„In a culture increasingly dominated by promotion, where "making of" TV specials are little more than commercials for an upcoming release, and where Sunday supplement interviews are advance publicity for a star's new movie, critics are the only thing that stand between moviegoers' wallets and the studio publicity departments with their kazillion-dollar ad budgets.

These are rotten times to be a movie critic. In a bad economy, an independent voice delivering judgments on a multibillion-dollar industry that represents a tremendously lucrative source of ad revenue is likely to be perceived as a detriment. It has become increasingly common for critics to be pressured by their editors (who themselves may be under pressure from the sales department) to change their opinions. Pressure that no paper would think to bring to bear on their Op-Ed writers is routinely applied to movie critics. This has nothing to do with the quality of a critic's writing but solely with the content of their opinions, the area where a critic is supposed to be given free rein."

"The war against movie critics" , via ankegröner.

Der Text ist die Antwort auf eine Agitation des Variety-Chefredakteurs Peter Bart, für den seriöse Filmkritiker nutzlose, elitäre under ärgerliche Wesen sind. Ein faszinierendes Porträt Barts gibts im LA-Magazine (hier Zitat: In 1997 Emilio Estevez, the actor-director, was so distressed by Bart's dismissal of his film The War at Home that he fired off a two-page letter that was widely distributed around town. The letter was intended to diminish Bart, but its vitriol only confirmed Bart's central place in the Industry. "In you, I see a failed movie producer, hiding behind the protective veil of your post. . . . It is sad and pathetic," Estevez wrote. He urged Bart to "1. Simply not see my films. 2. Drop dead sometime soon. 3. Go fuck yourself." He signed off with this: "Enjoy life from your bully pulpit, little man." Not for nothing did one top executive in town famously dub Bart "the most hated man in Hollywood." For not only does Bart control the Industry's bible, but by virtue of his station he always gets something that everyone--in and out of Hollywood--desperately wants: the last word."