# Critics or reviewers blunders or examples of stupidity **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 15, 2002, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033 "2002-07-15T10:24:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/21 "2002-07-17T01:50:16Z")
**Green Bean** It IS Artoo Deetoo and See Threepio. Read the SW books. They’re always referred to as Artoo and Threepio. Makes them seem less machine like, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/22 "2002-07-24T04:26:11Z")
**Metropolitan** is one of my favorite movies. I was amazed to see, in one of his collections, that Ebert had actually reviewed it. But he made a crucial mistake. One of the characters, Tom Townsend, is carrying a serious torch for a girl by the name of Serena Slocum, according to Ebert, “once glimpsed at a dance, never forgotten”. NNNNNTTTTTTTTT! He was one of twenty or so guys that she strung along! There was no “glimpsing”! And it’s not just a matter of Ebert having been at the concession stand during the early scene where he introduces himself as her “ex-boyfriend” and her schoolmates callously inform him that they’ve heard that before. Much later, the plot turns on the disposition of the **numerous letters he wrote to her**! Glimpse this, Rodge! ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/23 "2002-07-24T05:21:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > **Peter Travers of _Rolling Stone_, who is usually a pretty good reviewer, complained in his review of the _E.T._ anniversary re-release this year about the “penis breath” line being taken out. Except that it wasn’t.** Are you serious?? I refused to watch the re-release _specifically_ because I heard they had removed that line. Are you telling me it was in there all this time??? Ok, not a movie, but in [this article](http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/music/article/0,1299,DRMN_54_1276388,00.html) from the Rocky Mountain News about the Yes reunion with Rick Wakeman, the writer definitely needs to check up on his facts. First, he lists the “classic lineup” as “Rick Wakeman, Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Alan White and _Bill Bruford_” – excuse me, what about Chris Squire? He’s the ONLY constant member in the band, after all…and Bill hasn’t been with the band since 1972, aside from a brief reunion in '91. Then he says, “[Wakeman] toured with the band on the Union tour in 1994, but in the ensuing years they never played together again.” First of all, the Union tour was in '91, not '94. Second, he completely forgot the SLO reunion in '96 – granted, it was only three shows, but that counts doesn’t it? The worst part of it is that the article is written from the point of view of a total fan, who you’d think would get his facts straight. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/24 "2002-07-24T05:23:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by voguevixen \* > Shocked by it? I’ve written an X-rated movie; how many X-rated movies have YOU written?" I’ll bet that particular trump card doesn’t come up very often in debates. But when it does, it’s worth it. I can think of two. The first is from Roger Ebert’s review of _Home of the Brave_, the concert movie by Laurie Anderson. He cites one of her pieces where she discusses how fast sperm would be swimming if they were proportionally increased to the size of a sperm whale. Except she didn’t perform that in the movie. Either he saw an early cut of the film (I’ve only seen it on video), or he’s a Laurie Anderson fan and got confused. Either way’s cool with me. The other I think was Greg Palmer, the movie reviewer for channel 5 in Seattle. He was reviewing _The Empire Strikes Back_. First he mentioned that he had not seen _Star Wars_, then in his review of _Empire_ he complained that the ‘cute robot’ shtick had been done to death recently. Well, no kidding, pal. It was done to death because everybody was ripping off _Star Wars_, and I say the inventor of a routine gets to use it as much as he wants to. [sub]I know there’s probably a debate to be had over who was the first person to put cute robots into a film, but let’s not start that now. I still think the point stands.[/sub] Palmer earned a small measure of forgiveness for a story I heard him tell once. Before him, the movie reviewer for that station was a woman named Lucy Mohl. After he took over, someone recognized him on the street and said, “So, they got rid of that broad that used to do the movie reviews, huh?” Palmer replied, “We don’t use that term. We call them films.” ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/25 "2002-07-24T07:57:54Z")
A music “critic” at the college daily I used to write for thought that the Culture Club song _Church of the Poison Mind_ was about organized religion, and the Tears for Fears song _Everbody Wants to Rule the World_ was about fascism. ---
**Author:** ![Junior\_Spaceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Junior\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Junior_Spaceman)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/26 "2002-07-24T09:21:09Z")
Well, I don’t know if this one tops the others, but it’s way up there. This is by Bryan Patterson, who is usually the religion/spirituality writer in the newspaper he’s in ( **The Sunday Herald Sun** , if you’re interested), and is one of the strangest examples of muddled thinking I’ve ever seen in a review. This was a review of a record called _Eat/Kiss_ by **John Cale**. Although a positive review, here are the first two paragraphs: > [@](#): > > John Cale once wrote a piece called _Four Minutes_, which consisted of a piano player sitting silently at a concert piano for exactly four minutes. It was performed at several major music festival. > > Cage’s works are almost always bizarre. This collection, recorded live … is a masterful rendition of his extraordinary and very often beautiful music Well, as a Velvet Underground fan for many years, I’m used to people mixing up John **Cale** with both John **Cage** and J. J. Cale. That’s one level of ignorance/bizarreness. But how on earth did he manage to include both the names **Cale** and **Cage** in the one review, unless he couldn’t remember the name of the artist he was reviewing and was having 50 cents each way? There’s nothing in the rest of the review to hint that he knew that John Cage and John Cale are actually two different people. This mistake is so incredible, that you almost overlook the fact that the piece of silent music is not called ‘four minutes’, but _4’33"_. Maybe the reason he couldn’t find it in his music encyclopedia was that he was looking up J. J. Cale? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/27 "2002-07-24T09:32:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ianzin \* > **Last year the London Evening Standard ran a review of a West End play, ‘The Life and Death of Joe Egg’.** Gaudere’s Law: the play’s called “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg”. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/28 "2002-07-24T09:56:02Z")
I wrote Siskel & Ebert off years ago. (Trivia note, the monster in _Willow_ was called Sebert. Any guesses as to who inspired the name?) Back when Barbara Striesand’s movie _Yentl_ came out Sebert – er Siskel & Ebert – trashed the film (and rightly so, IMHO). In fact, they were downright scathing about the film. Then, years later they did a retrospective on Bab’s career. Guess which of her films they claimed to have always loved? (Hint, it ain’t _Hello, Dolly_) :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/29 "2002-07-24T10:27:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tuckerfan \* > **Trivia note, the monster in _Willow_ was called Sebert. Any guesses as to who inspired the name?** I read that it was ‘Ebersisk’. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/30 "2002-07-24T13:11:56Z")
Brace yourself: Rex Reed. In his review of _Name of the Rose_ he not only lambasted a movie he clearly barely followed, but _gave away the key to the murder mystery_. I thought a rule was that, regardless of whether you like a mystery story, you _don’t give away the ending_. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/31 "2002-07-24T13:43:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Cage’s works are almost always bizarre. At least that part of the review was true. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2002, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033/32 "2002-07-24T13:58:30Z")
You’ll find many examples of reviewer ineptitude in _VideoHound_. That is, if you can set aside all of the typos, grammatical misconstructions, and so forth. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critics-or-reviewers-blunders-or-examples-of-stupidity/119033.md?page=1)