Inventing Anna (2022)

[Drunk Monk]

Truth 

You should watch this…

[Greg]

My hate card is full, thank you.

[King Bob]

Reluctance to criticize is a huge problem with a lot of criticism these days.

[Greg]

Well you have to be powerful enough a force that the people you criticize can't shut you off. You hear it all the time from the Press Corp covering government that if they press too hard they'll lose access. If DM writes overly harsh reviews, they'll stop sending him screeners and no one wants that.

[Drunk Monk]

I don’t think that’s the case. A promotional agency sets up the screeners; they’re hired by the distributors so they’re a middleman. They just need to show that reviews get published to report back but it’s not like the distributors can blacklist reviewers off the promo agency’s list. Sometimes I chat with the promo reps and we’ll dish about how lousy some of the films are. 

For me, it’s more of a reflection of the wulin, which is hypercritical and catty to self destructive levels. So many just shit on each other, so much so that one of the most popular forums was bullshido which basically called bs on everyone (there’s a great thread on me there ‘gene ching hurt my feelings’). As a publisher, I chose not to be part of the negativity. I’ll call out movies when they really suck but I do tend to look at what works more than what doesn’t. That’s been my modus operendi for Kfm. 

I might be more critical for Den if they assign me something that sucks (still waiting on follow up with New York Ninja). Fortunately everything Den has tasked me with so far has been fun. I’m really pleased with how the Vikings Valhalla special issue came out - it’s much better than the Jupiter’s Legacy one. Now both of those were in partnership with Netflix (says so right on the front) so basically they paid me to write ad copy, which is what I do for YMAA now.

[Greg]

Fair.