The 20th Century Fox Vs. Critics (Temporary Subsets: Chicago, and Online) kerfuffle — ably elucidated and summarized by Hollywood Elsewhere, as well as David Poland over at Movie City News — is all over the internet, and certainly the hot chatter in entertainment journo circles these days, but I can’t really be bothered (at least quite yet) to wade into the breach with my full opinion, and not just because it’s apparently so toxic. A lot of this is also tied up in the current handling of The Simpsons Movie, but the fact remains that this is old shit, re-heated.

I talked off the record with a sympathetic Fox publicist who claimed that a showdown with “online desperados” (read: reckless embargo breakers and other assorted flame-throwers) has been brewing for some time and that its dovetailing with the Chicago Film Critics Association dust-up is coincidence, but the fact is that Fox has a fairly clearly established recent history of hide-the-cookie, dating back at least to last year’s utterly perplexing handling of the release of Borat, and likely much longer. Their screening schedule (Wednesday, week of release) for the Fantastic Four sequel was another recent point of contention. Even so, there are multiple admittance lists and points of entry at every major studio, with matters often complicated by the fact that some writers, like myself, write for trade, international, print and online outlets. So it’s a fuckin’ wild and wooly world… what’re ya gonna do? Things might get interesting, we’ll see. Some sort of stand-down seems more likely, only to have this flare up again next summer, when movies with $80 million-plus budgets start rolling down the pipeline.