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Home Theater Forum - Some Long Overdue Comments

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Home Theater Forum - Some Long Overdue Comments

Old 08-12-07, 09:47 PM
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Home Theater Forum - Some Long Overdue Comments

Four years ago, DVD Talk publisher Geoffrey Kleinman learned of my sudden dismissal as what was then Home Theater Forum's lone DVD reviewer. He kindly offered me a gig here, and more than 700 reviews later, I couldn't be happier. Geoffrey's been unfailingly supportive and accommodating, even going to the extra bother of shipping my review copies all the way to Japan on an almost weekly basis, and over the past four years it has been great fun watching the site grow and evolve as much as it has, and to read the entertaining and informative reviews of my colleagues.

I want to express "a few words about" HTF, partly because I was never given the opportunity to respond to the frankly shabby and libelous handling of the circumstances surrounding my departure, and also because I'm dismayed to see that, four years later, a tiny number of HTF's readers continue to make uninformed and unreasonable demands of the various DVD labels and, related to this, personally attack reviewers like myself.

First, regarding my hiring/firing by Ron Epstein, HTF's owner/editor (and a former DVD Talk reviewer himself). When Ron decided to stop reviewing DVDs, I threw my hat into the ring as a possible replacement. It was a non-paying job, but the benefits (i.e., free DVDs) seemed to outweigh the massive amount of work involved; at the time the job consisted of reviewing as close as one could to every noteworthy release from every label, a task since divided among many more writers.

Ron offered me the job and I began writing reviews. Although I had a 55-inch late model widescreen TV, some of HTF's readers complained that my monitor wasn't big enough. Although I had a surround system, these same technophiles were downright outraged that HTF's "official reviewer" didn't have THX and DTS. And so on. Okay, fair enough - but I'm not getting paid for this job - I'm essentially doing it for free. Who wants to pony up the dough and provide all that equipment?

What Ron didn't understand is that I'm a film historian/critic first and foremost, not a technophile with scads of disposable income. Sure, I'm just as outraged as everyone else when a widescreen film isn't 16:9 enhanced, or the sound has been botched, or the label uses an old transfer from 20 years ago - and I say so in my reviews. But it wasn't a good match for what some of HTF's readers wanted and expected. Ron was apologetic, said it was entirely his fault, that he should have asked for a run-down of my home video hardware before offering me the job, etc. Though I felt his was a bit of an over-reaction (didn't readers want to know if the movie was any good?) I understood his position. At the time, I offered (at my expense), to forward either to him or my replacement any stray DVDs that I might receive during the transition to the new reviewer(s). He said he'd let me know, and we parted on the best of terms.

Or so I thought.

Some months later, after I began writing for DVD Talk, a HTF poster innocently asked why HTF never reviewed LORD OF THE RINGS - THE TWO TOWERS? Simple, Ron replied, because Stuart Galbraith STOLE THE DVD!

This was, in short, a lie. I never received that particular DVD before or at any time after my stint with HTF. If Ron thought I had it at one time, he never asked me about it, this despite my open-ended offer to forward anything that might turn up at my doorstep.

Maybe he was pissed off that his old boss at DVD Talk had offered me a job. Whatever the reason, that same day on HTF I posted a correction very much like this one, but after about 40 minutes it mysteriously vanished. I tried to repost it, but was told, essentially, that I was banned from the forum for good and that Ron, he was, uh, well, out of town. After I threatened legal action they removed Ron's outrageous claim but that was it: no apology, no correction.

I say all this now for two reasons. One, I wanted to correct any lingering confusion about what actually happened and, second, comment about the tone of some of HTF's more extreme, otaku posters.

First, let me say that I have no bone to pick with the vast majority of HTF's readers and posters. It's a useful site, full of enthusiastic and informed DVD fans. I go there myself sometimes looking for the latest news, to learn more about issues on a particular title, etc. As with DVD Talk's forums, most of its readers are movie and/or TV buffs, and many professionals in the film and television industry obviously refer to it also.

My problem is the tiny percentage of hard-core armchair critics with no connection to and little knowledge of the home video industry and movie/home video critical writing. These people are disconnected from the Real World of rights issues and DVD production, people who demand problems big and small be fixed no matter the cost, that their favorite obscure TV show or movie be released immediately, dammit!

As someone in the almost unique position of being both a longtime professional film/video critic and one who has worked in DVD production and in conjunction with studio attorneys concerning rights issues (primarily at MGM), I'm able to see both sides of these issues. On one hand, I'm no fan of home video production ineptitude, and have been extremely harsh in my reviews when studios muck up easily avoided/correctable problems.

On the other hand, HTF's most extreme posters only show an incredible ignorance of Real World business practices (and, sorry folks, home video is a business, much as we'd like it not to be) when they get all hot under the collar because Label X isn't spending a million bucks to restore or clear music rights on an obscure library title that might generate $60,000 in revenue. It's a fiendishly complex issue, weighing potential sales against the cost of making expensive, labor-intensive corrections.

I recently posted a review of HAWAII FIVE-O - THE SECOND SEASON. Within a few hours several readers emailed me with a heads-up that the set did not include an episode entitled "Bored, She Hung Herself," which had been pulled from syndication and now home video, reportedly because someone supposedly imitated the show's suicide soon after the show first aired. The back of the box, in tiny, three-point type, admits that the episode is missing from the set, but I didn't catch it. What can I say? I'm human, and it was an honest omission.

I could have ignored the emails, or made the correction without admitting it was several readers, not me, who caught it. But unlike, say, Ron Epstein, I don't have a problem with admitting when I get something wrong.

I have and will always continue to welcome corrections, comments, addendum, etc., and frequently update reviews to reflect email I receive about a particular review, and quite unlike some other online DVD review sites my colleagues likewise welcome these corrections/additions and post reader comments in my reviews.

DVD Talk's readers, and the vast majority of HTF's, are reasonable enough to realize that we reviewers occasionally forget to note or miss details about a release, partly because of the volume of DVDs we review, sometimes because of deadline issues and that because of the demands of our own full-time jobs, we simply don't have the time to look at all 20 hours of a season's run of episodes, or listen to every commentary in that 10-film set all the way through. I'm in the midst of reviewing five boxed sets containing more than 150 public domain Westerns; I hardly have the time to see 'em all, but am adult enough to admit to as much. In my review of CLASSIC FILM NOIR VOLUME 4, to cite another example, there was simply no way to sit down and re-watch all ten movies and listen to every commentary beginning-to-end, much as I would have liked to comment on all of them in detail: that's why I talk about "sampling" the commentaries. My fellow reviewers do likewise.

Based on the number of positive emails we receive, I think we're providing one hell of a good service offering useful information and entertaining reviews that "get it right" 99% of the time.

If you're one of those sad, HTF geeks who's never satisfied with any release or any DVD review outside that forum fine, stay there. Don't read our reviews. Nobody's holding a gun to your head.

Last edited by S Galbraith IV; 08-12-07 at 10:56 PM.
Old 08-13-07, 09:50 AM
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If you're one of those sad, HTF geeks who's never satisfied with any release or any DVD review outside that forum fine, stay there. Don't read our reviews. Nobody's holding a gun to your head.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The HTF is nothing compared to DVD Talk & some of the members over their need a little lesion in respect & appreciation. I greatly respect the time & effort of all DVD reviewers here at DVD Talk. Although I might disagree with curtain reviews, I still respect the opinions of the reviewer.

In the case of Hawaii Five-O-The Second Season DVD, I didn’t know the episode “Bored, She Hung Herself” was missing either until I finally saw it a few days after I started watching the season & looked at the bottom of the box. Most studios have the information on the back of the box, not the bottom of it. Like you said, people make mistakes.

Anyways, keep up with the fantastic reviews!

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