For a long time, the line has been blurred. No longer.

From the land of complete crazy (the USA, folks) comes word that Bloggers must now disclose if they take payments for reviews they write, be it for film, television, book or music (in fact, anything). In a similar vein to the Cash For Comments scandal that overtook John Laws a few years ago here in Australia, where Laws was found to have taken cash for favourable comments on products he was supposed to be spruiking, which engendered a little wrath from the public since it was seen as a contravention of Law’s responsibility as a broadcaster, blogging has now taken over as one of the preeminent advertising mediums on the planet. Almost world-wide advertising can be obtained by favourable reviews of product on a popular internet website. Films, for example, can be reviewed on high visibility websites such as Ain’t it Cool News and Rotten Tomatoes, yet how do we know that the people writing them to such a large audience aren’t being paid to perhaps shine us on a little. After all, what have major studio’s got to lose by getting those with large viewing audiences to give their product a good rap, regardless of actual feelings towards it? A website such as those mentioned have a fair degree of influence over the target audience many studios aim for, and if Harry or Moriarty come out and utterly bag a film, you can be sure the film will tank. The influence of blogging is profound, or at least, can be if utilised correctly. Things can go wrong, as was the case with Snakes On A Plane, which was hyped to gargantuan proportions via the internet, yet still bombed at the box office… so it’s not an infallible system.

Hence, the worry that there are those who take money or other “bribes”, if one can use such a derogatory expression, to give a positive slant on a product that a studio wants to succeed. Say Fox wanted to promote their latest Die Hard film, for example. Give a whole bunch of bloggers a free swing at the film in a preview screening, making sure to give them a free hat or t-shirt in the process, tell them they do a great service to the industry, etc etc, and hopefully they’ll print something good about your film. Take it further, and offer cash incentives in terms of advertising as a reward for a positive review, and of course you’d be mad not to make sure your bottom line was taken care of; perhaps even at the cost of journalistic integrity.

Now though, the law states that any blogger who is provided with incentives for positive reviews, or paid for their views, must state so on the blog in question. I haven’t got a problem with this, in fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t been mandated prior to now. How it’s policed, of course, is another matter. I doubt people will start saying they’re taking money for reviews just because somebody somewhere decides they must: people have had it good for too long to simply change at a whim.

Here at fernbyfilms.com, we’ll always tell it like it is. We dont’ get paid for our work at all, and we do not advertise on our website. Therefore you can continue to expect unbiased, informative, genuine articles to be published right here. Mind you, if the time does come where somebody pays us for an opinion piece, then we will most assuredly let you know before you read it.

Rodney T – Director, Fernby Films.

Toni Collette wins her Emmy Award.

Just a quick congratulatory post tonight for local lass Toni Collette, who won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of a multiple-personality sufferer in United States Of Tara. I have seen a couple of episodes (the series is currently airing here on the ABC) and she’s fantastic in it.  While not film news per se, it’s always a delight to see an Aussie up on the big stage doing us proud! So, from all of us here at fernbyfilms.com, congrats Toni!!

By now you may have heard about the recent business deal by the Disney Corporation to purchase Marvel Entertainment, including it’s historic comic division, with final deals to be completed by the end of this year.
Many internet geeks, comic geeks and other salubrious purveyors of gossip and innuendo have decided to get all weepy and cranky over this deal, as they see this deal as a usurption of Marvels autocracy by the larger, dominant company. This is, as usual with most internet gossip, without foundation.

(more…)

Okay, so word coming down from Hollywood today has made mention of plans for a production of a musical and video extravaganza stage show based on Star Wars, featuring the John Williams music and a lavish (apparently) video compilation of footage and a bunch of other stuff.

Truly, what an age we live in.

As if the Prequel trilogy wasn’t an indication that George Lucas was prepared to whore out his successful franchise and milk it for everything it’s worth (from you and I, dear moviegoer), this one just about takes the cake. No doubt based loosely on the similarly done Lord Of The Rings Music concerts (conducted by composer Howard Shore) in the wake of that film series success, Lucas has given his blessing to a multimedia extravaganza to once again show us just how shallow and mediocre his once mighty opus has become. Details appear to have C3PO himself, Anthony Daniels, narrating the show which will feature Williams’ mighty scores and a light and sound show that will “dazzle audiences”.

Why? For no other reason, I’d imagine, than to simply squeeze even more Star Wars fans money out of their already empty wallets. For decades, Lucas’ desire to pimp his brand, shining it up every few years with double-dip VHS and DVD releases of the classic films, plus an endless parade of computer games and ancillary paraphernalia, have managed to dilute the brand to the point of being a commercial yawn. The debacle of some of the stupidest cinematic trash in the form of the Prequel Trilogy, as well as the aforementioned merchandising derived from it all, has made the Star Wars brand less of a premium one, and more of a commercial slough similar to Wal-Mart and K-Mart. Generic, no-name branded rubbish which fills the streets purporting to be a premium brand but really aren’t.

That’s what Star Wars has become. Corporate greed distilled into a barely cognisant franchise now overblown and coasting on success long since depleted. And the idea that a stage show featuring Williams’ music and a bunch of slides from the archives would justify what would no doubt be a blue-ribbon ticket price is utterly contemptible. History tells us that the legion of SW fans will prop this up, of course, but the bad-blood running since the prequels were released has put a lot of fans offside with Lucas’ grand vision. It’s going to be a hard sell on this one, I think. It begs the question as to where creative ability and commercial profitability collide in an ugly, crass, money-making exercise which does nothing to further the Star Wars story but further mire it in mediocrity.

Perhaps they should get Jar Jar Binks to narrate it instead. It couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Richard Wilkins, a television embarrassment.

Last weeks hysteria over the death of Michael Jackson has thrown up quite a number of perplexing issues: none perhaps more bizarre than Jacko’s fathers insistence on pushing his new record label when he should have been talking about his son’s legacy. Not even the confusion over the autopsies (is he bald or not? It should be fairly simple to ascertain, right…. does he have any bloody HAIR!) has been able to get past the massive fact that, apparently, Jeff Goldblum is also dead.

Let’s quickly go through the events leading up to that statement.

• Friday 26th June – Channel 9′s Today show (which, for our international readers, is not affiliated with the US version of the same name) reports that Farrah Fawcett has passed away, and this news is confirmed by other reliable news sources.
• Around 7:15am that morning, news broke that Michael Jackson had been taken to hospital suffering a heart attack, and that CPR was being performed on him in the ambulance.
• About half an hour later (Australian time), confirmation came through from the hospital that Jackson had been pronounced dead.
• A while later (that same morning), Richard Wilkins came on live TV and proclaimed that Jeff Goldblum had also died, falling from a cliff while filming a TV show in New Zealand, after reading an email sent to him.

That report was unconfirmed.

And it was wrong.

Now, I don’t work in the official media, I have no affiliation with any news service at all. I wasn’t even at home, I was at work when my wife sent me a text stating that Goldblum had died. In the twenty seconds it took for me to read the text, open Google and type in Jeff Goldblums name, my fears of the great man’s passing were allayed by a simple line: Jeff Goldblum Death Hoax Email.

So, it was simple, Goldblum wasn’t dead. The logic didn’t add up anyway, considering a day earlier he was filming in the continental US. Hard to get from there to NZ in under 12 hours! Still, Wilkins had cobbled together a reel of clips featuring the supposedly deceased star. I doubt a clip reel would have just been lying about on the odd chance of Goldblum actually passing away, so somebody must have spent a few minutes or so getting it sorted. What, is nobody working on the Today show competent enough to check their facts before going on air and proclaiming them as news? Or was it simply too good an opportunity to sensationalize the day even further, completing the holy trilogy of deaths (Fawcett, Jackson and ?), because as we all know, things happen in threes.

Jeff Goldblum - Reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

To be honest, Richard Wilkins has always been highly overrated. His interview technique is abysmally superficial, his reviews on films lacking in any kind of depth or serious analysis: he appears more able to hype a film simply to gain kudos than to actually produce critical merit. Unlike more intelligent entertainment journalists, many of whom have actually researched the stuff they talk about (Leonard Maltin, David Stratton and Marg Pomerantz, to name three), Wilkins seems content to be seen as a junket junkie, somebody with an inability to get past the “wow” factor of chatting with the stars of the films he sees.

Australian Oscar viewers are constantly subjected to the painfully awkward Red Carpet special he seems to jag every year, flooding the screen with inane questions and creating for himself the unenviable label of Worlds Worst Entertainment Journalist.  Just because he has a camera and a microphone doesn’t make him good. His Red Carpet “specials” are about as interesting as a wall of drying paint, and I think most US stars without the benefit of knowing who he is stumble across him, gawp in disbelief that they let him into the ceremony, and then stagger away with the dubiously awkward stare of a person unable to get past that uncomfortable moment of “….well…. I’ve gotta go…….. really, I have to go…..” embarrassment. The recent effort with the cast of Slumdog Millionaire on the Oscar carpet was, for me, perhaps the lowest point yet. Uncomfortable, lacking in class and simply inexcusably dull, the kids of Slumdog must have been wishing they were back in the slums rather than trying to comprehend the inanity of Wilkins so-called “banter”. If the Oscars are the cream of the Entertainment world, then Wilkins is truly like rancid milk.

One of the Todayshows most amusing moments are the clips they scab off YouTube (which passes for serious journalism these days, dontcha know!) and I wonder just when they’ll get to the amusing and incredibly pertinent clip of Goldblum appearing on US TV and giving himself a eulogy after watching a clip of Wilkins’ erroneous pronouncement. The fact that nobody seemed to apologise for this slip-up (really, a slip up? More like a total lack of intelligent and rational thought!!!) chokes at my craw. We get force-fed so much rubbish on TV these days that, as consumers, we expect to see something that we just know is a blatant beat-up. I know we all make mistakes, but Wilkins, to come on national TV and announce somebody is dead, without checking your facts, simply screams bad taste.

It would be like me writing on this website that the Queen had died, or somebody shot the President, and then somebody else taking that information and passing it off as fact, without checking that I’m right. The internet is a cesspond of erroneous and ill-gotten information, and much care needs to be taken with whatever you read online. Firstly, double check your sources, Wilkins, you hack. There would no doubt be a bunch of lackeys behind the scenes who, right now, are being bent over and pineappled by Wilkins for providing him with the wrong info, but Wilkins, since you are the one who read it out live on air, you take the blame fully and without question.

Yet another decidedly un-surprising interview.

Secondly, the Today show needs to get Wilkins off the air. While his inability to be a decent entertainment journalist (I never saw his interview with Bruno creator Sascha Baron Cohen last week, and part of me doesn’t really want to) is renowned in Australia, until then he hadn’t been too badly seen by anybody outside our great country. Now, though, Wilkins (and, by extension, the TV industry in Australia) look like total incompetents. And so they should. This is the kind of thing that would happen in Britain, not here in Australia. For too long now our TV networks have been pushing their brand of “news” at us in a way that’s a little like the Fox network in the US. You know, fair and balanced? Riiiiight. And it’s come back to bite them on the backside.

It took me less than a minute to discover that Goldblum dying was false. Why has it taken so long for Nine to get rid of Wilkins for being an incompetent idiot? If the Today show wants quality entertainment journalism from somebody who is actually interested in doing some background work on what they’re talking about, then I’ll gladly put my hand up for the job. I love movies, I simply love them. The stars and behind the scenes stuff, the stuff Richard Wilkins should know back to front: I have forgotten more than he’ll know about this stuff. He’s more interested in the prestige than the facts. And that, in todays’ modern age of instant information, will bring him undone more often than not.

At least if I don’t know something, I check to make sure I don’t look like a moron by going online and stating incorrect information as fact.

For those who enjoy a good night out at the flickers, here’s a list of things you should keep in mind when going out to your local cineplex to enjoy yourself. It’s essentially a stream of consciousness effort to put into words what I (and others) have often thought annoying about the cinema experience of today. Oh, and if you want to add anything to this, or feel I’ve missed something essential, please feel free to add a comment at the bottom!

1. Arrive with plenty of time to spare. Unless you’ve purchased your tickets online, then you may have to queue for them, especially if you expect to rock up five minutes before a screening is due to start and just walk right in. If the film is a big new release, forget about it. Allow at least fifteen minutes line up time just at the ticket counter, to be safe. If you get there and your session is sold out, then don’t start complaining. Other people have obviously thought about it a lot longer than you, and planned accordingly.
2. Be prepared to line up to go into the cinema. Unfortunately, cineplex’s are getting larger and larger these days as they seek to accommodate as many people into their auditoriums as possible. This means that there will always be people queuing up outside the cinema door waiting to attend the next screening. Join the line and don’t complain. People who walk past the start of a line that goes up and around the corner are always the same people who arrive late to parties, and should simply be ignored. if you want to get a good seat, get to the cinema early. For those keeping score, I’d recommend a minimum of about 30 minutes for a minor new release, and at least 45-60 minutes for a major motion picture.
3. Never, ever, give away plot points to a film you’ve seen, in a lineup. Just because you have an opinion on the latest Shyamalan film doesn’t mean everybody around you has, so don’t ruin a plot twist by mouthing off loudly in a queue, it’s a sure fire way to get you bashed by those who haven’t seen it yet. Come to think of it, perhaps not spouting off all your supposed knowledge about film in a lineup anyway… after all, how often have you heard people talking about a film, and getting things completely wrong? All the time? I know I have. I don’t pretend to know everything about film, but I know enough to keep my mouth shut. People don’t want to hear other people’s opinions about films then and there…. they might read a blog or two (hint hint) but generally, when you’re in a line and the guy next to you keeps rabbiting on about the film you’re about to see, it gets kind of annoying. Trust me, nobody wants to hear what your dubiously high and mighty opinion is, especially at the top of your voice. that said, there is something to be said for striking up a conversation with a fellow patron about a certain film topic that you might want to talk about: this is only in the most exceptional circumstance, however. Like a Star Wars premiere, or the next Lord of The Rings flick. Films that get talked about anyway. The latest film crapfest from the guy who made Swamp Thing is perhaps not the line you want to try edifying others with your exorbitant knowledge. I would imagine a lineup to a film like that would be pretty much redundant on film lore regardless.
4. Where’s the best spot in the cinema to sit? Well, contrary to most people’s belief, to get the best view and sound mix, my advice would be to locate yourself in the centre of a row, about 2/3rds of the way back from the front. Sitting in the dead centre of the cinema is next to useless for an accurate soundtrack experience. Most multiplex cinema’s I’ve been in have incorrectly calibrated audio half the time, with really loud front channels and softer rears, so sitting about 65% towards the rear, central of the screen, is going to give you the best chance to hear the film the way the director intended. After years of experience in various positions in cinemas, this is the best advice I can give you.
5. Don’t talk during the film. It’s a cardinal cinema sin, but most people seem to ignore this. For some reason, people seem content to spend their $15 on a ticket to watch a film, then proceed to annoy others throughout the film with inane conversation about what they did during the week. If you are one of those people who cannot keep their big trap shut, get the hell out of the cinema and let others enjoy the film. If you must talk, do it it in the line earlier, not during the film. During the ads and trailers is fine, but once those lights go right off, and the movie starts, you’d better shut up or else!
6. Conversely to point 5, don’t be afraid to turn around and tell people to shut up during a film. It’s your right as a paying customer to have a chance to watch the film without chatter around you, so stand firm and ask noisy patrons to shut up. If they don’t, don’t be embarrassed to go get the cinema staff to ask them to leave. You’ll also earn respect from your surrounding patrons, and they might even help you. After all, you (and the others) paid your money to watch a film, not listen to drivel.
7. Conversely to point 5 & 6, if you are going to a film that’s rated G for children, and there are children there, do not think for one second they’ll watch a film in complete silence. One of the greatest cinema experiences I ever had was seeing Stuart Little during the school holidays, in a cinema packed with kids and their parents. I spent more time listening to the kids asking about the film (and laughing at them) than watching the film itself: and thoroughly enjoyed myself. If you don’t want to be bothered by kids in a kids film, attend a later session when those kids are sure to be in bed. Asking kids to shut up during a kids film is going to get you into trouble.
8. Mobile Phones: unless you’re an emergency services worker on call, like a doctor, there’s absolutely no requirement for your phone to be on during a film. Even set to silent/vibrate and checking it during the film is enough to annoy people: that little SMS screen looks like a bright sunflare in a darkened cinema, and it’s certainly distracting. Just turn your phone off, for God’s sake. There’s nothing that important that you can’t miss for an hour or two. And if there is, why are you in a darkened cinema for God’s sake?!
9. The loud lolly bag. Sweets and popcorn are a staple diet for any cinema-goer. However, there’s nothing more frustrating to patrons than you sitting there trying to open your lolly bag in the dark, rustling and mumbling and generally making a noise. Open your damn lollies before the film starts, it’s not that difficult. And when you do, open the bag right up, not just make a small hole to get one finger in to try and scrape out a low flying M&M. Make sure your access is good, otherwise you’ll incur the wrath of fellow patrons in your quest for that elusive treat.
10. One of the most controversial thing about attending cinemas is the seat saving, space leaving patrons who hog a whole row of chairs for people who have yet to arrive at the cinema anyway. Look, my whole philosophy about reserving seats (in unreserved seating cinema’s) is: if you ain’t in the cinema, and you ain’t in your seat, it’s free for the taking. Reserving for somebody whose just ducked off to the toilet is fine, but three people trying to reserve a whole row for 10+ people is ludicrous. If they aren’t smart enough to get to the cinema in time, then they’ll just have to sit where they can. That’s what those nosebleed seats at the very front left of the cinema were designed for; to teach stupid latecomers that they should plan ahead a little more. The other related issue I have is people who attend a sell out session and don’t bunch up the seating, leaving a seat free between themselves and another patron, just because they don’t want to sit close to anybody. Stupid people, that just means somebody has to come along and ask you to move anyway, toolbag! And don’t roll your eyes, sunshine, I know you’ve done it. If you’re in the middle of a row, then you might as well get it over with, and forget about leaving that single seat spare so you can spread out. You won’t get a chance in a full cinema at a blockbuster film premiere.

There you go. hopefully, you’ll have nodded wisely to yourself while reading this diatribe, wondering why people are so stupid to think they don’t do any of these things. If people simply followed basic common courtesy throughout, things would be simpler. There’d be less angst and frustration, and the cinematic experience a more enjoyable one. Now, if only we could get those cinema complexes to lower their candy bar prices.