Sony Attacks Critical Review Of Movie They Know Is Bad

from the why-did-they-make-it-in-the-first-place dept

Thu, Apr 6th 2006 10:37am — Joseph Weisenthal

Most people can tell that Hollywood puts out a lot of junk every year, and one wonders whether the studios realize it as well. Apparently, they do know when something is bad, and they try to limit reviewers' access to bad movies. They're probably anxious to avoid another Gigli moment, with reviewers trying to outdo each other in who can be the meanest. When one reviewer slipped through the cracks and caught a screening of the upcoming Rob Schneider vehicle The Benchwarmers, Sony marketing went on the attack. According to the reviewer, the studio called papers where his write-up might have run, called him a liar and said he scammed his way into the screening. They even tried to trick the papers, telling them they'd have to pay extra to run the review, even though they subscribe to the wire service where it was posted. Of course, none of this addresses the review itself, or in anyway casts doubt onto the reviewers ojectivity. This isn't the first time that Sony's had controversy with film reviewers. A few years ago they were discovered to have made up fake quotes from a reviewer that didn't exist (oddly, for another Rob Schneider film). What's weird is if they know the movie is bad, why they bothered distributing it in the first place. Maybe they don't want to miss the next Snakes On A Plane.

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36 Comments

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Petréa Mitchell, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:10am

Why they bothered distributing it?
Because if the ads look good, people will still hand over their money to see the movie. Especially if there are no bad reviews available to warn them otherwise.
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Zeroth404, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:31am

Sony is Evil. We already know that from the whole rootkit thing. Can we just get overthis and boycott sony? please?
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Dave, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:38am

that's funny
Sony tries to distract attention from the fact that their movies suck by changing the subject, impugning the source of the info, etc. Hilarious!

If they can just get enough advertising in quick enough, they just might be able to get people in to see the film before the scathing review comes out. Let's say it's a movie that will only appeal to dummies, like most stuff out there now. If they can get the dummy groundswell going, the bad review may not matter, whereas even dummies may be discouraged from going to the movie if enough bad reviews are seen early enough.
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trav, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:40am

theyre gonna go see this movie anyways...it has napoleon dynamite in it...
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dani, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:45am

Here's one bad review.
I just watched the preview (on Nickelodeon), it doesn't even make it look good...but you're right people will watch it because of who's in it.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:45am

Re:
YAY, BOYCOTT THEM AND RIAA!!!!!!!!!! im still having trouble convincing my parents. they walked home the other day with a sony tv and they still havent returned it :'(
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i4c, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:57am

Fukk Sony too
well..can't blame them for this...they are not trying to sue people out of their jobs for a bad review or telling MIT students to quit school bc they have to pay them....

so they are not as bad as the RIAA. What is the deal with the rootkit thing?
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Moo, 6 Apr 2006 @ 12:03pm

Craig Kilborn is -1 star
Bill Romanowski is -1 star
Sean Salisbury is the death knell.
The "Napolean Dynamite kid" is the jumping on the dead bits part.

As much as I would like to like Rob Schneider, and as much as I miss Jon Lovitz...just...ugh.
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WadeTheWise, 6 Apr 2006 @ 12:15pm

Sony = Evil; Benchwarmers = funny movie
Sony may be evil, I have no arguments to this. They seem to have a knack at stabbing themselves in the foot even more than RIAA. But that fact alon, I got into a screening of this movies last night and I thought it was hilarious. To each his own, i'm not saying everyone would enjoy it, but for me and the group of my friends that got to see it, it was unanimous in the affirmative for the film. May not have been the greatest acting or an exciting plot line, but it had tons of great slapstick moments, a good message, midgets, kip from nightrider, and the batmobile. The movie is about nerds coming back and getting all the bullies that hurt them...I would think anyone that reads tech dirt would like that :)
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Lee, 6 Apr 2006 @ 12:33pm

Re: Sony = Evil; Benchwarmers = funny movie
Whether or not the movie is actually good is NOT the point.
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KDub, 6 Apr 2006 @ 12:49pm

Snakes on a plane
Does anyone remember that SNL skit with Cobras on a plane??? I can't believe they really made the movie -the studios are obviously bankrupt where creativity and good ideas are concerned.

It's up to us, the American consumers, to quit lapping up their shitty product.

That said, I am probably going to see SoaP - I mean come on, they got Samuel Mothafuckin' Jackson up in it.
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anonymous coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 12:53pm

makes "joe dirt" look like an art film
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 1:10pm

Re: Re:
I just filled out a requisition for 20 Canon Powershot cameras after returning nearly 2 dozen similar Sony Cybershots. When the vendor quieried me on the reason for the return I told him, "who knows what kind of software comes with those cameras.. I have a company to run.. I don't want to worry about weather my machines are going to be hacked because I chose a Sony camera".. I encouraged them to boycott Sony also.

My girlfriend's parents couldn't return their camera but they won't buy another Sony product. Luckily the Sony camera doesn't require you to install the CD.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 1:17pm

Sony Sucks... don't think anything else needs to be said. I did have the pleasure of steering someone away from a Sony Vaio laptop last week :)

They bought a HP instead.

They liked the Vaio - but once I emailed him all that info about the rootkits - he agreed, he didn't want any "suprises" on his laptop and though better of buying from Sony.

Sony... the word of mouths' gonna drop that bottom line :)
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ohuk, 6 Apr 2006 @ 1:18pm

Same goes for SP Classics...I don't know how 90% of those films even qualify for SPC...they should just be Sony Pictures
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 2:38pm

Why does someone need to watch a Rob Schneider movie to know its bad.
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Eddy, 6 Apr 2006 @ 4:36pm

grifo
Sony is evil, Sony is cruel
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 4:54pm

Sony makes the best damn TV ever.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 4:54pm

Sony makes the best damn TV ever.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 4:55pm

Every Sony product I have ever had was very good. Rootkits be damned.
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anonymous coward, 6 Apr 2006 @ 5:08pm

if you need to read a review to know that a Rob Schneider sucks, you are a complete moron.
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The Ignored One, 6 Apr 2006 @ 5:57pm

I think too many people have way too high expectaions for movies. If you don't like sony's movie, make a better one or shut up. How about we forget all the revewiers and just see the movie and decide for ourselves if the movie's good or not?

Now that's entirely unreasonable with other, more evpensive and usually hardware products, yes? I say buy conputers from apple or dell(if you want a pc). Then you're sure that you'll get the hardware how you want it, and the software's gonna suck either way. If in five years there's a still battle with HDDVD players on one side of the isle and Blu-Ray on the other side of the isle, buy whichever one you think has better movies, or if one has died, then buy the other. Don't wory about sony or not or this actor vs that actor, worry about if you think it's a good product from your own opinion.
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JP, 6 Apr 2006 @ 6:22pm

Hey kids
Sony electronics is a seperate company from the fools who create/distribute the movies and music...get a clue and pull your collective heads out of your @$$3$
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dan, 6 Apr 2006 @ 7:43pm

Re: Why they bothered distributing it?
Why distribute this bilge?

When you spend $20mil or $30 mil or $50 mil on salaries, production and martketing (a good chunk if which as already been spend on pre-release marketing), what are you going to do?

Set all the prints on fire and write off the entire expenditure?

Or quietly put it on 2500 screens on opening weekend in an effort to cut your losses by pulling in $5mil to $15 mil from suckers who don't know any better?

Sony (each studio for that matter) is not in this business for the sake of art. They are in this business to generate revenue and pay dividends.

If to do so they have to con you and i (ok, NOT you and i-- some clueless saps) into swallowing a $15 shitburger (including sides of stale popcorn and flat soda), they don't give a rat's ass.

-- dan
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Phil, 6 Apr 2006 @ 7:50pm

The PD 150
I think Sony should be restricted to making awesome divital video cameras like the PD 150, 170 HD and etc. . . The other part of the company is evil.

Phildo
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dan, 6 Apr 2006 @ 7:53pm

Re: Fukk Sony too
>What is the deal with the rootkit thing?

Oh, it's just something that's been annoyiing PC users since shortly after we drove Saddam back to Baghdad in the 1st Gulf War 15 years or so ago.

Or have you not heard about that, either?

-- dan
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bennie, 6 Apr 2006 @ 8:40pm

Re:
buy a dell? i take it you havent called their tech support lately...
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Jared, 6 Apr 2006 @ 10:38pm

sarcasm?
>Oh, it's just something that's been annoyiing PC >users since shortly after we drove Saddam back to >Baghdad in the 1st Gulf War 15 years or so ago.
>
>Or have you not heard about that, either?

The guy was asking a legitimate question. He wanted to know what rootkit was and instead of telling him and releiving the world of a little bit of it's ignorance you decide to make a sarcastic comment. You should be ashamed of your self.
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Sychodelix, 6 Apr 2006 @ 11:22pm

I don't buy Sony products anymore because most Sony products are overpriced compared to things with similar features.

The fact is, Sony IS Evil (with a capital E).

Not to mention, Sony is one of the "Big 5" that make up the power hungry, scum sucking, rich off their a$$ recording studios. Not only does Sony one of the major idiots backing the RIAA, but the MPAA too!

So I'm sorry...just knowing that Sony is a large part of the RIAA and MPAA is enough to make me vomit in their general direction and want nothing to do with them or their products.

Playstation (SCEA) is about the only thing I "might" put any cash into that belongs to Sony, and that's still a big if.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2006 @ 2:44am

I have a VAIO and I love it. Also have a Sony Vega TV and a crapload of other Sony products.

But I hate Sony customer service, and I plan on dumping my laptop on my life partner and getting a Macbook Pro around the time Leopard comes out.
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alternatives, 7 Apr 2006 @ 3:09am

You are finally comming about!
Sony is Evil. We already know that from the whole rootkit thing. Can we just get overthis and boycott sony?
You forgot that they also pay for the RIAA and MPAA, helping them to exist.
How about DRM?
Or directly to congress kritters for the DMCA

But I'm confused. If Sony is SO EVIL, why are you asking for a boycott? Why havn't you already stopped buying their products/services?
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alternatives, 7 Apr 2006 @ 3:20am

Get educated
Sony electronics is a seperate company from the fools who create/distribute the movies and music...get a clue and pull your collective heads out of your @$$3$
So that means that the donations of Sony Electronics over the DMCA are "OK"? The DRM parts are 'an accident'? That there isn't ANY input from Sony Entertainment?
If there is any 'head pulling' to be done....go research the campaign contributions.
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acousticiris, 7 Apr 2006 @ 8:17am

...Surprise!
The benchwarmers got a Bad Review? I'm shocked!
This backfired for Sony. Everyone who goes to see this kind of film knows that it probably got bad reviews.
Of course, that's no reason not to distribute it. I've enjoyed more movies in the "1 star" range than in the "4 star" range. The guage I use is if the "critics" liked it, I probably won't (Brokeback Mountain being a fine example of 4-star swill).
In reality, movies in "The Benchwarmers" genre you either "get", or you have a brain. You have to be able to relate with characters who suffer from problems of the "bowel movement" nature, and must also enjoy seeing said caracters play out that suffering for excruciatingly long periods of time.
Sony is so far out of touch that they took "1 star" movie and created enough of a stink around it to ensure that portions of the target audience (the "bowel movement crowd" that *don't typically read reviews*) would think twice about seeing it.
"If the reaction from Sony was this strong, the movie must really SUCK", seems to be going through my head.

You don't call attention to negative press by behaving like a three year old child who just had her favourite toy taken away.
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Ben, 7 Apr 2006 @ 9:19am

Re: Snakes on a plane
I heard they made the movie as kind of a joke and the internet took it in and embrassed it, knowing it wont be a good movie, and the cast/crew went back and shot a few extras just cause we internet folks wanted to see Sam Jackson say a "mothafuckin" line that wasnt in the movie.
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jessica, 24 Apr 2006 @ 8:32am

i liked it
i like this movie!!! i thought it was so funny.. i was a movie that kept you laughing threw out the whole show. it has a good base line on like how eveyone can do things together and its not a nerds or jocks type of thing and it shows that nerds can beat jocks to.....
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l. r. D'nt'n, 19 May 2006 @ 2:19am

deserved reward
Nothing ever,ever 'just happens'..everyone and every
decision has purpose..overt or covert. What prompted
"Davinci?" The Holy Bible gives the best answer. In the last days men will say ,"here is Christ, there is Christ but
don't go after such. When He returns to judge man, every single person will see and every knee will bow before Him.
In the meantime the Anti-Christ will beworking profusely
to discredit faith in God, the Church, and believers. Ron Howard, saddly you and Tom Hanks and Sony have revealed where you stand. I hope you each confess your sin and receive Christ who forgives every sin,
however, I personally hope this picture and every connection to it tanks. lar
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