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08/03/2007The critics on the criticsHow influential are their opinions, anyway?
Toledo Blade film critic Chris Borrelli, top, and Detroit News film critic Tom Long at Thursday's panel at the City Opera House. TRAVERSE CITY — Detroit News film critic Tom Long has a standard reply for every movie publicist when they ask for a quote following a film screening — it was "the greatest movie ever made.” Long delved into the inner circle of media movie critics with Chris Borelli of the Toledo Blade and moderator Terry George, who directed "Hotel Rwanda,” in Thursday's Traverse City Film Festival panel "The Critics: Borrelli and Long” at the City Opera House. The three discussed the motivations of film critics and the effect of reviews on a film's success. George said Web sites such as rottentomatoes.com, which rates movies based on professional and amateur reviews, make him worry as a director. "Millions of dollars are spent in public relations for a movie,” George said. "The film's fate is in the hands of the press.” George said the movie business isn't struggling as much as public perception would suggest, but pointed to Rotten Tomatoes and industry promotion methods as several causes for the recently watered-down lineup. "There's a growing fraud to marketing movies,” George said. "Advertisers aren't stupid. They know when a movie's bad, but then they have to find a way to sell a bad movie and get their money back.” Long and Borelli elaborated on the role of press junkets, where movie companies wine and dine critics, hoping to get a favorable quote on their advertisements. Both said some films won't hold advance screenings because they don't want a review. Instead, those movies rely on heavy promotion. "People are more swayed by wall-to-wall marketing,” Borelli said. "Look at the drop-off of ticket sales from the opening week to the second week. The advertisements wore off. People get pounded with the message to go to that first weekend.” And John Klumpp of Acme saw a similar scenario when he ventured out to the theater. "I agree with them,” Klumpp said. "The few movies I've seen this summer I didn't care for.” Borelli said the film critics' duties evolved when Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel introduced the "thumbs up, thumbs down” evaluation. The gimmick simplified the criticism of a movie's merits to whether or not the critic liked it, and writers lost the opportunity to pull a deeper significance. "It has been reduced to do you like it or not,” Borelli said. "If you really take a movie seriously, whether or not you like it is besides the point, but I'm an idealist.” Today's 11 a.m. panel will focus on documentaries.
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