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Perhaps more than any other art form, movies are about blurring the line between reality and fantasy. For the sake of entertainment, film scripts take great liberties with historical figures and events, and the film industry spends millions on each production to create effects that could never happen in life.

Compelling illusions are what sell tickets. It should therefore come as no surprise that studio marketing departments sometimes take a cue from their production counterparts when it comes to promoting new releases. In their eagerness to fill theater seats, they frequently stretch reality to the breaking point. They just don't often get caught doing it.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is this year's exception. On Tuesday, March 12, Sony Corporation's film unit agreed to pay the state of Connecticut $326,000 for using fake reviews, attributed to a fictitious Ridgefield Press critic, in the promotion of its 2001 films A Knight's Tale and The Animal. A studio spokeswoman admitted during the investigation that someone in the marketing department had written the reviews, and that the reviewer, "David Manning," was phony, according to an Associated Press story from Hartford, CT.

In admitting its guilt, Sony agreed to stop fabricating reviews, and to stop making TV ads in which Sony actors and employees emerge from theaters full of praise for films they have just seen. "These deceptive ads deserve two thumbs down," said Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal.

Neither the Ridgefield Press nor anyone in Blumenthal's legal department was aware of the scam until last June, when a Newsweek reporter questioned the legitimacy of the print ads. Since the case began, 20th Century Fox, Artisan Entertainment, and Universal Pictures have all admitted using employees or actors in TV commercials, pretending to be enthusiastic moviegoers. The fine Sony agreed to pay won't affect the multinational conglomerate's bottom line.