Who Trusts Movie Critics, Anyway?

Sony Pictures settled a lawsuit last week over the imagiary critic it invented to say good things about terrible films, agreeing to pay $5 to anyone who claims to have seen one of the flicks because of the supposedly good review. This is madness, says Jeremy Dauber. “Isn’t it the case that anyone who is willing to be convinced under any circumstances to see the Rob Schneider picture ‘The Animal’ deserves what they get? You would think they might be thankful for the lesson.” Besides, how is what Sony did any worse than the common studio practice of twisting a critic’s words into a positive statement with the clever use of ellipses?