Like, I suspect, the vast majority of you, I long ago gave up taking the strenuously overexcited, blurb-machine movie-critic quotes that dot newspaper, magazine, and television ads very seriously. Sure, there they are, every week, proclaiming this mediocre Ice Cube road comedy to be a laugh riot, or that cruddy hell-on-earth horror film to be the most terrifying leap-out-of-your-seat frightfest since…the last cruddy hell-on-earth horror film. But really, who cares? The quote may come from one of the usual gang of ersatz-legitimate, mysteriously affiliated review-meister idiots (the ones where no one really knows entirely who they are, or even if they exist), or they may come from that one very well-known mainstream film critic whose name I won’t mention, but whose words of impeccably crafted overpraise seem to sing from the top of just about every movie ad. Either way, who really bothers anymore to harrumph in outrage at anything that emerges from the blurb-whore-industrial complex? This stuff isn’t criticism, and barely pretends to be; it’s wallpaper. Even poking a hole in it is scarcely worth the effort.
But let me pretend to harrumph, for just one minute, at a quote that’s currently out there — not only because it’s so over-the-top that it practically begs to be shot down, but because it actually comes from a respected and even scholarly critic who obviously deluded himself into thinking that he was doing something other than what he was doing. In the ads for the Red Riding trilogy — a three-part, five-hour British serial-killer drama made by three different directors — the venerable critic David Thomson hails the three films, together, as “better than The Godfather.” How’s that for a nuclear nugget of hype compacted into four little words? So simple! So matter-of-fact! So unadorned by even a solitary exclamation point! (Amusingly, Thomson’s quote, which I read on the IFC Center web site, is taken from a piece that originally appeared in the New York Review of Books, a publication that, over the years, has been so stubbornly iconoclastic when it comes to movies that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’d run a dripping-with-disdain “revisionist” takedown of The Godfather back in 1972.)
I have not seen the Red Riding trilogy myself (Lisa will be reviewing it in our upcoming issue), and so for all I know, I suppose that it could, theoretically, be better than The Godfather. Perhaps it’s also superior to Citizen Kane, The Birth of a Nation, Psycho, Nashville, and Gone With the Wind. It may, in fact, be a greater work of art than the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Anna Karenina, or the Bach Mass in B Minor. But somehow I doubt it.
What’s amusing about this quote, and maybe just a bit sad, is that Thomson, author of the compulsively readable The Biographical Dictionary of Film, obviously meant it sincerely. It’s clear that he was deeply stirred by the Red Riding trilogy, and wants you to see it and be stirred by it too. But by writing that it’s “better than The Godfather,” he’s doing something quite the contrary: He’s setting up everyone who sees these films to have their expectations dashed a bit. And, of course, he’s calling attention not just to the work onscreen, but to himself. For that’s the true, underlying purpose of blurb-whore mania, isn’t it? Whether low end or (as in Thomson’s quote) high end, it’s to create an advertisement for the writer. In this case, though, it reduces even a good writer’s words to a scary, leap-out-of-your-seat laugh riot.
So can you name any over-the-top movie critic quotes that stick in your head? What’s the worst one you ever read?
Haha, he means Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.
I was thinking Pete Hammond? That guy is the worst.
Yeah, he has to be referring to Peter Travers. I’ll never forget the moment I lost respect for his quotes. I was in seventh grade and scared silly as I waited in line for The Blair Witch Project, which Travers had called “Scary as hell!” Suddenly two 10 year old girls walked out of the screening before me complaining how un-scary it was. After watching the movie, I completely agreed.
Nah, Peter Travers RIPS 90% of the Hollywood stuff typically. His biggest crime seems to be giving away most of the plot in his review, which is why I can’t read his stuff.
But seriously, if you’re gonna crucify EVERY critic who said Blair Witch was scary, you’ve got a long list there. And put it into context: That movie is much scarier when it appears out of nowhere as “found footage” at a film festival (where Travers and others originally saw and reviewed yet)… versus months after the hype when everyone knows it was three actors in the woods with a video camera.
And for the record, he said, “Scary as hell.” NOT “gory as hell,” or “stomach-churningly violent as hell.” Which is basically all most modern horror aspires to be.
Peter Travers is the biggest whore/critic in Hollywood. I have always wondered how much he gets paid to write good reviews for rotten films or if he is just that desperate to see his name in print
He’s definitely referring to Peter Travers.
I thought he was referring to Joel Siegel.
“or they may come from that one extremely well-known mainstream film critic whose name I won’t mention, but whose words of impeccably crafted overpraise seem to appear at the top of just about every movie ad.” Haha! Ben Lyons, I assume?
And I’ll add, the worst over-the-top movie-critic quote that sticks in my head is of course from Ben Lyons regarding I Am Legend…”One of the greatest movies ever made.” Seriously?
Ben Lyons was the first thing I thought when I saw that headline.
I think maybe he means Roger Ebert?
Exactly!
No way. I don’t agree with Ebert all the time, but he’s a real critic with a sense of judgment and perspective.
Nope. Roger Ebert is senile now. He loved Paul Blart Mall Cop.
Putting “Roger Ebert” and “perspective” together in one sentence is pretty out there. The man has none.
Sandy T, you’re an idiot.
Ebert could write circles around Gleiberman, Schwartzman and Travers. That you disagree with one of his critical opinions and have used that to discard him says more about you than him.
here here!!!
No, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong what with Roger Ebert being God and all. As for the quote, I personally can’t be too offended. Showgirls was more entertaining than The Godfather (I said entertaining!)
I think you had a typo there. you said “Showgirls was more entertaining than The Godfather” I think your finger slipped or something and you must have meant “Showgirls was the biggest pile of monkey turd to ever be made and which ever studio exec greenlighted it should have been dragged through a sewage treatment plant nude and then ceremoniously had all his vital organs removed with a dull steak knife and fed to a hungry jackel.”
Are you kidding? Ebert is not a quote machine.
Almost anything Ben Lyons said (it’s like he’s intentionally trying to get into the movie commercials and movie posters).
Yes! Wasn’t he the guy that said the Will Smith movie was the movie of the year or something? Geez, talk about easy to please.
Is Rex Reed still alive?
Haha, that’s a great question. I’m wondering myself.
To be fair, maybe this critic is saying the entire “Red Riding” trilogy is better than the entire “Godfather” trilogy, which, given “Godfather III” isn’t entirely inconceivable.
Off the top of my head, I can remember reading the immortal Joel Siegel say that “Men In Black II” was “Funnier than the first.”
Now, I’m not going to sit here and try to convince anyone that “Men in Black” is a masterpiece, but I’ve never in my life met (or even hear of anyone) who honestly thinks MIBII is better than MIB…except for Joel Siegel.
(By the way, if Siegel were still alive, I would guess Owen was referring to him in this post.)
First of all, I understand that what you’re suggesting is that the hyperbole of some critics is damning to the way in which viewers approach the film and I agree that can be the case. With regards to Thomson and “The Red Riding Trilogy”, I believe that the statement was both sincere and well intentioned attempt to get the small film some press. I saw it and thought it fantastic and, although I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was ‘better than The Godfather’, if I had the opportunity to promote a film that cared – I’d do what Thomson did.
I’ve turned around and looked in the bowl behind me and seen better work than Citizen Kane. Sit thru the whole movie and find out Rosebud was a SLED? WTF? Worst. Movie. Ever!!!!!
Boy, are you slow.
woooooorsssssst. mooooovvviiiieeeee. everrrrrrrrrr. Slow enuff for you Jayhole??
Paul, you are one dumb mother effer.
Whoa Dwight, don’t insult dumb mother effers like that.
Dwight – eat my shorts sport. You GRANDmother effer!! (Heeeheeeeheee!)
Schrute, Schrute – he’s a horse’s patoote
He eats all the boogers right out of his snoot.
He says nasty things and he thinks that he’s cute,
And he’s having lame sex now with Jayhole to boot!!
It’s not nice to pick on retards.
Brian, Nick & Mia — good ones.
Owen — having seen the trilogy myself, I enjoyed it very much (and I really look forward to Lisa’s write-up), but I agree that calling it “better than The Godfather” as if it were fact does a real disservice to curious filmgoers who may be interested in it. I hope those who see this ambitious, unusual and extremely dark project will judge it on its own terms rather than get duped by this bit of quote-wh*ring.
I’ve actually heard the Red Riding trilogy is amazing, so that’s not hyperbole at all.
It would be over-the-top if the movie in question was “From Paris With Love”
The worst quote ever was Schwarzbaum calling Where the Wild Things Are “an act of artistic transubstantiation.” I read that to my sister after we got home from seeing that pile of crap, and she said, “WHAT?” Pause. “I don’t know whether to laugh or vomit.”
Hahahaha! She really wrote that?
Apparently you aren’t intelligent enough to actually recognize what she said. That’s a shame.
thank you ryan. in the end of the day critics don’t write just for you or your sister Mara. I completely agree with lisa and think WTWTA is one of hte most artistically underappreciated movies of the past decade. Sorry that you couldn’t understand
Lisa’s review, but i am even sorrier that you couldn’t understand the subtle beauty in one of the most moving films of the year. You and the majority of movie going america today, are the reason more movies like WTWTA don’t get made, whereas giant pieces of crap like Taking of the Pelham 123 do.
Isn’t the movie critic Jeffrey Lyons, not Ben? Or are there two?
Jeffrey – father. Ben – son.
Both of them are critics
Oh, yeah, because The Birth of a Nation is such a stellar cinematic revelation. Right up there with Triumph of the Will.
You’re only showing your cinematic ignorance. As offensive as they are, both movies, from a strictly cinematic standpoint, are brilliantly made and incredibly stirring if you can get past the subject matter. It’s difficult, to say the least, but it is possible. Clearly you haven’t, but I think it’s rather shortsighted of you to automatically dismiss two movies cinema historians and critics consider to be two of the greatest movies ever made simply because of the subject.
Mark, you’re forgetting one thing: People freaking DIED as a result of Birth of a Nation. Lynchings increased, segregation was enforced even more stringently, and the KKK saw it’s second rebirth and domination of the country all because of the movie. I don’t care if D.W Griffith invented new technical ways of moving the camera; EFF the movie for causing all those deaths.
Hey, whatever happened to Earl Dittman?
That’s who I thought “he who must not be named” was. Though nobody’s ever seen an actual issue of “Wireless” magazine. Otherwise, I’d think he’s talking about Shawn Edwards:
http://www.filmsnobs.com/index.php?nowShowing=articles&by=Shimes&id=47
The most recent over-the-top movie-critic quote that sticks in my head is the one I just read suggesting that “Birth of a Nation” is one of the greatest films ever. Yes, the film used ground-breaking techniques, and certainly deserves mention in any film-history discussion. But white actors in blackface as racist caricatures? A mangling of history to incite fear among whites and encourage oppression of African-Americans? “Birth of a Nation” should be consigned to the vaults, not included in a list of greatest films ever made.
The quality of the film plus its time in history stand on its own merit – it is a great film and to put it in a vault would be an outrage.
When I suggested “Birth of a Nation” be put in a vault, I wasn’t implying that it should be destroyed or never seen again. I simply think it should be archived as a historical artifact. It can be studied for its contributions to cinematic history and what it says about racial attitudes in the US (both at the time it was made and in the ways the film has been used since). But I would never suggest “Birth of a Nation” to someone who wanted to be entertained by a “great” film, and I would hope a film critic would at least make that distinction as well.
“Birth of a Nation,” (shame I can’t use italics which is the correct way of typing a movie title)is film in two parts. It’s the second part that gets people hopped up, especially the KKK scene. Ironically, D.W. Griffith’s next film was titled, “Intolerance” (where is that darn italic button!), which was a disguised indictment on the nationalism and bigotry that was leading the world into WWI. Both films where great cinematic achievements. One should see both films, obviously Griffith was a conflicted man.
this is what annoys me about current “great movie lists”
youll find that 85 percent of the movies came long before any of todays great classics. has movie making become worse? well yes and no. out of the aprox. 250 films a year many of them may be terrible but many have far surpassed the movies on that list. keeping movies on a list for “historical reasons”, is bull crap.
Birth was great for its time. but its time has long passed. cavemen may have been the first painters, but would you consider any cave painting in the top 100 works of art ever?