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22 movies Ebert really hated

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F

faridmon

Member
Ugh, he hated Usual Suspect?

I have less respect for him now. Such an amazing movie, even if it didn't grab you, the level of acting is outstanding.
 
B

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Watched the Nostalgia Critic review of 'North' and damn. It truly asinine, racist, and not one bit funny. It was definitely one of those movies you enjoyed as a kid but as an adult you can see it for what it is.
 
N

Number45

Member
I love Armageddon, but I have no particular issues with those other films that I've seen.

Kabuki Waq said:
I am happy there are other people who think usual suspeats is mediocre.

damn I miss Ebert.
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I really enjoyed it the first time I watched it, but I actually fell asleep the second time.
 
G

gamz

Member
diffusionx said:
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.
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In fact he HATED the star system but he had to give films stars because the readers liked it. He often said just read the review.
 
E

EGM1966

Member
faridmon said:
Ugh, he hated Usual Suspect?

I have less respect for him now. Such an amazing movie, even if it didn't grab you, the level of acting is outstanding.
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I like it too but the whole film is basically a gimmick of miss-direction with no actual real substance.

I'm guessing that, as it seems from his review, if you quickly see through the "trick" it would feel like there's not a lot left.

I do like the film more than Ebert but a few repeat views have made clear to me there's not much there behind the "trick". But yeah the cast did deliver though.

But you're not going to agree with any critic all the time anyway. My taste mostly ran in line with Eberts but there was plenty of room for difference too. 'Course I was always right... in my opinion.

He would often exchange a good comment or two online too which could be fun as well.
 
G

gamz

Member
I posted this in another thread about his review of the horror movie CHAOS. The filmmakers wrote him a letter in which he responded. It's pretty epic.

Dear Mr. Ebert:

Thank you for reviewing our film, “Chaos,” and for your thoughtful comments. However, there are some issues you raised that we strongly feel we need to address. First, it is obvious that our film greatly upset you. In your own words, "it affected (you) strongly," and filled you "with sadness and disquiet." You admitted that the film "works." Nevertheless, you urged the public "to avoid it," and you went so far as to resort to expletives: "Why do we need this s--t?", you asked.

As your colleague at the Chicago Daily Herald commented, “Chaos” "marks the first real post-9/11 horror film," and "the horror reality has long ago surpassed the horror of Japanese movies and PG-13 films." Simply put, The Herald gets it and you do not.

Natalie Holloway. Kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq shown on the internet. Wives blasting jail guards with shotguns to free their husbands. The confessions of the BTK killer. These are events of the last few months. How else should filmmakers address this "ugly, nihilistic and cruel" reality -- other than with scenes that are "ugly, nihilistic and cruel," to use the words you used to describe “Chaos.”

Mr. Ebert, would you prefer it if instead we exploit these ugly, nihilistic and cruel events by sanitizing them, like the PG13 horror films do, or like the cable networks do, to titillate and attract audiences without exposing the real truth, the real evil?

Mr. Ebert, how do you want 21st Century evil to be portrayed in film and in the media? Tame and sanitized? Titillating and exploitive? Or do you want evil portrayed as it really is? "Ugly, nihilistic and cruel," as you say our film does it?

We tried to give you and the public something real. Real evil exists and cannot be ignored, sanitized or exploited. It needs to be shown just as it is, which is why we need this s—t, to use your own coarse words. And if this upsets you, or "disquiets" you, or leaves you "saddened," that's the point. So instead of telling the public to avoid this film, shouldn't you let them make their own decision?

Respectfully,

Steven Jay Bernheim Producer, “Chaos”

David Defalco Director, “Chaos”
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Here is my response (which reveals important plot details):

Dear Mr. Bernheim and Mr. Defalco:

Your film does "work," and as filmmakers you have undeniable skills and gifts. The question is, did you put them to a defensible purpose? I believed you did not. I urged my readers to avoid seeing the film. I have also urged them to see many films.

Moviegoers make up their own minds. Like many at the screening I attended, I left saddened and disgusted. Michael Mirasol, a fellow critic, asked me why I even wrote a review, and I answered: "It will get about the audience it would have gotten anyway, but it deserves to be dealt with and replied to."

Yes, you got a good review from the Daily Herald, but every other major critic who has seen the movie shares my view. Maybe we do "get it." As Michael Wilmington wrote in his zero-star review in the Chicago Tribune, the movie "definitely gave me the worst time I've had at a movie in years -- and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but my worst enemies." And from Laura Kern at the New York Times: "Stay far, far away from this one." The line "why do we need this s - - t" was not original with me; I quoted it from Ed Gonzalez at slantmagazine.com, who did not use any dashes in his version. I find it ironic that the makers of "Chaos" would scold me for using "coarse" language and "resorting to expletives."

But there is a larger question here. In a time of dismay and dread, is it admirable for filmmakers to depict pure evil? Have 9/11, suicide bombers, serial killers and kidnappings created a world in which the response of the artist must be nihilistic and hopeless? At the end of your film, after the other characters have been killed in sadistic and gruesome ways, the only survivor is the one who is evil incarnate, and we hear his cold laughter under a screen that has gone dark.

I believe art can certainly be nihilistic and express hopelessness; the powerful movie "Open Water," about two scuba divers left behind by a tourist boat, is an example. I believe evil can win in fiction, as it often does in real life. But I prefer that the artist express an attitude toward that evil. It is not enough to record it; what do you think and feel about it? Your attitude is as detached as your hero's. If "Chaos" has a message, it is that evil reigns and will triumph. I don't believe so.

While it is true, as you argue, that evil cannot be ignored or sanitized, it can certainly be exploited, as "Chaos" demonstrates. You begin the film with one of those sanctimonious messages depicting the movie as a "warning" that will educate its viewers and possibly save their lives. But what are they to learn? That evil people will torture and murder them if they take any chances, go to parties, or walk in the woods? We can't live our lives in hiding.

Your real purpose in making "Chaos," I suspect, was not to educate, but to create a scandal that would draw an audience. There's always money to be made by going further and being more shocking. Sometimes there is also art to be found in that direction, but not this time.

That's because your film creates a closed system in which any alternative outcome is excluded; it is like a movie of a man falling to his death, which can have no developments except that he continues to fall, and no ending except that he dies. Pre-destination may be useful in theology, but as a narrative strategy, it is self-defeating.

I call your attention to two movies you have not mentioned: Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring" (1960) and Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left" (1972). As Gonzalez, despite his "coarse" language, points out, your film follows "Last House" so closely "that Wes Craven could probably sue Defalco for a dual screenwriting credit and win." Craven, also indebted to Bergman, did a modern horror-film version of the Bergman film, which was set in medieval times. In it, a girl goes into the woods and is raped and murdered. Her killers later happen to stay overnight as guests of the grieving parents. When they discover who they are, the father exacts his revenge.

In the Craven version, there is also revenge; I gave the movie a four-star rating, because I felt it was uncommonly effective, even though it got many reviews as negative as my review of "Chaos." Craven, and to a greater degree Bergman, used the material as a way of dealing with tragedy, human loss, and human nature.

You use the material without pity, to look unblinkingly at a monster and his victims. The monster is given no responsibility, no motive, no context, no depth. Like a shark, he exists to kill. I am reminded of a great movie about a serial killer, actually named "Monster" (2003). In it, innocent people were murdered, but we were not invited to simply stare. The killer was allowed her humanity, which I believe all of us have, even the worst of us. It was possible to see her first as victim, then as murderer. The film did not excuse her behavior, but understood that it proceeded from evil done to her. If the film contained a "warning" to "educate" us, it was not that evil will destroy us, but that others will do onto us as we have done onto them. If we do not want monsters like Aileen Wuornos in our world, we should not allow them to have the childhoods that she had.

What I miss in your film is any sense of hope. Sometimes it is all that keeps us going. The message of futility and despair in "Chaos" is unrelieved, and while I do not require a "happy ending," I do appreciate some kind of catharsis. As the Greeks understood tragedy, it exists not to bury us in death and dismay, but to help us to deal with it, to accept it as a part of life, to learn about our own humanity from it. That is why the Greek tragedies were poems: The language ennobled the material.

Animals do not know they are going to die, and require no way to deal with that implacable fact. Humans, who know we will die, have been given the consolations of art, myth, hope, science, religion, philosophy, and even denial, even movies, to help us reconcile with that final fact. What I object to most of all in "Chaos" is not the sadism, the brutality, the torture, the nihilism, but the absence of any alternative to them. If the world has indeed become as evil as you think, then we need the redemptive power of artists, poets, philosophers and theologians more than ever.

Your answer, that the world is evil and therefore it is your responsibility to reflect it, is no answer at all, but a surrender.

Sincerely,

Roger Ebert
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S

spekkeh

Banned
They should have included his review of The Raid to get more clicks.

He was absolutely right too what a vapid piece of shit film

Apart from his great writing style, his opinions aligned 99% with mine. Miss him still.
 
E

EGM1966

Member
NIGHT- said:
Tommy boy? Hocus Pocus? What??
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They were fairly innocuous movies. They were also fairly weak ones too. Guess he just didn't have patience for mass market low quality "star" vehicles when he reviewed 'em.

Also on another point OP as Brown Bunny is included (for original review) it's worth adding, I think, the revision with the altered version which if I remember correctly Ebert actually liked and noted how much the re-edit improved the film.
 
D

Dash_Riprock

Member
Ebert calling Armageddon "The first two-hour trailer" not only perfectly describes the movie, but also EVERY Michael Bay movie every made (except maybe The Rock).
 
D

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
Some day we shall come together as a society and realize that Chris Farley wasn't very funny

We still have a ways to go.
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
“Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. 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.”
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This piece of text is amazing.
 
F

faridmon

Member
EGM1966 said:
I like it too but the whole film is basically a gimmick of miss-direction with no actual real substance.

I'm guessing that, as it seems from his review, if you quickly see through the "trick" it would feel like there's not a lot left.

I do like the film more than Ebert but a few repeat views have made clear to me there's not much there behind the "trick". But yeah the cast did deliver though.

But you're not going to agree with any critic all the time anyway. My taste mostly ran in line with Eberts but there was plenty of room for difference too. 'Course I was always right... in my opinion.

He would often exchange a good comment or two online too which could be fun as well.
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Don't get me wrong. I still have a decent respect for Ebert, but I am slightly disappointing by his outlook towards that movie. Granted its been years last time I have watches, but I felt that the movie was going through what real investigation would look like. Most investigation revolves around red herrings and back and fourth interrogation with no real progress and I felt that film was a lighthearted representation of that. Its not even about that last twist, but the whole journey and what it felt to be elusive and what not.
 
ShirAhava

ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
The Usual Suspects.....is a one trick pony and I freaking LOVE that trick but I don't think it was even remotely 'great' of a movie in general.
 
S

SliceSabre

Banned
Hocus Pocus is the only one I disagree with, but I was a kid when I watched and loved it so my opinion is insanely biased. Oh and North, but for the same reason.
 
M

Mortimer Brewster

Member
gamz said:
Yep. I loved it and thought it was a fucking nightmare and thay final shot was crazy effective.
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I recall the acting and dialogue was The Room tier bad and everyone I was watching with was cheering the shark on to put both the miserable beings called characters out of their misery thus ending our misery of having to watch it.
 
G

gamz

Member
Mortimer Brewster said:
I recall the acting and dialogue was The Room tier bad and everyone I was watching with was cheering the shark on to put both the miserable beings called characters out of their misery thus ending our misery of having to watch it.
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I thought the acting was fine. But not every movie works for everyone.
 
G

gamz

Member
I love this little tidbit from the Mannequin review.





Studying the press material for "Mannequin," I learn that Michael Gottlieb, the director, got the idea for this movie five years ago when he was walking down Fifth Avenue and thought he saw a mannequin move in the window of Bergdorf Goodman. Just thought you'd like to know.
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Cracks me up for whatever reason.
 
QuantumZebra

QuantumZebra

Member
The Exploder said:
He had zero respect for video games, so I guess he'd fit right in.
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SPRv77R.gif
 
J

Jonbo298

Member
Vanillalite said:
16. Tommy Boy, one star.

“No one is funny in ‘Tommy Boy.’ There are no memorable lines. None of the characters is interesting, except for the enigmatic figure played by Rob Lowe, who seems to have wandered over from ‘Hamlet.’ Judging by the evidence on the screen, the movie got a green light before a usable screenplay had been prepared, with everybody reassuring themselves that since they were such funny people, inspiration would overcome them.”
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i-will-find-qjngq5.jpg
 
E

EGM1966

Member
kingslunk said:
Don't forget this guy said video games aren't art
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He gave perfectly valid reasons too that were taken out of context.

His point was a gameplay mechanics could be art which makes sense. That would mean s forehand smash is art or moving a pawn in chess would be art.

Most games are games and automatically not art. Did he miss that some people were using videogame elements to make art? Sure. But that's a minority and pretty much any videogame that people argue is art is achieving this through use of non traditional gameplay mechanics such as Dear Esther or direct exploration of the mechanics themselves, such as Stanley Parable.

Having some B movie cut scenes in between gameplay isn't automatically art. But let's not derail the thread is about his deliciously witty evisceration of films he didn't like.
 
G

greatestjediever

Member
No, Stealth review?

The pilots believe that three is a lucky number, because it is a prime. One helpfully explains to the others what a prime number is; I guess they didn't get to primes at Annapolis. In a movie that uses unexplained phrases like "quantum sponge," why not just let the characters say "prime number" and not explain it? Many audience members will assume "prime number" is another one of those pseudo-scientific terms they're always thinking up for movies like this.
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Whoops! Another emergency. Lightning strikes the UCAV, which goes nuts and starts to download songs from the Internet. "How many?" "All of them." The computer also starts to think for itself and to make decisions that contradict orders.
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Soon all four of them are having lunch, and the three pilots are discussing military secrets in front of the Thai girl, who "doesn't speak English." Beautiful Thai girls who allow themselves to be picked up by U.S. pilots almost always speak English, but never mind. It's not that Purcell is too stupid to know that trusting her is dangerous; it's that the movie is too stupid. How stupid? Nothing happens. The girl can't speak English.
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Sapiens

Sapiens

Member
The Exploder said:
He had zero respect for video games, so I guess he'd fit right in.
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Who gives/gave a shit? I thought his argument was valid: playing video games is not time well spent. I don't completely agree with it, but there is a small part of me that wishes I could roll some of those hours of my youth into other endeavours.
 
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