New Yorker's Embargo-Breaking 'Girl With a Dragon Tattoo' Review Sparks an Ethical Crisis — And Everybody Wins

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Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

 

 

by Graham Fuller

Published: December 5, 2011

When British soccer players of opposing teams flare up and shove each other around on the field, the press call it “handbags” — as in, grown men shouldn’t behave like genteel middle-class ladies swatting each other with their receptacles in a famous "Monty Python" sketch. “Handbags” is now what’s going on between the mutually dependent worlds of American movie criticism and production/publicity. The specific antagonists are David Denby, one of the New Yorker’s two distinguished critics, and Scott Rudin, the eminent producer of David Fincher’s remake of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

Denby’s mostly positive review of the thriller appears in today’s New Yorker. You’d think that would be music to Rudin’s ears. However, the producer and Sony Pictures, which is releasing the film on December 21, are furious because Denby broke the embargo he and other members of the New York Film Critics Circle agreed to in writing when the film was screened for them.

Against Denby’s wishes, the NYFFC brought their awards ballot forward this year so that it would benefit publicly from being the first critics’ group to announce its winners, as it did on November 29. Rudin and Sony, hoping that “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” would take home a trophy, showed the film to the NYFCC critics and members of the National Board of Review on November 28, but embargoed reviews until December 13. Denby’s jumping the gun by eight days is likely to trigger the premature publishing of other reviews.

Indiewire.com has published the email correspondence between Denby and Rudin that took place on Saturday.

In response to Rudin’s aghast response to Denby telling him of his decision to publish the review, the critic wrote: “Grown-ups are ignored for much of the year, cast out like downsized workers, and then given eight good movies all at once in the last five weeks of the year. A magazine like the New Yorker has to cope as best as it can with a nutty release schedule. It was not my intention to break the embargo, and I never would have done it with a negative review. But since I liked the movie, we came reluctantly to the decision to go with early publication.”

Denby added that “the early vote [by the NYFCC] forced the early screening of ‘Dragon Tattoo.’ So we had a dilemma: What to put in the magazine on December 5? Certainly not [Cameron Crowe’s] ‘We Bought the Zoo,’ or whatever it's called. If we held everything serious, we would be coming out on Christmas-season movies until mid-January. We had to get something serious in the magazine. So reluctantly, we went early with ‘Dragon,’ which I called ‘mesmerizing.’ I apologize for the breach of the embargo. It won't happen again. But this was a special case brought on by year-end madness.”
Rudin wasn’t appeased. “Your seeing the movie was conditional on your honoring the embargo, which you agreed to do,” he wrote to Denby. “The needs of the magazine cannot trump your word. The fact that the review is good is immaterial, as I suspect you know. You've very badly damaged the movie by doing this, and I could not in good conscience invite you to see another movie of mine again.... you must at least own that, purely and simply, you broke your word to us and that is a deeply lousy and immoral thing to have done.”

“Immoral” may be putting it a bit strongly in the scheme of things, though the ethical issues were skewed from the start. Denby shouldn’t have agreed to the embargo in the first place — critics should never kowtow to the industry (even if they do so with the intention of ultimately reclaiming their independence in print). Despite Sony's claim that “embargo dates level the playing field and enable reviews to run within the films’ primary release window,” the studio shouldn’t have gone after the critics’ awards while denying them the right to write about their film. (Warner Bros., for example, refused to show the Rudin-produced “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” to the New York critics.) The NYFFC shouldn’t have voted on the best films of the year without seeing “Extremely Loud” — a Stephen Daldry picture starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock that presumably has awards potential.

In the event, the NYFCC did not give “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” any awards. But whatever objections Rudin and Sony have, their spat with Denby and the New Yorker will amount to considerable pre-release publicity. Denby’s review is likely to be one of the most widely read of the year and, since he applauds the film, that should have a helpful effect on ticket sales. The New Yorker benefits because it cast the first critical vote on the movie in print and emerges as the voice of authority. Everyone wins, except Crowe and 20^th Century-Fox, whose zoo comedy-drama Denby offhandedly dismisses, albeit in a private email made public. Were he to choose to do so, which is unlikely, Crowe would have a right to let fly with a handbag.

Art Info

Meryl Streep as Magaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" wins Best Actress in New York City Critics Circle

The New York Film Critics Circle, which moved its awards announcement from mid-December to late November in a transparent attempt to have more clout in the awards conversation, has thrown that clout behind "The Artist," choosing Michel Hazanavicius's black-and-white silent movie as the best film of 2011.
The French director was also named Best Director, completing what had been a very good morning for the Weinstein Company film. Less than two hours before the NYFCC announcement, "The Artist" tied "Take Shelter" as the most-nominated film at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Also read: 'Take Shelter,' 'The Artist' Lead Indie Spirit Award Nominations

Other winners include two mainstream choices in the lead actor and actress categories. Brad Pitt was named Best Actor for his roles in both "Moneyball" and "The Tree of Life," while Meryl Streep was named Best Actress for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."

Supporting honors went to Albert Brooks as the villain in "Drive," and Jessica Chastain for three of her many films in 2011: "The Tree of Life," "Take Shelter" and "The Help."
The Iranian film "A Separation" was named Best Foreign Language Film, while Werner Herzog's 3D documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" was honored as Best Nonfiction Film.

Aaron Sorkin shared the Best Screenplay award with Steven Zaillian for "Moneyball" a year after surprisingly not winning it for "The Social Network," while Emmanuel Lubezki was given the prize for Best Cinematography for "The Tree of Life" in what was apparently a very fast vote. The NYFCC tweeted the results as they happened, and Lubezki's honor was announced on Twitter only three minutes after the previous award.

The NYFCC made its choices without having seen Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," which was not ready to screen for the group before it voted. Its members saw David Fincher's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" on Monday, one day prior to voting.

If the group was trying to send a message to the Academy with its timing and its selections, the principal beneficiaries were probably Albert Brooks and Brad Pitt, both of whose films were released earlier in the year. The Academy certainly does not need nudging to pay attention to, say, "The Artist" or Meryl Streep.

The results could be seen as something of a blow to "The Descendants" and "The Tree of Life," which were considered favorites to win the top NYFCC award -- though in a year unlikely to show much critical unanimity, the Oscar influence of any particular critics' group is limited.

Last year, three of the NYFCC's 12 selections went on to win Academy Awards: actor Colin Firth ("The King's Speech"), supporting actress Melissa Leo ("The Fighter") and documentary "Inside Job."


The wrap

Ray Stevenson slams movie critics

 

 

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The Three Musketeers actor Ray Stevenson has hit out at movie critics claiming that actors and filmmakers do not aim their movies at the critics. Ray also stated that if they could not get past this and accept movies for what they are then they are in the wrong profession.

Stevenson explained, “Are critics our target demographic? No, they certainly aren’t. We make movies for the audience. It’s like Shakespeare said: ‘The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.’ The king, in this case, is 14 years old. The Three Musketeers is never going to be Chekhov.”

He added, “If critics can’t step outside of their boxes and judge the film for what it is, then that’s their problem. What can you really say against it, ‘the buttons on the tunic weren’t properly aligned.’ Bollocks!” You can see Ray Stevenson in The Three Musketeers, now.

Battle Over Hit Series is Getting ‘Downton’ and Dirty

Anglophenia

 

By: Paul Hechinger Posted: Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

The tremendously popular British series Downton Abbey portrays the social impact of World War I, but the biggest battle being waged right now is between critics and defenders of the show in the British media.

One reviewer in the Telegraph said the show’s second season plotlines are “bonkers” and accused the new Downton of being nothing more than a high-class soap opera, while the Daily Mail wrote that the series zips along at “supersonic” speeds so fast it makes you feel “half the story is missing.”

Downton Abbey’s executive producer answered the criticism by pointing to the show’s immense popularity. In an interview with the Mirror, Gareth Neame said the second series is watched by even more viewers than the first.

“It has become one of the most talked-about dramas in a generation,” he said. “The narrative unfolds with speed and energy. Given that ratings are high and a much wider audience enjoy Downton Abbey than previous period dramas, it would suggest that people are enjoying the pace of the show.”

As for the soap opera accusation, Neame said that the show’s multi-faceted approach to a large number of characters suggests the comparison, but he argues that it’s constructed in very different style.

“First and foremost,” he said, “it is a period costume drama that is filmed very much in a contemporary style, which I hope adds to its appeal.”

Such a response is unlikely to convince the Telegraph’s Glenda Cooper, though. She writes that she used to “avidly follow the triumphs and tragedies of the aristocratic Crawley family through a haze of tears.”

“The problem,” she says, “is that my Downton tears are now usually the result of hysterical laughter.”
The same would appear to be true for the Mail’s Jan Moir, who says “the gaffes and inconsistencies are becoming impossible to ignore. Very little makes sense.”

Yet both Moir and Cooper still find lots to like in the show. “Some elements remain fabulous,” writes Cooper, while Moir says “Downton is still unmissable and pretty darned wonderful.”



The second series, which began airing last month in the UK, covers the years from 1916 to 1919 in eight episodes. It will air in the U.S. in January on PBS.

New York film critics reset awards clock

College Times

By Nicole Sperling – Los Angeles Times

Published: Monday, October 24, 2011

Updated: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 13:10

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/MCT

Colin Firth with his Academy Award for Best Actor at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday, February 27, 2011.

First came the political primaries. Now the Oscar race seems to be caught up in the leader-of-the-pack syndrome.

The New York Film Critics Circle last week pulled a Florida, inching the date for its annual award selection for best films of the year to the front of the critics heap, in similar fashion to the Sunshine State's move to shift its Republican primary ahead of the rest.

The critics group's move to announce its awards Nov. 28 — two weeks earlier than usual, ahead of the National Board of Review, whose announcement traditionally has been the kickoff to the season of accolades — was met by harsh criticism from many online bloggers and awards consultants. They derided the group for eschewing tradition by preempting the national board, a rather secretive society of filmgoers and academics whose primary mission appears to be its annual film awards. They also raised concerned about the logistics of getting films ready to screen for the critics' earlier date.

But the head of the New York Film Critics Circle defended the move, saying it will help the group more effectively affect the Oscar race.

"It removes a lot of the distractions of being in the middle of (what) happens with all these groups voting and who's following who," said Chairman John Anderson. "There is a sentiment, I think — though people would probably deny it — that you don't want to look like you're following another group so you could vote for things that you wouldn't ordinarily vote for."

The 33-person group is known for its contrarian choices; its pick for best film rarely matches the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' choice. (Last year the NYFCC, along with most other critics groups, chose "The Social Network" as its top film of the year, while the academy went with "The King's Speech.") Over the years the East Coast critics group has made some surprising choices, picking "Sideways" for its best picture over Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" and selecting Cameron Diaz as best actress in 1998 for "There's Something About Mary."

Critics groups have generally had a nominal effect on the Oscar race. They are often seen as influencers, but because none of their voters is a member of any of the guilds that make up the academy membership, they have no control over how the academy votes.

At this point, it doesn't appear that the NYFCC move will prompt others to shift their dates.

"To me it's somewhat surprising that they would give up those two weeks in December, which are really important for last-minute viewing," says Brent Simon, president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., which will unveil its choices on Dec. 10 or 11. "(Their move) won't have an impact on us."

The biggest concern surrounding the date shift appears to be the logistics surrounding the studios' ability to get films set to open in December, like Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" and Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," in front of the critics in time for their vote. Anderson isn't concerned and says he would be willing to gather his members together for specifically set screenings if that is required to make the expedited date.

It appears that this year those movies looking for consideration will not be affected by the NYFCC's early date. But that's not always the case, with some filmmakers scrambling to finish their films by the end of the year in time for consideration