These are HARSH. Let’s see what I can dig up from la Parker.
“An attempt was made to suppress the book [The President’s Daughter by Nan Britton]. The author states, in one of her prefaces, that ‘six burly policemen…seized and carried off the plates and printed sheets.’ ‘Lady,’ you want to say to the author, 'those weren’t policemen; they were critics of literature dressed up.”
“…The Autobiography of Margot Asquith (four volumes, neatly boxed, suitable for throwing purposes.)”
“It may be that this autobiography [In the Service of the King, by Aimee Semple McPherson] is set down in sincerity, frankness, and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario.”
“The sun becomes ‘that round orb of day’ (as opposed, I expect, to those square orbs you see about so much lately)…”
“With the publication of this, her book, Aimee Semple McPherson has replaced Elsie Dinsmore as my favorite character in fiction.”
“I cannot tell you how not hungry it makes me to follow [a character] in conversation.”
“Nearly six hundred sheets to the title of Dawn; God help us one and all if Mr. Dreiser ever elects to write anything called June Twenty-First!”
Frank Langella, shortly after Dracula, starred in a movie called Sphinx, which presumed, I believe, to be a tale of intrigue set in Egypt. It did not do well at the box office or with critics.
I don’t remember who wrote it, but some critic wrapped it up nicely in a two-word review:
Mike Nelson in Movie Megacheese wrote some good reviews of bad films; one I remember particularly (if not exactly) was in his review of the Batman movies - “That someone thought that the sight of Danny DeVito cramming alewives into his disgusting maw was something to be projected onto a screen for viewing by other human beings is something I will never understand.”
I’ve always liked Mike Royko’s review of then-New York Mets’ first baseman Keith Hernandez’s book, which Cub-fan Royko named “A Very Solid Book” by virtue of the fact it survived repeated hurlings at his wall.
For music criticism, see just about every review ever written by J.D. Considine.
Personally I’ve always loathed these one-line reviews. They may be funny, but what the hell do they tell you about the film/album/whatever, other than that it isn’t to the reviewer’s personal taste?
A friend of mine, Robin Purves, co-edited one of my favourite poetry magazines of the 1990s with Peter Manson: Object Permanence (alas, it ended after 8 issues). It was notable for its terrific reviews section–blunt, scabrous, & terse. I’ll enclose three reviews from a single page of the journal:
On the other hand perhaps I may be permitted the indulgence of quoting a review of Keith Tuma’s Anthology of 20th-Century British and Irish Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2001), a book for which I wrote all the annotations. This is by Sean O’Brien in the current issue of Poetry Review: just the opening few paragraphs, though it doesn’t exactly get nicer
OK: sorry for the self-indulgence here. (I should add that I’m not especially unhappy about the review: if the book is offending someone as asinine as Mr O’Brien, then it’s doing something right.)
After a musical introduction to the Academy awards featuring Rob Lowe and Teri Garr, neither of whom can sing a note, singing a duet, one reviewer was prompted to write, “If a brick could sing, it would sound like Teri Garr.”
Dont remember the critic or the movie, but the line sticks with me: “[This movie] achieves the remarkable feat of being offensive without at the same time being interesting.”
More Roger Ebert:
Armageddon: “No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out.”
Caligula: “Caligula is utterly worthless, shameful trash. Caligula is not good art, it is not good cinema, it is not good porn.”
Jaws the Revenge: “What shark wouldn’t want revenge against the survivors of the men who killed it?”
Lake Placid: “This is the kind of movie that actors discuss in long, sad talks with their agents.”
“Battlefield Earth” is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It’s not merely bad; it’s unpleasant in a hostile way. The visuals are grubby and drab. The characters are unkempt and have rotten teeth. Breathing tubes hang from their noses like ropes of snot. The soundtrack sounds like the boom mike is being slammed against the inside of a 55-gallon drum. The plot. . . .
Actually, this was a very long review in many sections (1 per song), the first of which consisted of “What is this shit?”. There’s rarely been a more detailed ripping apart of a work of art, so I thought it was worth defending. The whole thing appears in Clinton Heylin’s ‘Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll Writing’.
There’s one particularly annoying, namedropping poseur of a journalist in Melbourne - I won’t mention his name, but let’s call him Cameron. He hated the first Pearl Jam album, and when the first single (GO) from their second record came out, he obviously didn’t even listen to it before giving the two word review “Go. Away.” When it came around for him to review the record, he was quite positive about it, which did not do much for his credibility.
If you want some pretty crude, no holds barred (admittedly, kinda funny) ranting about the movie du jour check out www.filthycritic.com.
Here’s an sample from a recent review titled "Planet Of the Shit Throwing Apes"
Or in reference to the recent Rush Hour 2
It sure ain’t Shakespeare, but he does effectively sum up the frustration many of us feel after seeing some of these films.