Producer Turns the Tables on a Film Critic

Suppose a reader were to come upon a newspaper column that criticized articles in the Los Angeles Times by Newsday film critic Jack Mathews, reviewing his work in the following manner:

1) Mathews guessed wrong in relentlessly promoting David Puttnam as the savior of Columbia Pictures. Puttnam almost financially destroyed Columbia.

2) Mathews has an unhealthy obsession with director Terry Gilliam: He defends “Brazil” which cost $15 million and had box-office rentals of $4.3 million; he attacks Hollywood’s fiscal excesses but absolves Gilliam for “Baron Munchausen” which more than doubled its $25-million budget to $52 million, but brought in rentals of under $5 million; he lauds box-office response to Gilliam’s current “Fisher King,” which will just about break even. Box-office numbers may not be the end-all, but judging from Gilliam’s track record, America doesn’t think as Jack Mathews does.

3) Mathews’ credentials as a Hollywood analyst have to be questioned after predicting in 1987 that “Leonard, Part VI” would do better than “Throw Mamma From the Train.”

Wait, you might say. These are very selective observations. It’s not fair to take these items out of the context of a reporter’s entire career. And I would agree. Ordinarily it would be a most unfair approach, but not so in dealing with Mathews, since turnabout is fair play. Mathews has a history of taking items out of context to suit his arguments.

The most recent instance was in the Sunday Calendar section (“Three Strikes--You’re In!,” Oct. 13) when Mathews wrote a story about Mark Canton being named chairman of Columbia Pictures. In it he conveniently reduced Canton’s career from perhaps 100 films produced and in development to one picture--”The Bonfire of the Vanities.”

Where are Mathews’ references to the positive aspects of Canton’s Warner Bros. career? “Batman,” the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time, is tossed off lightly. Unmentioned is the hugely successful box office “Lethal Weapon” series, along with such creative triumphs as “Witches of Eastwick” and “Hamlet.”

In the same article, Mathews states that it was “cronyism” that prompted Peter Guber, chairman of Sony Entertainment, to hire Canton as head of Sony’s Columbia Division. But consider Guber’s problem: He needed a film executive with the experience, relationships and contemporary awareness to qualify as the head of a studio. Out of the very few who would qualify, should Guber select someone with whom he would have a difference of philosophy?

Studio chiefs have always been fair game for Mathews, as in the case of Tom Pollock, MCA-Universal Motion Pictures Group chairman, who spoke at a National Conference of Christian and Jews banquet on Oct. 15, 1990.

Mathews wrote an attack on Pollock’s speech and days later there was an angry response from Robert M. Jones, a representative of the conference. His letter in the Los Angeles Times mentioned that Mathews had taken one sentence out of context from a 10-minute speech. Mathews had not attended the banquet, didn’t even mention the name of the group sponsoring the banquet and ignored the theme of Pollock’s speech, which was about the fragmentation of our country.

To pin Canton to the wall, Mathews quotes from a book soon to be published about the making of “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” referring to a passage in the book that quotes Canton’s reaction following a screening of “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”

But in Mathews’ recurring selective memory, he doesn’t mention, as the book does, that the same screening was also attended by five of Warner Bros. most senior executives, all of whom, according to the book, were as exultant as Canton following the screening.

The actual truth of all those mutual responses stems, of course, from the fact that studio executives must be as exuberant as possible with their staffs and to the outside world to generate marketing enthusiasm. When the film is completed, there’s little that can be done to it and obviously, good or bad, the studio still has to sell this movie.

Nor does Mathews offer any balance or new perspective in his narrow view of Peter Guber effecting a change of management at Columbia.

A new corporate chief is always re-examining his executive line-up to produce the most ideal fit. This is the responsibility of Guber, whose concerns include 14 divisions, only one of which is Columbia Pictures.

For a parallel situation, consider Barry Diller at Fox who spent seven years changing his executive team before finding the talented Joe Roth. Also look to Paramount, which has spent five years trying to recover from the loss of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg before finding a studio chief in Brandon Tartikoff.

Mathews, who is such a clever and facile writer, has a love-hate relationship with Hollywood, but his passion has made him vulnerable to those in our business who pontificate on art and integrity while they, too, disregard costs. It is the executives like Guber, Pollock, Diller and others who don’t preach and don’t covet the media but who, through their executive skills, make it possible for the band to play on.

I have the greatest respect for the many business and entertainment writers on the Los Angeles Times staff who relentlessly pursue accuracy. Perhaps not all write as cleverly as Mathews, but at least one can have confidence in their efforts.

After the recent Clarence Thomas hearings, I would think we have had our share of mean-spirited, undocumented personality attacks. Why not a positive view from Mathews that would offer suggestions rather than tread endlessly over the same negative course? Who apart from himself would he like to see running a studio?

These are suggestions we would all be interested in reading, rather than his usual juggling of the facts to suit his acidic feelings. Jack Mathews’ brand of nastiness, with its selective approach to the facts, overwhelms his journalistic skills and seems greatly out of character with the general fairness and balance of the Los Angeles Times.