And so... Roger Friedman is dead at Fox...
I wish I could say, "Long Live Roger Friedman," but he should fall into the void... but won't. I would expect a Crazy Nikki-esque standalone site before the month is out, likely financed (silently) by Harvey Weinstein.
To be fair to Nikki, Roger Ailes did use her to cover his ass by giving her word of the firing first last night. It took about 20 minutes for me to have it confirmed after word popped up on the Blackberry after she ran it late Saturday night.
To be fair to everyone else, Nikki missed this element of the story 100% until she had an excuse to go back and pilfer from everyone else's coverage of the issue while failing utterly to explain that it was other web writers who pointed out this story to Fox on Thursday night and then were relentless about demanding Friedman's firing all day Friday.
There is little doubt that this incident - as so many in Friedman's Fox News career - would have been disappeared, like his column was disappeared - were it not for this public approbation in the midst of a bigger story for the studio. But Nikki, given that - as usual - her source was not so much interested in breaking news as breaking spin, skipped over all that and spins the lie that Fox News acted "promptly on all fronts." Not only did editors at FoxNews.com run the copy... not only did their legal department not stop the copy from being published or pull it down on their own... but when confronted about the Thursday column late Thursday night and then again Friday, the column came down mid-afternoon on Friday - about 36 hours after it posted - and at the time of the late Friday night press duel releases, Friedman was still employed by Fox News. It wasn't until another day over coverage that Ailes took action to commit to firing Friedman on Saturday afternoon.
Way to get it wrong and late but to whore out for that Drudge link, Nikki. Congratulations on being the future of journalism!
The great irony of all of this is that it was the folks who most raged at Fox for pushing in a way that for that Fantastic Four 2 projectionist/AICN "reviewer" fired that were most aggressive about pressuring Fox on Friedman and enlisting others, like myself, to do the same. And I can't say that I am 100% clear on what that really means.
There is certainly a change in the tone out there in GeekLand. Ain't It Cool News - led on this story by Mr Beaks/Jeremy Smith - and HitFix, as embodied by former AICNer Drew McWeeny/Moriarty, both condemned the leak, downloading of the film, and reviewing the film based on the leak.
This is an interesting moment for Geek Culture in general... and Drew in particular. When we get into the WayBack machine and look back to the last time this came up on a big movie, it was June 9, 2003 and Drew was saying, "Shame on you. All of you. Not everyone reading this, of course, since most of you are sane, normal, law-abiding citizens. I’m speaking directly to that percentage of Internet users who simply can’t exhibit a modicum of self-control, who feel the need to pirate films at the absolute first second they possibly can, and specifically... I’m speaking to the person who leaked the workprint of Universal’s HULK in the first place. Shame on you."
This was followed by Harry Knowles' in-house response: "'What is wrong with downloading a movie early'
Harry here... Well Moriarty certainly stirred up the *** yesterday didn't he?
Is there a double standard, a certain level of hypocrisy when it comes to condemning the widespread piracy of film via the internet when often times Moriarty and myself come into contact with materials that we shouldn't be seeing early, by most accounts?"
This led to Drew's follow-up: "I have no business telling anyone what decision to make regarding the trafficking of stolen materials. And I wouldn't even if my hands were squeaky clean. Which they aren't.
At this moment, with me dealing with the people I deal with all day long and all week long, and with my career developing the way it is, I have a particular perspective on the issue of the duplication and distribution of copywritten material. It's my personal perspective. It's not more right than someone else's. It's not more ethical. It's not more moral. It's simply mine.
When I wrote what I wrote, I spoke down to my readership. And that's absolutely a mistake. The minute you condescend to the person reading your work... whoever they are... you risk alienating them.
When I first met Harry Knowles... the very first time... we hooked up because I was looking for a way to get something onto the Internet for other fans to enjoy.
It was something I wasn't supposed to have.
It came from someone's office who had no idea I had it.
I was told by someone online to try Harry Knowles. I got in touch with him in Texas. He hooked me up with a guy in Australia.
Why?
To circumnavigate US copyright law. That's why.
Hello, kettle? It's the pot. I'm black.
So mea culpa. No other arguments are really needed to convince me that I made a colossal mistake the other day."
Here are my before and after commentaries on it all.
So... all of this defense of the Wolverine leak... it's a new day.
As most of you will be aware, there is no love lost between Drew and Tom Rothman, which makes Drew's arguments not to download this film all the more dramatic. Is it a call of morality or a response to a more personal appeal by Gavin Hood, who has been supported vigorously by the geek community against Evil Fox throughout his making of his first action film which is also his first with a budget over $30 million.
Regardless, it's the right call.
Finally... and perhaps this is burying the lead a bit... but I did find Wolverine on DVD on the streets of New York yesterday. As always, I will offer the copy to Fox for it to do with as it will. But it is, as has been reported elsewhere, a pristine digital copy that looks as good or better than most DVDs. It also is, as reported elsewhere, pretty much complete - whatever cut it is - except for clearly missing effects shots.
What was most shocking to me, while looking over the DVD - I haven't really watched it as a movie and don't intend to do so - was the lack of any markings on it. Now, of course, there might have been markings in the letterbox margins that were covered over when it was printed by the pirates. What does happen at one point is that a header comes into frame, very briefly, for the length of just one shot, as though you were on a computer, which says, "Rising Sun Pictures" and is dated "02 March 2..." as it goes past the right edge of the frame.
Anyway... there it is. I guess it was inevitably that once this was in the Bit Torrent stream that it would end up on DVD across the globe, including here in New York and across America. That is, in my eye, the tipping point for Fox losing some audience... probably in the single digits on millions on opening weekend. The difference between this and the online access is that it will reach a much wider audience on hard copy, street-sold DVD whereas the web surfers who bother to watch the whole film are, as others have said, a group that's more committed to genre film and will want to see it finished and on a big screen with an audience.
Also on the street was Sony Classics' May 22 release, Easy Virtue, which was already released in Europe... and also appears in pristine digital form. The only real effect in the film, Jessica Biel's shape, is complete.
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2009/04/sunday_morning_1.html