by LS ( 57954 )
    Yes, Slashdot, the forum of truth to the enlightened!
  • for an even more damaging (long-term) story about our favorite entertainment corporations, check this [latimes.com] story from last week's L.A. Times. Payola never went away, but now it looks like it might finally have raised enough eyebrows to start hurting.


    --

  • Re:slander?? (Score:3)

    by norton_I ( 64015 ) <hobbes@utrek.dhs.org> on Sunday June 03, 2001 @08:15PM (#179537)
    Right. In particular, to be slander or libel, something has to be both "factual" (not a matter of opinion) and believable. I think (but am not sure) that you must also demonstrate that you were materially harmed...

    Thus, saying that a restraunt's food is terrible, that the proprieters are ugly, and the staff is rude are not slander. Saying the beef is actually rat meat, and you are in trouble.

    Likewise, if you say that George Bush shot Lincoln, it is obviously false, and therefore not slander.

    The 2600 case is interesting as it isn't clear what they were saying -- they never really said "ford registered fuckceneralmotors.com" -- in fact the nameserver responses presumably came from 2600's nameservers. On the other hand, most people do not know enough about internet infrastructure to realize that you can't really prevent people from pointing domains at your website.

    The real lesson here is that if you don't want this kind of thing to happen to you, set your webservers to reject Host: headers not from your domain.
  • On an interesting sidenote: it seems that the film revenues for "R rated" films have gone down ever since the movie industry started "enforcing" their ratings.
    Now, let me get this straight... they block people from seeing to a movie, offering it to fewer customers, and the amount of money they make on that movie goes down? Shocking!
  • The FDA has very, very strict rules on what can go on the labels and packages of food, right down to minimum point sizes of fonts.

    That's right. They strictly enforce their "no-labelling" policy for genetically modified (GM) foods. You're not allowed to label your Frankenfoods, nor are you allowed to label your food as "non-genetically modified". In short, the FDA has made it illegal for the consumer to tell the difference. Which is why 70% of the produce (by mass) sold in the United States is untested genetically spliced food.

    To learn more about how the FDA (Monsanto's marketing department) is out to poison the public, read this book [amazon.com].

    Strict standards. Heh. Like anyone cares. Movie PR, food PR, industry PR, it's all the same - programming.

  • I think it won't be long before the US Federal Trade Commission has a nice long talk with Sony management on what appears to be a violation of our Federal laws in regards to deceptive advertising.

    I don't see how anything they did violated any laws. Possibly the trust of the people, but give me a break, who trusts commercials? Or movie reviews?

    The FTC recently began cracking down on advertisements that feature "testimonials": although this sort of thing was accepted a few years ago, it has come under closer scrutiny nowadays. Moreover, they attributed their remarks to a real newspaper, and thus made blatantly false claims. They could even be subject to civil suits for their erroneously attributed remarks.

  • the Filthy Critic is just a lame bite-off of Mr. Cranky [mrcranky.com], who is, by the way, a LOT funnier (just read his review of Battlefield Earth).
  • The Filthy Critic is a lame bite-off of Mr. Cranky [mrcranky.com]. Oh well, they do say imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
  • I liked Solaris, even though it was really long and gave me the creeps.

    --
  • I prefer to get my reviews from some "real" reviewers like the Movie-A-Minute [rinkworks.com] guys, or Mr. Cranky [mrcranky.com]. Their reviews are as informative as any, but a hundred times funnier...
  • Perhaps The Ridgefield Press should sue for all of the profits from those movies. It is clear that they could not possibly have been/be as successful without the use of the paper's good name.
  • Ads for movies haven't been entertaining or inspiring for a long time. The Matrix had a good idea for its ad campaign but most ads in the past couple years have sucked.

    But even when ads were good, I would never trust the word of the reviewers they use in their ads. Of course they are going to use the best reviews for their movie even if the movie reeks there will be one or two positive reviews so that is not a good gauge for movie quality.

    Right now the only purpose movie ads serve is to alert the general public that the movie exists but they aren't going to convince me one way or another. If I want to know about a movie I will look it up on Rotten Tomatoes [rottentomatoes.com] or some other review site and look at all the reviews.

  • APPLE COMPUTER engages in a similar type of deception.

    GUY KAWASAKI has an email list, to which I subscribe, where he'll tell people, for example, to write to complain to a small compnay for coming out with a product with no Macintosh support. Hundreds write--most if not all of them would have never even known about the product if it weren't for this call to arms.

    First, I didn't think Guy still worked for Apple, and that his mailing list was in no way related to Apple. I may be wrong, but I didn't think there was anything remotely official about it.

    Second, how is that remotely similar to making up fictitious reviewers and quotes?

  • Here [bigempire.com], of course is a link to The Filthy Critic.
  • And this is why the Filthy critic is the only critic I trust (he hates everything.) Filthy himself. [bigempire.com]

  • Re:omg (Score:2)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 )

    Hey!

    I simply must take issue with your criticism of movie trailers. They offer incredible savings in both time and money!

    For most modern Hollywood movies, I've found that I can adequately capture all the significant moments, the special effects, the character development and the entire plot of the movie by simply viewing the trailer instead of the actual 110 minute film.

  • Irony: Fake Reviews from the Fake News site (Score:3)

    by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @03:25AM (#179554) Journal

    Am I the only one to appreciate the irony of this story, appearing on M$N ?

    This seems to me as just the sort of Anti-Sony FUD I've been expected from arch-King of FUD; Micro$haft. Especially likely when you consider that very soon, Sony becomes Micro$haft latest competitor.

    Just ask the question "Who do you trust to produce quality content of any type?" M$ or Sony, tough one that :)

  • I have to say of all the movie reviewers I've read, I think that only the Filthy Critic [bigempire.com] has all his shit in the same sock. I just wish he'd review things a little more often, though.
  • For crying out loud folks... NPR did an expose on this a month ago on All Things Considered. They just now caught on to it?

    Geez. Pretty sad when Public Radio gets the scoop on everyone, considering the millions that the networks pump into "generating" news...


    --Fesh

  • Update:
    • Moulin Rouge A romance produced like a car commercial. Rent French Can Can [yahoo.com] instead.

  • Summer movie reviews (Score:5)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @08:55PM (#179564) Homepage
    • Pearl Harbor An overproduced war movie with a stupid plot. Rent Tora Tora Tora instead.
    • Shrek Great animation, but does every major animated movie have to have the Stupid Sidekick With the Black Voice?
    • Angel Eyes Jennifer Lopez as a Chicago cop. Why?
    • Josie and the Pussycats Whatever.
    • A Knight's Tale The SCA with a big budget.
  • That's been something that I've given some thought to recently as well.

    It seems to me that in terms of product awareness advertising probably does do something; people who have a need that is met by a new product may go out and buy that product once the've been exposed to the ad.

    I don't really see how ads can affect the sale of existing products, however. One doesn't drink Coke instead of Pepsi or vice versa because of their respective adds, one drinks one because of the taste, or merely because it's what's available whereever one happens to be.

    I suppose that advertisements of sales and such do also have an affect, as they are also awareness related ads.
  • From his review of antitrust [mrcranky.com]

    Let's face it: The possibility of a couple of repressed computer geeks blowing a load after hearing a germane computer term is substantial. To a hardcore geek, "Open" and "Source" are like the nipples on the breasts of Jennifer Love Hewitt
  • Joel Seigel once did a review of "Benji" on the air, panning it in every way he could. Then, as they were going to a commercial he said "and now, it's time for this message."
    Actually, this was Gene Shalit on the Today Show, who made this statement after getting the commercial sign from his producer in the middle of a positive review of the film, only to wind doubled over laughing when he saw himself quoted on a marquee. (Alas, Snopes [snopes.com] doesn't seem to have any information on this, although a Google/Deja search did turn up a couple of attirbutions to Shalit but none for Seigel.)
  • Any day now, some plaintiffs' lawyer will find someone who says "I went to see the movie because of the review, and the movie was awful." Instant class action suit! I won't feel that sorry for Sony, either, given that they belong to MPAA, which has been litigious enough.
  • Actually it is libel, slander is spoken defamation.

    Please explain the statement that 2600 has made. What 2600 did is register httpfuckgeneralmotors.com [fuckgeneralmotors.com] and have it resolve to 164.109.135.183 [ford.com] which is Ford's website. Ford claims that this implies that Ford has done this. Even if it did imply that Ford did this, it only implies that Ford is low class -- not something actionable under libel. In a Mass. case, calling a couple (who ran a restraunt) pigs was not actionable.

  • Trademark infringment (Score:3)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:07PM (#179577) Homepage
    I wonder why Sony is not being sued?

    Ford is suing 2600 [fordreallysucks.com] for implying that Ford is sponsoring the www.fuckgeneralmotors.com domain because 2600 is pointing the domain to Ford.

    This is a situation where Sony is actually stating that this non-existant person actually works for this newspaper.

  • Look at the source, not the quote! (Score:3)

    by TheFrood ( 163934 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @07:00PM (#179592) Homepage Journal
    When I look at movie ads, I never bother looking at what the quotes actually say. Of course they're postive; they wouldn't be there if they weren't.

    Rather, I look at who the studio is quoting. If it's Scooter McGee of the Hicksville Tribune, the movie is crap. If it's, say, Roger Ebert, then the movie is worth considering. This system hasn't failed me yet.

    Bonus fact: The junket-critics mentioned in the article are referred to by real critics as "quote whores".

    TheFrood

  • umm.. and when taco bell recalled over a MILLION POUNDS of food last year because the corn used was "potentially from genetically engineered plants that were NOT for human consumption, but for experimentation.". Turns out the entire batch was from that.
    FDA is a fuck off agency, who has better quality standards than the "watch dog organization for reviewers", and might be a little harder to bribe, but follows the rule, same shit, different pile.

    Mass bribery?
    Why can I buy claritin in canada over the counter (shit, they have it in attractive displays in the aisles) for $10 Canadian (6.50 US$ with tax) and the same damn package in the USA costs $70 AND needs a perscription ($40ish, even if your insurance pays).
    Bribery is called "campaign contributions" or "donations to the US Treasury" in the USA. Again - same shit, different pile.

    The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit:
    Pissing off hyper caffeineated /.'ers since Spring 2001.

  • Well there sparky, let's see what you think is funny... AC boy...

    krystal_blade

  • WHAT!? (Score:4)

    by krystal_blade ( 188089 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @04:50PM (#179597)
    THEY FAKED THEIR OWN RATINGS? TO GET MORE |insert mode of "payoff" here|

    So, Sony's a "Karma Whore" too?

    COOL!

    krystal_blade, going to invest in Sony because "They're Just Like ME!!"
    screw Napster... I want BOOKSTER!!

  • Fake reviewer (Score:4)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @04:39PM (#179599) Journal
    And he is different from Joel Siegel et al. precisely how?
  • The FTC recently began cracking down on advertisements that feature "testimonials": although this sort of thing was accepted a few years ago, it has come under closer scrutiny nowadays. Moreover, they attributed their remarks to a real newspaper, and thus made blatantly false claims. They could even be subject to civil suits for their erroneously attributed remarks.

    That is specifically the reason why the FTC may may have a nice long talk with Sony Pictures about the advertising for their recent movies. The reason is simple: it may the first time someone has tried to pull this type of deception off and got caught red-handed.

  • Sony, say hello to the FTC (Score:3)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @04:49PM (#179604)
    I've heard of sneaky deceptive advertising, but this just about takes the cake, to use to old cliché.

    I think it won't be long before the US Federal Trade Commission has a nice long talk with Sony management on what appears to be a violation of our Federal laws in regards to deceptive advertising.
  • ...is the Self-Made Critic [brunching.com] also a figment of someone's imagination?

  • Re:"On the Media" did a similar story (Score:3)

    by kenthorvath ( 225950 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @06:01PM (#179609)
    **Mildly off topic***

    I never understood the purpose of giving a movie an R rating. I mean, some of these movies that get them I would feel comfortable letting my 14 year old daughter watch. Take Office Space for instance, the only mildly offensive substance was the occasional f-word and one not-so-erotic sex scene where there wasn't even ANY nudity. If that's what get's you an "R" rating, I might just start seeing "NC-17" only. However, the last film that I remember seeing in that category was Showgirls and it sucked.... Just my little rant.

  • Newsweek.MSNBC?!?!? (Score:4)

    by suavew ( 240392 ) <suavew.yahoo@com> on Sunday June 03, 2001 @06:04PM (#179612)
    Just when you thought MS and NBC could do a bad enough job of journalism on their own, now Newsweek is part of the mess? It boggles the mind.

    Given how quickly all major news outlets are congealing into one corporate mouth piece, it's startling they let even this mildly anti-Hollywood article seep through the cracks. I like the central message though -- "The movie industry basically lies to you constantly, but tough, it's not like you can do anything about it. You'll watch what we tell you to watch, you mindless drones. Hahahahahaha."

    Does this mean those constant Survivor stories on CBS "news" outlets, weren't just solid reporting on a popular social interest? CBS did those stories on iWon.com because it's a groovy site, not because they invested $50 million in it, right?

    You can read science fiction books about people getting brain washed en masse, or you can flip on the television for the interactive version.

    Wait. We're not a brain washed society. The Chinese are the brain washed ones. We're all about democracy and free speech. Sure, Napster tried to crush free speech by misuing "free use" copyright concepts, but that's been fixed now. The New York Times Company says this is a fair democratic land we live in, and that if it weren't for a couple stray politicians having sex and their underaged children drinking beer, everything would be just perfect. Whew! I was scaring myself there for a minute.

    Anyway, I've gotta go. I'm late, and those "Knights Tale" tickets are selling out quickly for some reason.
  • the filthy critic does a nice job of hacking on those movie making bastards, he included a nice bit about manning in the current review.

    It also reminds me of the hollywood studios paying web designers a lot of cash to make fan pages that look like they were done by amateurs.

    They do really shitty things to their comsumers, and I like the rest of them still pay to see movies...We are such losers...

  • Hmm... (Score:3)

    by Scoria ( 264473 ) <slashmail@ i n i t i a l i z e d.org> on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:48PM (#179619) Homepage
    20/20 had a story about this a few weeks ago. Apparently some would-be reviewer stated "Paul Hogan's back, and the croc rocks!" in his extremely slanted Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles review.

    Upon further investigation, this reviewer and one other (who said "A great family film") seemed to hate nothing. Supposedly, they get paid off to say they love the bombs.

    I'm wondering why we would ever dream of trusting these no-name critics. Would you trust a complete stranger to tell you how to spend your money? The only critics I remotely trust to review a movie fairly well are Ebert (he doesn't seem to be too commercially influenced) and my friends.

    That said, I always knew Jon Katz used pseudonyms. :)

  • a trick to get you to do all the hard work, while others slack off and make crap movies (or crap software).

    I sure I would have a lot more fun if I was making movies and lying to people about how good they are so I could make money.

    This isn't "bad judgement", this is fraud. It's a pretty that the companies we work for lie like this every day, about the things we are making. (Only we call it marketing.)

    F**K YOU SONY!
    --

  • I mean, who really cares what Jim Jeffords does or what Trent Lott or Tom Daschle has to say about it? . . . If nothing, then what could possibly be newsworthy about them?

    Ohhh, I don't know, maybe that they deceptively tell the public what their new law called the DMCA will do for everyone to 'sell' their point to America!

    What part of your operating system are they responsible for?

    Well, pretty soon, they'll be responsible for the part that doesn't let me make copies of my own files without a permit for each file. Or to even write up a critical review of a crappy movie and post it to the web that opposes all those with 'jornalistic' licenses (like "Mr. Manning"), 'cause hey, maybe I'm copying someone else's work somewhere in the world, and we certainly wouldn't want that?!

  • Well, if any of the Sony exec's are anything like your average American, this doesn't surprise me at their lack of caring what really is true, as long as the end justifies the means.

    A friend of mine in high school had to write a 2 page essay on a magazine article from a National Geographic (we all did in this particular class). After reading the first page, he turned it to find that the rest of the article had been ripped out of the magazine. Not having the time to start reading another article, he simply made up the rest of his essay on the article! So it went a little something like this:

    "Gorilla's in the wild have had a declining population over the past 20 years as studied by scientists. They have found that deforestation and ... (Oh crap! The rest of the story is gone, oh well, here goes nothing) ... male mating patterns have added to the loss of gorilla population. After extensive study, it was found that the male will seek out the best looking female gorilla and display wild dancing acts to attract her. When he has gotten her attention, he will find a fallen tree branch, club her over the head, and drag her back to his cave to mate." - (Summarized for brevity).

    The teacher bought it, gave him an A+, and commented at the top of his paper on this alarming research, and that she hoped they would find a way to dissuade the clubbings of the females. :)

    Needless to say, she's one of the many types of person today that buys into crap movie reviews and has no idea what the world is all about.

    • It also reminds me of the hollywood studios paying web designers a lot of cash to make fan pages that look like they were done by amateurs

    Sometimes they get it just right though. Check out the Galaxy Quest [www.galaxyquest] site. It purports to be a fan page, but a fan of the (non existent) series, who talks about meeting the series actors (e.g. Gwen Demarco, not Sigourney Weaver) at conventions.

    The tongue is very firmly in the cheek, it's just a shame that the legal weasels made them put a (C) DreamWorks at the bottom. :(

  • The ratings board basically has a big ole' list of things that determine what rating a given film gets. X amount of violence, X swear words, etc. Also, the scale is logramithic. The range of G films is much smaller than the range of R films. For example both Office Space and all the Die Hards rated R, but even Honey I Shrunk the Kids rated PG. Well Office Space would certianly be at the low end of the R scale and Die Hard at the high end of the scale. NC17 movies have an even wider range. The orignal cut of American Pie would have recieved an NC17 rating, had it been rated. Well they didn't have to cut much to bring it down to an R. However, that puts it in the same category as hard core porno films. More levels of ratings would be nice, but probably just serve to confuse people. The line for each rating has to be drawn somewhere and the movies that fall right on the border will often raise questions about the ratings. I've seen R films that I thought should be PG13 and PG13 films I thought should be R.
  • ...people actually pay attention to quotes in movie ads? :)

    Seriously, though, it really doesn't pay to rely on ads to give you any meaningful information, other than the existence of the product/service.

    Caveat Emptor -- still the best advice

  • Decades from now ... (Score:4)

    by sunwukong ( 412560 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @04:57PM (#179630)
    ... when the books about this time before the fall of the MPAA and the great studios are written, we'll be able to look at their back covers and reflect ...

    "An absolute must read!"
    - Ridgefield Review of Books

    "... engaging .... I couldn't put it down!"
    - Edmonton Self-Examiner

  • Re:Hmm... (Score:3)

    by Hilary Rosen ( 415151 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @02:24AM (#179633) Homepage Journal
    The Self-Made Critic [brunching.com] over at brunching.com [brunching.com] seems share my taste in movies, so I listen to him. He also doesn't have a big enough readership to be worth bribing.

    Having said that, the day I see "3 3/4 Babylons!" on a movie poster is the day I stop reading his reviews.
    --

  • Re:It's possible to judge without seeing (Score:3)

    by Cmarthen ( 446454 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:54PM (#179638)
    Then again, I used to write entire book reports in high school without ever reading a page...

    Hell, I once wrote a report on a book that doesn't exist.

    Got a B on it too. In the context of the MSNBC article, I suppose you could say "It was the best review the book ever got!"

    *snicker*

  • They should have this for software. And they should do the voice of the "comic book guy" from the Simpsons. :)

    RedHat ad ---- "Windows 2000 Server is the worst operating system EVER".

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