Joe Lavin's Humor Column Now Reviewed on a Screen near You June 3, 2003

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Lately, I have become obsessed with online movie reviews. Let's face it. Sometimes, it's a whole lot easier just to stay home and read about movies than it is to actually go to the theater. Movie reviews are shorter, cheaper ("That'll be $4.75 for a small popcorn, Sir."), and often better (Freddie Got Fingered, anyone?) than the real thing. Luckily, there are tons of movie review sites. Some will help you decide how to be entertained at the multiplex; others will simply entertain.

Spoilers Ahead

My new favorite site is Movie Spoilers from the folks at AmuseYourself.com (http://www.amuseyourself.com/moviespoilers). Have you ever gotten sucked into a movie on television and just wanted to know how the thing ends without spending an hour watching it? Then, this is the site for you. Their succinct descriptions of movies are almost an art form.

The Wizard of Oz is described simply: "It was all a dream." Casablanca is summed up with this sentence: "Rick sends Ilsa away on a plane." The Matrix? That's easy. "Neo breaks out of the Matrix and defeats the robots." Not all the descriptions are quite so short, of course. The summary of Titanic was a paragraph long, when really all I expected was: "The boat sinks." Sure, these aren't exactly movie reviews, but they can be just as helpful. For example, I, for one, certainly don't want to watch a movie with this tag line: "The dog gets rabies and the kid shoots him." *

Crankiness Rules

When I read a review, I don't just want to know if the movie is any good. I would like for the review itself to be entertaining, and that's why I gravitate towards bad reviews. Who wants to hear how much of a classic Schindler's List is when you can read someone completely rip apart Dude, Where's My Car? Roger Ebert even released an entire book with reviews of movies he hated -- called appropriately enough I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie.

Perhaps the king of the antagonistic review is none other than a man who calls himself Mr. Cranky (www.mrcranky.com). Here's someone who hates everything. Instead of stars, he rates movies on a scale of one to four bombs. For a movie so bad that it "ruptures the very fabric of space and time with the sheer overpowering force of its mediocrity," he will reward a stick of dynamite, while some select duds get the worst punishment -- a mushroom cloud.

Among recent films, Master of Disguise ("If this is Dana Carvey's idea of a kid's movie, he should be arrested for child abuse.") got a stick of dynamite, while Die Another Day received a mushroom cloud. At one point, he writes that the special effects in this James Bond movie were so bad that "it would have been more realistic-looking had somebody glued [Pierce] Brosnan's face to a popsicle stick and bobbed it up and down behind some blue construction paper."

Reel Reviews

It's almost impossible to discuss movie reviews without recommending Roger Ebert. He has, after all, become the dean of film critics. Actually, I seldom watch him on television, and I don't always agree with him, but he is by far the best writer among critics. It's almost too bad that he's primarily known for his thumbs.

His site at the Chicago Sun-Times (www.suntimes.com/index/ebert.html) allows you to search through all his reviews since 1985. Check out the films he has given less than one star, and he can seem just as irritable as Mr. Cranky. He starts his review of Battlefield Earth, for example, by saying that it's "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."

James Berardinelli, meanwhile, is a different case. He doesn't write for any newspaper or media organization, yet his reviews are just as good. These are only available online at his personal site -- www.reelviews.net. Since 1996, he has been reviewing about 250 movies a year, and he has been lauded by many including Ebert himself.

Attack of the Killer Reviewers

How do you find an independent like Berardinelli? One good place to search is the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com). Along with cast listings, you'll also find links to reviews from Ebert and Berardinelli, as well as reviews from most major newspapers. You can even find reviews that were originally posted to Usenet newsgroups. It turns out that anyone can be a critic.

Who knows? You might even find a new favorite critic here. Or, if you're like me, you'll find naive fourteen-year-olds whose reviews are more entertaining. I found one teenager by the name of Ken Johnson who had a unique take on the world of film. His review of Sneakers, for example, includes this gem: "James Earl Jones was completely wasted in a cameo performance." And he thought the movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was "just stupid." As he explains, "The idea of tomatoes eating people is preposterous, they don't have any mouths."

Most of his reviews were written in 1992 and originally posted to rec.arts.movies.reviews. Thanks to the Internet they are still preserved ten years later. I imagine Ken has some mixed feelings about that.

Movie Reviews for Parents

Finally, there's Screenit.com, a site that reviews movies for parents. To be honest, the reviewers here often seem just as cranky as Mr. Cranky himself. In their reviews, they catalog everything about a movie that is inappropriate -- including a full count of all swear words and sex scenes.

Agree with them or not, it is entertaining to see a site that lists the exact number of times the F-word is used in the South Park movie (133). It takes a certain dedication, bordering on obsession, to detail everything objectionable about movies. Indeed, after reading their South Park review, I was surprised that the reviewer's head hadn't exploded from his obvious hatred of it.

I suppose they are performing a valuable service though. My parents probably could have used this site back when I was 10, and they accidentally rented Porky's -- of which I only saw thirty seconds before I was kicked out of the room.

Interestingly, even Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio doesn't escape censure. The reviewers warn that children might imitate such phrases as "nincompoop," "splinter-head," and "dimwit." Oh, the horror!

* Old Yeller

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©2003 Joe Lavin