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February 03, 2010
Parry vs. Fischer: Notes on the latest film crickets' circular firing squad
Post-Park City, is there something in the air in film journalism? Black powder after white powder? Recriminations after accusations? Naming names to make a name? (That's just standard operating procedure.) Swinging at mosquitoes with sledgehammers? This could get... interesting. As @palacefilms, the Twitter account of the Australian distributor noted on Wednesday afternoon, "[p]ull up a chair, grab some popcorn and settle in for Film Critic Fight Club. Extra fun when both Aussie expats!" In the Vancouver Sun, online editor, elaborates, with parallel examples, on accusations of plagiarism by a face and figure familiar to film festivalgoers and press day participants. In a piece headlined "Uproarious hacktackular!", Parry wrote on Tuesday, "[A] film reviewer who has made a name for himself being quoted in movie marketing materials is accused of plagiarizing large chunks of his film reviews—from movie marketing materials. Widely-quoted film critic Paul Fischer has supplied [studios] with favourable quotes for... years. When he called Steve 
Martin's 2006 remake of The Pink Panther "a wonderfully funny comic gem," you could almost hear the collective thud of a thousand... critics slamming their heads on their desks as a million movie fans performed a world record spit-take." Parry offers examples drawn from the Sundance Film Festival's own promotional materials and what appears to be Fischer's ever-so-slight rewordings for websites such as Moviehole and Dark Horizons. It looks damning; at the link, Parry gets commentary from Sundance and a bit from the publishers of Fischer's work. That was followed by Salt Lake Tribune's "Film Cricket," Sean P. Means, finding Fischer in his own uncanny valley with more examples, as well as this remark: "The Cricket himself has occasionally shared an interview roundtable with Fischer, a self-important troll with an Australian accent as thick as his overbearing manner. The Cricket often came away from the experience relieved that he didn't have to work junkets every weekend and hang around with Fischer and his ilk." Notably, Parry is no stranger to controversy; in summer 2009, Parry tangled with posters at the Free Republic website over his perceived bias in at least one thread that ran to over 2,000 comments. (The dread word "DailyKos" was among the inflammations.) There are at least two prior critical crusades notched in his belt as well. In the summer of 2006, at efilmcritic, Parry indicted another reviewer, the notorious-if-only-to-journalists Earl Dittman, running 4,500 words under the hed, "Hyperbole For Sale: How Earl Dittman And The Studios Have Destroyed Film Criticism." Thrusts Parry, " I am speaking... about the War on Film Criticism. And the Osama Bin Laden of the War on Film Criticism is Earl Dittman... Hollywood studios – you’re on notice. Use Earl Dittman in your advertising ever again, and we’re coming after you. We can’t stop you from using Bregoli or Edwards or Fischer or Zwecker, but you can be damn sure, with 80 writers on our staff, over a dozen radio hosts, our own internet radio station, and a very functional fax machine that sends press releases to hundreds of other film critics – film critics that CARE about their craft - we’ll hurt you if you do not heed our demand." (Parry footnotes Erik Childress' perennially-contentious Criticwatch series for background.) In 2007, also at efilmcritic, Parry devoted 2,800 words to the apparent offenses of a University of Missouri, Kansas City, student, under the hed, "Death of a Plagiarist: A word thief burns as his editors deny all responsibility." Parry wrote, "Patel’s long, meandering, barely comprehensible writing in this instance gives you an insight into why he might have spent so much of his journalism career stealing the work of others; “We are still a student newspaper, subject to our own fiscal limitations. Thus, we decided to immediately provide an extremely necessary insert, so as to clear the innocent party named in the article.” No, Mr Patel. What would have cleared that innocent man’s name would be scrapping the issue entirely, not publishing lies about him in blazing headlines, alongside a flyer saying "Whoops!'" Somehow, it seems "Whoops!" is the tiniest, tiniest increment of what Parry is expecting to hear in the immediate future from Fischer and his editors. Ten paces, gentlemen...
ADDED: This 2004 piece by Parry at efilmcritic offers even more context, parsing the pair's past jockeying in 4,000 words or so: "Paul Fischer and I have a history. He, a sad, clueless junketeer who gives his writing away for free, and I, a sad, clued-in non-junketeer who doesn’t subscribe to the ‘famous is better’ theology that seems to rule entertainment journalism these days, have tangled in the past in ways that saw Fischer become a laughing stock in his home country of Australia. I take great pride in having driven Fischer out of town once, and ladies and gentlemen, I’m about to do it all over again... Knuckles cracking, let’s take apart the fat man… again."
The story details boorish behavior toward Ben Affleck at a press junket and includes much physical description at Fischer's expense. "A constant embarrassment to the film criticism industry, so much so that in my old days at Filmink Magazine, we used to have a regular monthly column devoted entirely to what disgrace Fischer was pulling in print that month... [A]s long as websites like Dark Horizons take Paul Fischer’s nearly illegible garbage journalism, and as long as news sources like the IMDB will take Fischer’s press releases without actually checking the facts, and as long as publicists still invite a--holes like Paul “Quote Whore” Fischer to their roundtables, people like Ben Affleck will be forced to sit and endure idiot questions, one after the other. And when they try to answer those questions with humor, grace, and occasionally impatience... there’ll be someone ready to spin the truth and accuse said star of being “tired” or “playful” or “weird.” ... We are of the sincere belief that any film distribution company... promoting a film... should tell Paul Fischer he’s unwelcome... If he can’t engage in a roundtable interview without doing research, coming up with intelligent questions, writing up the article without third-grade spelling and punctuation errors, and then passing off the subject of the interview as nutso, he should be told he’s not up to scratch... Pull the plug on Fischer, and pull it right now. Send him packing—again." [Revisions and additions through Wednesday 5pm.]
Posted by Ray Pride at February 3, 2010 03:16 PM
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