The Phantom Film Critic

One of the major film studios has just admitted to creating a phantom film critic who praised their recent release Pearl Harbor. Some might be aghast at this deliberate attempt to fool the public into thinking a film critic had found their film to be a real winner. What the public hasn't know for years is what is really behind those rave reviews interspersed on the film advertisements in their local newspapers.

What has been going on since at least the 1970's is that when a studio can't find a film reviewer to praise their latest film, they contact a reviewer at a small newspaper somewhere around the country, fax him or her the phrases they would like see be part of a film critic review and these out of the way reviewers fax back their purported review of the film which just happens to be almost exactly what the studio suggested. Exactly what payment is exchanged for this service I don't recall.

So next time you're looking at a movie advertisement and don't recall ever hearing the name associated with the reviewer comments whose quote is underneath the praise, he or she may not be a phantom, but the review is surely the product of the studio's vivid imagination.

6/9/01
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