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Is the Internet the new heaven?
"The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace" examines the spiritual realm of non-physical space -- and finds that Giotto painted VR frescoes.
By Gavin McNett
[07/15/99]

Is Red Hat becoming Linux's Microsoft?
Hardly. But as the lovey-dovey Linux business matures, elbows are beginning to fly.
By Andrew Leonard
[07/14/99]

Silicon Follies
Silicon Follies
Chapter 35: Comdex burlesque -- Barry preaches to the choir as Paul duct-tapes the demos
By Thomas Scoville
[07/14/99]

They got game
Talented players make good money selling characters on eBay. Are they denigrating gaming -- or turning it into a profession?
By Moira Muldoon
[07/13/99]

The overtime stigma
Plenty of tech workers could rightfully demand fatter paychecks, but fear that asking for overtime could be a costly faux pas.
By Alicia Neumann
[07/12/99]

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But the creators of the site, Abigail Marceluk and Eric Alan Ivins, seem to be more than average fans. They appeared in the Sci-Fi Channel special "Curse of the Blair Witch," and the Rough Cut site links them to the film's back story: "A bit of trivia: Abigail and Eric are the two anthropology students who discover the three film students' 'lost' footage."

Fan sites, of course, are one of those cyberspace metrics beloved by the traditional media, which uses them as a kind of compass to determine the sources of the pop culture Nile. Nearly two months before the film's release, for example, MTV News ran a story on the proliferation of "Blair Witch" fan sites -- thereby giving the film cachet with that all-important 13- to 25-year-old moviegoing demographic.

The big studios have been aware of this phenomenon for quite some time and are sometimes heavy-handed in their attempts to manipulate it. According to industry insiders, it is not uncommon at the time a movie project is announced for a studio to buy up every domain name that has the slightest connection to the project, use them to set up amateurish sites and then, when the official Internet marketing gets under way, "affiliate" with those fan sites.

"The more a film shows up on different places throughout the Net, the more traditional media decides to cover it," says Poland. "The Internet doesn't have that much of a direct promotional effect on getting people to see a movie, but when traditional media starts picking up on it, that's when a movie gets the buzz."

Harry Knowles, the self-styled film fanatic behind Ain't It Cool News, may have more to do with enticing filmmakers and producers into the gray area of anonymous self-promotion than anyone.

Knowles was a 25-year-old college dropout and dealer in movie memorabilia in 1997 when his movie review site broke ahead of the pack of other underground entertainment sites like Corona's Coming Attractions, Zentertainment Buzzstation and CyberSleaze.

His M.O.? Reviews of test screenings from anonymous moles who claimed to have infiltrated the impenetrable studio labyrinth. These reviews were coupled with message boards where other users could "Talk Back." Quentin Tarantino called him "the Wolf Blitzer of the Internet," and rumor had it that Hollywood studios circulated his photograph to make sure he didn't slip into any test screenings.

But those days are long gone. Today AICN is a full-time operation, using reports from 35 to 40 freelance movie spies, and Knowles, taking a cue from onetime mentor Matt Drudge, is reportedly trying to launch his own weekly TV show. When Premiere magazine named him to its power list of the top 100 Hollywood players last month, it raved, "His aint-it-cool-news.com Web site and its film-geek spy network have become the source of early test-screening reviews untainted by spin control."

Untainted by spin control? Not according to Poland, who views Knowles as spin central: "Studios know if you bring him on a set, you'll get good buzz out of him -- and that will translate into other media attention. Studios also send in negative things about their competitors' movies in order to torpedo them. Journalists who cover the film business look to sites like his for scoops."

Poland cites the case of "Iron Giant," an upcoming animated feature from Warner Brothers. The film has been written up on AICN 61 times, beginning back when it was in its earliest developmental stage as pre-production art. Gushed one recent anonymous reviewer, "It was one of the best movies I have seen all year. I am a 27 year old guy. This movie brought a tear to my eye ... I am a big supporter of any studio that wants to run the animation [gantlet] with those pricks at Disney."

When the Los Angeles Times wrote up "Iron Giant" in April, it made note of the movie's "hot Internet buzz."

"Warner Brothers knew they'd get positive stuff out of [Harry Knowles]," says Poland. "There were clearly people involved with the movie saying good things about it on AICN." Poland is appalled that the newspaper took what it found online at face value, treating it as honest and legitimate adoration. "When the L.A. Times goes into a Web site, gets an unverifiable review and says this is what people are saying about this movie -- that's scary."

Next page | What about negative spin?