Film critics have just endured another blow to their fragile self-esteem. It has long been movie distributors' practice to slather their posters with adoring quotes from reviewers, along with the traditional migraine-rash of stars. But now the trend is just to use praise from regular cinemagoers on Twitter. The press ad for The Impossible, about a tourist family caught up in the 2004 tsunami, uses one critic's quote – from me, since you ask – but the other quotes are Twitter praise: "One of the best films I've seen #incredible #lovedit" – @Browning_33 "Such a great movie, makes you look at what is actually important in life" – @katie_m_kelly.
Critics have only just recovered from the indignity of the "David Manning" affair – Sony Columbia pictures kept quoting Manning's lavish praise, before he was revealed in 2001 to be an imaginary critic they had made up. But why use critics anyway, those sneery, pernickety killjoys, when you can just cherry-pick the best quotes from Twitter? And what's to stop you in the future setting up a few friendly Twitter accounts if praise is thin on the ground?
What film PRs love is the idea of a "word of mouth" hit. Twitter poster quotes can fabricate this impression, and maybe help to turn it into a reality: go and see the film that everyone's talking, or rather tweeting, about. Perhaps a Twitter-quote campaign could have helped history's most famous films:
• Triumph of the Will ("OMG it's totes fascist!! – @Blackshirt18)
• Un Chien Andalou ("FFS that poor woman's EYE!!" – @Filmbuffer)
• The Seventh Seal ("Kickass chess sequences" – @SeatSniffer)
• Psycho ("WTAF in the SHOWER???" – @MmmmNachos34)
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