A good friend of mine, and quite a student of history, told me not long ago that the more history he learns, the more doubtful he becomes. Why? Simply because everything (possibly except certain hard science) is written from a biased point of view. And, there are always unknown influences on a writer. What's more, the way a writer's material is presented and edited can drastically alter the original point.

All of these matters were brought into sharp relief for me recently from such disparate sources as Mother Jones magazine and Columbia Journalism Review.

To demonstrate this premise, let's stay away from politics, or anything terribly controversial, and look at the film industry. Studios have been taking great liberties with critics' words since day one. Here are a few fun examples.

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Movie: Seven

(New Line Cinema, 1995)

Ad copy: "A masterpiece." -- Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly

What Gleiberman really said: "The deadly sins premise...is actually rather corny; it's like something out of a Clive Barker potboiler.... The credits sequence, with its jumpy frames and near-subliminal flashes of psychoparaphernalia, is a small masterpiece of dementia."

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Movie: Hoodlum

(United Artists, 1997)

Ad copy: "Irresistible." -- Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times

What Turan really said: "Even [Laurence Fishburne's] incendiary performance can't ignite Hoodlum, a would-be gangster epic that generates less heat than a nickel cigar.... Fishburne's Bumpy is fierce, magnetic, irresistible.... But even this actor...can only do so much."

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Movie: Foul Play

(Paramount, 1978)

Ad copy: "Good fun." -- David Ansen of Newsweek

What Ansen really said: "[The screenwriter's] concoction is all in good fun.... But to anyone who has seen half the movies he appropriates, and can therefore guess every twist of the plot miles before it happens, Foul Play's frenetic eagerness to please is about as refreshing as the whiff of an exhaust pipe on a hot city afternoon."

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Of course, these film critics have lots of pressure put on them to fit in and toe the studio line.

Movie critics such as Pauline Kael and Judith Crist were both blackballed from studio screenings for panning films from Warner Bros. in the 60s and 70s. Even Siskel and Ebert have been the object of banishment for short periods of time. Less well-known writers have often been ejected from special performances for their less-than-savory interviews or articles concerning films or their stars.

Rod Lurie, formerly of Los Angeles magazine, said he was "banned for life" by Warner Bros. for describing Danny DeVito as "a testicle with arms" in his Other People's Money review. Gerstel, then new to her beat at the Detroit Free Press, filed an early report on poor audience response to Steven Spielberg's Hook ("Hook Sinks") and received a stern lesson in studio politics: she was dropped from Columbia-TriStar's and Amblin Entertainment's press lists and (because "loose cannons" are considered a communal problem) soon found herself barred from Warner Bros. and Universal functions as well. Two years later, Amblin allowed Gerstel only minimal access when Spielberg's Schindler's List opened.

Sure enough, a successful film is big bucks, and the studios must guard their investment. What should we think then of the need to self perpetuate that must infect all large institutions? How about government, health care, education, and dozens more? Do you think you're really getting the straight scoop?

So what's the answer? As in so many things: Tuum est. It's up to you, to use your God given brain to separate the wheat from the chaff.