A Pie in Portland

Sylvia Miles once famously dropped a plate of food on John Simon, and Burt Reynolds once tackled a Los Angeles Times reviewer he didn't like while on the set of The Longest Yard, yet for the most part physical attacks on reviewers by disgruntled subjects of their critiques have been negligible. But as Portland Tribune columnist Phil Stanford notes, a local exhibitor took exception to something a critic wrote about him - and pied her. "Clinton Street Theater owner Seth Sonstein is clearly a man who knows how to deal with uppity journalists," writes the columnist. "Last week he grabbed Willy Week movie reviewer Becky Ohlsen in a headlock and smushed a pie in her face - much to the consternation of local film critics, who naturally see this as a freedom of speech issue."

That pretty much sums up the situation but, based on the flurry of links to blogs and websites debating the issue, it gets more complicated than that. Stanford neglects to mention that Sonstein filmed the pie attack, and posted the footage on YouTube. Readers new to the controversy might be surprised at what Willamette Week writer Becky Ohlsen originally wrote, which was a fairly innocuous account of a stunt Sonstein pulled on the closing night of the WW-sponsored Longbaugh Film Festival. Controversy began when news of the film's posting reached a Northwest media watchdog site, Oregon Media Insiders, at which point some 25 Portland-based writers weighed in, including Oregonian lead movie reviewer Shawn Levy, second stringer Mike Russell (who recounts his fluidic encounter with Sonstein over negative reviews he wrote films screening at the Clinton), Ohlsen's boss David Walker, as well as a radio disc jockey (who, to his disappointment, gave Sonstein airtime to tell his side of the story), several of Portland's other movie reviewers, Ohlsen herself and even her brother.

From Sonstein's point of view, he's - in the words of the DJ - "some sort of warrior for the theater or something, with all the half-ass hippie-guerrilla rage-against-the-machine type mindset that goes along with it," or a filmmaker who merely punk'd a friend as part of a film project (his introductory remarks in the film tend to contradict this, however). But from the viewpoint of the reviewers, it's an attempt to abrogate protected speech, and numerous posters to Oregon Media Insiders chart what appears to be an escalating response to the slights and snubs Sonstein says he's received at the hands of Portland's critics. Writers and commentators have made their ire over the incident well known already, including former WW film critic Kim Morgan at MSN's Movies Filter, Mike Russell at CulturePulp and Portland Tribune movie reviewer Dawn Taylor on her own blog.

Posted by dwhudson at April 26, 2006 1:50 AM