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What movie ad would be complete without a breathlessly enthusiastic blurb from a critic you’ve never heard of? The blurbmeisters, as they’re known, are legion, and every year they generate — like a roomful of typewriting monkeys unintentionally producing Hamlet — some very funny lines. Here are some of our favorites.
Film-going can be hazardous to your health
• According to the Washington Post, “‘War of the Worlds’ rips you along, seizes you in its first seconds, holds you spellbound and expels you, breathless and spent.” Sounds like Captain Ahab’s wedding night.
• Rolling Stone said of ‘300′: “Prepare your eyes for popping — they just might fly out of their sockets!”
• On ‘The Good Night,’ New York Magazine says “The jokes will hit you from behind and underneath while the bleakness smacks you in the face.” Now I’m imagining the kinds of bruises I’ll have, not how much I’ll enjoy the movie. (Sounds like I’ll need an icepack between the legs.)
Gene Shalit must be crazy
It seems that the Today Show’s movie critic always has something extreme to say.
• Of ‘King Kong’: “It’s so gargantuan that I must create new words to describe it: fabularious … a brilliantological humongousness of marvelosity.” Brillantological?
• ‘Death at a Funeral’: “It reminds me that the first three letters of ‘funeral’ are F-U-N.” We all saw that one coming, Gene. (Less obvious would’ve been “The second three letters of “death” are E-A-T!”)
• Bodily harm may result from watching the Simpsons Movie: “You’ll laugh ’till you can’t breathe!”
Movies are my amusement park
You’ve gotta love Richard Roeper (I guess) but the guy tends to rubber-stamp films. For instance, in 2007 he described ‘300′ as “a non-stop thrill ride,” ‘The Mist’ as “a thrill ride” and ‘Beowulf’ as “a lusty 3-D thrill ride!” Thanks to Variety’s Timothy Gray for pointing this out — and also this next one, easily the weirdest blurb of the year:
• Mike Gianakos from High Times (let’s consider the source here) wrote of ‘Air Guitar Nation’: “Pack your spandex, stuff your crotch and press on your temporary tattoos, we’re going to Finland!” (Funny, he gave the same review to The Kite Runner.)
Anyone else seen a blurb worth ridiculing lately?
Comments (15)
Comment
These are hilarious.
I know he’s not really a film critic, but someone has to mention the word creating ways of James Lipton.
posted by o-line on 1-15-2008 at 11:40 am
Sometimes Gene Shalit suffers from RIDUCLARIOUSNESS
posted by JaneM on 1-15-2008 at 12:10 pm
I like the blurbs on rental boxes for movies I’ve never heard of. They are so short, you know they are leaving the important part out… like it will say “Explosive!” when the original critic quote said, “This movie gave me an explosive headache!”
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-15-2008 at 12:15 pm
sorry, can’t spell today. I meant
RIDICULARIOUSNESS
posted by JaneM on 1-15-2008 at 12:20 pm
Once I heard a negative review by Gene Shalit. I nearly fell off my chair. Can anyone recall him giving a bad review?
posted by Stew on 1-15-2008 at 12:56 pm
Is it possible that these quotes are actually being created by a random sentance generating software somewhere? Like that poetry spewing software (something I heard about years ago), where you can either give it some words and click go or just click go and it gives you some trippy transendental lines?
posted by ACute Angle on 1-15-2008 at 1:06 pm
Ooops… I meant sentence.
posted by ACute Angle on 1-15-2008 at 1:06 pm
Stew —
Re: Gene Shalit, now that you mention it, I’ve never heard him give a negative review. Good call …
posted by Ransom on 1-15-2008 at 1:07 pm
A lot of those “Greatest Movie I’ve seen this year” reviews are the actual review of the movie.
Siskel and Ebert pointed out in one of their old shows that most of these reviewers (that you never heard of) are given the red carpet treatment, flown out to Hollywood, given access to the stars and treated with parties, etc with one caveat: If they don’t give a good review, they will never get invited back.
That’s heady stuff for a reviewer from Des Moines or Lubbock.
posted by Moon on 1-15-2008 at 1:07 pm
I hate how often movies are called “a tour de force!” Seriously, most of the movies that get this comment aren’t really that great.
posted by missy on 1-15-2008 at 3:35 pm
What about those MadTV sketches where they have fake movie trailers complete with reviews, but with all of these REALLY weird quotes from Larry King? Those are one of the few things on that show that actually make me laugh out loud.
posted by Vitajex on 1-15-2008 at 4:25 pm
A little off-topic maybe, but I thought of it and couldn’t help commenting.
Book blurbs are the same way. (I’ve wondered about some of the shorter blurbs Miss Cellania mentioned - sometimes I make a game of seeing how I can put a new context around a blurb and make it negative. Anyhoo…) Something I learned recently was that authors often write the summaries/reviews on the inside jacket cover - so you’re allowed to be suspicious when it describes the author and his book using a great list of long praising adjectives. I’d give an example, but I’m not up to finding one right now.
posted by Eileen on 1-15-2008 at 5:47 pm
I’ve noticed that every movie that comes out seems to bo “The movie of the [insert seasonal noun here]!” but in reality rarely are “The movie worth the ten-dollar cover price.”
posted by heather on 1-15-2008 at 7:12 pm
A Shalit pan is rare, but it does happen.
I remember him reviewing a lame Kevin Kline movie called The January Man. He said he wished they’d called it the February Man because at least it would have been shorter.
posted by renton on 1-16-2008 at 4:48 am
ACute:
There’s a game called “Mad Libs”.
I think you’ve hit on how obscure and unremarkable film reviewers do their columns.
Plug the name of the film and the actors into Mad Libs and see what spews out.
I never see a film based on what reviewers say. Heck, around here the pundits can’t even spell.
posted by Doc on 1-16-2008 at 9:33 am