A few days ago, our friend Jesse Morrison, an employee at our local Malco theater, was suspended for writing a negative (and likely very correct) review of the new Fantastic Four movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Today’s Commercial Appeal is carrying the story.
Please visit Jesse’s site, Memflix and Beyond, for more details about the circumstances of Jesse’s situation. The story, essentially, is that Jesse worked as a projectionist when Rise of the Silver Surfer was shown at a trade screening. As he has done many other times, Jesse watched the film he was screening and then, later on his own time, wrote a review of it and posted it online. 20th Century Fox found out about the review when it received coverage on Ain’t It Cool, a popular news site, and contacted a Vice-President at Malco to complain. The VP at Malco called Jesse and suspended him, even though Malco knew that Jesse wrote these reviews. Jesse’s excellent free newsletter, Memflix, which contains his reviews and other info about Memphis cinema, is distributed at Malco locations.
If, like me, you feel that Malco should, at least, tell their employees not to write reviews or have them sign a non-disclosure agreement before they basically fire them for writing a review of a movie, especially when they have been doing that same thing for years, please visit their Contact page and let them know.
UPDATE: The Commercial Appeal is reporting that Jesse has been allowed to come back to work by Malco, but Jesse will be moving on in 2 weeks. Thanks to everyone that contacted Malco on Jesse’s behalf!
