By Karen Feigenbaum
[½ out of *****]
Years ago, when the site was just www.mrshowbiz.com (i.e. sans the
"go"), I adored Mr. Showbiz. The main reason for my enjoyment
of the web-site was because I liked the reviews. On the whole, I found
that he…Mr. Showbiz, that is…had tastes similar to my own.
Problems arose for me when Disney's Go network acquired the URL.
I started finding that I disagreed with more reviews than I did previously.
Perhaps I was being hypersensitive, but my disagreement with the site
and eventual discontinuation of visitation there was due to the underlying
distrust that I simply could not shake. As far as I was concerned,
Mr. Showbiz's reviewer credibility was shot. If he favorably rated
a Touchstone/Hollywood/Disney/Miramax picture, I couldn't help but
wonder if the positive review resulted from a genuine enjoyment of
the film or from a Disney company push. And what if he disliked a
film from Warner Brothers? Was it because Time Warner cable refused
to carry ABC for 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?,' and this was simply
Disney's way to exact retaliatory revenge?
The news section became equally as questionable for me. What had
previously been a great site to catch up on sound bites of entertainment
news became a potential mind field of aimed marketing blitz or competitor
smear tactics.
These paranoid ideas I harbored might well not have been true, but
the fact could not be denied that the site was no longer credible
to me, and I simply phased it out of my on-line repertoire.
Today I visited the URL for the first time in about three years -
the layout is still pretty much the same, including sections on news,
reviews, celebrity interviews, etc. But the first thing to actually
capture my attention was the advertisement link on the side panel,
masquerading partially as a news item on the site: This week's best-selling
DVD: Dinosaur => buy it now for as low as $20.24. Since the site
is not overtly Disney-owned (i.e. one must know that go means Disney),
that single Disney promotion immediately tainted the potential validity
of anything Mr. Showbiz might possibly say to me and left an acrid
taste in my mouth.
I give the site a ½ star because it is well set up and accessible.
But I can't bring myself to credit Mr. Showbiz beyond that; I just
don't feel it can actually deliver what it wants to deliver from its
perspective with any level of trustworthiness.