My Review of Gladiator II

I Never Write Reviews. But Behind the Safety of a Paywall, Sure

As I sat in an enormous, fully reclining chair at the screening room on my favorite studio lot, the iron-gated Paramount, I thought, “I can’t believe this is my job!” I was watching a free movie months before it came out to prepare to fly to Tiburon, the nicest town in California, to interview the movie’s gorgeous co-star Connie Nielsen over an expensive lunch. Even ominously named streets on the lot – what sane woman would walk down here alone at night? –

seemed glamorous.

After the screening, I got the email I always get. Except for the times when the studio publicist is waiting outside the screening room to ask me in person. The publicist wanted to know what I thought of the film.

When Richard Stengel was the arts editor at Time magazine, he taught me his trick of never answering that question. The director will find out what I said. Even if I gush, the director might be upset that I didn’t gush as much as I did about their last film. And my access would be limited. Or worse yet, I’d have to have a discussion with a director about how I didn’t understand their art.

So I told the publicist the truth: I never say what I think because my opinion doesn’t matter. I’m going to write the same profile of Connie Nielsen either way, and I’m not going to mention my opinion about the film in the article. My opinion matters so little, in fact, that I’m only revealing it behind a paywall so thick that only 205 people are inside of it.