I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie

Roger Ebert's Movies that Suck

by Roger Ebert

I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie is a hilarious collection of Roger Ebert's reviews of films that he believes should be avoided at any cost. And yet there is a certain allure in the deliciously caustic comments that make the reader actually want to go out and see these movies. After all, who wouldn't want to watch a movie so magnificently bad that its "sincere idiocy...has to be seen to be appreciated"?

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Media Tie In, Humor, Essays, Criticism, Reference

400 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2000

About the author

Roger Joseph Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic and screenwriter.

He was known for his weekly review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television program Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, he auditioned several potential replacements, ultimately choosing Richard Roeper to fill the open chair. The program was retitled Ebert & Roeper and the Movies in 2000.

Ebert's movie reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad. He wrote more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. His television programs have also been widely syndicated, and have been nominated for Emmy awards. In February 1995, a section of Chicago's Erie Street near the CBS Studios was given the honorary name Siskel & Ebert Way. Ebert was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June 2005, the first professional film critic to receive one. Roger Ebert was named as the most influential pundit in America by Forbes Magazine, beating the likes of Bill Maher, Lou Dobbs, and Bill O'Reilly.[2] He has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the American Film Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

From 1994 until his death in 2013, he wrote a Great Movies series of individual reviews of what he deemed to be the most important films of all time. He also hosted the annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois from 1999 until his death.

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The late Roger Ebert could write a review like no other. Although one might not always agree with movie critics opinion (Cotton Club springs to mind....I loved it, critics hated it).....Ebert's insightful and hilarious dissection of what he thought were terrible films will make you chuckle. And, surprisingly, you may agree with him on most of his choices. I must admit, however, there were a few that I never heard of.....maybe they were so bad they sank like a stone and are not known to the general public. Regardless, these reviews are literate and amusing and this is a fun book to keep by the bed and browse at leisure. Thumbs up, Roger!!!

[Les · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Loved, Loved, Loved This Book! I am almost embarrassed to admit I have seen way more of these movies than I did in the other Ebert book I read recently. These are based upon his published reviews as a working film reviewer so many of the really bad movies from the 50s and early 60s do not appear. And these movies had to be released to theaters so no dreadful direct to VHS or cable movies made the cut. Lastly the films seem to end in early 2000 so you won't see Gigli or Disaster Movie or Battlefield Earth. There haven't been any movies that I saw via MST3K for example.

What made me love a book that challenged my normalcy bias? The snarkiness. I know you are thinking Leslie loves Sarcasm and Snarkiness? Yes I do and I love snarky analogies ever more and they are delivered over and over.

And even the movies I didn't think were awful; Billy Madison, Lake Placid and the Wedding Singer, I can't disagree with Mr. Ebert's dismissals.

There are a few I fear he missed like Batman and Robin (1997) and Wild, Wild, West (1999)

And one of the most interesting things I noticed is how many movies were in the front half and really the front 1/6th of the alphabet. I can only think that the producers of these movies some how thought that getting in the front of the alphabet puts you at the top of the Oscar voting... unfortunately that was their only thought toward awards. Another interesting tidbit is there seem to be two types of actors you see in these movies the fairly famous ones who you know will show up anywhere for a paycheck and they appear over and over in the list. And actors who disappeared after their appearance in these disasters.

Among the snarky quotes I just adored
"as part of a trend in which Hollywood buys French comedies and experiments on them to see if they can be made in English with all of the humor taken out."

“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.”

"If I were more of a hero, I would spend the next couple of weeks breaking into theaters where this movie is being shown, and leading the audience to safety."

"You look at them and wonder how, at any stage of the production, anyone could have thought there was a watchable movie here."

"Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter’s basilica."

"The dancers march about and twirl their scarves as if Leni Reifenstahl’s Triumph of the Will had been gotten pregnant by Busby Berkeley."

Vocab:
squirmarama ?? Apparently this is an Ebert invented word. I am assuming it means something that makes you so uncomfortable that you squirm in your seat.

detumescently the process of subsiding from a state of tension, swelling, or (especially) sexual arousal.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One word: “Gymkata”

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 4 out of 5]

My book reviews have sometimes been described as "critical" other times as emotional...sometimes they are called less complimentary things. Whatever, compared to Mr. Ebert, I'm a piker when it comes to humorous evisceration.

I used to watch Siskel and Ebert on TV (the book is dedicated to Gene Siskel) and found that I agreed with Mr. Ebert maybe half the time. Here even if I enjoyed one of the movies he drags over the coals (as in say Assassins with Stallone and Banderas) I have to admit he's USUALLY (though not always [in my opinion]) right. it's not (objectively speaking) that great a movie. (In the case of Assassins his criticisms of the absurdity are on the money. I just enjoyed the action scenes LOl).

The movies in the book are a mixture of well known movies you will probably have heard of (Renaissance Man or Friday the Thirteenth 2, The Good Son) and a few lesser know efforts, though most of these I'd say you'll have a nodding acquaintance with (Gators, Eric the Viking [which has a kind of "cult recognition'] or T.N.T. Jackson). You will probably agree often and like me now and then he'll attack a movie you like.

In my case he gives (for example)Ghost and the Darkness a half star and I like the movie...oh well. Ya the effects are a bit poor and the movie isn't the best written...but I like it. Maybe it's just because I find the events the movie is loosely based on interesting? Whatever.

Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Ebert the reviews are usually funny...often a bit nastily so and lucid. Ebert may not like what you do, but he knows what he likes and is vocal (is it vocal if it's written?) about it.

Enjoy.

[Jim Dooley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Ebert has been my most trusted film critic. This wasn't necessarily because we saw eye-to-eye more often than not, but because he was someone who had a genuine love for sitting in a theater and viewing movies. This was more important to him than the need to be witty or satirical in his reviews ... less about ego and more about the emotional and artistic experience.

When I saw this book, I was immediately curious. What films did he find to be so terrible that he couldn't just write them off with a shrug of his shoulders? Oh, there are some that I have detested, and there were some that I knew weren't "good" movies, but that I enjoyed anyway. What was his criteria?

I soon learned that every movie he viewed would receive at least a half-star unless he considered it to be reprehensible or beyond any sense of artistic merit. Fair game for inclusion in this book was any film that received from zero- to two-stars.

Now, the good news for me was that I'd never seen (and had no desire to see) quite a few of the titles he reviewed. So, I had saved myself some agony. There were also the vindications, such as ARMAGEDDON ... a film I thought was terrible, but was praised to the heavens by some acquaintances.

What was fascinating were the ones that I didn't think should be included. Indeed, some of them had grudging acknowledgment of good aspects, so I was surprised that his rating was so low. For instance:

BLUE VELVET - Really? I like this film a lot. He said that it took the brave performance of the lead actress and then mocked it with humorous distractions. I didn't get that from the movie. I'll go back and look again.

COLOR OF THE NIGHT - Bruce Willis movies were often in his crosshairs. Yes, this isn't a "good" movie, but it is incredibly sexy and a lot of fun.

THE DEAD POET'S SOCIETY - This isn't one that I wanted to see again, yet I don't remember it being a terrible movie.

THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS - Okay, we've come to one that I enjoy immensely and have seen many times. (I also showed it to my college-age daughter who is picky about what she likes, and she liked this one.) Roger, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II - This is my favorite movie in the series. Yes, it is bloody and very gruesome. Yet, I also thought it was imaginative and inspired.

THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM - Not a great movie by any means, but very watchable.

RAPA NUI - I haven't seen this one. However, near the end of his review, he mentioned that he wouldn't mind seeing it again. Doesn't that make it a "guilty pleasure" candidate?

What became apparent from my reading is that viewing a movie is responding to storytelling. At the end of the story, we may be disappointed and annoyed by it. Or we may be upset by it. Then again, we may find the story or storyteller to be hopelessly inept, like the person who can't tell a joke to save his life. All of this would explain why opinions can change over time ... especially after a subsequent viewing when our expectation going in has changed.

And sometimes we just have to agree to disagree because our tastes are different. After all, Roger Ebert wrote the screenplay for BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS ... and I Hated, Hated, Hated That Movie.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in Roger Ebert's "Movies that Suck" series, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie is a collection of Ebert's witty pans of movies he endured over the course of his critical career (up til 2000, anyway). Highlights include his takedown of the execrable Armageddon, the inane 1998 remake of Godzilla, and the soppy Home Alone 2, reviews in which Ebert reveals a stronger sense of humour than many a Hollywood screenwriter. If there's a downside to the book, it's the same one that dogged Ebert throughout his career as a critic: a repugnance of screen violence which leads to reviews that have a touch of the moral crusader Mary Whitehouse about them. I just can't get behind bad reviews of horror classics like Day of the Dead, The Hitcher and Lake Placid (okay, I'm pushing it with that last one but Betty White just died and I'm a bit emotional!). Even this has its upsides, though, such as Ebert's review of The Night Porter -- more thoughtful than any Nazisploitation flick I can remember. So I guess I can tolerate our differences, Roger.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father calls Roger Ebert his "pooping buddy". I would wager that few others refer to the esteemed, Pultizer-winning Chicago-based critic as such. Dad has bestowed this singular honor upon the man because the shelf by the toilet in my childhood home is jam packed with Ebert's review books, and this laugh-out-loud collection of some of his crankier write-ups is by far the most worn and dog-eared of the bunch. Ebert's reviews are always engaging and loaded with heart, whether good or bad, but he has a wonderful ear for humourous exaggeration that occasionally puts me in mind of Bill Bryson, and such an unequalled love for the medium that the legitimate pain caused him by some of these stinkers results in one hilariously expressed tantrum after another. He chews these movies right out. I laugh. I relate. I defecate into the toilet. Roger Ebert: one of the best.

[John Orman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Ebert unloads many scathing critiques on over 200 bad movies in this alphabetically arranged book full of sarcasm. Ebert notes that he is "not proud of all the smartass remarks in this book ... The movies made me do it."

Movies I was not surprised to see here:
Alligator
The Babe
Bolero--gets a star from me for showing off Bo Derek, but that is all that shows up in the movie.
I Spit On Your Grave--"sick, reprehensible, contemptible."
Ishtar--"truly dreadful, a lifeless, massive, lumbering exercise in failed comedy."
Piranha
Starship Troopers
Wedding Singer

Movies I am somewhat surprised to see here:
Jonathan Livingston Seagull--Ebert walked out after 45 minutes.
Lost in Space--"dim-witted shoot-em-up
Godzilla (1998)
Ace Ventura

Movies I am very surprised to see here:
Hitcher (1986)--My first exposure to the weird creepiness of Rutger Hauer. I really liked the movie--thought it was scary throughout.
Armageddon
Alien Resurrection
Hindenburg


So Ebert hurls some mighty rotten tomatoes at these films, but those tomatoes are always soaked in clever vinegar.

[Trin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My boss would probably hate this book. He’s a big fan of David Denby’s Snark, and thinks bitchy criticism is the devil. I think it’s hilarious, especially when it’s being dealt out by a clever writer like Ebert. (I specify clever writer because, although I enjoy Ebert’s reviews very much, I don’t always agree with his taste in movies. In that I tend to like even fewer of them than he does. If this were my book, it would be called I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, and Yes, That One Too.) Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands on the second volume at some point, because reading a good excoriation of a stinky piece of crap is like a balm on my withered old snarky soul.

[Randy Lander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is there anything more glorious than seeing a talented, insightful critic just tear into terrible art?

Maybe that's mean of me, but bad movies/comics/books etc. are offensive in that they waste our precious time and often insult our intelligence, and occasionally you need someone to stand up and yell "You suck!"

Metaphorically, of course. In print, rather than yelling. And with a lot more wit and style than that.

I don't always agree with Ebert's negative reviews, but there's always something entertaining about them. And this was one of those books that was very helpful in trying to build up a more useful, entertaining critical vocabulary when I was reviewing comics full-time.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

These reviews are mostly fun, not extraordinary insightful and certainly not academic in nature, but then again we're not talking about movies that will stand the test of time.

[Sam Mansourou · Rating 4 out of 5]

A big part of you stops taking his reviews as serious after he contends here that he hated Dead Poets Society.

[Daniel A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had originally given Roger Ebert's first volume of Movies That Suck™, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, four stars; upon careful consideration—very much on the grounds that the first volume is ultimately the best—I gave it five. Yes, in Your Movie Sucks, Ebert hits a stride, with almost a heyday of cruddy movies; I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie lays the groundwork for that book. Yes, it does very much feel, in A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length, like movies have only gotten worse more quickly (and Ebert's criticism sharper [and funnier]) in recent years; I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, with its copious zero-star reviews, shows that there have always been movies that sucked, from Caligula (1979), before and after.

Part of the charm of I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie—and one of the core reasons for a five-star review—is that Ebert is unafraid, even as he labels a movie terrible, to recommend it as, in the words of the inimitable Pauline Kael, "great trash". As with Basic Instinct 2 (2006) in Your Movie Sucks, in I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, Ebert gleefully and backhandedly recommends Rapa-Nui (1994), both despite and because of its lousiness. At the same time, Ebert is savage with movies he discerns as having no merit whatsoever: As with Caligula, he gives the original version of I Spit on Your Grave (1978) zero stars; as with the former movie, Ebert finds the latter utterly and completely reprehensible, and makes crystal clear the reasons for this.

It has been said—for me, most notably by my friend Daniel M. Kimmel—that a film critic's job is not to tell you what you should or should not enjoy in film, but rather to give enough information for you to determine whether you want to see a given movie or not. In I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, Ebert manages to do so for movies both trashy and great-trashy; Ebert provides great pleasure both in his savaging of truly worthless movies—and in his turning the reader on to movies that are worth seeing precisely for their overarching badness, as Dave Barry suggests in his cover blurb. There's a reason Ebert is seen as (one of) the king(s) of film criticism, and I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie is excellent illustration why.

[Dracolibris · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading his obituary, I realized that even though I liked Roger Ebert, I hadn't really paid much attention to his movie reviews. I admired him more for his personal fortitude and attitude, and though I knew he was an excellent film critic, I tend to avoid most reviews in general so that I can form my own opinions. However, when I saw that he had published a book gathering all his worst reviews, I thought that it sounded very entertaining.

And it was. I didn't read every single review, or every single page, but really enjoyed this book and found myself laughing out loud at times, or turning to a page and being surprised to find that he skewered one of my all time favorite movies.

The man was a wordsmith, and when he hated a movie, he really, really hated it. Which, of course, makes it so fun. I think one of my favorite bits is from the review of Frozen Assets, a movie I didn't know existed and will now, after reading his review, promptly try to erase its existence from my brain. He would have wanted it that way. :-)

"I didn't feel like a viewer during Frozen Assets. I felt like an eyewitness to a disaster. If I were more of a hero, I would spend the next couple of weeks breaking into theraters where this movie is being shown, and leading the audience to safety."

LOL!

[Noah Goats · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roger Ebert was a great movie critic. He was insightful, smart, knew his business, and wrote with a sharp wit. I miss him. I enjoyed this book at first. It was pleasant to have my own bias confirmed when Ebert writes things like, "Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. Armageddon is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any thirty seconds at random, and you'd have a TV ad" or "Beautician and the Beast contains a role that seems to have been whipped up out of two parts of (Fran) Drescher's public persona and one part of nothing else." But it turns out that reading page after page of negative movie reviews isn't very fun. At some point reading about failure after failure is no longer a good time. It's true that many of these movies were made by depraved egomaniacal douche bags who deserve to be attacked, but others were made by sincere artists who were trying their best and who poured years of their lives into these doomed projects... it gets depressing. After a while I just sort of started skimming the book, looking for reviews that interested me for whatever reason. I read maybe 50 or 60% of it. If you don't make the mistake of trying to read this from cover to cover, it can be fun.

Also, he's 100% right to have Dead Poet's Society in this book, but 100% wrong about Happy Gilmore.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another re-read, I picked I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie off the bookshelf & finished it just in the nick of time.

Roger Ebert shares his thoughts on some of the worst movies he's been exposed to in the past 30-some years in this collection of reviews. Most movies rate at least one star, as he reserves the no star rating for movies that are somehow degenerate, such as I Spit On Your Grave. Blockbuster or art film; western, romance, science-fiction -- no genre is safe from his snarky pen. He ravages some movies I rather liked, and some of the descriptions almost make we want to go out and find some of them... even though I've been warned.

The writing is generally sharp and clever, with occasional laugh-out-loud moments. More astute movie watchers may note the occasional factual error in his reviews (I found one, but can't remember what it was), but I suppose we should allow him the odd mistake or so, as he's taken innumerable bullets for us.

Recommended to those who plan Bad Movie Nights and can appreciate the finer things in film as well.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Hated, Hated HATED this Movie is a collection of Roger Ebert reviews. Specifically, it is a collection of reviews for "bad" movies. The title is somewhat misleading; the reviews are of movies he did not recommend, not movies he necessarily hated. On the whole, it is an interesting, but ultimately unnecessary collection.

Roger Ebert is probably America's most popular film critic. Intelligent and accessible, he doesn't pander, and yet is not a snob. When he hates a film, he can be hilariously brutal (see his reviews of North and Patch Adams).

Of course, Roger Ebert also knows this, and he can be unbearably arrogant at times. One example is his review of Anna and the King. The review is incoherent, blatantly sexist, and riddled with errors besides. He spends most of it grumping about historical situations, previous versions of the story, and Jodie Foster's career. He actually refers to The King and I as the most "joyless" of Rodger's and Hammerstein's musicals (apparently, never having seen Carousel). Never once does he actually speak about the film itself.

I enjoyed I Hated, Hated HATED this Movie, but would never purchase it for myself. Even if all of his reviews weren’t available for free online.

[Maria Lago · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ver, me he reído, claro que sí, pero no porque piense que lo que Ebert escribe sea cuestión humorística, sino porque me hacen mucha gracia los vejetes cascarrabias. Le pasa a este grandísimo crítico (o le pasaba, descanse en paz) lo mismo que a otro sabio del cine, Bollero: los árboles no les dejan ver el bosque. Centrándose en tecnicidades varias, olvidan lo que hace cine al cine, la pasión, la emoción, el entretenimiento. Saben tanto, que solo pueden ver a través de su pátina de expertos.
Además, encuentro estas críticas carentes de sentido del humor, algo imperdonable. Tengo el gusto por la mierda muy desarrollado, lo siento, pero es así. Las películas malas me llegan a la patata. E, insisto, sus análisis de todo lo que constituyen las películas aquí presentes son realmente increíbles, son cosas que a mí, común mortal, jamás se me hubieran pasado por la cabeza. Pero aquí estoy, alegremente dispuesta a obviarlo todo en aras de pasar un buen rato. El colmo de la frivolidad, oigan. (Que conste que estoy de acuerdo al 100% con Ebert en su cruzada contra Rob Schneider: ese tipo es cansino).

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just the book I was looking for. One, I've always liked Ebert. Two, I like to read good, in-depth film reviews, but only if I've seen the film. Three, I've seen a lot of the "bad" films in this book of short reviews. Four, I know which films I never want to see anyway, so reading the review won't cause nobody no harm. Six, the bad reviews are always the funniest. During a recent occupational outreach event at the local JCC, the speaker, who was a radio reviewer lecturing on the subject of film, mentioned that his employers wished all his reviews were either 1 star or 4 stars...and a part of me concurred. In-between is just so...as the Monkees taught us shades of grey. Pauline Kael's reviews of "bad" movies are savagely funny. And make entertaining reading. Ebert may not be as gifted a prose writer, but his opinions and experience will be colorful.

[kesseljunkie · Rating 4 out of 5]

How joyously enjoyable it is to revisit a critic who knew how to slay them. Roger Ebert was a treasure; the day he stopped reviewing films was the passing of a golden age when film reviews were actual essays and not soulless walls of Search Engine Optimization lists thrown into the Google algorithm in hopes of generating clicks.

I haven’t even heard of some of the films reviewed in this book. I still loved their reviews because of Ebert’s sly witticisms, and his unique wit.

In all, this book won’t appeal to any but the people who enjoy not just film, but its critique. Reading Ebert makes you a better reviewer and more intelligent writer. To that end, I can’t commend this book enough.

Even if he was wrong once in awhile.

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is not as humorous or as focused as Your Movie Sucks but still entertaining. The later book has a stricter timeframe, this one has movies going back to the late 60s. There are movies I like, that he tears up including "The Night Porter" and "Starship Troopers". It is obvious he does not like Ken Russell movies (The Devils, Lair of the White Worm, and Salome's Last Dance are all included). I will probably have to get his other hated movies book just to complete the Suck trilogy.

[Chris Lilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roger Ebert is a fine film critic. When Ebert writes about films he considers important, he is eloquent, passionate, and makes me want to watch the films of which he speaks, to share his joy. When he writes about dross, he is snarky, unengaged, and less clever than he thinks he is. By and large, the movies were a waste of time, but then so was writing about them. And indeed reading said writing.

[Raven Cain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to personally review each of the movies mentioned in this book. I have seen every one of them and, for the most part, agree with the esteemed Roger Ebert (RIP). Reading his older reviews, especially the ones from the 70s, is a treat that I don't mind repeating.

[Tim Kretschmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how it is done. Ebert is the master of film criticism for a reason. This collection of pans proves it.

[Tonya Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast read

First, don't get this in Kindle form. Whenever a new section would be introduced, a page would be lost. Good book otherwise

[Heidi]

Roger Ebert on the abomination that is Jack Frost:

What possessed anyone to think this was a plausible idea for a movie? It’s a bad film, yes, but that’s not the real problem. Jack Frost could have been codirected by Orson Welles and Steven Spielberg and still be unwatchable, because of that damned snowman.

The snowman gave me the creeps. Never have I disliked a movie character more. They say state-of-the-art special effects can create the illusion of anything on the screen, and now we have proof: It’s possible for the Jim Henson folks and Industrial Light and Magic to put their heads together and come up with the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects, and I am not forgetting the Chucky doll or the desert intestine from Star Wars.

To see the snowman is to dislike the snowman. It doesn’t look like a snowman, anyway. It looks like a cheap snowman suit. When it moves, it doesn’t exactly glide—it walks, but without feet, like it’s creeping on its torso. It has anorexic tree limbs for arms, which spin through 360 degrees when it’s throwing snowballs. It has a big, wide mouth that moves as if masticating Gummi Bears. And it’s this kid’s dad.

Yes, little Charlie (Joseph Cross) has been without a father for a year, since his dad (Michael Keaton) was killed—on Christmas Day, of course. A year later, Charlie plays his father’s magic harmonica (“If you ever need me . . .”) and his father turns up as the snowman. Think about that. It is an ASTOUNDING fact.

The snowman on Charlie’s front lawn is a living, moving creature inhabited by the personality of his father. It is a reflection of the lame-brained screenplay that despite having a sentient snowman, the movie casts about for plot fillers, including a school bully, a chase scene, snowball fights, a hockey team, an old family friend to talk to mom—you know, stuff to keep up the interest between those boring scenes WHEN A SNOWMAN IS TALKING.

What do you ask a snowman inhabited by your father? After all, dad’s been dead a year. What’s it like on the other side? Is there a heaven? Big Bang or steady state? When will the NBA strike end? Elvis...dead? What’s it like standing out on the lawn in the cold all night? Ever meet any angels? Has anybody else ever come back as a snowman? Do you have to eat? If you do, then what?

But Charlie, self-centered little movie child, is more concerned with how Jack Frost (his father’s real name) can help HIM. His dad has been dead for a year and comes back as a snowman and all he can think of is using the snowman to defeat the school bully in a snowball fight. Also, the kid tries to keep dad from melting. (What kind of a half-track miracle is it if a snowman can talk, but it can’t keep from melting?)

Does the snowman have any advice for his son? Here is a typical conversation:

Jack Frost: “You da man!”
Charlie: “No, YOU da man!”
Jack: “No, I da SNOWman!”

Eventually the snowman has to leave again—a fairly abrupt development announced with the cursory line, “It’s time for me to go . . . get on with your life.” By this time the snowman’s secret is known not only to his son but to his wife (Kelly Preston), who takes a phone call from her dead husband with what, under the circumstances, can only be described as extreme aplomb. At the end, the human Jack Frost materializes again, inside swirling fake snow, and tells his wife and son, “If you ever need me, I’m right here.” And Charlie doesn’t even ask, “What about on a hot day?”

[Rahul Adusumilli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ebert dons various hats while reviewing a movie. I spent a good part of an hour to bring you this sample. In the immortal words of Jeb Bush, "Please clap."

Slam artist:

"The Beatles were talented- while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of thirty standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts."

On a monster movie: "Why not try flushing this movie down the toilet to see if it grows into something big and fearsome?"

"The movie could've been written by a computer."

"Bemusing, how much money and effort goes into the making of a movie like this, and how little thought."

"A big, ugly, ungainly device to give teenagers the impression they are seeing a movie."

"Call me hard-hearted, call me cynical, but please don't call me if they make Home Alone 3."

"It is not in French with English subtitles, however. It has been dubbed into English, a canny move, since the movie is not likely to appeal to anyone who can read."

"is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line."

"I am prepared to imagine a theatre full of eleven-year old boys who might enjoy this movie, but I can't recommend it for anyone who might have climbed a little higher on the evolutionary ladder."

"Do the people who made Meteor take us all for total fools? And, if so, could that possibly be because they're looking for company?"

"should've donated his screenplay to a nearby day-care centre for use by preschoolers in constructing paper chains."

"breaks every law but the law of diminishing returns."

"I read it when I was in grade school. I have improved since then, but the story has not."

Philosopher:

"Man exists to surf, and waves exist to allow him to."

"A bridge builder takes leave of his pregnant wife to go to Africa to build a bridge, and she solemnly observes, "you must go where the rivers are.""

"It is based on a book so banal that it had to be sold to adults; kids would've seen through it."

"Comedy is often about people who are passionately frustrated in goals they're convinced are crucial."

"If a 9 year old kid can break your code, don't kill the kid, kill the programmers."

Psychologist:

"Inside every sadist is a masochist, cringing to taste his own medicine."

"There's something about surrendering yourself to the dark, womblike security of a large Loop theatre on a Saturday afternoon."

"If you don't go right back in the water after something terrible happens to you, you might be too afraid to ever go back in again."

Guidance counselor:

"At a time when Hollywood is bashful about originality, it's a real career asset to be able to write clone screenplays."

History teacher:

"Godard said the history of cinema is the history of boys photographing girls."

“It is said that Orson Welles saw John Ford’s Stagecoach 200 times before directing Citizen Kane. According to a press release here on my desk, Radley Metzger has seen John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 103 times. That was not enough.

I think Metzger was better—or worse, that is—back when he had only seen it maybe twenty times. Blinking his eyes as he emerged into the sunlight, he directed I, a Woman, which was the worst movie of all time (up until then).

Then he went back to see Sierra Madre another, say, two dozen times, and after that he directed Carmen, Baby, which was almost as bad as I, a Woman but made less money. Then, a glutton for culture, he saw Sierra Madre forty-one more times, and made Therese and Isabel, which was even worse than I, a Woman.

So that made eighty-five times he had seen The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Eighteen times to go. I wonder if he was the guy who sat behind me the last time I saw it at the Clark. He was reciting the dialogue under his breath and when the usher protested, he flashed a card with the name Fred C. Dobbs on it. (This is not made up.)”

Cultural commentator:

"who is Jewish for the sole purpose of having two Jewish parents so they can appear in the middle of the movie like refugees from a Woody Allen picture."

"Short has a couple of fancy routines that have more to do with his SNL history than with this movie."

"Would it have been too much to motivate the kid with something besides sex, drugs, and rock an roll?"

"In literature, it's called plagiarism. In the movies, it's homage."

"Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes film festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's basilica."

"Thanksgiving now seems reserved for movies about dysfunctional families."

"One of the sad by-products of the dumbing-down of America is that we're now forced to witness the goofy plots of the 1930s played sincerely, as if they were really deep." He wrote this in 1998, so how long has this dumbing down of America been going on for and is there an end in sight?

Relationship expert:

"Doesn't decency require them to at least pretend to have something in common?"

Optometrist:

"This is a movie with tunnel vision."

Casting director:

"The actors look so uncomfortable they could be experiencing alarming intestinal symptoms."

"has been billed as the new Bardot and she's off to a good start: Bardot didn't make many good films, either."

"Paul Newman not only steal every scene he's in, but puts it in the bank and draws interest on it."

"The Spice Girls have no personalities; their bodies are carriers for inane chatter."

"a creature with no idea in her head. She has no conversation. No interests. No wit. She exists primarily to stir lust in the loins of the men."

"Onto the pyre of this dreadful film are thrown the talents of such as Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck..."

“The movie was reminding me of the works of Robert Bresson, the great, austere French director who had a profound suspicion of actors. He felt they were always trying to slip their own energy, their own asides, their own “acting” into his movies. So he rehearsed them tirelessly, fifty or sixty times for every shot, until they were past all thought and caring. And then, when they were zombies with the strength to do only what he required, and nothing more, he was satisfied.”

“The basic miscalculation in Adam Sandler’s career plan is to ever play the lead. He is not a lead. He is the best friend, or the creep, or the loser boyfriend. He doesn’t have the voice to play a lead: Even at his most sincere, he sounds like he’s doing standup—like he’s mocking a character in a movie he saw last night.”

Erotica connoisseur:

"We are told by one witness that sex with the Madonna character is intense. It turns out later he's not a very reliable witness."

"Bo and the guy make love at sunrise. Unfortunately, the sun rises directly into the camera at crucial moments."

"Caligula is not good art, it is not good cinema, and it is not good porn."

"I am curious (Yellow) is not merely not erotic. It is antierotic. Two hours of this movie will drive thoughts of sex out of your mind for weeks. See the picture and buy twin beds."

"female breasts are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the human anatomy."

"Neve Campbell is amazingly cute."

[latinlil (Fitzy’s sitting next to me) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note to my daughters since this is on my "Books for My Daughter's" shelf:

What you want most of all is for Auntie Jen and Roger Ebert to see a movie they detest. What will ensue is them ranting about said movie in the most hilarious and entertaining way. In fact, Roger and Auntie were of such like minds that she bought me this book when it was published since she couldn't stomach seeing enough stinkers to keep me satisfied.

This is also good for the original Mystery Science Theater 3000.

- Love, Mom

PS: RIP Roger, you were a kind of father-figure to me and to my astonishment I still can't talk about you without tearing up, or full-on bawling.

[Erin Bomboy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would have thunk that a compendium of movie reviews from the late 20th century would be such a rib tickler? But that’s the power of famed film critic Roger Ebert’s prose. Not only does he write pithy, hilarious pans of movies that patronize his and the audience’s intelligence, he’s more woke than you’d imagine. He will call out misogyny, racism, tokenism, and colonialism with vigor. Although most people assume a one-star review would be a turn-off, I actually wanted to watch some of these movies to savor their gross ineptitude.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very fun read, but it does get a little repetitive.