A long time ago I read ...
Question: A long time ago I read something about a lawsuit and some kind of a fake critic — what was it about and was there a resolution?
Answer: The legal case you remember was a class-action suit filed in 2001 by two disgruntled California moviegoers who claimed that ads featuring glowing quotes by "David Manning" of The Ridgefield Press enticed them to see A Knight's Tale under false pretenses. Leaving aside the fact that I think moviegoers who rely on quote ads to make viewing decisions are on a par with diners who let TV commercials suggest where they should eat, the suit turned up the fact that there was no David Manning. Although there is a small Connecticut newspaper called The Ridgefield Press, two advertising executives at Sony Pictures invented critic David Manning out of whole cloth. That also amazes me, given that the field of movie reviewing is thick with quote whores who'll say something good about any piece of crap for the thrill of seeing their names featured in ads. But be that as it may, blurbs attributed to David Manning were made up in-house to grace the print advertising for A Knight's Tale, a medieval action comedy starring Heath Ledger, as well as for action picture Vertical Limit (2000), the Rob Schneider comedy The Animal (2001) and Hollow Man (2000), Paul Verhoeven's memorably sleazy variation on invisible-man pictures. In August 2005 a judgment decreed that all moviegoers who saw any of those movies during their initial theatrical runs are eligible for a $5-per-ticket reimbursement from Sony. I would imagine that proof of purchase is required, so anyone who isn't in the habit of saving ticket stubs may be out of luck.
