Eccentric Flower:199906/Advance screening

Today on the subway I looked down at the newspaper the person sitting next to where I was standing was reading (whew! Okay, short pause while everyone parses that) and I read an article about the film Eyes Wide Shut.

I'm telling you how I encountered the article so that you'll understand why I don't remember any of the names or specifics. One can only retain so much while reading from a distance of five feet on a moving vehicle.

It seems a friend of Kubrick's - who is also a film reviewer - was given an advance showing of the movie. Nothing wrong with that; it was a special event, in this case, but films are shown to reviewers in advance all the time.

The problem is, he allowed the British newspaper he writes for to print his review. A few days later, as the outcry began, the New York Post - a paper which is not known for its restraint - reprinted the review.

The film doesn't open until July. Execs at the movie studio haven't even seen it yet.

The article noted that, in the case of The Phantom Menace, someone broke their agreement with Lucasfilm and published their review ten days early ... and when that happened, a lot of other reviewers panicked and did the same. Lucasfilm had a fit.

It's not news to anyone, I should hope, that studios often let reviewers see films before they open to the public. In fact, the practice is so commonplace that if the film isn't given an advance screening, many critics (and readers) assume that the studio has no confidence in the film.

But the studios regard these two incidents, and others like them, as a breach of trust. What'll happen, if this kind of behavior becomes more common, is that the studios will just clamp down on advance screenings. Lucas would have, I think, if he felt he could have gotten away with it.

Believe it or not, I think the practice should go the other way. I not only think that critics should be given an advance peek, I think they should take pains to get their reviews of the film in before the film opens. About a week before would be nice. That'll give me a chance to read all the reviews and decide whether I want to see the film or not.

After all, a film which is being shown a month in advance is the same film that the general public will see a month later. Directors aren't still editing a film a month before its release date - not even Kubrick had the liberty to be that compulsive. The studio needs at least that much time just to print copies of the darned film!

It's not like, say, computer games.

One of the big frustrations of the computer game industry is that the game usually is being altered and tweaked a month before its release date. In my experience in the software industry, the CDs are always pressed at the eleventh hour. All the other packaging has been ready for ages. The manual was printed months before (which is why the manual doesn't match the game).

This means that all right-thinking publications and sites which review computer games insist on only reviewing shrink-wrapped versions - that is, they buy it at the store, same as we do. Otherwise they wouldn't be reviewing the same game. And when the games are this buggy, that makes a difference.

But ...!

PC Gamer, to use the example I actually read, has a lead time of about 1 to 2 months. When you read the June issue, they're working on the August one. And since they can't buy a game until it's released - it really wouldn't be fair otherwise - that means that, at best, their review of a game won't show up until two months after a game hits the shelf.

Well, by then I've already bought the game, which defeats the purpose of reading a review. This is not a film. If I see a bad film, I've lost eight bucks. If I buy a game too buggy to play, I've lost fifty.

It's not just a matter of my not being able to delay gratification for two months, either. Shelf space in the average software store is so competitive that if you don't buy it immediately, it may not be there in two months.

It's a horrid system. Maybe if the game makers were required to freeze their code a month before release?

No, it would never work.

Anyway. You thought you were going to get some juicy film commentary, and instead you get all this process talk. Sorry. Go read this instead. Really. It's long, and it's worth every second. There is only one Pauline Kael; you'd better appreciate her now, because you'll miss her when she's gone.