Ardis Sillick & Michael McCormick: THE CRITICS WERE WRONG

The Critics Were Wrong
Ardis Sillick & Michael McCormick
1996; Citadel Press

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Filled with pull quotes of negative reviews on films that were otherwise audience or critical favourites, The Critics Were Wrong makes it fun in a darkly humourous way to look up your favourite movie or movie star to see what kind of ribbing it receives.  Truthfully, a greater distraction is to find negative reviews that you really agree with!

For instance, everyone’s favourite feel good movie (but not mine) E.T.:

“…I was so flabbergasted by Spielberg and (screenwriter Melissa) Mathison’s transparent maniupulativeness that I didn’t have time to react with the mindless emotionalism that has clouded the acuity of supposedly sharp-minded critics like Pauline Kael…” Thank you Robert Asahina of New Leader. 

And dare I say it?  I even have to hand it to John Simon for one review:

Fanny and Alexander (1983): “There is nothing here that Bergman hasn’t done better before, and we get bored.  Fanny and Alexander is an overstuffed film, and, in this case at least, more is decidedly less.”

The Critics Were Wrong is a good fast read, as much text consists of cast and crew credits for each title, which may or may not have anything to do with the malignant morsel of a review that follows. It is just the perfect kind of stocking stuffer that will provide a lot of fun with your friends and relatives, as you share egg nog and rhyme off skewed observances of your old favourites. But this is one of those gifts that you have a heck of a lot of fun with on December 25, and then you put it on a shelf on Boxing Day and likely forget it’s there until next summer’s yard sale.

Originally reviewed in Vol. #1, Issue #4, 2002.