January 21, 2003

A few weeks ago, I was assigned by the New York Daily News to do a story on the "winners and losers" among high-profile holiday movies.

Considering that most of the biggies had yet to open in the boonies, and awards hype had only just begun, it seemed a little early to be doing a post-mortem. But, what the heck? It isn't difficult to learn interesting new things in any discussion of marketing and distribution with the people in Hollywood who make the decisions.

My research didn't lead in the direction of anything regular readers of MCN hadn't already heard. But in a chat about release patterns with John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, we strayed off the beaten path long enough to discuss how on-line and telephone ticketing services were affecting box-office receipts.

According to Fithian, ticket sales generated on AOL Moviefone, Movie.com and Fandango represent only 4-5 percent of exhibitor revenues. But the business is still in its infancy, he cautioned, and the buzz generated on websites has been helpful to theater owners and studios. Plus, savvy customers seem to enjoy the convenience of credit-card kiosks and ticketing shortcuts provided by AOL for such blockbusters as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

Fithian suggested that his constituents probably would be better off if there were a single listing and ticket service, but, right now, the competition among the conglomerates and exhibitors' consortium does little harm.

It's impossible to predict when movie exhibition will become a cashless, plan-ahead, no-surprises business. I foresee more harm than good coming on that day when every patron arrives at the multiplex with a downloaded, bar-coded ticket in hand - certain of a seat for a specific performance.

After all, there is no better publicity than a horde of people clamoring to pay good money for a ticket to see a movie, especially a sleeper like My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Patrons turned away from one sold-out movie often will sample another title, or kill time in a nearby bar or restaurant until the next performance begins. The halo effect helps everyone in the vicinity of the box office.

Of course, there's no reason to think on-line ticketing will win universal acceptance any time before there's an HDTV set in everyone's living room and pay-per-view services can deliver a Jim Jarmusch movie just as readily as one starring Jim Carrey. In other words, let's not hold our breath.

My conversation with Fithian also happened to coincide with an altogether different article I was working on for www.tvbarn.com. It was inspired by my recent discovery that Mr. Moviefone - the guy, not the ticketing service - was appearing on CNN and CBS news shows touting movies.

Over the last half-dozen years or so, I'd become accustomed to seeing Russ Leatherman describe upcoming movies during Friday afternoon newscasts on ABC-owned stations. I had assumed these non-critical capsules were, in fact, well-disguised infomercials and worthy of the same attention normally afforded Cal Worthington and his dog, Spot.

There was Leatherman on CNN, however, commenting on holiday releases as if his opinions were somehow more valuable than a critic trained in the intricacies of the artistic discipline. I figured his presence could be explained by the fact AOL Moviefone is part of the same family that owns CNN, Warner Bros., Time magazine, New Line, Moviefone.com and the WB.

The CNN anchor didn't bother to acknowledge the corporate ties, but all is fair in love and synergy.

On further investigation, I noticed that Leatherman also was a fixture on CBS' Saturday morning news show, and KABC-TV's Friday-morning newscast, among other outlets. None of these appearances carried disclaimers, either.

Ethics may be an old-fashioned concept, but the appearance of such an obvious conflict of interest bothered me.

After the holidays, I was able to interview representatives from CBS, KABC and Moviefone. Repeated efforts to reach CNN and Leatherman were ignored, however.

The CBS and KABC reps didn't see any harm in these informal chats with their anchors, mostly because of Leatherman's iconic place in the pop-culture universe. Neither could they imagine Mr. Moviefone actually being mistaken for a critic whose name might be mentioned in the same sentence with a Roger Ebert or Elvis Mitchell.

Thus, it came as something of a surprise to hear Moviefone rep John Angelo describe Leatherman as "the people's critic," and someone who is being courted by the media for his opinions. Leatherman, he said, wants to move on from the business of describing movies, and into the realm of criticism.

Mostly, Mr. Moviefone's viewpoints would fall into the realm of consumer reports, like those of Mr. Auto Mechanic, Mr. Green Grocer, Mr. Gourmet, Miss Manners and other syndicated monikers. His guidelines, presumably, would begin and end with balancing a picture's ability to entertain against the cost of a ticket.

If AOL Moviefone and Moviefone.com a can sell a few tickets along the way, well, so much the better.

There's more to it than that, of course. But, it's a long story.

I doubt that any debate surrounding a Mr. MovieCritic feature would be quite as spirited as, say, the one prompted last year by David Manning and Sony's other in-house quote-meisters. If it weren't for all the ties to AOL and Warner Bros., Leatherman's opinions probably wouldn't be any less suspect than those solicited each week from the junket whores.

As long as AOL Time Warner owns the Moviefone trademark, however, all criticism from his corner will be treated as fair game for competing studios, dissatisfied viewers and his critical brethren.

"These are rotten times to be a movie critic," wrote Salon columnist Charles Taylor last week, in a response to a moronic attack on critics by Variety editor Peter Bart. "In a bad economy, an independent voice delivering judgments on a multibillion-dollar industry that represents a tremendously lucrative source of ad revenue is likely to be perceived as a detriment. It has become increasingly common for critics to be pressured by their editors (who themselves may be under pressure from the sales department) to change their opinions.

"Pressure that no paper would think to bring to bear on their Op-Ed writers is routinely applied to movie critics. This has nothing to do with the quality of a critic's writing but solely with the content of their opinions, the area where a critic is supposed to be given free rein."

Taylor then recalled something Francois Truffaut said on the very same subject more than a quarter-century ago.

"Every person on the editorial staff of a newspaper feels he can question the opinion of the movie critic," wrote the French critic-turned-director. "'The same editor-in-chief who shows careful respect to his music critic will casually stop the movie critic in the corridor: 'Well, you really knocked Louis Malle's last film. My wife doesn't agree with you at all; she loved it.'"

Every movie critic worth his or her salt can recall dozens of similar examples.

I wish Russ Leatherman all the luck in the world. But, when it comes to sharing Mr. Moviefone's opinions on film, I hope he reserves them for a website that clearly defines his status as an employee of a major entertainment conglomerate … and news outfits like CNN and CBS respect the time-honored separation of church and state.

EMAIL GARY DRETZKA