Normally, the Hollywood insider's baseball game is too convoluted and self-involved to bother paying attention to, but every once in a while, something juicy enough for the mainstream comes along. Today's gossip involves dry-as-chalk New Yorker critic David Denby breaking a press embargo on reviewing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and the hoopla that's ensued as a result.
Here's what happened: Denby was allowed to see an early screening of TGWTDT in exchange for agreeing to not publish a review until December 13 (the movie is released to the public on the 21st). Instead, Denby put his (positive!) review in the December 5 issue of the magazine (subscription only, but here's a screenshot). Suffice it to say that Hollywood heavyweight producer Scott Rudin was not pleased—here's a look at his heated email exchange with Denby over the breach. Denby basically argues that he had to put it in this week's issue because the magazine can't handle to the glut of quality movies in late December, but Rudin calls BS, telling Denby he's done "a deeply lousy and immoral thing."
Hollywood insiders and entertainment writers are having a field day with the thing—NPR jabs at both sides, using the case to "expose some oddities about the entire system under which film criticism is happening." Columnist Mark Harris called the whole thing hypocritical, and the Times thinks the whole thing is just part of the hype machine. Whatever the case, one thing's for sure—this is the most exciting thing Denby's been involved in for years.
