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In exchange for a special early viewing of David Fincher's "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo," David Denby and other members of the New York Film Critics Circle agreed to embargo any reviews until whatever the date is for other reviewers. But Denby's review is running early in The New Yorker anyway, prompting a very disappointed response from producer Scott Rudin (and off-topic rants by writers who think the issue is embargoes, not ethics.) Indiewire is following the back and forth; first an excerpt of Denby's justification:
The system is destructive: Grown-ups are ignored for much of the year, cast out like downsized workers, and then given eight good movies all at once in the last five weeks of the year. A magazine like "The New Yorker" has to cope as best as it can with a nutty release schedule. It was not my intention to break the embargo, and I never would have done it with a negative review. But since I liked the movie, we came reluctantly to the decision to go with early publication for the following reasons...
Rudin's email back:
You're going to break the review embargo on Dragon Tattoo? I'm stunned that you of all people would even entertain doing this. It's a very, very damaging move and a total contravention of what you agreed. You're an honorable man.
Much more over there.