Hey, so anyone hear about this lawsuit…

Judge Sticks Sony Pix For Fixing Pix Pitches
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In Hollywood, the settlement of a $1.5 million dollar suit is small potatoes. But this time, some lucky movie-goers may get a share: five dollars each.
A court has approved the settlement of a class-action suit against Sony Pictures Entertainment. It accused the studio of running ads quoting a movie critic who didn't exist.
Some movie-goers sued. Their lawyer says if you saw the 2001 film "A Knight's Tale," or "Vertical Limit," "The Animal," "Hollow Man" or "The Patriot" during their original runs, you can file a claim for a five-dollar refund. Any leftover money goes to charity.
Sony didn't admit any liability. But at the time, it temporarily suspended two executives and vowed to quote only critics who are real.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Where can I file my claim for seeing Hollow Man and the Patriot in theaters? (though no hokey blurb has ever convinced me to go see a movie… well, maybe hype sometimes does).

I saw Vertical Limit and Hollow Man in theaters. Where do I get my $$$?

I saw 3 of those. Hope Sony provides a link for the claim.

I saw Vertical Limit and the Patriot. If I enjoyed them I wouldn't bother. But since VL was garbage it would be nice for a refund.

Not holding my breath. I still haven't received my $12 from the RIAA settlement.

Saw A Knight's Tale and Hollow Man. Heck, I think there should have been a class action suit just for releasing Hollow Man. Where do I sign up for my money?

I saw A Knight's Tale, and I'll take 5 free dollars.

What a bunch of fucking bullshit. People who start shit like this boil my blood.

Who here actually saw the movie based on the faux-reviews? Anyone who says "me" is a fucking liar.

Anyone who actually files should be ashamed. The filers are going to be nothing but bargain-hunting nitwits.

I think it's ridiculous that there was even a ruling (regardless of how insignificant 1.5mil is to Sony). But now that we're here, nobody should file, and just let the money default to charity.

If you'd seen any of those movies, you'd want your money back too! Especially Vertical Limit, but especially Hollowman.

They could always go back to the old method of misquoting lines.

I've seen all of them. And The Patriot is the only one I'd ever watch again.

But that's not the point. They got a settlement for a useless promotional line of review. If you saw that line in the trailer, and truely think you saw the movie only because of that line, then I guess you deserve your money back. Otherwise, it's just 'getting back' for putting out a movie that didn't fit your personal tastes.

If the settlement was over "this movie suck on a cosmic level, and we all want our money back", that would be a different story. I dare ya' to try to file a lawsuit like that. This is America. I can make a movie about throwing monkey poo. If I market it right, you'll see it and pay me my money.

They're going to give out up to 300,000 $5 refunds. And I bet zero - literally zero - will be in respect to the complaint at hand. There is NO WAY that people go to see movies because of what one line says on a TV spot.

I hope only small portion of people claim their refunds, and the plaintiffs feel like numbnuts for opening such a petty, pointless lawsuit. I bet THEY just didn't like the movie, and researched for a reason to sue.

Hollywood is full of crap movies. They mostly become top grossers of the weekend due to marketing more than artfulness (see Fantastic 4, most recently). The great thing about this lawsuit is that Hollywood will lose one more tool from their arsenal of brainwashing tools to pull in the audience.

Now that I think of it, in the end it is such a hassle to file a claim for a lawsuit like this that it's not worth the $5. Better it go to charity. Either way the Hollywood Industrial complex will be (hopefully) barred from this activity.

In a web episode of the animated series The Critic (which is owned by Sony), Jay Sherman (voice of Jon Lovitz) apologized for the use of fake critics. The webisode is on the DVD release of the series.

Some of the movies which utitlized the fake critics, didn't need to, as real critics had given positive reviews to the films.

I agree that it's foolish to sue over this. There was a 1980 news item where a lawyer wanted to sue Columbia Pictures because he thought the re-issue of Close Encounters was a new sequel, not a re-editing.

Not me. I saw that sketch on Saturday Night Live, with one of the cast playing Sean Connery getting hit with monkey poo (I think it was based on their previous sketches about beating a dead horse) and the real thing on Maximum Exposure.

I know nothing of this.

Where can I find the actual quotes of these "fake critics"

Is there anything you can't sue for nowadays?

Stupidity like this is the reason that legitimate lawsuits take so long to be decided.

Yeah! God forbid a company be punished for unethical, unlawful acts of manipulation...

-JP

Even if someone files the claim where the fake review had no bearing on them seeing it if nothing else this is crappy movie karma. Have you seen Hollowman?

Amen, JP! What's with the passivity of this era? No wonder the consumer and little man is being screwed so hard nowadays: people have a bad case of shrugging their shoulders. You have to be well-informed to simply avoid being scammed.

I know when I saw the ads for The Animal I wasn't interested until I saw the rave quote from a guy I'd never heard of at a paper I'd never heard of in a small town hundreds of miles away from me that I'd also never heard of. It was because of that, I went to see it.

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't think Sony was unethical or unlawful. Really, what harm was done?"

David Manning
Ridgefield Press

You all seem to be missing the point. It's not the specific offense, it's the principle behind it. Sure, those critical quotes rarely influence peoples' decisions. However, if we let this slide...what follows? Fabricating quotes by noteworthy critics like Roger Ebert, or well-known publications like Variety? Including notes referring to film festival awards that the movie didn't actually receive? How about large award show nominations and wins?

I'm not one for slippery-slope arguements, but the fact remains...a line has to be drawn somewhere. Better sooner than later. Sony broke the law, and (in the eyes of a lot of people) a code of ethics. I won't shed a tear over the fact that they're getting their just deserts. Neither should you.

-JP

Please read my entire post again.

See, they do work!

-JP

Metaphorically speaking, it's the lambs who are slaughtered first that never bother to consider where the shepherd might be leading them.

I love those.

Vertical Limit could have been a "great movie" if x, y & z happend, but instead this drivel is probably the worst movie of the year. -Larry King

is used in advertising as "Great Movie" - Larry King

I think it is hilarious when they pull something out of a garbage review.

Also gotta love the no-name critic from BFE that works for a campus paper. You know your movie is in trouble when you have to look that far for a decent review.