'Rediculous' Customer & Critic Reviews

[Mr Sausage]

Most of you have to remember that 90% of cinematography is lighting. It's fine to mention films like Lawrence of Arabia and Barry Lyndon, but those films benefit from having sumptuous production design and amazing locations. The lighting elements, whilst good, cannot touch something like Road To Perdition or Se7en.

](*,)

To be fair, Road to Perdition was shot by Conrad Hall, and Darius Khondji's not bad himself, so it's not like Lawrence's and Barry Lyndon's cinematography is being compared to hack work.

[Magic Hate Ball]

From the DVDBeaver review of Gandhi

Gandhi had some incredible cinematography for its time - over 25-years ago.

Not the first time they've been amazed by something not-that-old. They praised the transfer of The Truman Show for looking "great for a film made ten years ago". What the christ? How bad is the print of film made in 1998 starring an A-list actor going to be? To top it off the transfer was below average.

[Saarijas]

Most of you have to remember that 90% of cinematography is lighting. It's fine to mention films like Lawrence of Arabia and Barry Lyndon, but those films benefit from having sumptuous production design and amazing locations. The lighting elements, whilst good, cannot touch something like Road To Perdition or Se7en.

](*,)

To be fair, Road to Perdition was shot by Conrad Hall, and Darius Khondji's not bad himself, so it's not like Lawrence's and Barry Lyndon's cinematography is being compared to hack work.

Oh, and I agree but it was their logic I found exceptionally entertaining. That the cinematography in Barry Lyndon isn't that great, they just have the advantage of luscious sets.

[Mr Sausage]

](*,)

To be fair, Road to Perdition was shot by Conrad Hall, and Darius Khondji's not bad himself, so it's not like Lawrence's and Barry Lyndon's cinematography is being compared to hack work.

Oh, and I agree but it was their logic I found exceptionally entertaining. That the cinematography in Barry Lyndon isn't that great, they just have the advantage of luscious sets.

I guess in Barry Lyndon's credits next to "cinematography" it should just read: nature.

[exte]

For Avatar they should have, "Intel Inside" lol...

[mfunk9786]

I know that singling out one particular DVDTalk review in this thread is like giving an F on the GED test, but this might be the worst review I've ever read on that site.

Each episode's concept is explained as if to an alien who just arrived on Earth, and the writer's opinion that shows go downhill when time and money is dedicated to the writing process is so ass-backward, it hurts.

[domino harvey]

the writer's opinion that shows go downhill when time and money is dedicated to the writing process is so ass-backward, it hurts.

Especially considering that the only worthwhile thing Parker and Stone ever did was the South Park movie, where they obviously were required by the studio to spend much more time than normal writing and working toward the final product.

[Antoine Doinel]

Argh! Why is every single sentence a new paragraph in that review?

[luridedith]

I know that singling out one particular DVDTalk review in this thread is like giving an F on the GED test, but this might be the worst review I've ever read on that site.

Good lord. Did he get paid for that review?

[Matt]

Director Zack Snyder's cerebral, scintillating follow-up to "300" seems, to even a weary filmgoer's eye, as fresh and magnificent in sound and vision as "2001" must have seemed in 1968, yet in its eagerness to argue with itself, it resembles "A Clockwork Orange."

[Cold Bishop]

Who the hell is this chump? I want the Armond White ulcer we've been promised.

This is the sort of guy who turns on a jack-o-lantern grin for how clever feels for alliterating "scintillating" and "cerebral".

[domino harvey]

I feel strongly compelled to beat this guy up and take his lunch money

[Binker]

He liked the movie so he thought he'd compare it to two other movies he also liked

[Tolmides]

Not just two, Binker. He also managed to squeeze in mentions of Dr. Strangelove and Taxi Driver, and a hilarious joke:

THEY'RE not X-Men. More like Y-Men - as in "Why bother?"

[knives]

I feel strongly compelled to beat this guy up and take his lunch money

I'll hold him down for 30% of the profit.

[Michael]

Quoted from Facebook, about The Night of the Hunter:

I heard Rose McGowan say something incredibly innacurte about this movie. I can't remember what it was but Charles Laughton told people Shelley Winters best scene was the one with her at the bottom of the river. She's not talking. Laughton was a misogynist.

WTF. Another reason why I've always despited the word "misogynist".

Another word, that appears in so many reviews I read, I despite for some reason is "flawed". What does "flawed" exactly mean? Au hasard Balthazar is a flawed film, I read once. Just because you don't like it doesn't make a film flawed.

[karmajuice]

If I come across the words flawed, pretentious, artistic, and other similarly meaningless words in something written about a film, I stop reading right then. That's a pretty good sign that reading on is a lost cause.

I also like how Kyle Smith inserts a line from All Along the Watchtower in his opening paragraph. Clever!

[jbeall]

If I come across the words flawed, pretentious, artistic, and other similarly meaningless words in something written about a film, I stop reading right then. That's a pretty good sign that reading on is a lost cause.

I also like how Kyle Smith inserts a line from All Along the Watchtower in his opening paragraph. Clever!

A fanboy who's also into Battlestar Galactica? Who knew?

[MichaelB]

If I come across the words flawed, pretentious, artistic, and other similarly meaningless words in something written about a film, I stop reading right then. That's a pretty good sign that reading on is a lost cause.

Well, it seems I've used the word "flawed" three times in my Sight & Sound output - though in all cases I was referring to DVD source materials (i.e. the "flawed soundtracks" of Ruscico's Paradjanov releases). Which I suspect you'd defend.

On the other hand, I've never - hand on heart - used the word "pretentious", and I'd be surprised if I ever did.

[karmajuice]

MichaelB, everything I've read from you I've read all the way through, and eagerly. Your reviews are far from rediculous.

I would defend that use of 'flawed'. A disc can have clearly distinguished flaws. Applying it to a work of art is troublesome, because it's not very helpful to dismiss something as a "flaw" when its effects, intentions, and implications are more complex than good or bad. The exception might be continuity errors, but one could even make an argument for those, in some cases.*

*(Take, for instance, a play I was in. It was being performed in an unused barn with two floors, with the performance on the ground floor. On the first night's performance, during a scene where some sailors sleep below deck in the middle of the day, someone left the light on upstairs. It shone through the cracks in the floor, onto the stage. At first I panicked, because they shouldn't have been on, but I immediately realized that it was a fortuitous improvement: this accidental lighting cue evoked the mid-day light shining into the quarters of an old ship. If an error possibly enhances a scene, so I would hardly consider it a flaw.)

[Dylan]

Director Zack Snyder's cerebral, scintillating follow-up to "300" seems, to even a weary filmgoer's eye, as fresh and magnificent in sound and vision as "2001" must have seemed in 1968, yet in its eagerness to argue with itself, it resembles "A Clockwork Orange."

People said the same thing about Speed Racer.

[MichaelB]

I would defend that use of 'flawed'. A disc can have clearly distinguished flaws. Applying it to a work of art is troublesome, because it's not very helpful to dismiss something as a "flaw" when its effects, intentions, and implications are more complex than good or bad. The exception might be continuity errors, but one could even make an argument for those, in some cases.

The Exterminating Angel being a particularly good one - and in that case, one of the DVDs is flawed because it tried to eliminate what looked like a continuity flaw, but wasn't.

[fiddlesticks]

This IMDB review of The Bridge at Remagen is not rediculous in its entirety, but I love this small excerpt:

George Segal ("The Longest Day") is Lt. Hartman, a burned out and pretty tired junior officer who doesn't want to accept the responsibilities of command when his company commander is killed.

George Segal...George Segal...hmm...oh yeah! #-o He's that guy that was in The Longest Day!

[domino harvey]

A twelve-year-old girl somehow has a Netflix account and has this to say about the Wicker Man

One word HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!! This movie is HORRIBLE! The people are crazy and the ending is RETARDED!! The whole thing is ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!! There are naked girls and naked scenes...I HATE THIS MOVIE!! DO NOT WATCH!! IS THE BEST ADVISE I HAVE EVER GIVEN!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT WATCH!!!!

[AfterTheRain]

A twelve-year-old girl somehow has a Netflix account and has this to say about the Wicker Man

One word HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!! This movie is HORRIBLE! The people are crazy and the ending is RETARDED!! The whole thing is ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!! There are naked girls and naked scenes...I HATE THIS MOVIE!! DO NOT WATCH!! IS THE BEST ADVISE I HAVE EVER GIVEN!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT WATCH!!!!

Is she talking about the original or the Nicolas Cage remake?