Angry Critic/Revolutionary Threatens Executions of Universal's Elitist, 'U-Twerp' Pigdogs

You may not know it, but life is pretty hard for critics, junketeers and other species of the film-journalism biosphere. Take Roger Moore, the Orlando Sentinel reviewer/reporter who simply wanted to get a look at Universal's new Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant in advance of today's Florida press day with star John C. Reilly. When that plan was scuttled by studio reps -- just the latest indignity in what appears to be a gravely abusive relationship with Moore -- the critic experienced a bloggy meltdown that even he couldn't justify leaving on the Web.

But! An attentive Movieline tipster found it and passed it along. As corrosive rants of entitlement go, it really is kind of unprecedented -- all the way down to its unfortunate public-execution metaphors. Have a glimpse for yourself after the jump.

Drag Me to Hell, a pretty good Sam Raimi horror picture that hearkened back to Universal's horrific past, under-performed in May.

Public Enemies was OK, but not a summer smash.

Land of the Lost was the biggest bomb of the summer. Love Happens tanked, as did Fighting. And even their recent hits -- Fast and Furious, and Inglourious Basterds are, to me anyway, nothing to puff one's chest about. Crap merchants, to the hilt, a half step above Lionsgate.

You'd think the folks who struggled to market these movies would be a bit more anxious to accommodate, to get publicity for their fare, especially when they have talent available for interviews, talent that they're paying to put on the road to plug the product, move the metal.

And yet Universal, a studio decades removed from its Jaws/Jurassic box office franchise glory days, is the most obstinate, least flexible, most arrogant and most unpleasant studio I deal with, week in and week out, bar none.

To quote Douglas Adams, "They're a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the Revolution comes."

They arbitrarily decide, if they are previewing a movie in greater Orlando, that this preview must be at their struggling, deadline-on-new-attractions-missing theme park's theater. Pay to park, take several minutes to trek from car to theater and, during the run of their one big hit event, Halloween Horror Nights, take 45 minutes to an hour just to GET into the parking lot (You'd swear they hired people too dumb to work at K-Mart to arrange this parking morass), all to see a movie in a theater on their property. Saves them money? Maybe. I at least get that. I'm not sure that's really the case, though.

They're bringing in Cirque du Freak stars, a movie that's going to NEED a little or a LOT of push, and they can't be bothered to show me the movie or bend their dogmatic schedule just a bit so a WIDELY syndicated writer who can give their movie a boost can chat with them.What they hey? Nothing they do shocks me, but this seems like a particularly incompetent move.

You wonder why your box office take and bottom line suck? It's because you people have a grossly inflated sense of where you sit on the Hollywood pecking order. Maybe I don't matter to you. But your movies don't matter and you don't do Jack to help them.

The Revolution is coming, U-twerps. And we're picking the wall for you to line up against.

In case you're wondering, the tantrum worked: "At 12:30, a preview of Cirque du Freak," Moore blogged this morning, helpfully mapping out his Friday schedule for his readers. "Yes, I took down the Universal complaint from yesterday because eventually even they realized if they were flying John C. Reilly & Co. into town it made sense to get me 15 minutes with them." Whew! Crisis averted. You can come out of hiding now, U-twerps!

· Friday--ah Friday... [Frankly My Dear]