Stop me if you've heard this before, but Alliance Films CEO Victor Loewy can be dramatic.

In the latest installment, Alliance's reaction to a recent Globe and Mail headline atop Rick Groen's May 30 review of Sex and the City - which the distributor released in Canada - provoked a brief skirmish that had local film critics summoning the specter of McCarthy-era blacklists in Hollywood to explain a baffling turn of events.

Here's the timeline. We don't know whether there was a directive from Alliance to ban G&M reviewers from all sneak previews following Groen's withering critique of Sex and the City, which included a rare zero-star rating, the title "In this case, ladies, bigger is far from better," and the subhead "Walking on high heels, our culture hits a new low."

But no G&M reviewer received an invitation to a special July 3 Toronto screening for Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which was to open theatrically the next day.

Calls to Alliance to get G&M reviewers on the invite list were rebuffed. Groen and colleague Liam Lacey went to the screening nonetheless, and were held back at the door until an offended Patricia Rozema, the film's director, led them in as her guests.

The next day saw further escalation, to the brink of threats and high-level talks at both G&M and Alliance.

First, G&M editor-in-chief Edward Greenspon informed publisher Philip Crawley of the apparent ban on their newspaper's film reviewers.

Crawley's response to the editorial floor: deal as you see fit.

Around the same time, the Toronto Film Critics Association, the ranks of which include G&M writers Lacey and Johanna Schneller, traded e-mails and phone calls as they girded for battle to defend their colleagues.

"We were certainly ready to do whatever was necessary. I had drafted a letter to Alliance Films," recalls TFCA president Brian D. Johnson, who writes for Maclean's.

What did go out to Alliance was an ultimatum from G&M: rescind your apparent ban or you will be the subject of a news story that details the affair and its implications for press freedom.

After more calls from Alliance's Toronto office to London, where Loewy had been throughout the week, both sides agreed to stand down and end the scuffle.

Loewy, who has never been known to claim a right to silence when forced into a tight corner, insists he never questioned the role and obligations of G&M critics, but rather what he regarded as the review's "nasty" headline.

Loewy says the offending headline made it onto the newspaper's front page, as well as page one of the Friday review section and yet again atop the review itself.

"This has nothing to do with editorial interference. This is about making up headlines that are completely outrageous," he argues.

The latest word is that the two sides have resolved their differences over G&M headlines.

Even so, something is amiss when a newspaper headline that mentions high heels to give the story an extra boost calls to mind the industry's Achilles heel - and that is that digital disruption is increasingly putting film critics and indie movie distributors under strain.