It’s much more effective to explain a situation like this calmly than the tone you took with your first comment here.

As for the reliability of the NY Post vs. the film’s director and/or producers… Sony Pictures doesn’t have a much better reputation than Mudoch’s “news” outlets.

Mark Steven Johnson, the director of the film, wrote to them on Feb 7th to clarify the situation. In his words:

‘The movie is being screened for the press tomorrow on the 8th as we have our junket on Thursday and Friday of this week. Then the movie is being screened for the CRITICS next Thursday morning so that their reviews can come out the following day, on Friday the 16th. The only critics we’ve missed are the advanced press/weeklies So there will be reviews on opening day! Sony is contacting the Post for a correction. Sometimes you have critic screenings a week in advance but we weren’t ready for that (as I’ve said before, we took it down to the wire)’

How do I know? I’m a critic too, write for three websites, including a local one, so I get press invites for all the major and minor films. Occasionally, it’s obvious the publicists split the screenings between online and print at the behest of the movie studio (guess who has to wait?). Most notorious example: The Da Vinci Code last summer. Print press saw it early in the week, online press had to wait until Thursday night to see it.

For Ghost Rider, I received one invite and it’s for next Thursday night. I’ll still get a review up by Friday, but it’ll be a quick write up (helped somewhat by some research into the character’s backstory/history). I expect to see the majority of critics, online and print, there.

This is Ghost Rider. He’s as 70s as it gets. Where is the classic rock. If they made a trailer blasing Blue Oyster Cult’s “Burning for You”, I would probably be all over that piece of shit.

Seriously, what’s the deal?

That can’t be right. Early reviews are common, and one would think that studios would want to get some buzz going in advance of a flick’s release.

I work for a newspaper, and the movie reviews on the AP wire always move at least several days ahead of a film’s release.

It depends on the outlet. Weekly papers and monthly or bimonthly magazines generally can’t hit opening day. I used to write for a paper that came out on Thursdays, and we’d obviously review films a day early; some studios would get quite upset about that, and in fact would issue embargos. We could still publish them and ignore the embargo, but than risk not being invited to any more screenings.
Daily papers and Internet sites, on the other hand, can publish on Fridays all the time, having more leeway.

Invictus, AfterDark,
I don’t know where you guys live, but I DO know in the Columbus, Ohio market there haven’t been any screenings and thre won’t be until Thursday night; that’s the date I’ve seen in trade sources too, but anything outside my own market is second-hand info.

Is there anybody out there who can tell me why it is that posters on the internet don’t seem to be able to process what they read?

The statement that there were “no screenings for critics” has inspired (?) Advanced Dark and InVictus to …what? I don’t know how to describe what they are doing.

Unless they are paid by Sony to post. Wouldn’t be the first time.

And it has already had one critics screening. Besides most local papers often carry reviews from national outlets, so they will have access to reviews for Ghost Rider well before it’s release date. I mean, it opens next week, so it seems a little unfair to still be accusing them of avoiding critics (even though they are likely doing this because the backlash).

And if the critics’ screening isn’t until Thursday, then Sony’s still trying to keep reviews out of Friday’s papers, because that doesn’t give them enough lead time.

THE MOVIE HAS BEEN SCREENED WORLDWIDE LAST WEEK, AND HERE IN THE US AS OF YESTERDAY. ANOTHER SCREENING IS BEING HELD NEXT THUR, AND AGAIN AT THE PREMIERE.

STOP SPREADING BS

I KNOW PEOPLE THAT WERE AT THE SCREENINGS. LOL THERE ARE EVEN REVIEWS UP NOW.

-BYE

*shrug*

So what’s my point? I guess why anyone would expect anything more than a fairly cheesy action/horror style movie in the first place. If anything, the problem with Daredevil is that they didn’t let it be cheesy enough – -they kept trying to bring in the Miller gravitas, which simply didn’t fit the rest of the movie or the actors’ abilities.

and having said all that, I’ll go to it at the cheap theatre or a matinee. And my wife and I will most likely go see Words & Lyrics too (cheese of a different variety).

Oddly I don’t think I’ve ever read a Ghost Rider story, so know nothing about the character except that his head is on fire and he rides a motor cycle.