Variety, a world famous entertainment trade magazine, has recently been the most magazine talked about as it made it to be headline of most movie blogs. One of the talk about it can be found on In Contention in their post The price of Variety. Unfortunately, Variety didn't become the talk of the country because of its shining achievement. Instead it was involved in a scandal involving a movie called Iron Cross. CHUD even went as far as stating Variety caught in boffo payola scandal-trade ankles ethics?
Evidently, Iron Cross was one of the movies aiming for the Oscar. If somehow you fail to recognize the movie in one of the nominations, then don't worry, i am just as clueless as you are. During Oscar nominee ballots period, a movie can always try to push its way through the nomination in every way possible. One of the many ways to do it is through an Oscar campaign. It is really not a new thing. In fact, it has already been acknowledged as one of the marketing techniques to promote a movie. Apparently, Iron Cross is one of the movies who utilized the marketing technique with the help of Variety. It is reported that the producers of Iron Cross spent $ 400,000 to market it through variety. That amount of money will ensure that the movie--as made clear by CHUD--make it into Variety's Oscar contender screening series, complete with Q&As with the film makers, and is advertised in Variety daily until the deadline for Oscar nominee ballots passed. The $ 400,000 surely isn't well spent here, as we hardly even heard of Iron Cross.
Iron Cross is a movie about revenge and its main attraction is that it's the last movie of Roy Scheider. He died during production. Scheider plays a role of holocaust survivor who wants some payback from the ones who responsible to have made his life miserable. It is a simple movie with a simple plot. However, Robert Koehler from Variety thought that the movie was worse than just simple and gave it a negative review. This was the origin of all the talks which aroused later on. The movie's producers who invested some money to promote the film through Variety couldn't take the negative review nicely (of course they couldn't, just look at the amount of money they spent on variety itself). Stranger thing happened afterwards; the negative review was then removed. If you somehow want to see the review, worry not; the internet saved it all. A Google cache version of the review can still be found out there.
The removal of the negative review is what made the whole thing became a greater isssue as a lot of people seemed to doubt Variety's integrity. By removing the review, Variety showed the public that their integrity can be bought, or at least compromised. Just provide $ 400,000 and you can do just about the same thing. After this, an even funnier thing happened. As reported by In Contention, the negative review was returned to its place soon after its removal. Apparently when everybody started to doubt your integrity, there is only one thing you can do: Show that a little piece of integrity is still left. Variety did just that, and they just need to face the law suit by Iron Cross' producers and director now.
So, what is the moral of the story here? It's simple. Business is business, and being objective is being objective. When they clash, show your integrity by keeping your objectivity on the ground. When the problem becomes worse, just loosen up that tight integrity for a while and cope with the business side. When the public finds out about it and starts to doubt you, well, just show them that you are objective. Face a couple of law suits and you can still walk tall along side your integrity. At least that was what Variety did. Did it work?
Evidently, Iron Cross was one of the movies aiming for the Oscar. If somehow you fail to recognize the movie in one of the nominations, then don't worry, i am just as clueless as you are. During Oscar nominee ballots period, a movie can always try to push its way through the nomination in every way possible. One of the many ways to do it is through an Oscar campaign. It is really not a new thing. In fact, it has already been acknowledged as one of the marketing techniques to promote a movie. Apparently, Iron Cross is one of the movies who utilized the marketing technique with the help of Variety. It is reported that the producers of Iron Cross spent $ 400,000 to market it through variety. That amount of money will ensure that the movie--as made clear by CHUD--make it into Variety's Oscar contender screening series, complete with Q&As with the film makers, and is advertised in Variety daily until the deadline for Oscar nominee ballots passed. The $ 400,000 surely isn't well spent here, as we hardly even heard of Iron Cross.
Iron Cross is a movie about revenge and its main attraction is that it's the last movie of Roy Scheider. He died during production. Scheider plays a role of holocaust survivor who wants some payback from the ones who responsible to have made his life miserable. It is a simple movie with a simple plot. However, Robert Koehler from Variety thought that the movie was worse than just simple and gave it a negative review. This was the origin of all the talks which aroused later on. The movie's producers who invested some money to promote the film through Variety couldn't take the negative review nicely (of course they couldn't, just look at the amount of money they spent on variety itself). Stranger thing happened afterwards; the negative review was then removed. If you somehow want to see the review, worry not; the internet saved it all. A Google cache version of the review can still be found out there.
The removal of the negative review is what made the whole thing became a greater isssue as a lot of people seemed to doubt Variety's integrity. By removing the review, Variety showed the public that their integrity can be bought, or at least compromised. Just provide $ 400,000 and you can do just about the same thing. After this, an even funnier thing happened. As reported by In Contention, the negative review was returned to its place soon after its removal. Apparently when everybody started to doubt your integrity, there is only one thing you can do: Show that a little piece of integrity is still left. Variety did just that, and they just need to face the law suit by Iron Cross' producers and director now.
So, what is the moral of the story here? It's simple. Business is business, and being objective is being objective. When they clash, show your integrity by keeping your objectivity on the ground. When the problem becomes worse, just loosen up that tight integrity for a while and cope with the business side. When the public finds out about it and starts to doubt you, well, just show them that you are objective. Face a couple of law suits and you can still walk tall along side your integrity. At least that was what Variety did. Did it work?
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