In one of his "Answer Man" columns, Roger Ebert addressed the breaking of the review embargo for the last book in the Harry Potter franchise after a copy had been linked online. I think he gets to part of the reason that embargoes on reviews, while pretty silly, should be honored:

"It's no fair. The papers received their review copies by tacitly agreeing to the embargo date and were grasping at a technicality to excuse the dubious distinction of reviewing the book early. Even worse, they spoiled the delicious suspense of Harry Potter fans … With other papers, you're not surprised, but did you ever think the New York Times would stoop to using a loophole to be early … I say it's dirty pool."

Early reviewing is one of those unfortunate byproducts of the online universe, especially now when someone can walk into an advanced screening of Avatar, hop on Twitter or another social networking site, and post their reaction as the credits roll through the cell phone. I'm glad, though, the Ebert understands that holding a review until the date of release is important.

After all, what's the point of putting out a commentary or analysis of a film almost a week before anyone else but the selected few who attended an early screening will get to see the movie.

A lot of folks apparently walked out of Avatar, got to the nearest computer, wrote a review of reasonable length, and posted it as quickly as possible. Once those were out, it was a frenzy.

Someone even had a bit of a hissy-fit about the whole thing, tweeting "Hey, Fox, I'll observe your f--king embargo on 'Avatar' if it means mine is the last f--king review published." That critic's review was posted later that night. Good thing, too, because there were a whopping 20-some reviews of the few hundred that will be posted by the time people get to the first Friday morning showing of the movie. Being within the first 30 to break the embargo is apparently very important. As of this writing, there are less than 50 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, so I don't think this individual had any worries of being "the last f--ing review published."

Meanwhile, we online critics—the ones who usually get the short end of the advanced screening options because we are suspected of being more likely to break the embargo—are holding our tongues (Notice I haven't mentioned at all what I've thought about Avatar). Or at least the ones who still understand what professionalism is. Or the ones who thought the embargo had officially lifted after so many "professional" critics ran their reviews (It has not been officially lifted yet, but my publicist contact said that with all the reviews out there now, it'd be fine to post mine. In spite of that, I'm honoring the embargo).

We don't go around publicly defend a colleague's right to his opinion one day, get a bunch of angry comments on our blog about that individual, and then turn around and call that same person we just defended a name like—off the top of my head—"troll" or something of that ilk.

But I digress.

The question is, what's the point of an early review? Why are certain critics so eager to get their word out about Avatar but not The Young Victoria, which also opens this week and was screened here in Chicago over a month ago? Why didn't anyone cause a fuss about having to hold reviews of that movie, which is already on DVD in the UK?

I don't have an answer. I have a suspicion, which is that some critics have become as much a part of the studios' marketing scheme as TV and newspaper ads, helping to expand the hype of certain films, while leaving the others to fend for themselves. Is that unethical? It's certainly not professional.

It's the only thing of which I can think at the moment, and it's very unfortunate if that is indeed the case.

Spider-Man 3? Seriously?

So the reviews are in, and it's a mixed bag. In fact, I'd say my review is probably the most glowing of the bunch, and that's sad.

Here are some things that have been criticized about the film that I'd like set the record straight on:


Dark Peter's not evil:



[list][*]Uh, that's kind of the point, isn't it? Peter Parker's idea of being a badass is dressing emo, giving girls smarmy looks (who all look at him like he's an idiot), and ordering his landlord's daughter to bake him cookies. Even when trying to be bad, Pete's still a nerd. It's supposed to be funny.[*]I loved those scenes in how completely out-of-tone they were. It's a fun interlude in the midst of the complicated storyline.[*]These scenes do ultimately lead to Peter doing pretty terrible things to the people he loves. Peter Parker has a lot to answer for at the end of this film.[/list]Three villains is too many (also, the villains aren't developed enough compared to the others in the series):
[list][*]Way, way, way off. These villains are developed better than any of the others in the series. The Goblin in the first one was a campy diversion, and Doc Ock doesn't have that much in terms of development (one of the problems with that movie--great villain, not enough of him). And hey, none of these guys invent some random machine that could destroy the entire city.[*]The way the villains are developed is complicated. They do not exist on their own; they are reflections of issues Peter has been dealing with for a long time. Sandman, as Uncle Ben's real killer, is Pete's conflict of being a hero: Is he just taking revenge and trying to compensate for what he sees as his responsibility for Ben's death, or is he someone fighting for justice? Harry as the New Goblin should be fairly obvious, since the fight between the two of them has been building ever since Harry's father died. And Venom? Really, no one caught the fact that Peter and Eddie Brock are incredibly similar, and that Eddie is taken over by the same substance that turned Peter into an inflated windbag? Ever hear of a doppelganger? Yep, Venom is the external manifestation of everything he's dealt with so far: pride, anger, etc..[/list]Everyone cries in this movie:
[list][*]Have we seriously gotten to that point? Where did this "criticism" come from anyway? Yes, people sometimes cry when they're confronted with rough patches. Didn't people go crazy over the supposed humanity of the first sequel? Yeah, that's more of that here, and it actually plays out instead of being interrupted for action sequences.[/list]Here's the bottom line as I see it: Everyone blew their wad on Spider-Man 2, and here is the backlash. This isn't a safe film. It's symbolic and unafraid of melodrama (I called it "opera" in my review for a reason). It's strange and jubliant but still wise. I loved it. Shame you didn't.




Addition:



I forgot a silly one:



Kirsten Dunst sings (and, as Richard Roeper points out, twice):
[list][*]Did we miss the part that MJ is fired from her Broadway debut? She's not supposed to be a good actress. She's a failing actress, and it fuels her jealousy towards Pete's alter-ego.[*]This one's just a case of nitpicking out of context.[/list]Surprisingly, the really gimmicky element of Harry losing his short-term memory has gone basically ignored (it works, though, because we get to see Harry and Peter as friends one more time before their conflict is pushed to the limit).

I usually spend my efforts on film, but I heard a song on the radio I thought I should tackle.

A Perfect Circle's dismal, gloomy cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" sets a new low in covers. It seems that the band only found the bass clef of the sheet music and dropped it down four or five octaves. Perhaps the song is meant as a commentary on our current political climate or a critique of Lennon's vision, but the result plays more like a hollow vanity project--a modernization of a classic meant only to boost the "artistic" pedigree of the band. The song's worst crime: it's made something beautiful very, very ugly.

You can listen to it on Real Player or Windows Media.

First of all, I'm not dead, but thank you for asking.

It was a day over a year ago that I talked about the various rating systems, and now I'm going to be a hypocrite and wonder why Rotten Tomatoes hasn't given us critics a third choice. You all know the Fresh Tomato and the Rotten Tomato, but how about a third one, somewhere in the middle.

It's a fairly useful idea, considering how many movies come out that critics have mixed feelings about. So how about a Mixed Tomato or a Ripening Tomato or a Tomato That's Sitting on the Fence? Such reviews wouldn't wouldn't count toward a movie's Freshness or Rottenness. They would just be. Very Zen Tomato, maybe.

Maybe it would help bring down my "This critic agrees with the Tomatometer" percent down from the depressingly populist 79%.

So I could write an entire rant about the frustrations of school, classes, projects, rehearsals, etc., but you know what, I'm not one of those people. If you take the time to sit down and read this journal, I'm going to return the favor by giving you something relevant to film, criticism, or anything else that has at least the semblance of substance to it. Because after all, the Internet doesn't need another blog (there's that word again) of personal bitching. They're like a hydra[font=Times New Roman][font=Verdana]?[/font][/font]start one, two more pop up. Ok, so not literally like a hydra, but you get the point.

This, however, leaves me at a sort of a loss tonight, though, since my day had the shadow of a terrible morning hanging over it. I don't want to have a worthless post, so I'll come up with something really quickly. And where better to find intelligent topics than RT's very own Critics Discussion forum? :rolleyes:

For today's topic, let's visit the What's The Deal With The Ratings System??? thread by ModernHipp18. Now he is of course referring to the rating system used by The Vine for rating movies, games, celebs (what?), critics (what?), and reviews (wait, what?), which is a number between 1 and 10. This brings up one of those eternal questions critics have been dealing with ever since Aristotle began using the "phallos" system, which is somewhere in the lost chapters of his Poetics, I believe. What is the point of these Irrelevant Ratings in Stars? And how many stars should you use? And what if you don't like stars but enjoy Arabic Numerals? And what if you can accurately pinpoint the quality of a film using single digits between 0 and 100?

This brings up another point, though, are ratings meant to reflect quality or a critic's level of recommendation? I use the good old four star system, simply because that's what I was raised on. For me, it's a good way to keep things in perspective, and it gives "readers" a chance to simply look at the rating, determine what I thought of the movie, and close their browser window.

People love ratings. They're so easy[size=2][font=Times New Roman][font=Verdana][font=Times New Roman][font=Verdana]?[/font][/font][/font][/font]so seductive. A few keystrokes and everyone knows what your opinion of any given movie is. What confuses me, though, is the increased popularity of the screening log, which seems to be the next logical step in the obsession with ratings. It also points to something slightly more dangerous to film criticism[font=Times New Roman][font=Verdana]?[/font][/font]especially of the online variety. We've moved a long way since Harry Knowles sat down at a computer and organized a website revolving around an ugly color scheme and free-form ramblings typed with the font size hiked way up. A lot of writers from my generation are stepping to the plate to fix things.[/size]

But then I stumble across a screening log with a number and a few thoughts. The practice of this isn't an evil in itself, of course; we're all busy people. It will become a problem when that becomes a critic's primary output. I'm not talking about the casual movie fan but those writers who have proven time and again that they have the capability to provoke thought, incite debate, and actually write. Criticism is not a rating; it is an argument. The screening log implicitly makes opinion and personal taste the cornerstone of criticism and pushes the expression of thought into the background.

This isn't a personal attack on any writer in particular, and I intend it more as a supportive pat on the back. We're above this.

Ironically, there's another thread in the Critics Discussion forum that deals indirectly with this issue. It's titled Roger Ebert's lack of taste. Ratings and blurbs, that's all they are.