Great Moments in Public Relations: The Avatar Embargo

Maybe you heard the Internet hubbub last Friday when The Hollywood Reporter broke a review embargo for James Cameron's Avatar. Most of the Internets were gobsmacked that a trade, not a filthy blog, would dare shake a stick at the 800-lb gorilla that is Fox.

And then everyone rushed their reviews out as fast as they possibly could. The shocking part? Fox said nothing about it and let the praise stream out. Except when it is a bad review. Then the embargo's on.

Sean Burns, a critic for the Philadelphia Weekly, did not like Avatar. In fact, it was "tacky," to say the least. This lead to one of the first public notices that Fox had finally come back on its' previous embargo. Now, the biggest kicker?

Avatar, as of writing this, has screened in New York, Los Angeles and Boston for critics. Burns lives in Boston. The Philadelphia Weekly is in a city that is very much not like Boston. A number of New York critics have written about it without complaint: Glenn Kenny liked it.

Armond White thought it was "the corniest movie ever made about the white man’s need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt."

So, why did Armond write  that without having hellfire and brimstone rained upon him from 48th Street? Because he was in New York. He still writes for a (technical) alt-weekly, but he didn't have an axe hovering over his head.

The same use of embgo politics affected Now Playing, a movie review show on WOCC-TV. Doesn't sound familiar does it? Well, it would if you lived in Columbus, Ohio. Disney had informed Mark Pfeiffer that Princess and the Frog couldn't be reviewed on a December 8th episode, as the embargo was until December 11th.

Mind you, Frog was in special release in New York and Los Angeles for exorbitant prices. Outlets in both cities ran their reviews on day of release, as well as blogs and other online sites that geographically fall within those locations. While the embargo is one of a PR firm's best tools at keeping critics and outlets in check, it ultimately serves as a general reminder that if you dare not suffer in "The Big City," you'll be damned to whatever overtly caffeinated whims a guy under a guy under a guy has to suffer when the two folks above him break out the rakes with hot coals duct taped on.

Prior to this entire mess, Ryan Stewart was dead on. Except it wasn't his dream team theory of /film, AICN, Cinematical and Film School Rejects--it was a Trade with basis in a city that Fox gave way to.  I don't mean to get on a soapbox--said the scruffy idiot savant as he adjusted his milk crate--but I can see the purpose of embargos. Without them, the AICN model could've have theoretically evolved into something much worse.

Instead, it transitioned itself into the format for which many sites and blogs function today. It's not secret that some publications seem more like the A.V. Club's mutated brother screeching "FFFFFFIIIRRRSTIES REVIEW. FFFFFFFFIIIIIIRRRSTIES" while waving club-shaped arms in the air. But that's shifted into a workable system. Same reason why people attend film festivals and then bank material for the future.

So I can completely understand the embargo. What I can't understand is why Fox has decided to play some twisted game of God when it comes to a negative review in an alt-weekly in Philadelphia, or why Disney is scared of a movie review show in Columbus, Ohio. But then again, I guess Columbus' entire population is avid readers of THR. So who needs local reviews when you have the genius that is Kirk Honeycutt and his completely fucking inept reviews.

So that's why the Avatar embargo is a Great Moment in Public Relations.

edit: As Mark tweeted after I published, "FYI, we tape our show every 2 weeks, so FROG isn't being reviewed until 12/21 due to the embargo. Got ARMORED airtime instead."