Projectionist Framed! "Memflix" Sacked For Web Review
I am shocked - shocked! - to discover that there's a cinema projectionist out there who actually stays in the booth to watch the movie, even during a critics' preview screening.
Usually they just press 'start' and fall back to sleep or walk away, leaving the grouchy/whiney reviewers to wonder just how much more out of focus the print could get.
No, it seems Memphis' Malco Theatre chain had an actual movie fan in their employ, a dangerous person named Jesse Morrison who not only watched the films, but wrote about them for Ain't It Cool News under the none too subtle nom de plume Memflix. After working an early screening of Fox's FANTASTIC FOUR: SILVER SURFER, Morrison wrote a scathing review that was posted on Ain't It Cool.
As the Hollywood Reporter tells it, the studio got mad, found duplicate reviews on Morrison's blog, and made angry phone calls to Malco's management. Now he's been suspended.
Says the 29 year old film and video student, "I'm hoping to get a job as a professional movie reviewer."
Comments
It doesn't sound like the problem is that he wrote reviews but that he posted them before the movies came out.
That's very much a "no no" and I've been kicked off of some press lists for reviewing obscure films that lucked out a few years later and got distribution -- albeit limited. Let Memflix and my pain teach a lesson -- don't post reviews until the official release date.
Posted by: Mike White | June 15, 2007 09:49 AM