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Shocked! Shocked to find that studios spend money on the press!

For his next story, fast food isn't healthy and isn't fresh! Oh, the outrage!

It's pretty funny that in Snider's article about getting banned, he says that it was just to punish him for his expose and not in any way related to his lack of professionalism.

I was a junketeer from about '97 to '99 (or more specifically, from "Scream 2" to "Fight Club"). As someone fresh out of college, with all his journalistic integrity still intact, I found it to be a completely soul-sucking enterprise. I did find my "clique" of writers, but most I met were truly sad individuals. I couldn't continue.

My favorite junket moment was at Paramount's expense, though. During a roundtable for "Double Jeopardy," Bruce Greenwood sighed mid-sentence, and asked aloud if anybody actually liked the film. When silence answered his question, he went into a very calm rant about how absolutely dumb it was. The poor Paramount girl was frozen, deer-in-the-headlights style. Classic stuff.

However, the moment I decided against writing about it - instead doing a fluff Ashley Judd piece - was the moment I realized I needed to get out.

This is slightly off-topic, but I think the whole regional mini-junket concept is a terrific idea, for reasons David mentions. The best I've ever experienced: A Seattle gathering for "Minority Report," during which Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise each spent well over a half-hour with small groups. And when I say "groups," I mean about five people. Much smaller than the usual groups at L.A., New York or even Toronto Festival events.

I went to a few junkets in my day as well. But it really ran the gamut of boring, celebrity driven fluff to intimate really cool people talking about what they loved. I thought the Y Tu Mama Tambien junket was just lovely, getting all those talents in the room excitedly about their "little" film just before they all hit it big.

This guy doesn't need any more publicity. That seems to be why he took the bribe (studio money) in the first place. If you read the lengthy Wikipedia entry he's published about himself (and I'm not recommending it), you'll also see that he was fired from a newspaper in Salt Lake City a few years ago for an entirely different kind of ethical violation (getting into the middle of a story and then not informing his editors that he had become a participant in the story, which compromised his position as a reporter).

No reputable publication would allow writers in their employ to accept favors (airfare, hotel, $$$) from a studio to attend a junket. Even if the integrity of the "reporter" is not compromised, the appearance of impropriety is something most publications want to avoid. Is there anybody who doesn't know that studios offer junkets (and press screenings) because, although they're calculated risks, they think they're worth the expense? Let's just say I question this guy's "news judgment." Not only did he take the bribe and implicate himself in the process, he failed to get a story that hasn't been written (much, much better) a thousand times.

"On Eric Snider and Ethics" Daily Herald, August 23, 2003

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/65857/

Well... there are reputable publications that allow junketing writers. When it comes to major publications, I would agree with you. If you talk to the junketeers from smaller markets, you find that many couldn't afford to cover these films without the studio help.

And of course, many major papers get around their own rules by paying for freelancer's stories from junketeers on a regular basis.

It is an interesting problem for those of us with small budgets. MCN isn't on the junket circuit, yet when I was with TNT cale's online arm, we were fighting to get flown by the studios.

And when it comes to, say, trips paid for by the studios for AICN, I don't object or automatically assume they've been compromised. But I do object to the anger that comes when anyone dares to ask the question. As you wrote, Jim, the vulnerability to the question - for them or for me or for whomever - is the price you pay for taking the trip on someone else's dime.

there's been a lot of sites biting the hand that feeds of late. mentioning specific names of companies and the reps who work there... bad form.

these guys forget, they are a parasitic industry. they need the junkets and need the studio love, or else they'll be out of work.

I would have loved to have heard Greenwood explain how dumb Double Jeopardy was. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.

Yeah, it's amazingly refreshing to hear about an actor aware of the crappiness of their project - in public!

David, I completely agree with your take on this. Cinematical, like MCN, does not do travel junkets paid for by studios. We do send our NYC-based writers to junkets held in NYC. I think the trend of studios doing regional junkets is smart -- they can reach more press, including press who wouldn't come to LA or NY at the studio's expense, and we get better, more intimate access to do our jobs.

IMO, Snider made a big mistake with this; he basically Trojan-horsed his way into the WTC junket and then flipped the studio off on his way out the door. Would have been much smarter for him (and his career) to just take the Stone interview and keep his carping about the junket "whores" to his circle of friends.

I never liked Snider. He's as hacky as they come. This is the same guy who steals his theatrical reviews for his DVD reviews, trying to pass them off as new writing. What a jerk.

Too bad they didn't do us a real favor and ban him from ALL screenings.

He gives online critics a bad name.

And way to go, Poland. By naming that "wild about movies" or whatever guy, I bet his hits spiked to 10 uniques today.

Why can't writers like this just go away?

I must rise to defend my friend, Eric Snider, on a few points raised here.

I was on the same "World Trade Center" junket in Seattle as Eric, though my paper, The Salt Lake Tribune, paid my airfare and I didn't stay in the fancy hotel with the bathtub water coming out of the ceiling. (I earned three paragraphs in Eric's article, because he was surprised to see me there - and so embarrassed about being there on Paramount's dime that he lied to me about how he got there.)

As junkets go, this was one of the better ones. We got to talk to the principals, no muss, no fuss, and without some of the dog-and-pony-show frills - like a goody bag or a gaudy location. (Like Joe Leydon, I endorse the touring mini-junket format.) And, just as important, it was to publicize a movie worthy of everyone's time and attention.

The main theme of the criticism against Snider is not that his criticism of the junket process is wrong, but that he did a poor job of laying out that argument.

My criticism of junkets is not with the studios - they have the right to spend their money as they choose - but with the full-time entertainment press who, as Dave says, make a "career of traveling to N.Y., L.A. or somewhere else every single weekend for a year or two or ten" sucking on the studio teat and pretending that they are still ethical journalists.

I do write for a paper in a smaller market, and, yes, my paper pays my way to junkets. That's why I do only about one a year. (This summer I've done two, "Cars" and "WTC," but my last one before that was in 2003.) I spend the rest of the year looking for other ways to write about movies - phone interviews, filmmakers' visits to Utah (hooray for Sundance), or being creative and writing interesting stories about local film events. That's what a beat writer does.

I don't think Eric wrote his "junket whore" article to gain notoriety, or out of naivety, or as a raised middle finger to Paramount or the studios as a whole, as some commenters have suggested. (He has long since apologized for his past professional lapse, and he paid for it with his job in Provo - that's Provo, Jim, not Salt Lake City; Provo is Tacoma to SLC's Seattle, geographically and psychologically.)

I believe he wrote the junket story (as opposed to the straight "World Trade Center" coverage he wrote for Willamette Week) because he simply is fascinated with the publicity process and thought his online readers would be, too.

But opening up the Wizard of Oz's curtain to see the machinery is the one taboo the studios will enforce with an iron hand - which, in this case, has resulted in Snider being barred from all Paramount screenings, as well as screenings by other studios repped by Paramount's ad agency in Portland.

And, after all that, Paramount demanded Snider remove his article from his web site - without the promise of being allowed back into screenings. If junkets are about quid pro quo, as seems to being argued here, then shouldn't Paramount be giving Snider something to swallow his pride?

"we were fighting to get flown by the studios."

I think you misspelled a word there, Dave.

Nah... being blown was easy. Getting them to pay for the privilege is more difficult.

This Snider is not a very good writer is he? And he certainly is not used to the good life, judging by the references to his hotel room and shower and the phone calls he made to friends from his den.

He accepted the assignment; he should have written the best piece he could within the limitations of that assignment. Maybe it would have opened some doors and then he could have walked away from this with his dignity intact (assuming it was so offensive to him).

I don't want to say much on the topic, because I personally have never had any problems with Paramount. I've done many of their junkets in their last year and they've always been very professional, and they've been great to work with in every way.

Even though I guess some might consider me a "junket whore" (I mostly attend New York junkets and very rarely travel out of town), I don't have a problem with actual journalists who travel to New York or L.A. to do interviews for their stories. There are quite a few who pay their own way or have their publications do so. I have a bigger problem with the scammers who don't write for any reputable outlet who show up at these things and make it more difficult for the honest journalists (of which I consider myself one) to get a story.

I like the touring junket idea, though in New York, we ended up getting a fairly short (half hour?) press conference with Stone and all the principles, rather than the much preferable roundtables, so it didn't really benefit us.

David, you skate awfully close to saying is that if a studio provides you with access to the perks of a junket, you owe it to them to write nice.

That bothers me. It also bothers me that some attendees at these junkets have agendas and seem to think that the personal lives of the stars and directors are appropriate topics of discussion during a Q&A session. This isn't supposed to be a tabloid gossip opportunity. I completely understand why many stars feel the intrusive questions are out of line, and why some refuse to answer or bristle.

Surely there's a middle ground. Junkets are supposed to be about the films. So... attendees should be professional. I suggest that they ask questions and then write about the movie, about the process and anything related to the film. That, to me, includes the junketing, if it relates to film PR.

Bitching about the lack of snacks is not related, nor is bitching when a star or director would rather not talk about their personal life.

Molly Ivins once quoted a Texas politician who had this mantra: "If you can't take their money, screw their women, drink their alcohol and vote against them anyway, you don't belong in the [Texas] legislature." I think a similar rule for reporters covering studio junkets would be healthy for all concerned.

"Even though I guess some might consider me a 'junket whore'"

Douglas, EVERYONE does.

Your site is riddled with boring junket interviews, and you break review embargos all the time.

I don't think the term "honest journalist" applies to you.

Reporters are not covering junkets, they are covering movies. That's like going to a White House press conference and then writing that your chair was uncomfortable and all your fellow reporters were White House whores.
In short, it's not professional.

It's compounded by the fact that WTC is not your typical stupid studio movie. It is a sensitive topic done with skill and clearly their intent for the junket was to give local people the same access as those in LA/NY. That's probably why they were willing to pay...to include the little guy. And now what Snider has done is tell studios that if you try to include the little guy, he'll crap all over you. Remember those stories about people getting fired for bad mouthing their boss in their blogs? Why shouldn't the same thing apply for people just trying to give press access to filmmakers?

If Hunter S. Thompson had been a movie critic, I'm sure there would have been a time when he would have covered the junket instead of the movie. The difference is, he was an interesting person and a good enough writer to compensate for his impropriety.

Oh, joy... does this mean I have to try to guess which one of my many "fans" is being posting as "blythecummings"? I love that game.

"Blythe", you're assuming that the times we "break review embaroges" that we haven't gotten the expressed permission by our studio reps to run our reviews early.

The regional junkets are fine, I suppose. I just question their value as anything but staged promotional events. Why not just publish the press kits? At least the stuff in there is generally more substantial than the fluff that comes from those gang-bang interviews. Everybody at the table gets the same quotes, so what are the participants really giving their readers besides the illusion of Face Time with the Stars? (Why not just run a wire story or two -- maybe based on some longer, one-on-one interviews? At least you'd have a better chance of getting something worthwhile.) That's just my personal feeling about the news of these things; I know not everyone shares it.

Full disclosure: I did attend one junket while writing for my college paper. Never did it again.

"Oh, joy... does this mean I have to try to guess which one of my many "fans" is being posting as 'blythecummings'? I love that game."

Blythe Cummings, mouthbreather. That was quite a game.

Look it up.

"'Blythe', you're assuming that the times we 'break review embaroges' that we haven't gotten the expressed permission by our studio reps to run our reviews early."

Don't misquote, hack. I wrote EMBARGOES. Don't try to be cute.

And you don't get permission. Don't play it off like I don't know how you do business. You're just wasting the blog's time.

Tap dance all you like.

"David, you skate awfully close to saying is that if a studio provides you with access to the perks of a junket, you owe it to them to write nice."

That's not what I wrote. Not at all.

There is a difference between writing strong from a junket and attacking the junket for existing.

If you are in the White House Press Corps, you don't have any obligation to ask nice questions. But don't you agree that it would be wrong to address questions with, "President Bush, you fucking hosebag moron, what the fuck do you think you are doing in Iraq?"

Asking tough questions and fighting to make something valuable out of a promotional event is one thing. Showing up at someone else's expense and then taking the piss, not out of the movie, but out of the event itself, is uncool.

But don't you agree that it would be wrong to address questions with, "President Bush, you fucking hosebag moron, what the fuck do you think you are doing in Iraq?"

... Is this a trick question?

It would be to Bush!

"President Bush, you fucking hosebag moron, what the fuck do you think you are doing in Iraq?"

Oooh Dave. Us girlies just love it when you speak authoritatively!

Junkets are in every profession, and vary in extravagance, size and goals, I guess. I suppose there are those which *might* cause one to be put into a compromising position. Most people know what's ethical and what isn't, and no one has to partake of their Wares if they go anyway. Regional gatherings/junkets are good for small press with the inexorable rise in fuel & airfares.

and if I might use this space to remind y'all in the L.A.-area that The Black Heart Procession has added a show and will be at the Knitting Factory in Hwood on August 14th. This announcement is not in any way endorsed by MCN or any sister company, website or Mr. D-Po himself. No animals or plants were killed during the making of the announcement.

and Josh, I don;t approve of actors trashing their own movies before the run is over (re. Bruce Greenwood may have said how "dumb" his own movie Double Jeopardy was). That's junket whoring of a different type that I totally disagree with that Actors and sometimes Directors do. Greenwood didn't act for free, he was paid for his time *acting* in Double Jeopardy-- likely very handsomely compared to his earlier little known pictures. If I were a producer or exec I would hand his ass to him in the bloodiest way possible.

Movies often don;t turn out "as planned" but I can't agree ever with actors/directors bad-mouthing their own movie--out of respect to everyone else who knocked their pan in to make the picture happen. Unprofessional. Bruce Greenwood is hardly anywhere near the A-list striking distance to be saying any movie he's in is "dumb". There's time for bald honesty...it aint at the junket. You put on your best diplomacy and hope your Dumb fucking movie does well.

But for me, hearing that Bruce Greenwood has such good taste and balls makes me want to hire him to be in something, if I'm ever in such a position. Truth-telling is highly undervalued in Hollywood. To be really fair, he just shouldn't have done the junket at all and saved himself the potential conflict of interest.

You kidding? Bush would probably get the biggest kick out of that than anyone. That's certainly the way he would talk...if Karl Rove would let him.

. . . hearing that Bruce Greenwood has such good taste and balls makes me want to hire him to be in something, if I'm ever in such a position.

I rented Capote a few months ago and listened to Bennett Miller's commentary tracts. He alluded to Greenwood's penchant for "honesty" during filming. The production was not all smooth sailing, but they turned out a hell of a film, and Miller was complimentary of Greenwood's work.

"To be really fair, he just shouldn't have done the junket at all and saved himself the potential conflict of interest."

exactly Jeff, he should have gotten Lohan-type exhaustion.

It's not fair to anyone who worked hard on it. He could have waited a few weeks then trashed away, if he so wished, although judging from his filmography maybe it wouldn't be wise for his employment chances in quality movies.

Bennett Miller was being honest, possibly, but at very least he was diplomatic, as he should be about actors in his own movie.

I liked that Miller didn't sugar-coat things. Director commentary tracts (tracks?) can come across like total suck-up jobs. Considering Capote was his first major feature film, Miller's candor made a huge impression on me.

Artists, actors, and really any kind of creative mind will seem temperamental and rude to the rest of us, but it's closer to the norm, and sometimes you have to allow for that.

Lohan-style exhaustion is the price you pay for a lot of fun, not something just to be tossed around if you're not in the right mood. It needs to be earned.

I really doubt that anyone who worked hard on Double Jeopardy wouldn't also agree that it was junk. Your average crew member who makes $100 a day isn't very thin-skinned.

yeah Jeff ( & wolf), except the time to crab about it is not pre-release or during release. But if you want to be honest on the DVD, which is Long after the money-hurting fact, Go. Right. Ahead.

Lohan might be having fun but her body doesn't appear to be weathering it well.

Lota: Sure, if I were one of the producers or a studio head, I'd be (rightly) pissed at Greenwood. As a writer, and moreso as a fan of movies, I've always held Greenwood in higher esteem since. It might not have been the right thing for him to do, but it was damn funny.

By the way, asking the "wrong" questions - even in a nice way - can get you in trouble. Steve Martin's publicist asked me "Who the fuck do you think you are?" in a not-so-nice way.

After watching "Bowfinger," I dared ask about the obvious Scientology parody, and put 2 and 2 together with Heather Graham's actress-who-becomes-a-lesbian-for-career-benefits character (Martin had dated Anne Heche). He brushed off the questions with a smile, but I got an earful later.

However, before he came in the room, everybody at the round table was talking about it - but nobody wanted to actually ask. And since it was clear as day on the screen, I decided to. I mean, it's certainly better than "What's it like to work with Eddie Murphy?"

Geez Josh, what could you be thinking asking a question that could possibly be construed as reaching for "hetero male actor being dumped by girlfriend he 'turned' lesbo" ? Brave of you to ask. I think he and Heche did more than 'date'.

Asking actors ?s is slightly different tho than actors voluntarily dumping even in a small way on a production that could cause critics or moviegoers to judge it more harshly i.e. hurt $$$ takings. Afterall, $$$ is what gets the movie made in the first place.

He publicly dated Heche, and then he prominently featured a VERY similar character in "Bowfinger." Just seemed an interesting thing to ask.

Oh well, I just forgot what junkets were supposed to be about...

yeah what I meant i think it was more serious to him than just dating and her coming Out party really hurt so he probably thought you were being "insensitive"...even though yes, as a journalist, it was a logical question to ask I suppose since Martin was the writer of Bowfinger. Also, I always wondered if "THE CON IS ON" for Bowfinger was in reference to Heche's "lifestyle" choices.

Very off-topic, by the way, but I wanted to thank whoever recommended "All That Jazz" a couple months back (I'm pretty sure it was on this site).

I just got finished watching it for the first time,... and WOW. That was one amazing film.

Josh you lucky bastard.

I wish I could view that for the first time as well, hell of a film and kinda makes you wonder how undervalued Roy Scheider really is.

I was 29 when JAZZ first came out and I found it exhilirating. Revisiting it 20 years later, it profoundly depressed me, not only because it now reminds me of my own mortality, but also because it's patently obvious that Fosse was filming his own memorial tribute. Still a great movie, but have DUCK SOUP or HIS GIRL FRIDAY or BLAZING SADDLES cued up for immediately afterwards.

I don't know, I didn't have the same reaction. That last extended scene, even considering its implications, was exhilarating, and it put a huge smile on my face. The final shot took it right off, but the feeling was still there.

Of course, I was only three when it came out, so I never felt a personal connection with Fosse or his work.

So, Josh, you're what now, 30? Trust me, watch it again in 20 years and I guarantee your reaction will be different!

Funny to be reliving the Double Jeopardy junket. My memory of it is as one of the few times I felt I got teh worst of an interview.

I was doing a TV slot for a friend and after a day of tap dancing, I was trying to work Tommy Lee Jones into a discussion about what it is like to be a smart man on a stupid film. After about 6 questions trying to finesse him, he leaned in and said, "I am NOT going to say what you are trying to get me to say," and gave me that Tommy Lee death stare.

The interview was effectively over. He won. I lost.

Good times...

So I guess Tommy Lee Jones is the kind of professional that Bruce Greenwood wasn't that day. And I respect him for having the right kind of balls as well.

David, with all due respect: No one ever gets the better of Tommy Lee Jones in an interview. No one. Ever. I have seen the man freeze an entire table of journalists at a junket with a single, baleful stare when someone asked what he thought was a stupid question.

I remember being upset Tommy Lee Jones didn't do print for the "Double Jeopardy" junket. All of the junket vets, though, assured me it was a good thing. Somebody said the only thing worse than Jones was the double-dip of Jones and Harrison Ford at the "Fugitive" junket.

I understood what they meant when I sat down with Ford for "Random Hearts."

"but I wanted to thank whoever recommended "All That Jazz" a couple months back"

I'm pretty sure that was most of us.

I wasn't even born when All That Jazz came out and I saw it for the first time several years ago after I saw it on DVD for a really cheap and purchased it without seeing it. I really liked it but each subsequent viewing has made it better in my eyes and then earlier this year in April I was able to see it on the big screen and I now consider it my favourite film. Of course I have many films yet to see, but damn if that film isn't just heaven. The end fantasy sequence is as perfectly life-affirming and wonderful as you can get.

(I love discussing All That Jazz)

To keep the "All That Jazz" discussion alive, then: I really wish they had shown Scheider hugging his younger self (an absurdly baby-faced Keith Gordon) when he was going through the crowd at the end. But yes, that is a great description of the finale: "life-affirming and wonderful."

I just love how frank All That Jazz is about sexuality...and homosexuality. I think that's what led my mom to say (years before I actually saw it) that it was X-rated. Hardly, but still, very hot.

I would say the great thing about ATJ is that it manages to be 'life-affirming and wonderful' but also bitter and nihilistic, simultaneously. Nice balancing act from Fosse.

See, that's what happens. I come into a perfectly acceptable "World Trade Center" thread, and veer the conversation toward "Double Jeopardy" and "All That Jazz." My bad.

... And that was the only time those three films will ever be mentioned in the same sentence.

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