'Rediculous' Customer & Critic Reviews

[Murdoch]

Not a review, but I found this customer discussion asking the region of the La Dolce Vita Deluxe Edition:

will it play on my usa machine?

How I would love to have a usa machine.

[kaujot]

USA! USA!

[MichaelB]

I thought all DVD players were made in Japan these days? Or was it South Korea?

[domino harvey]

Maybe USA Machines are those swear-filter things

[The Digital McGuffin]

IMDB daily poll on 29th October:

Roger Ebert was recently taken to task for reviewing the movie Tru Loved, even though he only watched 8 minutes of it. (Read more here.) We ask: Have you ever critiqued (in any way) a movie that you've turned off (or never seen)?

and 67.1% opt for:

Oh, sure. Plenty of times I have critiqued a movie without having seen much (or any) of it.

[life_boy]

Another Netflix reviewer: DH 1212

Here's the paring.

Old Joy
* out of *****
This movie starts out like it will be the awakened friendship between two men who want to discover something new and different about themselves. They meet go off for a romp oin the woods and discover what??? The conversations between them are so lame and so are the characters that while watching it I kept sighing and hoping that this movie would enlighten and inspire me. But alas it did nothing but waste time.A little hot-tub semi-homo-erotic action makes all the difference....NOT. This movie is awful!!!! Don;lt waste your time on it. Watch "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" or an Ed Wood orginal instead. Kelly Reichardt go back to film school and try again.

The Bucket List
***** out of *****
This movie speaks volumes about having joy in your life, how to see things in a different way,accepting and understanding differences, confronting your fears and other demons that keep you from being in touch with yourself and others, and moving on with life. I do not understand how this went under the radar at this years Oscars but in my opinion Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson have made a modern classic about the human condition and the human spirit that will stand the test of time. And now it's time to put together my own bucket list...thank you Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson so very, very much. D. Harvey Alcoa, Tennessee

[yoshimori]

IMDB daily poll on 29th October:
67.1% opt for:

Oh, sure. Plenty of times I have critiqued a movie without having seen much (or any) of it.

Legend has: Vladimir Nabokov was once asked at a party, after he'd spent five minutes excoriating a production of Hamlet (or some such) that it was becoming increasingly clear he had not attended, how he could attack a work he hadn't seen. His answer: "My dear fellow, why would I waste my time on something as bad as I've just described?"

[domino harvey]

Gives a bad name to D. Harveys everywhere

[MichaelB]

About a week ago, I e-mailed DVD File's Mike Restaino to point out that he'd inadvertently reviewed a film called The Second Soufflé, thanks to the unfortunate combination of a misplaced accent and the possibility that it might be read by people with a stronger grasp of French than he evidently has himself.

He didn't bother to reply, and hasn't made the correction, so feel free to point and laugh.

[Gregory]

Did Fox really send a review copy of their sure-to-be-glorious "Murneau"/Borzage set to this individual? From the looks of things, it seems like they might have only sent the documentary disc. In any case, watching that disc seems to have been all the work needed to prepare the review.
If it's really this easy, I 'm going to have to start a career as a reviewer in some darkened corner of the internet and start getting in on this free-promo-copy action.

[domino harvey]

I would wager they downloaded the disc off any of the popular cinephile torrent sites

[jesus the mexican boi]

Can you guess what film deft Amazon.com critic Daniel Hayes is reviewing?

This film is soooo good you can use it for a Sunday School lesson in which you talk about the young rich ruler who goes to Jesus, and asks what he could do to enter Heaven, and Jesus finally tells him to sell his possessions, and follow him, and the ruler goes away because he didn't want to part with his possessions. You can also use this as a Marriage Counselling tool as there was evidently alot of failure to communicate with the man and his wife. I can see a whole mess of things that this film depicts with the man and his wife.

That's right. It's...

Spoiler

There is however, one flaw where the man fully descends into madness, and tries to murder his family with an ax, and chases his son into a hedge maze, and the wife is running through the hotel, and alot of people become alive, and creatures, or humans wearing animal costumes, and so forth. I still don't know what this was all about, but Kubrick does a good job of balancing those scenes with the chase scenes through the maze. I feel that this is quite possibly the best film ever made. I know the AFA lists "Citizen Kane" as the best film ever, but I know (The Shining) is my all time favorite movie.

[kaujot]

Whaaaa? #-o

[domino harvey]

Dag, I missed it by guessing any other movie but that one

[Jonny Pasadena]

It also serves as an exquisite parenting how-to guide, no?

The Overlook is vast, it contains multitudes.

[life_boy]

I know the AFA lists "Citizen Kane" as the best film ever...

Does he really mean AFA or AFI?

[Mr Sausage]

I'd like to see that Sunday School explanation of the man in the bear costume with the well dressed gent.

[Yojimbo]

Where do these people come from?

Some selected hits:

"When I received the SpongeBob Squarepants Sno-Cone Maker for my last birthday..."

"...seeing him working that crowd of dozens brought to my mind all the great performers - Stevie Wonder. James Brown. Marvin Gaye. Aaron Carter."

On the last OutKast CD: "Is it says a lot how far the "Album of the Year" Grammy has fallen in the 21 years since the glorious "Toto IV" when this bloated, indulgent mess wins the award."

On The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: "I tried to watch this acclaimed film from Director JRR Tolkein, but it was too visually static and flat."

On The Maltese Falcon: "How is it in this age of computer technology, Warner Bros. is still churning out these black-and-white DVD's? Colorization should be a given. As it is, I can't make out a thing in this non-colored transfer. Until the colorized version is released for everyone to enjoy, I'm not going to buy it."

On Kill Bill, Volume 1 (no, this is not my mistake): "Ridiculous updating of the classic cartoon destroys everything that makes Scooby and the gang special. CG Scooby is believable, effective, and ten times more lifelike than most of the cast. I will NOT be watching the sequel."

On Lawrence of Arabia: "Yes, the film came complete with those horrific black bars at the top and bottom of my screen, which obscured about half of the picture. I've seen those bars on the "artsy" videos on TV, and I sometimes enjoy them. But this is a classic work of art! You don't try to make it "hip" and "relevant" with modern touches. It would be like adding a moustache to the Mona Lisa."

On the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds: "This is not the Beach Boys. It can't be. Why? No beach songs! I thought it was some kind of joke. All "Pet Sounds" offers is the opportunity to hear Brian Wilson whine for forty minutes, backed by elevator music. There's barely any Mike Love on the album at all."

On This is Spinal Tap: "I guess my real complaint is with the filmmakers, as I'm wondering why they chose to cover such a little-known group when there were perfectly acceptable alternatives: Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Eddie Money, and/or Motorhead."

On the Easy Bake Oven: "One day, I decided to try the oven's magical powers on the perfect food, the ham-and-cheese Hot Pocket. Bad idea. After a few short minutes, my Pocket was a charred mess and the inside of the oven was coated with hot ham and cheese. It may sound delicious, but it was the final breath for my oven. It hasn't worked right since - now my guests complain that my tiny cookies and cakes "taste like meat"."

The sad impression I've come to get after reading almost all of this man's reviews? He is a lonely pedophile, obsessed with 70s rock band Bread, who rides a unicycle.

so he's the guy we have to blame for the (mercifully shortlived) colourisation abomination?

the perfect food,eh? "the ham-and-cheese Hot Pocket"
so thats how his brain got scrambled!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Diary of a Chambermaid is the subject of this gem:

It is unfortunate that politically Bunuel could only see the evils of Fascism, ignoring the Siamese twin of Socialism. For artists, maybe even artists of today, Socialism seems to offer hope for mankind, a paradise for the movie-going proletariat, but understand, though only half right, this political film is cinema as good as any Serge Einstein.

All this talk we hear in America of suave French sexes and their smooth, sophisticated approach to natural forces, after viewing Bunuel many times, Truffaut and Goddard as well, I say phsaw! The French of all classes seem to skip dating and go right to groping or raping. The brash male demands favors and the demur Jean Moreau merely nods her head, manipulating men without passion. The raped child or servant, hey that's real sex - I guess. The kindest man in the film is senile and a foot fetishist. You get the idea: French society is rotten to the core and in the 1930's blindly charging towards Jew killing and goose-stepping. That's half-right.

This would be a great freshman essay. It's more of a rant, though.

[zedz]

That's quite a find, not to mention a Freudian's wet-dream, with all its bizarre typos and slips (I particularly like Jeanne Moreau's momentary sex-change: who wouldn't demur under those conditions?). And I want a "Serge Einstein" t-shirt, to go with my "smooth, sophisticated approach to natural forces".

[Steven H]

from Amazon on The Battle of Algiers:

I'd like very much to see a sequel to this movie, prefaced by Pontecorvo presenting his apologies for the somewhat biased making of this one (all the way more dangerous, since a very well-made one and apparently sincere: but when you know that apparent sincerity was -and still is- one of the communists' weapon of choice.....). Maybe at the time of this film release, it was fashionable to present the fight initiated by a few thugs making believe it was the legitimate fight by a nation for it's freedom, but, after half a century, when you look at what happened (and is still happening) in this country, there is only one thing anyone can be sure of : Gillio Pontecorvo's moral integrity and intellectual honesty is very much to be doubted; if not, he would have to be one of the most gullible and dumb fools to be put in the Guiness' Book of Records (which I don't think he is).

the hell? Aside from the silliness of this paragraph, it's also striking that Colonialism is written off so easily (and often remembered fondly) by the Amazon reviewers for this film.

[Murdoch]

From an Amazon list of the "Pretentious and Overrated":

Violently picketing an ITALIAN takeaway for only displaying photos of ITALIANS, and not african-americans on their OWN walls. The phrase "get a life" springs to mind.

Guess what movie!

[domino harvey]

Some Clint Eastwood movie

[Murdoch]

I think it was Every Which Way but Loose.

[Ovader]

Sounds like Do The Right Thing.