5 ms·

Hilariously Mean Roger Ebert Reviews

55 points by kosei 14y ago

kosei 14y ago
He really had a way with one-liners. I'll miss that. "No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out." "Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." "If I ever do a festival of films that deserve to be overlooked, Friends & Lovers is my opening night selection." "It is hopelessly incompetent… I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is."
danielweber 14y ago
From the title I thought these were going to be mean reviews of Roger Ebert.
matthuggins 14y ago
What is wrong with The Frighteners?? That movie is awesome!
- shardling 14y ago
  It was very heavily marketed as if it were a vanilla horror movie; expectations can really affect how you view a film.
- LandoCalrissian 14y ago
  That was the only one that really stood out for me on the list. It's a really fun movie all around.
keithpeter 14y ago
"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." I wonder if critics (the ones who write a column every day or week) have paragraphs like this written out beforehand and look for a product to use it on? Sort of boilerplate?
- bennesvig 14y ago
  Possibly a few, just how some comedians have responses ready for hecklers. I also imagine many of the horrible movies would fill him with enough negative energy to channel into creating the witty lines for each film.
  - keithpeter 14y ago
    That looks to be true on the basis of the sample here! Ebert's writing is perhaps not as well known here in the UK.
bcgraham 14y ago
This is one of my favorites: About Shyamalan's "The Village": "To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. "And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."

55 points by kosei 14y ago

kosei 14y ago

He really had a way with one-liners. I'll miss that. "No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out." "Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." "If I ever do a festival of films that deserve to be overlooked, Friends & Lovers is my opening night selection." "It is hopelessly incompetent… I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is."

danielweber 14y ago

From the title I thought these were going to be mean reviews of Roger Ebert.

matthuggins 14y ago

What is wrong with The Frighteners?? That movie is awesome!

shardling 14y ago
It was very heavily marketed as if it were a vanilla horror movie; expectations can really affect how you view a film.
LandoCalrissian 14y ago
That was the only one that really stood out for me on the list. It's a really fun movie all around.

keithpeter 14y ago

"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." I wonder if critics (the ones who write a column every day or week) have paragraphs like this written out beforehand and look for a product to use it on? Sort of boilerplate?

bennesvig 14y ago
Possibly a few, just how some comedians have responses ready for hecklers. I also imagine many of the horrible movies would fill him with enough negative energy to channel into creating the witty lines for each film.
- keithpeter 14y ago
  That looks to be true on the basis of the sample here! Ebert's writing is perhaps not as well known here in the UK.

bcgraham 14y ago

This is one of my favorites: About Shyamalan's "The Village": "To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. "And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."