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[Aselith]

Can we talk about this shit, though?

y so low

 

[Jobbs]

IIRC Ebert also really disliked Napolean Dynamite. I remember reading the review and being kind of amazed by how much he just didn't understand the humor.

 

[Karsticles]

IIRC Ebert also really disliked Napolean Dynamite. I remember reading the review and being kind of amazed by how much he just didn't understand the humor.

Napoleon Dynamite is the only time in my life I have used the term "try hard" unironically. Terrible film.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Napoleon Dynamite was some zero budget indie film that was never intended for or expected to reach mainstream audiences. It's not a bad film, just one that found a level of fame it wasn't supposed to. It's a movie for a specific niche crowd that everyone has seen, for some reason.

 

[rekameohs]

Ebert was the king of the critic diss

 

[old manatee]

Napoleon Dynamite is the only time in my life I have used the term "try hard" unironically. Terrible film.

The part where the farmer shoots the cow as the school bus is driving by made me laugh for basically the rest of the film.

https://youtu.be/u9Jr2jkbfzk

 

[A-V-B]

I agree with most on that list except two...The Village, which isn't a great movie, it's just not as terrible as his review makes it out to be, and the one I vehemently disagree with him on is The Usual Suspects. That's a great damn movie Ebert. But RIP good man.

Also, Freddy Got Fingered might be the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen. Regardless of the fact I laughed at the Helsinki joke.

My one funny moment in Freddy Got Fingered is when he's playing discordant notes on the synth with little sausages tied to pullies on his fingers, and they're going up and down as he plays. It's so absurd, I can't help but laugh.

 

[Koomaster]

Man didn't like Hocus Pocus? This calls into question every other review he's written.

 

[diffusionx]

Eh? What's the issue? Everyone knows that Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties is a classic. That scene at the end where he covertly swaps places with Heathcliff at the guillotine, man... getting a little dusty in here...

Ebert reviewed films on their own terms, not relative to other ones. A three star movie is not "objectively" better than a two star one. He simply feels that Garfield succeeded at what it was trying to do better than Die Hard.

I think he also got a little more tolerant of lightweight fare as he got older, especially after he got sick, but that's a whole other thing.

 

[platakul]

Ebert reviewed films on their own terms, not relative to other ones.

This is right yea. And I feel that he was always very consistent in this. He would give prestige movies bad reviews just like he would give genre trash a good review.
That being said I have to believe that if he re-reviewed Die Hard he'd end up giving it a better review. The movie came out during the action movie blitz

 

[Clydefrog]

*after reading OP*

ctrl+f Tommy Boy

Thanks, GAF! Tommy Boy rules!!

 

[diehard]

Who gives a fuck. Die Hard is super overrated.

the fuck you say?

 

[Permanently A]

God, how I miss Ebert's reviews when he hated a film. I love that the savage review of Deuce Bigelow spawned an actual friendship with Rob Schneider though.

One of my favorite negative reviews of his is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.



And that is just the first paragraph.

I also loved Siskel & Ebert when they both hated a movie. Their review of "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" still sticks with me to this day. They lamented all the wasted hours of human time that would be spent on that movie, and how that time could have been used for better things like a used clothing drive. Just savage, and hilarious.

"such are meager joys" is an absolutely hilarious line to me. Its like he's completely given up and doesn't care anymore about laughing at a dog humping a woman's leg.

 

[MMarston]

God, I miss Ebert's slams. He had quite the talent to translate his scorn into writing.

 

[diffusionx]

This is right yea. And I feel that he was always very consistent in this. He would give prestige movies bad reviews just like he would give genre trash a good review.
That being said I have to believe that if he re-reviewed Die Hard he'd end up giving it a better review. The movie came out during the action movie blitz

Yea. I think he had a few blind spots on some things, but I appreciate what he did. Nobody goes into Angry Birds or Alvin and the Chipmunks expecting the same thing they would get out of Tree of Life or whatever, so a reviewer who looks at it that way is just an asshole. And there are a lot of assholes.

 

[EGM1966]

Man I miss his reviews. He wrote well and he always got particularly poetic for the worst films.

Didn't always agree with him of course (even at the height of the action film glut his Die Hard review was obviously off a bit) but I did always enjoy reading his reviews.

His great movies reviews (and the list itself) is great stuff.

 

[black_13]

I tried to watch Armageddon recently. I had forgotten how cheesy and bad it was.

 

[munchie64]

12. Charlie’s Angels, half star.

“‘Charlie’s Angels’ is like the trailer for a video game movie, lacking only the video game, and the movie.”

Holy shit lol

Fucking loved Ebert. Imo the key thing that makes a critic "good" in my eyes is that you enjoy reading their stuff even if you disagree with them immensely. Like, who could shit on the beauty of Jason X?

 

[Jintor]

He was an absolutely incredible writer.

 

[GamerJM]

I've always thought that the best ability of a great critic is the ability to just tear something to shreds. These are great though I've read a few of them before.

 

[Menome]

1. Armageddon, one star

I wish I could close my eyes
I wish I could fall asleep
But they're paying me
So I've got to review this film

 

[Cheerilee]

y so low

On a technical level, there's a lot to be said for "Die Hard." It's when we get to some of the unnecessary adornments of the script that the movie shoots itself in the foot. Willis remains in constant radio contact with a police officer on the ground (Reginald Veljohnson) who tries to keep his morale up. But then the filmmakers introduce a gratuitous and unnecessary additional character: the deputy police chief (Paul Gleason), who doubts that the guy on the other end of the radio is really a New York cop at all.

As nearly as I can tell, the deputy chief is in the movie for only one purpose: to be consistently wrong at every step of the way and to provide a phony counterpoint to Willis' progress. The character is so willfully useless, so dumb, so much a product of the Idiot Plot Syndrome, that all by himself he successfully undermines the last half of the movie. Thrillers like this need to be well-oiled machines, with not a single wasted moment. Inappropriate and wrongheaded interruptions reveal the fragile nature of the plot and prevent it from working.

Without the deputy chief and all that he represents, "Die Hard" would have been a more than passable thriller. With him, it's a mess, and that's a shame, because the film does contain superior special effects, impressive stunt work and good performances, especially by Rickman as the terrorist.

The Police Chief's comical incompetence gets in the way of the FBI's plot-driven predictable incompetence, and the somewhat grounded character of Sgt Powell.

4/10, would not watch any more than maybe once a year around Christmas.

 

[olympia]

8. Spice World, half star.

"Spice World is obviously intended as a ripoff of 'A Hard Day's Night' which gave The Beatles to the movies...the huge difference, of course, is that the Beatles were talented--while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts."

hella rude

 

[pigeon]

Disappointed not to see Pink Flamingos on the list, given the RT blurb from his review.

All of the John Waters reviews are in his book Your Movie Sucks, but I think he is somewhat genuine in saying that it's clear John Waters does not make movies in the hopes that people like Roger Ebert will enjoy or even agree to see them, and so in many ways a conventional review would just not be appropriate.

 

[AmaterasuOni]

10. Freddy Got Fingered, zero stars.

"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."

Ebert knows nothing, he is nothing. Freddy Got Fingered is one the best movies ever made. A true masterpiece.

 

[bjork]

8. Spice World, half star.

"Spice World is obviously intended as a ripoff of 'A Hard Day's Night' which gave The Beatles to the movies...the huge difference, of course, is that the Beatles were talented--while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts."

How dare he. I would wish bad things on him, but... well.

 

[Timedog]

Freddy Got Fingered is a great movie. Ebert doesn't know what he's talking about atoll.

 

[Comfort Jones]

If Ebert was like two generations younger and he was introduced to GAF, I bet he would've been an active and provocative and (famous) GAF member.

He'd be banned in less than a year.

 

[pigeon]

One of my favorite Ebert blog posts, I'm A Proud Brainiac, in which he destroys the weirdos screaming at him for not liking Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.



The core mystery of the movie is a cop interrogating small time hood Kevin Spacey as to the identity of super criminal Keyser Sose, as Spacey tells him the story of the big heist gone wrong.

Spoiler

It turns out that Spacey himself is Keyser Sose, which is incredibly obvious from the very first scene in which Sose is mentioned if you're paying attention even a tiny bit whatsoever. A bunch of the names and details of the story he told the cop come from objects sitting around the cop's office, so in the end how much of the story was true and how much was bullshit is entirely up to the viewer.

The fundamental problem with The Usual Suspects is that it's built around a twist that turns off the entire rest of the movie.

Any or all of what happened in the movie might be a lie. There's no way to know what, and so there's no way to draw any meaningful conclusions about it. Which we probably couldn't do anyway because, much like Seinfeld, the movie isn't actually about anything or in possession of any core themes and so there is really nothing to think about it afterwards.

The best argument you could make is that it's an extremely meta statement on moviemaking itself but man, if that's true it's a pretty depressing take on the subject.

 

[Professor Beef]

He'd be banned in less than a year.

No he wouldn't, since he'd be able to back up his criticisms. Countless GAF members would get banned trying to argue with him, however, since a lot of the replies would tend to range from "omg how dare you" to a random gif.

 

[TheSlySoul]

Hocus Pocus and Armageddon are to me not so bad they deserve 1 star. Rest I will agree with though...
Edit: Have not seen Tommy Boy so cannot say.

 

[G-Fex]

North sucks that much huh?

I never liked Elijah Wood.

 

[Comfort Jones]

No he wouldn't, since he'd be able to back up his criticisms. Countless GAF members would get banned trying to argue with him, however, since a lot of the replies would tend to range from "omg how dare you" to a random gif.

I don't think he'd get banned for his criticisms of movies, I think he'd say some hilariously mean shit to people trying to argue with him that would go well beyond a retort to their argument alone.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

lmao that is a terrific sentence. I loved it so much.

 

[Rootbeer]

He had a right to his opinions, and as a film critic he's bursting at the seams with them, but he was way too hard on North.

I've seen it a few times over the years, and I still think it's good.

 

[MilkLizard]

I like the Usual Suspects.

And Armageddon is a fucking masterpiece

 

[mclem]

"I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than 'The Brown Bunny.'"
When the movie’s director responded by mocking Ebert’s weight, Ebert said, “It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'"

Ebert plagiarising Churchill? Still, it's a good line, so I can't complain too much.

 

[Kaiterra]

What he says about Tommy Boy seems like it would apply whether you like the movie or not.

 

[Sgt. Kabukiman]

I loved Ebert. He's one of those reviewers that I almost never agreed with but I always enjoyed reading his thoughts. One of his most hilarious reviews ever is Spawn :

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/spawn-1997

"Spawn'' is best seen as an experimental art film. It walks and talks like a big budget horror film, heavy on special effects and pitched at the teenage audience, and maybe that's how it will be received. But it's more impressive if you ignore the genre and just look at what's on the screen. What we have here are creators in several different areas doing their best to push the envelope. The subject is simply an excuse for their art--just as it always is with serious artists.

Boy, he really loved that piece of trash and his enthusiasm is wonderful to read despite the reality of the actual movie he's talking about.

 

[John Dunbar]

i'm sure ebert would have eventually seen the brilliance of freddy got fingered. reading his review for stealing harvard, he might already have had an inkling:

Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie "Freddy Got Fingered" (2001), which was so poorly received by the film critics that it received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on the Tomatometer. I gave it--let's see--zero stars. Bad movie, especially the scene where Green was whirling the newborn infant around his head by its umbilical cord.

But the thing is, I remember "Freddy Got Fingered" more than a year later. I refer to it sometimes. It is a milestone. And for all its sins, it was at least an ambitious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something. It failed, but it has not left me convinced that Tom Green doesn't have good work in him. Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or later going to make a movie worth seeing.

 

[Piers]

You don't go dissing Hocus Pocus like this.
Gotta go through Fresh Prince and Pulp Fiction first.

 

[mclem]

I forgot about The Love Guru. Fuck. Didn't that movie kill Myer's career?

As heard quite frequently on The Bugle, John Oliver was in it too. He seems to have survived okay. And, for that matter, had Mike Myers on the show a little while back. Hadn't quite twigged that that was effectively a Love Guru reunion.

(How did Ebert feel about The Smurfs? Particularly the performance of Vanity Smurf?)

 

[Chewy Chipmunk]

y so low

Once Ebert got cancer and shit, he started looking at movies way more positively. He liked almost everything. I would do the same probably, but Ebert post-cancer isn't particularly trustworthy if you are looking for movie recommendations.

 

[Cheerilee]

I think The Usual Suspects "feels" smart because it's frequently mind-numbing. But it doesn't matter because if you didn't understand something, the movie just keeps on plodding forward, and you really didn't miss anything. The only thing that really needs to slowly sink in over an hour and a half is that Keyzer Soze is a badass. That's what's needed for the twist to work.

And it's common movie knowledge that if your movie goes out with a bang, it improves how people remember feeling about the entire thing. Good twist = People think the movie was good. (Bad twist = "How does Shyamalan keep getting work?")

But the crazy thing about the twist is, everything is meaningless, even Keyzer Soze. Is Keyzer Soze a badass? Well, according to Keyzer Soze, yes, yes he is. All we really know about Keyzer Soze is that he's probably more badass than fucking Verbal. At the very least, Keyzer Soze is not a cripple. Wow, that bar of badassery is set so high.

 

[Eidan]

IIRC Ebert also really disliked Napolean Dynamite. I remember reading the review and being kind of amazed by how much he just didn't understand the humor.

I too couldn't stand it.

 

[Chewy Chipmunk]

I think The Usual Suspects "feels" smart because it's frequently mind-numbing. But it doesn't matter because if you didn't understand something, the movie just keeps on plodding forward, and you really didn't miss anything. The only thing that really needs to slowly sink in over an hour and a half is that Keyzer Soze is a badass. That's what's needed for the twist to work.

And it's common movie knowledge that if your movie goes out with a bang, it improves how people remember feeling about the entire thing. Good twist = People think the movie was good. (Bad twist = "How does Shyamalan keep getting work?")

But the crazy thing about the twist is, everything is meaningless, even Keyzer Soze. Is Keyzer Soze a badass? Well, according to Keyzer Soze, yes, yes he is. All we really know about Keyzer Soze is that he's probably more badass than fucking Verbal. At the very least, Keyzer Soze is not a cripple. Wow, that bar of badassery is set so high.

I never understood why people thought the twist was so mind blowing. It's pretty damn obvious if you listen to the dialog.

 

[PillarEN]

Let's be honest. He trashed The Brown Bunny because of the unsimulated blow job.
Fool. It has John Frusciante music.

 

[Mortimer Brewster]

Eh, I prefer what he said about The Final Chapter.

He had it out for slashers. See his diatribe he went on for his Dream Warriors reviewed about aiming to corrupt youth. And this was the hypocrite that wrote Russ Meyer sleaze films in the late 60's.

 

[Booser]

Hocus Pocus is one of the reasons I love Halloween so much. Get the hell outta here.

 

[HUELEN10]

He made the RIGHT call on North...

https://youtu.be/ECXHx9nJAKs?t=2m53s