Just a couple that amused me greatly (possibly apocryphal).
For a '60s London musical called Yes! the review was simply
And for anyone playing the Didgeridoo:
Anyone have any more?
Regarding a performance by Katherine Hepburn, Dorothy Parker once wrote, “She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B.”
There are a bunch in this thread: Devastating Criticism
Oh. I am an unoriginal :wally .
Favorite one NOT written by me: Janet Maslin in the New York Times on “The Specialist” (1994): “Watching Sharon Stone starring opposite Sylvester Stallone is a disaster akin to the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic.”
Favorite one written by me: on Demi Moore’s “Scarlet Letter,” in Movieline: “Who’d have thought it possible for Bruce Willis to marry beneath himself?”
I asked my trusted movie-going friend, MaxTorque for his opinion on I Am Sam and he kindly referred me to Mr. Cranky’s review, from which I take the following:
There’s more. Go read it. Priceless.
As long as we’re talking about Mr. Cranky, the only critic I really trust: I Am Sam received Cranky’s lowest rating, the mushroom cloud. He created the mushroom cloud in order to provide a new “basement” for his rating system especially for one truly awful film: Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows. From that review, which you can read in full here:
Also from Mr. Cranky’s site: The bestest review of Spice World ever.
From a review I recently came across, the reviewer first names the director and then says:
Apart from him, I am not naming a soul in it, for which generosity I expect grovelling letters of thanks from the cast (and their agents) when they have had time to recover from this and their other notices.
and then:
It is reported that <movie> has so far been booked into only three cinemas. I compliment the others on their concern for their audiences.
A recent potted review in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Blow sucks.
Also from Mr. Cranky, in his review of Rollerball:
Ouch.
“This is not a book to be set aside lightly… it should be thrown with great force” - *Dorothy Parker *
I love Mr. Cranky.
From his Battlefield Earth review:
From a music review in Alternative Press, circa 1993:
I’d rather listen to an hour of armpit farts fed through an echo chamber.
Colin
I believe Roger Ebert was reviewing Tom Green’s Freddy Got Fingered was when wrote:
“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.”
George S. Kaufman’s review of a young tenor:
“Guido Nazzo is nazzo guido”
Here’s three from “The Rolling Stone Album Guide” that I love:
Of the crummy short-lived 80s group GTR: “Ttl sht.”
Of the J.J. Fad album “Not Just A Fad”: “I beg to differ.”
Of the Swans: “‘Filth’ is loud and bottom heavy, but not quite as lugubrious as ‘Greed’ or ‘Holy Money,’ both of which are so slow and bassy that the vinyl versions almost have to beg the listener not to switch the speed to 45.”
From Pitchforkmedia.com’s review of Tool’s latest album Lateralus:
My director from high school used to tell a story about a production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” that was so awful that when the Germans arrived at the end, a member of the audience stood up and shouted ‘They’re in the attic!’.
Review of Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough:
Yes, it is.
I forgot who wrote that.