Digital Screeners For Critics Aren't Just Inside Baseball

Plus: 'Reservation Dogs,' The Green Knight,' and what's making us happy

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when we learned that Aaliyah's music would get easier to hear again. It was the week when Jeopardy! news got out, and there were consequences. And it was the week when Rihanna, already a legend, was reported to be a billionaire as well. Opening Argument: Digital Screeners For Critics Aren't Just Inside Baseball There's a terrific piece in Variety this week from the writer and editor Jill Pantozzi about what might seem, at first glance, like a piece of critics'-circle industry advocacy: She talks about how critics screen films. Specifically, she talks about the fact that during the most closed-down stages of COVID, film studios made digital screeners available for critics to watch at home to a degree they never had before. This meant that in order to write a timely review of a film (that, in many cases, people were going to watch at home anyway), you didn't have to go and sit in a physical theater at an advance screening. Pantozzi has a disability herself, and talks about how often, at traditional screenings, she doesn't have the opportunity to safely enjoy a film from an appropriate vantage point.  This is a delicate thing to talk about, because yes, advance screenings are an opportunity studios have no obligation to provide at all. Lots of films open without screenings. Sometimes, this means the film is terrible and the studio doesn't want terrible reviews to kill it on the first day. But sometimes, it means the director is a powerful odd duck who hates critics, or it means that there's some weird dispute you'll never even hear about. But for whatever reason, sometimes they just don't do it. And you can survive that, particularly if you are well-established and you have a platform; if you need to review a day or two later, you can.  When they do hold a screening (which, in most cases, takes place at a plain old multiplex theater), it's highly controlled by the studio and the publicity apparatus. They decide where it is in the first place, for one thing, and there's often only one location in an entire metro area. I saw F9 at Tysons Corner, which won't mean anything to you unless you are from around D.C., in which case you know that this means that as someone who lives on the Maryland side, I spent approximately one million years hating other drivers just to get there.  Bullseye host Jesse Thorn and his producer Kevin Ferguson were talking about this recently also, how critics and journalists in L.A. sometimes have to spend a ton of time traveling to wherever the screening happens to be scheduled. Studios also make lots of rules, like confiscating phones at screenings on the theory that you're going to illegally film it on your phone and then upload it to the internet, even though I have literally never heard a story of a critic doing this, and even though waiting to collect your phone at the end just adds to how long screenings take, and even though I once saw critics' phones collected and left in an undifferentiated, unguarded pile on a table outside a theater.  Don't get me wrong: All of this is workaday griping if you're me and it's just about waiting in a line and getting home later than you'd like and hucking out to Virginia unnecessarily. But as is so often the case, and as Jill Pantozzi discusses in that piece, one person's inconvenience is another person's genuine barrier, whether that's based on disability, access to money, access to public transit, child care needs, or whatever else. Thus, the quirks of the traditional theatrical screening operate as limitations on who gets to see and review what.  And when that happens, you -- as a film enthusiast, as a consumer, as a curious person, as a reader, as a listener -- you potentially suffer, and so does the filmmaker, and so does filmmaking generally. An example: Digital screening, like remote recording, has allowed our podcast to much more easily invite people to participate who live in all kinds of different places and have all kinds of different routines. "Can you watch the screener at this link sometime in the next two days and then record with us from home?" is simply a much less burdensome ask than "Can you trek to wherever this screening is at the one time that's available, and then make your way to a studio at a time when we can get access to it?" And when you can offer more flexibility, the options expand. That's one of the reasons our roster of panelists has been so marvelously rich in the last year.  If studios insist on pulling this back, on retreating to the multiplex screening, they will hurt film writing and they will hurt film. Filmmakers will lose chances to have their work seen and appreciated and examined by the audiences for whom they made it. Readers will lose chances to read a variety of viewpoints. Critics will lose, too, and they'll lose more if they're already marginalized in one of a variety of ways. But the effects on critics themselves are only the tip of the iceberg. Television has operated for years now on the principle that in the vast majority of cases, critics have digital screeners available at home for weeks and are trusted not to break embargoes or pirate what they're watching. There's no reason film can't do the same. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend: Starting Monday, you’ll be able to check out the new comedy series Reservation Dogs on Hulu in the FX section. (Does that make sense? It’s Hulu only, but it’s in the “Hulu on FX” section.) It’s a terrific show about a group of Indigenous kids in Oklahoma, and I think you’ll be utterly charmed by its laid-back, super-chill vibe. We’ll also be talking about it on the podcast soon.  And starting Tuesday, Netflix will be releasing installments of the sports documentary series Untold, the first of which is called “Malice at the Palace” and retells the tale of the 2004 NBA brawl in Detroit when Pacers player Metta World Peace, then known as Ron Artest, went into the stands and brawled with a spectator after being pelted with garbage by a Pistons “fan.” It’s less that this documentary uncovers massive new facts than that it tries to contextualize that night and the consequences that came to the players — and the lack of consequences that came to pass for most of the fans. The fine comic actor John Ross Bowie has a new podcast coming August 10 called Household Faces, in which he interviews character actors (of which he is one). I haven’t heard it yet, but I’ve already subscribed.  What We Did This Week! A24 On Monday, Glen talked to Bilal Qureshi about the Dev Patel vehicle The Green Knight. On Tuesday, Aisha, Glen, Stephen and I shared our 1971-themed What's Making Me Happy This Week picks for a special episode in honor of NPR's 50th anniversary.  Wednesday brought Stephen into the studio with LaTesha Harris and Anamaria Sayre to talk about the Billie Eilish album Happier Than Ever. On Thursday, I was delighted to talk to Stephen, Daisy Rosario and Mallory Yu about how we're all navigating the Olympics (and, soon, the Paralympics) of Tokyo 2021. And on Friday, Glen sat with our pals Daisy Rosario, Ronald Young, Jr. and Chris Klimek to talk about the new film that sounds a lot like an existing film but is actually a totally different film: The Suicide Squad. Also at that link, you can find Glen's thoughtful review.  Oh, and you say you like Ted Lasso? Me too, and I recapped this week’s terrific episode for you. What's Making Us Happy: Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: What's Making Daisy Happy: RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars What's Making Ronald Happy: Twilight on Netflix, specifically Twilight Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 What's Making Chris Happy: The Gene and Roger podcast What's Making Glen Happy: Making The Cut Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy