Book Review: I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie by Roger Ebert

I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie by Roger Ebert

As I have stated numerous times, both in conversations with fellow film fanatics and on this blog, telling me a movie is a  bad movie is akin to saying "I DARE you to watch this turkey of a movie". 

I don't always fall in line with the opinions of Roger Ebert. Or any of the other "professional" movie reviewers for that matter... (I don't care what the highbrows say about it, I think Citizen Kane is an overrated piece of crap, for instance). I use quotes from the professionals in my reviews mainly as a way to parallel or contrast my own opinion of movies. And, personally, I think anyone who depends on a reviewer to guide their movie experience to be limiting themselves. That would even include using my own reviews to guide your experiences, BTW. 

But I am not above letting a collection of reviews lead me to movies that I might not have ever noticed if I hadn't seen those reviews. Especially in the realm of those bad movies; the ones that are decried from the rooftops as being basically "not worth your time". I came across this book and Ebert's follow up on bad movies, Your Movie Sucks, at a resale place a week or so ago. 

The great thing about reading books like this is that it points out films that somehow escaped my notice, either because I never saw it on the shelf at the used DVD store or, in some cases, because the title never would have attracted my attention in the first place. When Ebert (or whomever) is so adamantly dismissive of the film, and the review delves into areas that seem a bit outlandish, it sometimes makes me say "Hey, can it really be THAT bad?" 

And in some cases, the review makes me say "Oh, I just HAVE to check this one out!" One in particular that appears in this volume is Turbulence (which I am going to watch after I write this review). Click this link to read his review, if you want to see why.

I enjoyed the book. Of course, I can't say his opinions always gelled with mine. He apparently didn't like either of the Cannonball Run films (Cannonball Run II is the only one in which his review was reprinted in this volume). He also didn't think much of the Home Alone films (once again, only his review of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is in this volume). Death Race 2000 happens to be one of my favorite movies, but Ebert gave it a "no stars" rating. (To which I say "phhht, Roger!)

I have to agree with his take on the Neil Diamond film version of The Jazz Singer. And I only watched the Kevin Costner dud The Postman once, when it came to theaters. I think his 1½ stars is vastly generous on that one. One of these days I will watch it again for The Midnite Drive-In, but I will reveal in advance that, although I have never actually followed through on the idea, it is the one movie I came closest to walking out on when I saw it.

Quite a number of the movies here are ones that I have seen and have yet to add to this blog, and I am adding a couple more besides the above-mentioned Turbulence  to my list of movies I need to check out, simply because the review made them seem outlandish enough to appeal to my peculiar tastes. I think Roger Ebert was one of the most entertaining movie reviewers, and this book didn't let me down. Give me a week or so and I will add a review for the other volume I bought, Your Movie Sucks.

Happy reading, folks.

Quiggy