Controversies
Knowles attends events offered to the press, paid for by the movie studios, including visits to movie sets and premieres. Questions have sometimes emerged about the resulting impartiality of his articles and reviews. For example, he was flown to the premiere of Godzilla, and gave the movie a wildly positive review, while a vast majority of critics disliked the film. Knowles later reversed himself and panned the film after the ensuing outcry. Knowles and his defenders, however, have noted that he has given mixed reviews to movies for which he has been sent to junkets and premieres, and in any case is often out of step with mainstream critics. Knowles also gave a negative review to the film Monkeybone, in which he made a cameo appearance.
In another controversy in 1999, he wrote an article praising a script by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan. He failed to mention, however, that McWeeny was a contributor to the site, writing under the pseudonym "Moriarty." This and other alleged lapses were reported in a series of articles in Film Threat magazine.
In early 2000, Knowles posted materials stolen from an ABC staffer's home computer, which Knowles took at face value to be the Oscar nominees for the Academy Awards—a day before the official announcement. When the actual nominees were announced the following day, it was discovered that his finalists in almost every category were incorrect. Knowles acknowledged his error when it became clear he was wrong, but then disclosed the IP address of the person whose computer had been hacked, compounding the error. The Academy considered suing Knowles for trademark and copyright infringement, but ultimately decided against it.
Harry became the subject of more controversy in the TalkBack section of his Drive review, due to the belief that he had pirated the film. Many AICN "talkbacker's" pointed out that the films' composer, Cliff Martinez, had been replaced in the pirated versions of the film with Angelo Badalamenti. Harry managed to name the wrong composer and upon realizing his error quickly changed the review to reflect Cliff Martinez as the original composer.
On April 5, Harry posted the first episode of a new YouTube series based on the website. In the video Harry receives a copy of the script to the upcoming science-fiction film Prometheus. The following day, Harry reviewed the script on the website. Talkbackers immediately suspected it was nothing more than an example of fan fiction due to poor grammar and structuring. One of the writers on the film, Damon Lindelof, later tweeted that an element present in the script Harry reviewed was not present in the actual script and stated that, in his opinion, Harry had "been duped".
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