Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImageRoger Ebert passed away yesterday, leaving the world with years and years of movie reviews to remember him by. When Ebert liked a movie, he was well spoken, complimentary and often poignant. When he didn't like a movie, he was scathing, relentless and all around funny as hell.
So we've rounded up 13 of his best (bad) reviews and organized them by category, for your easy reading. With Ebert, it didn't even matter if you'd seen the movie to enjoy his review. But read on and you'll see that for yourself:
He was a master of similes and metaphors:
On The Twilight Saga: New Moon: "Sitting through this experience is like driving a tractor in low gear though a sullen sea of Brylcreem."
On Battlefield Earth: "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."
On Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: "If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."
On 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...Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line."
He'd often include things he'd rather be doing:
On Seven Days in Utopia: "I would rather eat a golf ball than see this movie again."
On The Brown Bunny: "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny."
On Masterminds: "I stopped taking notes on my Palm Pilot and started playing the little chess game."
He's sometimes slip in some dating advice:
On Valentines Days: "Valentine's Day is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think it's more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date."
On Battle: Los Angeles: "Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you've been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart."
And sometimes he was simply scathing:
On 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."
On A Lot Like Love: "To call A Lot like Love dead in the water is an insult to water."
On North: "I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated 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."
Last but certainly not least, this double whammy, which not only ripped the movie that he was reviewing but Britney Spears' cinematic debut: "Sorority Boys will be the worst movie playing in any multiplex in America this weekend, and, yes, I realize Crossroads is still out there."
It's a shame we'll never hear what he has to say about Fifty Shades of Grey.