One of Life's Great Pleasures

I am suddenly battling with my depression all over again, and in an effort to combat it I am posting something I've been sitting on for a while for no reason I can figure out - a compliation of some of the greatest Roger Ebert quotes from his reviews of bad movies. (Also because I so lamely swiped the opening of the "Assassins" review, I figured the only way to make up for it would be to print the real one.) There is no pleasure quite like seeing Roger rip a deserving target a new bunghole in print. Here are a few of my favorite examples...


An Alan Smithee Film Burn Hollywood Burn - "One is accustomed to seeing bad movies, but not incompetent ones. Sophomores in a film class could make a better film than this. Hell, I have a movie here by Les Brown, a kid who looks about 12 and filmed a thriller in his mother's basement, faking a fight scene by wrestling with a dummy. If I locked you in a room with both movies, you'd end up looking at the kid's."

Armageddon - "Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. 'Armageddon' is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you'd have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out."

Assassins - "Believe me, I know how to believe stuff when it happens in the movies. I believe bicycles can fly. I believe sharks can eat boats. I even believe pigs can talk. But I do not believe 'Assassins,' because this movie is filled with such preposterous impossibilities that Forrest Gump could have improved it with a quick rewrite."

B.A.P.S. - "You have not lived until you've seen Martin Landau disco. Well, perhaps you have."

The Beyond - "The movie is being revived around the country for midnight cult showings. Midnight is not late enough."

Can't Hardly Wait - "There's one character in 'Can't Hardly Wait' who is interesting and funny. Maybe it was a mistake to write her in; she makes the other characters look like gnat-brained bozos."

Clifford - "In a screening of some 150 people, two people laughed, once apiece. The other some 148 did not laugh at all. One of the laughers was me; I liked a moment in a showdown scene between Short and Grodin. The other person laughed right after I did, maybe because he agreed, or maybe because my laugh is darn infectious."

Company Man - "I am reminded of Gene Siskel's classic question, 'Is this movie better than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?' In this case, it is not even better than a documentary of the same actors ordering room service while fighting the stomach flu."

Cool World - "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him - he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead."

Dead Man - "A mood might have developed here, had it not been for the unfortunate score by Neil Young, which for the film's final 30 minutes sounds like nothing so much as a man repeatedly dropping his guitar."

Dead Poets Society - "It is, of course, inevitable that the brilliant teacher will eventually be fired from the school, and when his students stood on their desks to protest his dismissal, I was so moved, I wanted to throw up."

Dear God - "'Dear God' is the kind of movie where you walk out repeating the title, but not with a smile."

Death to Smoochy - "Only enormously talented people could have made 'Death to Smoochy.' Those with lesser gifts would have lacked the nerve to make a film so bad, so miscalculated, so lacking any connection with any possible audience. To make a film this awful, you have to have enormous ambition and confidence, and dream big dreams."

Endless Summer II - "The movie is wonderfully photographed. Right at the beginning, we see fabulous shots of waves and surfers. Some of the shots even go inside the 'barrel,' so we can see the wave curling over the head of the surfer. What a way to get stoked. These are terrific shots. We see them again, and again, and again. The operative word in the title is endless, not summer."

Exit to Eden - "On the first page of my notes, I wrote 'Starts slow.' On the second page, I wrote 'Boring.' On the third page, I wrote 'Endless!' On the fourth page, I wrote: 'Bite-size Shredded Wheat, skim milk, cantaloupe, frozen peas, toilet paper, salad stuff, pick up laundry.'"

Freddy Got Fingered - "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."

Frozen Assets - "If I were more of a hero, I would spend the next couple of weeks breaking into theaters where this movie is being shown, and leading the audience to safety."

Godzilla (1998) - "Going to see 'Godzilla' at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica. It's a rebuke to the faith that the building represents. Cannes touchingly adheres to a belief that film can be intelligent, moving and grand. 'Godzilla' is a big, ugly, ungainly device to give teenagers the impression they are seeing a movie. It was the festival's closing film, coming at the end like the horses in a parade, perhaps for the same reason."

Gone in 60 Seconds - "This is the kind of movie that ends up playing on the TV set over the bar in a better movie."

Halloween H20 - "Michael Myers may also have skills as an electrician. All of the lights and appliances in every structure in this movie go on or off whenever the plot requires them to. I can imagine Myers down in the basement by the fuse box, thinking, 'Gotta slash somebody. But first--geez, whoever filled in the chart on the inside of this fuse box had lousy handwriting! I can't tell the garage door from the garbage disposal!'"

Hard Rain - "In 'Hard Rain,' there is a bad guy (Morgan Freeman) who has a choice. He wants to steal some money, but all during the film I kept wondering why he didn't just give up and head for dry ground. How much of this ordeal was he foolish enough to put up with? Water, cold, rain, electrocutions, murders, shotguns, jet-ski attacks, drownings, betrayals, collisions, leaky boats, stupid and incompetent partners, and your fingertips shrivel up: Is it worth it?"

Jack Frost - "The snowman gave me the creeps. Never have I disliked a movie character more. They say state-of-the-art special effects can create the illusion of anything on the screen, and now we have proof: It's possible for the Jim Henson folks and Industrial Light and Magic to put their heads together and come up with the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects, and I am not forgetting the Chucky doll or the desert intestine from 'Star Wars.'"

Jaws the Revenge - "I believe that the shark wants revenge against Mrs. Brody. I do. I really do believe it. After all, her husband was one of the men who hunted this shark and killed it, blowing it to bits. And what shark wouldn't want revenge against the survivors of the men who killed it?"

K2 - "If I ever fell off a mountain, I would shout 'Stupid! Stupid!' at myself all the way down, for having willingly and through great effort put myself in a position to fall to my death."

Little Indian, Big City - "There is a movie called 'Fargo' playing right now. It is a masterpiece. Go see it. If you, under any circumstances, see 'Little Indian, Big City,' I will never let you read one of my reviews again."

Mad Dog Time - "'Mad Dog Time' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching 'Mad Dog Time' is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line."

Message in a Bottle - "To saddle Costner, Penn and Newman with such goofy melodrama is like hiring Fred Astaire and strapping a tractor on his back."

Newsies - "'Newsies,' we are informed as the movie opens, is based on actual events. I do not doubt this. I am sure that shortly before the turn of the century, newsboys organized a strike against the greedy Joseph Pulitzer, and were cheered on by a dance-hall madam with a heart of gold. Nor do I doubt that the lads, some of them boys of 9 or 10, hung out in saloons and bought rounds of beer while making their plans, or that the proprietor of an evil city orphanage made himself rich by collecting fees from the city. I don't even doubt that the newsboys printed their own strike paper on an old flatbed press in the basement of Pulitzer's building. Of course I believe. Yes, Virginia."

Patch Adams - "He's the nonconformist, humanist, warm-hearted rebel who defies the cold and materialist establishment and stands up for clowns and free spirits everywhere. This is a role Robin Williams was born to play. In fact, he was born playing it."

Pearl Harbor - "'Pearl Harbor' is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle."

Psycho - "The most dramatic difference between Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960) and Gus Van Sant's 'shot-by-shot' remake is the addition of a masturbation scene. That's appropriate, because this new 'Psycho' evokes the real thing in an attempt to re-create remembered passion."

A Pure Formality - "Having made the splendidly entertaining 'Cinema Paradiso' in 1988, Giuseppe Tornatore now exhibits his versatility with 'A Pure Formality,' which is not entertaining at all."

Rapa Nui - "Concern for my reputation prevents me from recommending this movie. I wish I had more nerve. I wish I could simply write, 'Look, of course it's one of the worst movies ever made. But it has hilarious dialogue, a weirdo action climax, a bizarre explanation for the faces of Easter Island, and dozens if not hundreds of wonderful bare breasts.' I am however a responsible film critic and must conclude that Rapa Nui is a bad film. If you want to see it anyway, of course, that's strictly your concern. I think I may check it out again myself."

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - "Costner plays Robin Hood as if he were Alan Alda."

Romeo + Juliet - "What can we make of a balcony scene that immediately leads to Romeo and Juliet falling into a swimming pool and reciting their best lines while treading water? I think back to the tender passion of the 1968 version, and I want to shout: 'Romeo! Quick! Poison yourself!'"

Saving Silverman - "Consider my friend James Berardinelli, the best of the Web-based critics. No doubt 10 days of oxygen deprivation at the Sundance Film Festival helped inspire his three-star review, in which he reports optimistically, '"Saving Silverman" has its share of pratfalls and slapstick moments, but there's almost no flatulence.' Here's a critical rule of thumb: You know you're in trouble when you're reduced to praising a movie for its absence of fart jokes, and have to add 'almost.'"

Spice World - "All of these elements are inspired in one way or another by 'A Hard Day's Night.' 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."

Sweet November - "She's dying. In the original movie the disease was described as 'quite rare, but incurable.' Here we get another clue, when Nelson opens Sara's medicine cabinet and finds, oh, I dunno, at a rough guess, 598 bottles of pills. The girl is obviously overmedicating. Give her a high colonic, send her to detox, and the movie is over."

The Waterboy - "I believe in giving every movie the benefit of the doubt. I walked into 'The Waterboy,' sat down, took a sip of my delicious medium roast coffee and felt at peace with the world. How nice it would be, I thought, to give Adam Sandler a good review for a change. Goodwill and caffeine suffused my being, and as the lights went down I all but beamed at the screen.

"Then Adam Sandler spoke, and all was lost."