Major Publication Plagerizes Chris (or at the very least agrees with him)

Take a look at this. It's a piece in Variety, dated late yesterday, by Gabriel Snyder.

Seems to me Variety has been scoping out the internet for the absolute best in fresh opinions and insight into the world of film--with the express purpose of lifting from said blog their editorial thesis statement.

Chris and I were just discussing this topic (and his post and my comments to it) last night. We agreed that Passion of the Christ was one of the big reasons so many publications have been bemoaning the state of current box office. Hollywood uses the previous year to gauge how good they're doing, but then seems to ignore the surprise success Passion had with people who had long abandoned the cinema as a reason for why this year's take is down. If Passion hadn't come out at all, then the current year would be well ahead of the pace of the previous one...not behind it.

So in addition to plagerizing our buddy's thesis statement and tone, they also apparently had secret microphones outside my apartment last night to capture the L&N genius and bottle it for reconsumption.

Mostly, I thought this one article separated itself significantly from the hordes of others who cry foul over the 11-week streak of box office being behind last year's numbers. Passion was out right now last year, raking in the dough and throwing off future annual predictions for national box office.

Variety isn't the first to say it--Chris was--but it's nice to see at least one major publication avoiding utter fabrication and speculation to fill a story.