In the paper, this weekend, Lloyd Kaufman called A.I. Artificial Intelligence “emotional pornography.” And then there’s Rolling Stone’s review of Bob Dylan’s (I think) “Self Portrait” which read, simply, “This is shit.”
Any other suggestions for best critiques?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that one critic gave Wham! the following succinct review:
“Ouch!”
There’s also the story of the writer, on vacation but curious as to whether his latest effort was selling wrote his publisher, asking simply, “?” The response, as I heard it was, “!”
Well, you don’t have to go much further than Dorothy Parker for absolutely blistering critiques (that are a tad more witty that simply “this is shit”).
“This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
“The ‘House Beautiful’ is the play lousy.”
And of course, as was recently cited on this board by someone, in her book review column, the Constant Reader, when reviewing The House at Pooh Corner, “Tonstant Weader frew up.”.
I think, but am not sure, that she was responsible for “She ran the gamut of emotions from ‘A’ to ‘B’.”
Regrettably, I can’ remember a lot of the zingers from play reviews of Broadway’s heyday (Eve, where are you?), but
the members of the Algonquin Round Table were not shy in lambasting plays and playwrights.
I think, but am not sure, that she was responsible for “She ran the gamut of emotions from ‘A’ to ‘B’.”
I think so too, I believe she was refering to Kate Hepburn.
Roger Ebert said of Freddy Got Fingered: “This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.” In my opinion, this is serious understatement of the horribleness of this movie.
The ‘gaumet of emotions’ crack was directed at Hepburn for her performance in the stage version of “Philadelphia Story.”
“The Portable Dorothy Parker” is one of my favorite books because it contains a generous selection of her book and play reviews.
Unfortunately, I’ll have to rely on my uncertain memory for the following. I can guarantee that they’re about 80 percent correct:
“The love affair between Margaret Asquith and Margaret Asquith is one of the prettiest that will go down in literature.”
“Dashiell Hammett is as American as a sawed-off shotgun. He is as immediate as a front-page extra.”
“And to those who wrote in to say that they could write better dramatic criticism – and darn-tootin’ better at it as well – I can only throw to them what only sounds like a kiss.”
I picked up these lines off Jabootu, from the review of Sextette. These are excerpts from a review written at the time the movie came out. Sextette, for those who haven’t heard of its awfulness yet, is a really lame movie starring Mae West, in which she plays an ultra-glamorous object of desire…at the age of 87.
Probably my favorite succinct review was the amazing James Agee and his four-word assessment of the film You Were Meant for Me: “That’s What You Think”
That, I believe, was Victor Hugo, and the book in question Les Misérables. ! indeed. 
I think it was Pauline Kael who once described Arnold Schwartzenegger as “Look[ing] like a condom stuffed with walnuts.”
Mary McCarthy once said of Lillian Hellman, on national TV, “Every word she says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”
This isn’t exactly devastating, but I’ve always like this one from Bloom County. Opus is reviewing a film as follows:
“This movie has brought the word “BAD” to new levels of badness. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This bad film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene…simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness.”
He pauses in his typing.
“Well, maybe not that bad, but lord, it wasn’t good.”
In Douglass Adams’, God Rest His Soul, Life, the Universe, and Everything, he said this:“That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.”
But my personal favorite is a line from Creative Loafing(an alternative weekly in Atlanta) about Practical Magic: “Two more laughs than The Crucible!”
I think the all-time champ of the poison review might have to go to Roger Ebert, for his review of ‘North’. Here’s a choice sampling from the review:
Earlier in the review, he said:
Now THAT is a bad review.
Sam reminded me of another Ebert review, one that I feel is even harsher than the one for North. This is from his review for a movie called Mad Dog Time:
I had a journalism professor who’s known for things like this, although somehow I managed to avoid the brunt of them.
Every class has a “Poison Pen” page in the yearbook, and this guy figures prominently. If this thread is still active after I get my hands on a copy of my yearbook (didn’t buy one yet, damnit), I’ll post more, but my personal all-time favorite was when he told a woman “You aren’t ready for adjectives.”
Later, Ebert said this about the movie Frogs for Snakes:
Here’s a nice one by Chuck Scgwartz, about the movie Baby Geniuses:
And finally, here’s a nice analysis of the movie that every member of the SDMB has come to know and love:
The review of Baby Geniuses reminds me of the review from the IMDb’s New Video section. I don’t have the exact quote, but it went something like:
“We are required to advertise this movie as part of our contract with Amazon.com, but please don’t interpret that as an endorsement of this turd. We like you people, and we want you to like us. Please, please, please don’t watch this movie thinking we recommended it.”
–sublight.
Lowtax on www.somethingawful.com is a hoot when he reviews bad games and movies. Here’s an excerpt from his Thundra (PC game) review:
I think it was PC Gamer that used to nominate one game every month as “Coaster of the Month:” So bad, its only possible use is as a drink coaster.
re: Baby Geniuses, I think this movie was responsible for Gene Siskel’s death. He had the tumor removed, was getting better, saw this film, and just gave up.
In 1951, before they were also the basis for Cabaret, John van Druten turned the Berlin stories of Christopher Isherwood into a play called I Am a Camera. Reputedly, one of the reviews was headlined “Me No Leica.”