Thursday, March 20, 2008

Print reviews less of a sure thing for small films


By Gregg Goldstein


NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) -
Alex Gibney's "Taxi to The
Dark Side" won the best documentary Oscar in February. But when
it opened in New York on January 18, it didn't get even a
one-paragraph review in the New York Post or New York Daily
News
.

It wasn't alone. An increasing number of films aren't
getting reviewed in key U.S. outlets, damaging their slim
chances at the box office. If the trend continues, it could
make it even more difficult for smaller independent films to
secure a release.

Reviews from established media outlets are the only reason
many low-budget films make it to theaters today, because they
trigger word-of-mouth, feature articles and DVD-ready quotes
vital to the indies' true profit source: home video.

But as more and more indie films have flooded the market
(up from 501 in 2006 to 530 last year), they are overwhelming
critics.

FEWER FULL-TIMERS

At the same time, newspaper film departments have been hit
at a breathtaking pace. Critics recently have been laid off,
bought out of their contracts or have left and were not
replaced at the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, New York
Newsday
and more than 15 papers around the country.

In their place, papers have begun running wire service
reviews or relying on a mix of stringers. That, however,
diminishes the impact of the reviews, because "you don't know
enough about a person's voice and what they like for their
review to count," according to L.A.-based publicist Fredell
Pogodin.

Reviews' financial impact on distributors goes beyond box
office. "It costs $700 to $800 to schedule a screening for one
critic, and sometimes they don't make it," says ThinkFilm's
Mark Urman. "If you send a DVD, you lose the impact of a big
screen and you're competing with children, dogs and phone
calls." One crucial venue for indie film, the Village Voice,
now has a critic in Nashville who distributors need to set up
screenings for, or send DVDs to.

To some extent, the Internet has taken up the slack,
although the flood of online opinions don't necessarily carry
the same weight as a well-established print critic. "We're not
at a point where Internet writers have the credibility of
established media with proven records and editors," says Urman.

GENERATION GAP?

Blogger Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere begs to differ
with Urman's take on things. "People who support indie movies
tend to be more Internet-fluent, and there are maybe eight or
10 online critics who genuinely matter and are, in the parlance
of the trade, 'conversation starters.' Due respect, but
insisting that review quotes are still about print critics is
generational hubris."

Meanwhile, the line between print and Web is blurring.
Respected critic Glenn Kenny, for one, is now based at
Premiere since the longstanding print edition folded. All
venues get jumbled together on RottenTomatoes and IMDB,
where visitor rating scores are carrying an increasing (if
unmarketable) weight.

Although it didn't cover them in print, the Daily News
offered online-only reviews of "Taxi," the Oscar-shortlisted
docu "Lake of Fire" and the most acclaimed foreign film of last
year, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."

Joe Neumaier, who started as a critic there after those
reviews were relegated to the paper's Web site, admits,
"smaller movies run the risk of getting short shrift due to
space restrictions and higher-profile films taking those
places. It's sad, and it's Darwinian, but hopefully we'll
evolve to a point where there'll be room for everyone."

Or perhaps Darwinian principles will win out, and the indie
world will have to learn how to live without some of the print
attention it has relied on in the past. "The only complaints
we've gotten (on not running some reviews) are from publicists
and distributors," says the Post's Lumenick. "Not a single one
from readers."


Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

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