THE QUOTABLE FILM CRITIC
Movie Reviews and Film Criticism
Volume One: 2000 - 2010
A comical yet cut-throat collection of cinematic criticism covering actors, directors, producers, screenwriters and films ... Hollywood blockbusters, rom-coms, chick flicks, horror, musicals, children's, independent, art-house, animation.
Over 2000 quotes cover ...
Actors (from Jessica Alba to Renee Zellweger),
Directors & Producers (from Woody Allen to David Zucker) and
over 550 Film Titles (from Avatar to Zoolander).
Movie Reviews and Film Criticism
Volume One: 2000 - 2010
A comical yet cut-throat collection of cinematic criticism covering actors, directors, producers, screenwriters and films ... Hollywood blockbusters, rom-coms, chick flicks, horror, musicals, children's, independent, art-house, animation.
Over 2000 quotes cover ...
Actors (from Jessica Alba to Renee Zellweger),
Directors & Producers (from Woody Allen to David Zucker) and
over 550 Film Titles (from Avatar to Zoolander).
BOOK DETAILS
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 200
Quotes: 2000+
Size: 17.0 x 24.40 cm
ISBN: 1907338014 / 978-1-907-338-01-4
Published: Sept 1, 2010
Pages: 200
Quotes: 2000+
Size: 17.0 x 24.40 cm
ISBN: 1907338014 / 978-1-907-338-01-4
Published: Sept 1, 2010
BUY A COPY OF QUOTABLE FILM CRITIC
A to Z of
Bad Movie Reviews
from The Quotable Film Critic
Vol One: 2000-2010
Vol One: 2000-2010
Jennifer ANISTON
Along Came Polly (2004) - "Basically, a big-screen version of Dharma & Greg, but starring Jennifer Aniston - yes, it is that sickly."
Hadley Freeman in The Guardian
Ed BURNS
A Sound Of Thunder (2005) - "Edward Burns is the kind of actor you cast as the hero when a piece of wood is unavailable."
Jason Anderson in The Toronto Globe and Mail
CLOVERFIELD (2008)
"Combines unpleasantness and stupidity to a degree that would be difficult to match unless you were stuck in bed with a case of the shingles while being forced to watch The Ghost Whisperer."
Kyle Smith in The New York Post
Robert DE NIRO
Analyze That (2002) - "If De Niro wants to spend the twilight of his career as the McDonald’s of master thespians, we can’t stop him."
J.R. Perry in The Tyler Morning Telegraph
ERAGON (2006)
"Like a super-condensed version of Lord of the Rings as made for the Disney Channel. The baffling story sometimes makes you think the Comedy Channel might have lent a hand as well."
Steve Rhodes on InternetReviews.com
Colin FIRTH
Dorian Gray (2009) - "Firth - all dodgy 'tache and frantic eyebrows - has got the sexual allure of a man who runs a swingers' club in Surbiton."
Robbie Collin in The News of the World
The GOLDEN Compass (2007)
"It is as packed with incident and excitement as a trip to Marks and Spencer’s sock department."
Olly Richards in Empire magazine
HARRY Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
"If my moviegoing experience was magical in any way, it was only in that I once or twice nodded off for a spell."
Rick Kisonak on FilmThreat.com
IRON Man (2008)
"Though he's been given A-list treatment ... Iron Man can't escape being a little - dare I say it? - tinny."
Frank Swietek on OneGuysOpinion.com
Samuel L. JACKSON
Twisted (2004) - "Jackson doesn’t bother to read the scripts anymore. He just checks to make sure he has one loud scene where he gets to shout, then cashes the paycheck."
Dawn Taylor in The Portland Tribune
Nicole KIDMAN
Birthday Girl (2001) - "Nicole ‘does’ sexy with all the erotic charge with which one ‘does’ the washing up. I’d rather gargle battery acid than have to watch Birthday Girl again."
Sukhdev Sandhu in The Daily Telegraph
LOVE Actually (2003)
"There's so much plot being thrown at us in Love Actually that there's little room for genuine emotion; the film is as superficial as a Jay Leno monologue."
Robert W. Butler in The Kansas City Star
MAMMA MIA! (2008)
"The film is indeed absolute cack: appallingly written, witlessly directed and sung as if by mice being tortured. It makes Teletubbies look like The Iliad in comparison."
Stephen Pollard in The Spectator
Nick NOLTE
The Good Thief (2002) - "Of the actors working today, only Nolte looks as though he died five years ago and nobody bothered to tell him, and he runs (or staggers) with the tatty grace of the walking dead."
Marc Savlov in The Austin Chronicle
OCEAN’S Eleven (2001)
"Ocean’s Eleven is The Italian Job without the cars, The Lavender Hill Mob without the Eiffel Tower, The Thomas Crown Affair without either the chess or the mid-life sex."
Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday (2002)
PIRATES of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
"If I have to watch one more pirate shriek in horror at a giant yet imaginary tentacle waving in his face, I'll drive a fork into my wooden leg."
Donald Munro in The Fresno Bee
Dennis QUAID
Flight Of The Phoenix (2004) - "His acting is limited to turning the corners of his mouth down, like someone tasting tea made with urine."
Ben Davis in The Morning Star
Julia ROBERTS
Mona Lisa Smile (2003) - "Roberts so overwhelms the movie with so much wisenheimer Brockovich attitude that you want to haul her before the Academic Senate and censure her for anachronism."
Carrie Rickey in The Philadelphia Inquirer
Sylvester STALLONE
Get Carter (2000) - "Stallone is so artificial, tanned and leathery you could replace his mouth with a zipper and sell him as a pocketbook."
Desson Howe in The Washington Post
TRANSFORMERS (2007)
"It’s Wrestlemania meets Scrap Heap Challenge. And my goodness it’s boring."
Wendy Ide in The Times
ULTRAVIOLET (2006)
"Ultrastupid, ultra-incoherent, ultrasilly - and way, way ultraboring."
Lou Lumenick in The New York Post
Noa VARDALOS
Connie and Carla (2004) - "The phrase ‘written by Nia Vardalos’ should send any self-respecting moviegoer screaming into the night, pursued by the comedienne’s frizzy-haired brand of hysteria … One suspects Vardalos's movies aren't written as much as up-chucked, the result of all-night binges on SnackWells and Oxygen network reruns."
David Ng in The Village Voice
Mark WAHLBERG
The Truth About Charlie (2003) - "Wahlberg, playing the Cary Grant role, displays the cosmopolitan charm of a wombat."
Edward Porter in The Sunday Times
X-MEN 3: The Last Stand (2006)
"Watching the actors is like watching Elton John try to make out with Anne Heche. They go through the motions in a totally disingenuous display, except Wolverine doesn't break out into an impromptu Rocket Man to ease the awkwardness."
Mike Ward on Richmond.com
YOU Got Served (2004)
"A street-dance film that’s lively and silly and about as ‘street’ as a Britney Spears’ video."
Carla Meyer in The San Francisco Chronicle
Renee ZELLWEGER
Cold Mountain (2003) - "Zellweger does a job of overacting that might have gotten rejected by The Beverly Hillbillies."
David Sterritt in The Christian Science Monitor
A collection of 'bad' film reviews that make up the most cutting cinematic criticism in movie-making history - across four fun-packed volumes.
Surviving Christmas (2004) - "Affleck’s goose is cooked with Surviving Christmas, a movie that makes Gigli look like one of the crowning moments in his career … How did Affleck get so far on so little?"
Jami Bernard in The New York Daily News
Intolerable Cruelty (2003) - "Zeta Jones isn’t quite up to it. There’s a certain try-hard coldness about this performance: her eyes betray a mind that appears to be constantly trying not to forget something."
Jason Solomons in The Mail on Sunday
Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian
Peter Relic in Rolling Stone magazine (2006)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) - "Woody Allen, what happened? You stink on toast."
Paul Chambers on CNN
My Boss’ Daughter (2003) - "David Zucker ... directs this mess like a substitute teacher soldiering through a day's work for a day's pay at a decertified school."
Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly
"A big, dumb movie built to make money but hardly worthy of serious examination. Avatar isn't only critic-proof, it resists serious criticism. You might as well analyze a beach ball."
Philip Martin in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
"Zoolander is a one-joke movie - models are vain, bulimic morons - and it wears out faster than a pair of paper panties."
Rita Kempley in The Washington Post
FUTURE VOLUMES OF
PEDRO ALDOMOVAR
“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1988) - The best to be said for it is that Aldomovar makes a good interior decorator.
Mark Finch in The Monthly Film Bulletin
KENNETH BRANAGH
Henry V (1989) - Branagh appears to see William Shakespeare less as drama than an occasion for dazzling solo turns.
Bruce Bawor in American Spectator
KEVIN COSTNER
Dances with Wolves (1991) - This epic was made by a bland megalomaniac. The Indians should have named him ‘Plays with Camera’.
Pauline Kael
BRIAN dePALMA
Bonfire of the Vanities (1991) - "A misfire of inanities. This is a failure of epic proportions. You've got to be a genius to make a movie this bad."
Joel Siegel on ABC TV
JOHN DEREK
Bolero (1984) - Only two films in recent history come close to rivaling this junk for stupidity and ineptitude, and both of them just happen to have been by Derek. They were Tarzan: The Ape-Man and A Boy...A Girl. Derek could open his own turkey farm.
Motion Picture Guide
CLINT EASTWOOD
Sudden Impact (1983) - Eastwood presumably takes credit for such gems of authorial self-awareness as replacing the orang-utang of the Which Way films, with a farting dog.
Paul Taylor in The Monthly Film Bulletin
NORA EPHRON
This is My Life (1992) - The directing debut of screenwriter Nora Ephron. On this evidence she should stick to writing because she hasn't a clue about pace and comic timing.
Anne Billson
AMY HECKERLING
Look Who’s Talking Too (1990) - Whenever Heckerling runs out of inspiration, which is every couple of minutes, she slaps an old rock'n'roll record on the turntable and transforms the film into a music-video.
Philip French
JOHN McTIERNAN
“Last Action Hero” (1993) - McTiernan pitches hamfistedly at a post-modern attention span and shoots with the subtlety of a rampaging rhino. This is film-making of the ‘more-is-more’ school.
Tom Charity
GARRY MARSHALL
“Pretty Woman” (1990) - Marshall directs like he was wearing ear-plugs and boxing gloves on the set.
“Virgin Film Guide”
JOHN MILIUS
“Red Dawn” (1983) - When is Mr Milius going to put his toy soldiers away and grow up?
Motion Picture Guide
MARTIN SCORCESE
Cape Fear (1992) - It not only leaves a nasty taste, it is a clumsy, less than effective thriller. Yet it does have incidental, unintended worth, by betraying how Scorcese and his peers see the world - and what sort of people they think we are. Their world is rotten, teeming with hollow men, and filmgoers are slow-witted, sensation-seekers who must have everything spelled out. In capital letters.
Shaun Usher (1992)
TONY SCOTT
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) - Scott's direction is a mixmaster without a compass.
Brian Case
SYLVESTER STALLONE
Staying Alive (1983) - Stallone doesn't bother much with character, scenes or dialogue. He just puts the newly muscle-plated John Travolta in front of the camera, covers him with what looks like an oil slick, and goes for whambams.
Pauline Kael, New Yorker
STEVEN SPIELBERG
Close Encounters of a Third Kind: Special Edition (1980) - One is inclined to feel that with all the money [$20m] at his disposal, Spielberg might have got it right the first time.
Derek Malcolm
FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI
Hamlet” (1991) - Two-plus hours in the company of Franco ‘one classic with everything on it coming right up' Zeffirelli was more than I could bear.
Charles Taylor, Modern Review (1994)
ROBERT ZEMECKIS
Death Becomes Her (1992) - “Death” is Zemeckis' attempt at an adult film (adult in the sense of it being aimed over the heads of 13-year-olds).
Graham Linehan, Select magazine
ROBERT ALDRICH
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964) - Aldrich only just manages to keep this side of being disgusting and that side of being ridiculous.
Films and Filming
ROBERT ALTMAN
McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) - Altman directed “M*A*S*H”, which wandered and was often funny; then “Brewster McCloud”, which wandered and was not funny; now this, which wanders and is repulsive.
Stanley Kauffmann
PETER BOGDANOVICH
Daisy Miller (1974) - Appallingly crass ... directed with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Michael Billington in The Illustrated London News
FEDERICO FELLINI
Satyricon (1969) - Part of the gradual decomposition of what was once one of the greatest talents in film history ... a gimcrack, shopworn nightmare.
Geoff Andrew
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Psycho (1960) - A lascivious bloodbath ... he has become a caterer for cheap sniggers.
The London Sunday Dispatch
Psycho (1960) - A sad prostitution of talent ... It's sad to see a really big man make a fool of himself.
The London Express
The Birds (1963) - You cannot teach an old dog new tricks, and as much as we respect Alfred Hitchcock, a Hitchcock film is now as predictable as Christmas dinner and about as indigestible.
Films and Filming
NORMAN JEWISON
Fiddler on the Roof (1971) - Jewison hasn't so much directed a film, as prepared a product for world consumption.
Stanley Kauffmann
STANLEY KRAMER
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) - Some believe that by tackling such themes Kramer earns at least partial remission from criticism. How much? Twenty per cent for effort?
Stanley Kauffmann
STANLEY KUBRICK
A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Pointless, feeble fantasy, a complete bore ... Kubrick tricks up his feeble continuities with the kind of speeded-up sexploitation scene that wins prizes at erotic film festivals for ‘humor’.
The Village Voice
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Incredibly ponderous and languid. Kubrick plays with his model hardware like a child with a construction set - and I was on the outside not allowed in.
The London Daily Sketch
CLAUDE LELOUCH
“A Man and a Woman” (1966) - When in doubt, Lelouch's motto seems to be, use a color filter or insert lyrical shots of dogs and horses; when in real doubt, use both.
Tom Milne, “Monthly Film Bulletin”
GEORGE LUCAS
“Star Wars” (1977) - Heartless fireworks ignited by a permanently retarded director with too much clout and cash.
Time Out magazine (1984)
JOSEPH L MANKIEWICZ
“There was a Crooked Man” (1970) - Directed in the Grand Rapids style of moviemaking.
Pauline Kael in The New Yorker
OTTO PREMINGER
The Human Factor (1979) - Unfortunately, Preminger stages it all as if he was just trying to get all the actors through their line readings in under two hours, allowing no breathing room or time for character nuance in a tale which resolutely calls for quiet moments.
Variety
Hurry Sundown (1967) - Preminger's taste is atrocious. His idea of erotic symbolism is Jane Fonda caressing Michael Caine's saxophone.
Cue
KEN RUSSELL
The Devils (1970) - Ken Russell doesn't report hysteria, he markets it.
New Yorker (1976)
The Devils (1970) - ...the Torquemada School of Film Direction.
Alexander Walker, London Evening Standard
Savage Messiah (1972) - No list of the most awful films of the year would be complete without something by Ken Russell.
Vincent Canby, New York Times (1973)
Lisztomania (1975) - This gaudy compendium of camp, second-hand Freud and third-rate pastiche is like a bad song without end.
Sight and Sound
FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI
The Taming of the Shrew (1967) - With his misty-glow Renaissance decor, he manages to smother Shakespeare in pizza-Sennett.
Judith Crist
FRANK CAPRA
Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936) - I have an uneasy feeling he's on his way out. He's started making films about themes instead of people.
Alistair Cooke
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
The Secret Agent (1936) - How unfortunate it is that Mr Hitchcock, a clever director, is allowed to produce and even to write his own films, though as a producer he has no sense of continuity and as a writer he has no sense of life.
Graham Greene
FRITZ LANG
The Secret Behind the Door (1948) - Lang gets a few wood-silky highlights out of this sow's ear, but it's a hopeless job and a worthless movie.
James Agee
DUDLEY NICHOLS
“Mourning Becomes Electra” (1947) - Dudley Nichols must have wanted to film “Mourning Becomes Electra” very badly; he filmed it very badly indeed.
Leslie Halliwell, “Halliwell’s Harvest” (1986)
ORSON WELLES
Touch of Evil (1958) - Pure Orson Welles and impure balderdash, which may be the same thing.
Gerald Weales, Reporter
THE CRITICAL LIST
CONTENTS
[Vol One: 2000 to 2010]
CHAPTER HEADINGS
CONTENTS
[Vol One: 2000 to 2010]
CHAPTER HEADINGS
1. ACTORS
from Ben Affleck to Catherine Zeta-Jones
Surviving Christmas (2004) - "Affleck’s goose is cooked with Surviving Christmas, a movie that makes Gigli look like one of the crowning moments in his career … How did Affleck get so far on so little?"
Jami Bernard in The New York Daily News
Intolerable Cruelty (2003) - "Zeta Jones isn’t quite up to it. There’s a certain try-hard coldness about this performance: her eyes betray a mind that appears to be constantly trying not to forget something."
Jason Solomons in The Mail on Sunday
2. SCREEN TEAMS
TIM ALLEN, MARTIN LAWRENCE,
WILLIAM H. MACY & JOHN TRAVOLTA
Wild Hogs (2007) - "Looking at the actors on the poster outside the cinema triggers a kind of awestruck anticipation. They are four faces on a Mount Rushmore of rubbishness. Which one of these Hollywood middleweights is going to be the most utterly abysmal? Which is going to phone in the most inept performance? It’s like King Kong versus Godzilla versus Alien versus Predator: all four creatures lined up on the starting blocks for the 100m Terrible Acting event."WILLIAM H. MACY & JOHN TRAVOLTA
Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian
VINCE VAUGHAN & OWEN WILSON
Wedding Crashers (2005) - "Vaughn and Wilson appear to be running on freebie-buffet fumes." Peter Relic in Rolling Stone magazine (2006)
3. BEHIND THE SCREENS
[ Directors, Producers, Screenwriters, etc. ]
from Wes Anderson to David Zucker
[ Directors, Producers, Screenwriters, etc. ]
from Wes Anderson to David Zucker
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) - "Woody Allen, what happened? You stink on toast."
Paul Chambers on CNN
My Boss’ Daughter (2003) - "David Zucker ... directs this mess like a substitute teacher soldiering through a day's work for a day's pay at a decertified school."
Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly
4. MOVIES
from Angels & Demons to Zoom
from Angels & Demons to Zoom
"A big, dumb movie built to make money but hardly worthy of serious examination. Avatar isn't only critic-proof, it resists serious criticism. You might as well analyze a beach ball."
Philip Martin in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
"Zoolander is a one-joke movie - models are vain, bulimic morons - and it wears out faster than a pair of paper panties."
Rita Kempley in The Washington Post
FUTURE VOLUMES OF
THE QUOTABLE FILM CRITIC
THE DIRECTOR'S "CUT"
[ Directors, Producers, Screenwriters, etc. ]
Vol 2: 1980-1999
PEDRO ALDOMOVAR
“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1988) - The best to be said for it is that Aldomovar makes a good interior decorator.
Mark Finch in The Monthly Film Bulletin
KENNETH BRANAGH
Henry V (1989) - Branagh appears to see William Shakespeare less as drama than an occasion for dazzling solo turns.
Bruce Bawor in American Spectator
KEVIN COSTNER
Dances with Wolves (1991) - This epic was made by a bland megalomaniac. The Indians should have named him ‘Plays with Camera’.
Pauline Kael
BRIAN dePALMA
Bonfire of the Vanities (1991) - "A misfire of inanities. This is a failure of epic proportions. You've got to be a genius to make a movie this bad."
Joel Siegel on ABC TV
JOHN DEREK
Bolero (1984) - Only two films in recent history come close to rivaling this junk for stupidity and ineptitude, and both of them just happen to have been by Derek. They were Tarzan: The Ape-Man and A Boy...A Girl. Derek could open his own turkey farm.
Motion Picture Guide
CLINT EASTWOOD
Sudden Impact (1983) - Eastwood presumably takes credit for such gems of authorial self-awareness as replacing the orang-utang of the Which Way films, with a farting dog.
Paul Taylor in The Monthly Film Bulletin
NORA EPHRON
This is My Life (1992) - The directing debut of screenwriter Nora Ephron. On this evidence she should stick to writing because she hasn't a clue about pace and comic timing.
Anne Billson
AMY HECKERLING
Look Who’s Talking Too (1990) - Whenever Heckerling runs out of inspiration, which is every couple of minutes, she slaps an old rock'n'roll record on the turntable and transforms the film into a music-video.
Philip French
JOHN McTIERNAN
“Last Action Hero” (1993) - McTiernan pitches hamfistedly at a post-modern attention span and shoots with the subtlety of a rampaging rhino. This is film-making of the ‘more-is-more’ school.
Tom Charity
GARRY MARSHALL
“Pretty Woman” (1990) - Marshall directs like he was wearing ear-plugs and boxing gloves on the set.
“Virgin Film Guide”
JOHN MILIUS
“Red Dawn” (1983) - When is Mr Milius going to put his toy soldiers away and grow up?
Motion Picture Guide
MARTIN SCORCESE
Cape Fear (1992) - It not only leaves a nasty taste, it is a clumsy, less than effective thriller. Yet it does have incidental, unintended worth, by betraying how Scorcese and his peers see the world - and what sort of people they think we are. Their world is rotten, teeming with hollow men, and filmgoers are slow-witted, sensation-seekers who must have everything spelled out. In capital letters.
Shaun Usher (1992)
TONY SCOTT
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) - Scott's direction is a mixmaster without a compass.
Brian Case
SYLVESTER STALLONE
Staying Alive (1983) - Stallone doesn't bother much with character, scenes or dialogue. He just puts the newly muscle-plated John Travolta in front of the camera, covers him with what looks like an oil slick, and goes for whambams.
Pauline Kael, New Yorker
STEVEN SPIELBERG
Close Encounters of a Third Kind: Special Edition (1980) - One is inclined to feel that with all the money [$20m] at his disposal, Spielberg might have got it right the first time.
Derek Malcolm
FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI
Hamlet” (1991) - Two-plus hours in the company of Franco ‘one classic with everything on it coming right up' Zeffirelli was more than I could bear.
Charles Taylor, Modern Review (1994)
ROBERT ZEMECKIS
Death Becomes Her (1992) - “Death” is Zemeckis' attempt at an adult film (adult in the sense of it being aimed over the heads of 13-year-olds).
Graham Linehan, Select magazine
Vol 3: 1960-1979
ROBERT ALDRICH
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964) - Aldrich only just manages to keep this side of being disgusting and that side of being ridiculous.
Films and Filming
ROBERT ALTMAN
McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) - Altman directed “M*A*S*H”, which wandered and was often funny; then “Brewster McCloud”, which wandered and was not funny; now this, which wanders and is repulsive.
Stanley Kauffmann
PETER BOGDANOVICH
Daisy Miller (1974) - Appallingly crass ... directed with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Michael Billington in The Illustrated London News
FEDERICO FELLINI
Satyricon (1969) - Part of the gradual decomposition of what was once one of the greatest talents in film history ... a gimcrack, shopworn nightmare.
Geoff Andrew
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Psycho (1960) - A lascivious bloodbath ... he has become a caterer for cheap sniggers.
The London Sunday Dispatch
Psycho (1960) - A sad prostitution of talent ... It's sad to see a really big man make a fool of himself.
The London Express
The Birds (1963) - You cannot teach an old dog new tricks, and as much as we respect Alfred Hitchcock, a Hitchcock film is now as predictable as Christmas dinner and about as indigestible.
Films and Filming
NORMAN JEWISON
Fiddler on the Roof (1971) - Jewison hasn't so much directed a film, as prepared a product for world consumption.
Stanley Kauffmann
STANLEY KRAMER
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) - Some believe that by tackling such themes Kramer earns at least partial remission from criticism. How much? Twenty per cent for effort?
Stanley Kauffmann
STANLEY KUBRICK
A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Pointless, feeble fantasy, a complete bore ... Kubrick tricks up his feeble continuities with the kind of speeded-up sexploitation scene that wins prizes at erotic film festivals for ‘humor’.
The Village Voice
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Incredibly ponderous and languid. Kubrick plays with his model hardware like a child with a construction set - and I was on the outside not allowed in.
The London Daily Sketch
CLAUDE LELOUCH
“A Man and a Woman” (1966) - When in doubt, Lelouch's motto seems to be, use a color filter or insert lyrical shots of dogs and horses; when in real doubt, use both.
Tom Milne, “Monthly Film Bulletin”
GEORGE LUCAS
“Star Wars” (1977) - Heartless fireworks ignited by a permanently retarded director with too much clout and cash.
Time Out magazine (1984)
JOSEPH L MANKIEWICZ
“There was a Crooked Man” (1970) - Directed in the Grand Rapids style of moviemaking.
Pauline Kael in The New Yorker
OTTO PREMINGER
The Human Factor (1979) - Unfortunately, Preminger stages it all as if he was just trying to get all the actors through their line readings in under two hours, allowing no breathing room or time for character nuance in a tale which resolutely calls for quiet moments.
Variety
Hurry Sundown (1967) - Preminger's taste is atrocious. His idea of erotic symbolism is Jane Fonda caressing Michael Caine's saxophone.
Cue
KEN RUSSELL
The Devils (1970) - Ken Russell doesn't report hysteria, he markets it.
New Yorker (1976)
The Devils (1970) - ...the Torquemada School of Film Direction.
Alexander Walker, London Evening Standard
Savage Messiah (1972) - No list of the most awful films of the year would be complete without something by Ken Russell.
Vincent Canby, New York Times (1973)
Lisztomania (1975) - This gaudy compendium of camp, second-hand Freud and third-rate pastiche is like a bad song without end.
Sight and Sound
The Taming of the Shrew (1967) - With his misty-glow Renaissance decor, he manages to smother Shakespeare in pizza-Sennett.
Judith Crist
Vol 4: Pre-1960
FRANK CAPRA
Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936) - I have an uneasy feeling he's on his way out. He's started making films about themes instead of people.
Alistair Cooke
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
The Secret Agent (1936) - How unfortunate it is that Mr Hitchcock, a clever director, is allowed to produce and even to write his own films, though as a producer he has no sense of continuity and as a writer he has no sense of life.
Graham Greene
FRITZ LANG
The Secret Behind the Door (1948) - Lang gets a few wood-silky highlights out of this sow's ear, but it's a hopeless job and a worthless movie.
James Agee
DUDLEY NICHOLS
“Mourning Becomes Electra” (1947) - Dudley Nichols must have wanted to film “Mourning Becomes Electra” very badly; he filmed it very badly indeed.
Leslie Halliwell, “Halliwell’s Harvest” (1986)
ORSON WELLES
Touch of Evil (1958) - Pure Orson Welles and impure balderdash, which may be the same thing.
Gerald Weales, Reporter