# Devastating Criticism **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 10, 2001, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692 "2001-08-10T00:21:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dasceder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@dasceder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasceder)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/1 "2001-08-10T00:21:07Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/2 "2001-08-10T00:29:30Z")
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, “!” ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/3 "2001-08-10T00:37:32Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![dasceder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@dasceder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasceder)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/4 "2001-08-10T00:41:21Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/5 "2001-08-10T00:45:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![pesch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pesch/32/4925_2.png) [@pesch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pesch)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/6 "2001-08-10T00:53:31Z")
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.” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/7 "2001-08-10T01:01:22Z")
I picked up these lines off [Jabootu](http://www.jabootu.com), from the review of _[Sextette](http://www.jabootu.com/sextette.htm)_. 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. > [@](#): > > In the first sentence of his review (June 8th, 1979), [Vincent] Canby announces that “Sextette is a disorientating freak show.” It was, he further noted, “a poetic, terrifying reminder of how a virtually disembodied ego can survive total physical decay and loss of common sense.” > > “The character we see in this peculiar film looks less like the Mae West one remembers from even “Myra Breckinridge” than like a plump sheep that’s been stood on its hind legs, dressed in a drag-queen’s idea of chic, bewigged and then smeared with pink plaster. The creature inside this getup seems game but arthritic and perplexed.” > > As if this (and more) weren’t enough, two weeks later Canby returned to the subject in a piece on summer horror movies (including Prophecy!). Amusingly, he first slams Barbra Streisand in The Main Event, noting that that film’s director “seems to have less control over Miss Streisand than our scientists have over Skylab.” Soon, though, he’s back to the matter at hand: > > “The creepiest monster movie of the year to date must certainly be “Sextette,” in which we are presented with the bizarre sight of the 87-year-old seemingly arthritic Mae West tottering around as she mouths some of her better known one-liners and pretends to be the kind of sex-object that drives men to suicide. When Mae was a kid – in her 40’s, say – one could say she was parodying sex. When she’s in her 80’s, the spectacle suggests some kinky variation on necrophilia.” ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/8 "2001-08-10T01:06:19Z")
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” ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/9 "2001-08-10T01:11:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KneadToKnow \* > \*\*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, “!” \*\* That, I believe, was Victor Hugo, and the book in question _Les Misérables._ ! indeed. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/10 "2001-08-10T01:20:05Z")
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’.” ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/11 "2001-08-10T02:00:51Z")
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.” ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/12 "2001-08-10T02:05:32Z")
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**!” ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/13 "2001-08-10T02:49:44Z")
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: > [@](#): > > I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it. Earlier in the review, he said: > [@](#): > > “North” is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I’ve had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails. Now THAT is a bad review. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/14 "2001-08-10T03:01:29Z")
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_: > [@](#): > > _Mad Dog Time_ is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time…It should be cut up to provide free ukelele picks for the poor. ---
**Author:** ![Rosebud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rosebud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rosebud)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/15 "2001-08-10T04:30:31Z")
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.” ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/16 "2001-08-10T04:33:53Z")
Later, Ebert said this about the movie _Frogs for Snakes_: > [@](#): > > I was reminded of “Mad Dog Time” (1996), another movie in which well-known actors engaged in laughable dialogue while shooting one another. Of that one, I wrote: " `Mad Dog Time’ is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time." Now comes “Frogs for Snakes,” the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of “Mad Dog Time.” Here’s a nice one by Chuck Scgwartz, about the movie _Baby Geniuses_: > [@](#): > > God, just trying to explain this thing logically is causing me pain. Movies as bas as Baby Geniuses are the reason why Press Notes were first invented. Without them, reviewers such as yours truly could never hope to explain the various intricacies of bad movies and give away all the twists and turns that you pay your hard earned bucks to enjoy. What a wonderful thing it is, then, to tell you that there is absolutely nothing I can give away that will ruin Baby Geniuses for you. That is how incredibly bad it is. It must be seen to understand the torment that folk like me go through hundreds of times a year. And finally, here’s a nice analysis of the movie that every member of the SDMB has come to know and love: > [@](#): > > . Unless you’re among those already swept up by LaHaye and Jenkins’ commercial juggernaut, watching Left Behind’s plodding screen adaptation may make you feel the Deity has already abandoned us to a shockingly dull post-apocalypse. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/17 "2001-08-10T05:56:58Z")
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](http://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. ---
**Author:** ![bleach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bleach/32/3106_2.png) [@bleach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bleach)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2001, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/18 "2001-08-10T06:05:46Z")
Lowtax on [www.somethingawful.com](http://www.somethingawful.com) is a hoot when he reviews bad games and movies. Here’s an excerpt from his Thundra (PC game) review: > [@](#): > > Rumor has it that scientists at MIT are dissecting and studying the basic code from this game because they believe the author has achieved the first pure form of raw, concentrated digital pain. If they are ever able to reconstruct the tightly woven threads of torture that compose this game, the US government will soon have a weapon of mass destruction, a weapon so powerful that all opposing countries will instantly submit to the will of America rather than face this pixelated lump of ass. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2001, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/19 "2001-08-11T04:34:34Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2001, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692/20 "2001-08-11T06:15:34Z")
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.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devastating-criticism/75692.md?page=2)