Savage Movie Reviews - in which the industry is throughly dragged

[Scarlett Johansson]

With The Goldfinch flopping and Nepotism Elgort steadily sinking into the void of talentless people, I thought it apt to share this beautiful review of The Goldfinch, based on that unnecessarily long novel by Donna Tarritt.

A Miscast Leading Man and a Crushing Runtime Sink ‘The Goldfinch’

John Crowley’s ‘The Goldfinch’ tried hard to be a stately Literary Adaptation, but Ansel Elgort and a crushing runtime hold the film back.

theplaylist.net

"At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, Ansel Elgort cannot really act. In most of his work, that doesn’t matter much; he’s a perfectly adequate Unthreateningly Handsome Teen in something like “Divergent” or “The Fault in Our Stars,” and in “Baby Driver,” he’s basically a puppet in the hands of a stylish director who’s figured out how to manipulate him into something resembling a human being. Alas, that won’t do in “The Goldfinch,” the new adaption of Donna Tartt’s novel from director John Crowley (“Brooklyn”). Elgort is insufferably miscast as the story’s protagonist, Theodore Decker; we’re told he’s a dashing, knowledgeable antique furniture salesman with a dark past and secrets a-plenty, but he looks like a kid in a high school play who borrowed his dad’s glasses and suit in a failed attempt to look like a grown-up."

So this brings me to ask what are some of your favorite scathing movie reviews? Is it Ebert's infamous review of North? Post them here

 

[YW 525]

In an alternate reality Ansel Elgort is playing Han Solo in a sequel to the much-loved Solo movie.

 

[LateNightComics]

What the fuck?

 

[Crichax]

Bobsheaux's Alpha and Omega review series. At first, the Alpha and Omega series looks relatively normal for cheap budget kids' films. But look deeper, and you'll see that these are easily some of the worst and most self-indulgent movies ever. For context, the writers brought in time travel and dinosaurs to a (relatively) realistic series that was originally about two wolves in love with each other.

And the insults to the few fans of the original movie through getting the lore wrong for a joke, and making the only redeemable characters about the first film (Lilly and Garth) into bland cardboard cutouts top it off.

 

[baku]

Almost everything about Roger Ebert's relationship with The Brown Bunny is hilarious. The movie was pretty notorious for being horrendously boring, and also for one scene where the director/writer/actor Vincent Gallo literally has the main female lead suck his dick, and Ebert famously called it the worst film in the history of Cannes.

Imagine 90 tedious minutes of a man driving across America in a van. Imagine long shots through a windshield as it collects bug splats. Imagine not one but two scenes in which he stops for gas. Imagine a long shot on the Bonneville Salt Flats where he races his motorcycle until it disappears as a speck in the distance, followed by another shot in which a speck in the distance becomes his motorcycle. Imagine a film so unendurably boring that at one point, when he gets out of his van to change his shirt, there is applause.

But the really funny part is Vincent Gallo's response, where he calls Ebert "a fat pig with the physique of a slave trader", and also says that he not only put a hex on Siskel in the past, but also that he put a curse on Ebert's colon, to which Ebert replies that his colonoscopy was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny. And to this day Gallo is still salty about Ebert's initial reaction of the Brown Bunny a decade-and-a-half after the fact.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

What the fuck?

To quoth Ebert
I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

To quoth Ebert
I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

Ah, the North review. Classic.

 

[Frank D'arbo]

Spoiler: Freddy Got Fingered review by Ebert

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.

Many years ago, when surrealism was new, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made "Un Chien Andalou," a film so shocking that Bunuel filled his pockets with stones to throw at the audience if it attacked him. Green, whose film is in the surrealist tradition, may want to consider the same tactic. The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

 

[Paleololicon]

Spoiler: Freddy Got Fingered review by Ebert

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.

Many years ago, when surrealism was new, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made "Un Chien Andalou," a film so shocking that Bunuel filled his pockets with stones to throw at the audience if it attacked him. Green, whose film is in the surrealist tradition, may want to consider the same tactic. The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

To be fair, you have to have a pretty high IQ to understand Freddy Got Fingered....

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Spoiler: Freddy Got Fingered review by Ebert

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.

Many years ago, when surrealism was new, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made "Un Chien Andalou," a film so shocking that Bunuel filled his pockets with stones to throw at the audience if it attacked him. Green, whose film is in the surrealist tradition, may want to consider the same tactic. The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

Ironically, it was Ebert's review of Freddy Got Fingered that inspired me to see it, and now it's one of my favorite comedies.

I still love this review though because it really does show that the movie succeeded in pissing off mainstream critics.

 

[Frank D'arbo]

Almost everything about Roger Ebert's relationship with The Brown Bunny is hilarious.

srsly though The Brown Bunny is one of the most self indulgent movies I've ever seen.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

"No."

The only word used by Leonard Maltin to describe Isn't It Romantic, a 1948 musical featuring Veronica Lake.

 

[Muttnik]

Spoiler: Freddy Got Fingered review by Ebert

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.

Many years ago, when surrealism was new, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made "Un Chien Andalou," a film so shocking that Bunuel filled his pockets with stones to throw at the audience if it attacked him. Green, whose film is in the surrealist tradition, may want to consider the same tactic. The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

The conspiracy that Freddy Got Fingered is secretly some extreme form of Dadaist critique is honestly so fucking hilarious to me that I can't help but kind of love that movie. Ebert's review only succeeded in immortalizing it forever.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

The conspiracy that Freddy Got Fingered is secretly some extreme form of Dadaist critique is honestly so fucking hilarious to me that I can't help but kind of love that movie. Ebert's review only succeeded in immortalizing it forever.

See, I have to believe that Tom Green knew exactly what he was doing. There's that scene where Gord's showing his cartoons to the executive, who straight up tells him they make no sense and that there's nothing happening besides gross shit, which aptly sums up the whole movie. It's just scenes of Tom Green doing gross shit strung together by a loose plot.

Not to mention, Ebert begins the review by listing gross scenes from other comedies at the time and laments that the writing was on the wall for a movie like Freddy Got Fingered to come along. People forget that gross out was the big thing at the time in comedies, and Tom Green made a whole career out of fucking with people so I think he intentionally wanted to make an over-the-top parody of those movies.

I do agree that Ebert's review basically immortalized it though, since anytime anyone discusses the movie they have to talk about the review.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

I like Red Letter Media's assessment of Freddy Got Fingered. Its almost like Tom Green was shocked that he got money to make a movie and he just spent that money to make them pay for their decision. Its like this self aware decent into hell, and it is strangely fascinating for that.

Speaking of scathing reviews and RLM, their review of Ghostbusters 2016 is a personal favorite of mine. Mike gets drunk(er than usual) and they concisely explain why the movie is garbage, and how the controversy surrounding it did nothing but provide free press to a shitty Adam Sandler style comedy.

 

[DiceindaMirror]

Mr. Cranky had some good ones:

Movies and more movies! ShadowCulture's Mr. Cranky Rates the Movies

Movies! Enjoy the increasingly infamous movie reviews from the intrepid Mr. Cranky, who savages any director, actor or cinematographer who dares to cross his path. Then post your own reviews on featured movies in the provided forums!

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My favorite being from "I Am Sam":

"Had I the opportunity, I would have fitted the entire Chinese army with steel soccer cleats and let them march over my unfurled penis if it meant that I could have left the theater even one second earlier than the end of this horrific, manipulative, shameless piece of universal cosmic dung."