I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie

Rating:
Summary: Wildly Overrated
Review: Eberts proudly displays how much he hates movies in the book. Sure some of them were stinkers, but "hating, hating, hating" them is excessive. As well, his comments sometimes have no explanation for their fervor. If you hate, hate, hate a movie that much, I'd think you'd have some pretty good reasons. Apparently Eberts doesn't agree with me.

Rating:
Summary: A must for fans of the awful.
Review: If there was ever a specific audience for this book, I am firmly in it: unaware that it existed, I spent much of my boring summer at the Chicago Sun-Times website, looking up every Roger Ebert review that ran from zero to one and a half stars. Imagine my delight upon finding out that I could read this, a permanent copy of his reviews of some of the worst movies from the 1960's to today!

The book even seems to have been tailor-made for those who are curious about certain films that came before 1985 (which is as far back as the Sun-Times website goes): here you will find Ebert's comments on such infamous stuff as "Heaven's Gate," "I Spit On Your Grave," "Bolero," "Caligula," Neil Diamond's version of "The Jazz Singer," and "Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline." Overall, the book is a great cross-section of his approach to bad films, be they hilarious skewerings or sober warnings. I enjoy watching movies this bad, but if I never see most of them, reading comments like these is almost entertainment enough.

The only things I could find to complain about would be the occasional bit of editing to shorten some of the text. In particular, Ebert's controversial comments on "Blue Velvet" are included here in the shorter, more standard version, which I didn't find to be nearly as interesting as the longer review in which he includes comments by David Lynch and makes note of what other critics have said.

Also, so many more films are out there! Where's the followup? Did Ebert ever see "Mandingo?" "The Amityville Horror?" "Valley of the Dolls?" "Exorcist II: The Heretic?" What about the ones that have cropped up since the book's publishing, such as "Antitrust," "Tomcats," "Dungeons and Dragons," and good God, "Battlefield Earth?" I'd love to see more of these turkeys immortalized in a second volume, and I'm sure there are others as nerdy as me who would enjoy the same.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Money I've Spent This Year
Review: Truly a glorious collection of some of the funniest writing I've ever read.

My wife and I have spent hours reading these to one another and laughing until we couldn't stop. The bulk of the reviews are not only scathing, but cleverly written and hilarious.

My only issue with the book is that it sometimes loses its focus as a humor collection and throws in a not-nearly-funny-enough review of a mediocre film. Those should be left for the yearly collection of all of his reviews. I still grant this five stars because enough wonderful material remains that it is worth every bit of the price.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but could have waited
Review: This book should have waited one more year; 2001 was an excellent year for bad movie reviews. Even though I didn't agree with 1 or 2 of these movie reviews, namely "The big hit," you can't help but love it. Also, 2 star movies do not belong in a book with a title like "I hated, hated, HATED this movie.

Rating:
Summary: What a Fun, Fun, Fun Book
Review: For a film critic widely known with such a simplistic method of rating movies ("Thumbs up!"), I found Roger Ebert's reviews of truly awful films very insightful and intelligent. And very funny. I realize not every bad review could fit in this book but I wondered where his review of "Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster" was--especially since he referenced it a couple of times in the other reviews. The only serious omission is the heinous Dan Aykroyd abomination "Nothing But Trouble." Maybe we'll get a sequel from Mr. Ebert entitled, "I REALLY Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie"...?

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book marred by some reviews of mediocre movies
Review: Why do I say "marred" above? Because mediocre movies just aren't that funny. This is a hilarious book because of a lot of the reviews it contains. It's a compilation of reviews of movies Ebert gave from zero to two stars. The low-ranking ones are usually laugh out loud funny. I read quite a few of them to my wife. I would start out reading a notable quote, and then realize that it needed context, until finally I just read the entire review. At times, I had to stop because I was laughing so hard (try out Ebert's review of "Turbulence" for example).

Unfortunately for this book, it has too many two star reviews that just aren't that funny. Ebert does a good job of detailing why it's a mediocre movie, but that certainly can't be the point of this book. As many reviewers here have pointed out, if all you want is comment on movie-making, Ebert publishes all of his reviews every year. The point of this book has to be collecting a bunch of negative reviews in order to make the reader laugh. The reviews of mediocre movies just don't do that. The value of the book is in the humour, not in the reviews themselves.

As for the avoidance of buying the book because of Ebert's yearly guides, I think that misses the point. If you wanted to look at a bunch of reviews of bad movies, it would be a lot harder to do it in the yearbooks. You have to look movies up by title in those. Sure, you can look up movies by rating on Ebert's web site, but that only goes back to 1985, and many of the reviews in this book are before that. For that reason alone, this is a valuable compilation.

Ultimately, you will laugh a lot reading this book, even more so if you've managed to sit through one of the movies Ebert's talking about. Just skim the two star reviews, though, because they take away from the humour factor.

Rating:
Summary: read read read read
Review: I'll warn you that not every review in this book is hilarious, but the ones that are make up for all other shortcomings. When you read this book, you are not just reading about movies and what makes a bad one, you are reading well written, witty essays that say what many of us are probably thinking and feeling, but can't quite find the words to say. (I think his takes on Godzilla are the best example of this.) I have to say I wish there were nmore bad mives that Ebert could watch, simply cause reading what he has to say about them is so funny.

Rating:
Summary: Roger Ebert's reviews of some baaaaad films.
Review: Roger Ebert dedicated this book to his later partner Gene Siskel. Siskel died Feburary 20 1999. After Siskel's death, Ebert did about a year of guests co-hosts including Richard Roper. And sometime in 2000 Ebert picked Richard Roper as his new co-host. If you wondor how this book got it's title, the word hated was Ebert's review of North. He had the word hated about 5 times in the review.

Ebert aslo has a film named Stuart Little (which I liked). Rodger Ebert's birthday is tommrrow and he will be 54. Ebert aslo has Patch Adams in the book, along with Father's Day and The Dead Poets Society all with Robin Wiliams.

I got this book as a birthday present last year. There are a few that I have seen that are in this book, Like Stuart Little. Here is an idea how about a book called I Loved Loved Love this movie by Roger Ebert.

In fact Ebert aslo has Home Alone 2 Lost In New York in here. Which he didn't like the first two movies but like Home Alone 3. In the back of the book is the idex. If you have never seen Ebert show with Roper, then if you are on the web, check out the web site to see if this show plays in your city and what time and channel.

Rating:
Summary: Very Entertaining Little Book
Review: OK, 4 stars is rather generous, but it's hard to rate a book like this on anything but entertainment value. And its value as entertainment is quite high as Ebert selects from his years of reviews and offers insights into some of the worst films ever.

I consider Ebert - the columnist, but not the TV version - to be the best of the mainstream critics (the ones who don't pick and chose and write about eight films a year for New Yorker). Reviewing bad films in a good way shows his strengths. Granted, you don't have to buy this to read many of these reviews - his Web site has a pretty good archive going back to 1985. But it's worth it just for the fun. As you read it, take note of which actors and directors appear in more than one flop - yes, Bruce Willis, I'm talking to you! See if you agree with him about those films you saw. And ponder why some clinkers - like so many bad super-hero films - are not here.

It's a lot cheaper than seeing all these joys of the cinema.

Rating:
Summary: He stole my idea!
Review: Well, OK, not really. But I always thought it would be fun to read a critic's collected *negative* works, and this was indeed fun. Nope, I don't read his annual collections--I have to concern myself with things such as food, clothing, shelter--so these reviews were mostly surprises to me. It would be a better book if he'd avoided the movies he felt lukewarmly about and stuck strictly with the real stinkers. It would have been an even better one if Pauline Kael had written it. But I'll take what I can get. (Why did Siskel never publish a collection of his reviews? I always thought he was more incisive and entertaining than Ebert, although I'm always entertained listening to the way Ebert pronounces "because" on his show.)

P.S. Until the day I die, I'll never understand how the man who wrote "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" can act so morally indignant over Isabella Rossellini's treatment in "Blue Velvet."