THE BIG PICTURE
Studios' Web 'Plants' Lead to an Ethical Thicket

By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN

Ever since Harry Knowles burst to prominence with Aintitcoolnews.com, the Internet has blossomed with hundreds of movie geek Web sites, each one crammed with its own oddball assortment of news, reviews and message boards devoted to "Star Wars," Quentin Tarantino and other pressing matters. For movie fans, the sites represent authentic participatory democracy--everyone's opinion or obsession carries equal weight.

The preceding is the first paragraph of an article from the LA Times (calendarlive . com/movies/goldstein/cl-et-gold1oct01,0,4327739.story). It's just too easy. If I start picking apart an article from Calendar Live, what's next? Beating up chickens? Anyway, "geek"? "oddball"? "pressing matters"? C'mon. I guess on the movie rating scale, I'd have about a .001, and Patrick Goldstein would have about a 1.05. He is, after all, a professional.