Who Let the Dogs Out?

Don’t be surprised if the MPAA’s much-touted DVD-sniffing dogs, Lucky and Flo (Malaysian pirates have placed a 10 grand price on their heads, hence the mock poster) turn up this weekend on Canal Street, 125th St, Fulton Street in Brooklyn or the city’s other bootleg hotspots, including W. 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avs. near the News Corp. building. My new colleagues at the Wall Street Journal are reporting that “high-quality” DVDs of “American Gangster” are circulating on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, presumably derived from one of the file-sharing sites that began offering the Denzel Washington blockbuster last Wednesday, 10 days ahead of its theatrical opening. Universal says it hasn’t sent out any awards screeners on the title, but it did begin screenings for critics and invited members of the public in mid-September. This is a big setback for the studios’ PR-oriented anti-piracy initatives, which include hulking idiots searching bags at screenings (Roger Ebert was once asked to unwrap a sandwich in which he might have hidden a camcorder) and the almost-as-annoying night vision goggles. That’s why I try to see movies in screening rooms whenever possible these days, but sometimes you can’t escape these morons even there. There is nothing as distracting as sitting in a 30-seat screening room with six other critics, and having some seven-foot-guy standing next to the screen watching you through googles.