The phrase “junket whore” never quite made it into my vernacular until about my fourth or fifth press day. It was about that time when I began to put together the correlation between the people who’d ask the vapid, innocuous questions at the roundtables were the same people who took particular delight in raiding the hospitality room for all its free food, drink and assorted paraphernalia. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with eating a healthy lunch graciously provided by the host studio. And most of us in this business have felt the shame of asking a particularly dopey question. Those two factors along don’t make a junket whore. It’s the ability to have your opinion bought, in a matter of speaking, in return for those fringe benefits of attending a press day (i.e., gifts, food, parties, all-expense-paid trips, etc.).

In reality, there aren’t as many junket whores as you might be led to believe. Most live in fear of becoming one of them and being branded with the scarlet W for life. There are a few, however, who seem to find no problem delivering their unabashedly, overly positive review for every film that comes down the pike from a studio nice enough to put them up at the Four Seasons for a long weekend and foot their in-room porno bill. I don’t think I’m going very far out on a limb when I say one of those people is a gentleman named Earl Dittman.

If you watch TV or read the newspaper, chances are you know Mr. Dittman’s work. He’s the guy whose name appears in a movie advertisement, in small letters to the right of a quote like, “A top-notch, edge-of-your-seat suspense thriller!” (which he attributed to the John Travolta/Samuel L. Jackson film BASIC). Lately, he’s also attributed such hyperbole to THE CORE and A MAN APART. Dittman may not be as oft-quoted as some of his peers, like the formidable Peter Travers of ROLLING STONE, but at least Travers has dished out an occasional negative review to balance his occasional lapse into over usage of the words “triumph,” “best,” and “perfect.”

Like Dom DeLuise at an all-you-can-eat buffet, there’s nothing Dittman doesn’t love. SERVING SARA? “(A) sexy, zany and over-the-top road movie that breaks all the rules…This is one wildly wacky and terrifically twisted comedy!” THE FOUR FEATHERS? “An astounding, unforgettable motion picture, which is both heroic and remarkably passionate. It is a phenomenal cinematic achievement! You will feel compelled to see it over and over again.” K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER? “A cinematic triumph that has Academy Awards written all over it…Harrison Ford is an extraordinary actor who gives a passionate, Oscar-caliber performance in a magnificently moving motion picture. Director Kathryn Bigelow has constructed a hard-hitting and thought-provoking drama that will leave you breathless and completely in awe.” Wildly wacky? A phenomenal cinematic achievement? Magnificently moving?!

Beyond being universally disliked movies, what do those three I listed above have in common? Paramount Pictures. For fairly obvious reasons, Paramount seems to enjoy the overwhelming praise of Mr. Dittman when it comes to promoting their films. In 2002, his quotes were used in promoting the above three films, HEY ARNOLD!, THE SUM OF ALL FEARS, CHANGING LANES, WE WERE SOLDIERS and NARC (FEATHERS is a co-production with Miramax and NARC with Lions Gate Films). I guess even Dittman couldn’t bring himself to wax poetic on CROSSROADS or JACKASS.

So who exactly is Earl Dittman? Well…damned if anybody knows. A few people, most notably David Poland of thehotbutton.com, have met Dittman at junkets but the man stays remarkably anonymous. So little is known about his outlet, WIRELESS Magazine, that nobody – at least not publicly – has reported ever seeing a copy.

USA TODAY may have laid the largest crack in this nut in a small feature that claims Dittman is based out of Houston, Texas and “writes for seven publications under the WIRELESS banner, which he says has a monthly circulation of 2 million.” Using the Houston lead, I was able to track down a phone number (though not an address) for a WIRELESS Magazines based out of that Texas city. Phone calls to that number rang directly into an automated operator who directed you to either leave a message or push a number to be connected to a department. When connected, none of the lines actually ring through to the department but are transferred directly into a general voicemail box. At press time, no calls were returned.

There appears to be no website for Dittman’s independent magazine, although it seems odd that there would be two publications coming out of Houston both using the moniker “WIRELESS Magazine”: http://wirelessdealers.com/WIRELESS/index.htm

Is Earl Dittman a salesman for Cingular Wireless in Houston using his connections to a local industry publication to score free trips across the U.S., meeting celebrities and screening films ahead of time?

Further searching on WIRELESS Magazines in Houston turned up a woman who listed the publication on her resume. I contacted her and she explained that “when I wrote for [WIRELESS] back in the 80s, [it] was a local (Houston, Texas) music publication, tabloid-printed format. It was fairly short-lived, as far as I know.”

If you think I’m being overly rough on our old pal Earl, consider this: in July, 2001, ten class-action lawsuits were filed against the seven major film studios, DreamWorks, Artisan and Lions Gate, alleging “fraudulent concealment, unfair business practices under California law and false and misleading advertising in violation of California law.” The suit, filed by Citizens for Truth in Movie Advertising, focuses on the age-old practice of using quotes in film advertisements. Take a guess at who’s named in the complaint? Yup, Earl Dittman.

Dittman is not a defendant in the suit but his name, along with five others, are listed as being the most frequent and egregious examples of what the group alleges is false advertising. Their claim is that the studios foot most, if not all, of the bills these reporters incur on the junkets, as well as provide per diems, gifts and the chance to meet with celebrities, and as such should acknowledge that those providing the testimonials received such benefits. Should it ever get to that point, Dittman could be called to testify about his involvement in any type of understood tit-for-tat agreement with any of the studios (although proving deception in something as objective as taste in films will likely be difficult).

In the aforementioned USA Today article, Dittman was quoted as saying, “When I see a film like MOULIN ROUGE and enjoy it, and people see my name on an ad and they then go see it and enjoy it as much as I did, I feel good about that.” Unfortunately there was no follow-up question asking how he feels if someone goes to see SERVING SARA based upon his glowing recommendation and is subsequently nauseated.

Here are some more “Earls of Wisdom”: