When a film is released, the companies that released them need to let people know about it, so that people will know about it. Once people know about it, they need a reason to want to see it. There are two ways to do this. The old way was to make a film that was worth being seen. The preferred method in our modern, more sophisticated times is to trick people into thinking it's worth being seen. To do this, you first show the biggest action sequences, best jokes and whatnot totally out of context and deprive them of any potential entertainment value via a device known as the “preview,” and once you have people's attention you bring out the critics to say nice things about it. You don't need them to say much, any really catchy-sounding sentence-fragment will do. Then you take this sentence fragment and refer to it a lot, on television, in newspapers, and the like. No one can prove whether this works or not, that's just the way it's always been done. It is not known why anyone would accept such dubiously originating unsolicited advice, and pay to see a film because of it. Not by me, anyway.

Joe Leydon, from the San Francisco Examiner, a stupid name for a newspaper, even in California, informs us that Hot Chick is “laugh-out-loud funny!,” complete with exclamation point. Is there a way to laugh silently? I do not believe that there is.

C.W. Nevius is of the opinion that “The Ring is so good, it's scary.” Wuh? Generally, does not the fear associated with theatrical presentations lie in the possibility of them being not good? Why should I fear what I enjoy? Is this film equivalent to a substance like cocaine, whose use people may enjoy immensely, despite how potentially and very often actually dangerous it is? I found no subtitle for C.W. Nevius, so I can only assume this person is a consumer advocate of some sort, who was originally urging people to not see this film, for fear that it may kill them. Advertisers are so devious.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine referred to 8 Mile as “a cinematic event,” in such a way as to suggest that an event is a good thing to be. But for around six months after it happened, I tended to hear (and still do, on occasion) people refer to a couple of airplanes crashing into a couple of buildings as “recent events,” without any sign of implication that they enjoyed said events.

David Manning is not a film critic who does not work for the Ridgefield Press. David Manning did not make positive comments about certain Sony-owned films which do exist, but advertising for said certain films claimed that he did. A Sony advertising executive, Matthew Cramer, is credited with quoting Manning's reviews, which likely also did not exist. Now, somehow, once people realized David Manning was not real, they were outraged. Come on. I can understand being slightly bothered at being influenced by corporate bias disguised as an outside source's opinion, but not outraged. It's not as if the “legitimate” critics don't ever act totally on bias. Most of the time, that's just what they do. Believe it or don't, but sometimes movies are better than the books which inspired them. Sometimes Academy Award winners do give bad sperformances. Sometimes computer animation is just unsightly. Who's to decide which kind of predisposition is right and which is wrong? I say, good for Sony. The irony here is that Matthew Cramer was Sony's director of creative advertising, and when he finally did his job, he was punished for it. He wasn't punished very severely, as evidenced by the fact that he still has his job, but the position's kind of meaningless now, isn't it.

Jesse Cagle of TIME magazine says of And the Chamber of Secrets that it is “even better than the first.” So first what? You see, the film at issue here is a sequel, which means that there was another quite similar which was released prior to this one. So I am to believe that this sequel is an improvement upon its predecessor. How do I know that the predecessor was not absolutely horrid, so horrid, in fact, that to improve upon it is among the minutest of tasks? It turns out, I know of this first film. I do recall, last year, overhearing that it was “magical.” Well, of course a movie about sorcerors is going to be magical. Was it thought that Warner Brothers would spend $100,000,000 (likely estimate) making a little ball pass through a plastic cup? Was it expected that a couple of caricaturically British children would be unlinking a couple of metal rings? You be the judge. That's what people say when they can't think of a good answer to their own question.

Peter Travers, again, tells me that Jerry Seinfeld: who is a Comedian is “funny as hell.” I think this comment is meant to be sarcastic. Unless, of course, Peter Travers legitimately finds the eternal suffering of misled souls to be humorous, in which case I'd be not the least bit surprised to know he enjoyed this film.

A.O. Scott of New York Times fame explains that with Drumline, “You may find it hard to stay in your seat.” All I can gather from this is that it means I'll want to leave. I may find it hard to not stand up and make use of the theatre's exit.

One of my all time favorite “blurbs” cannot, unfortunately, be attributed to any recent source. It tends to turn up in any movie in which adults playing high-school students use a lot of drugs and engage in much sexual intercourse with each other. In case you've forgotten (cheap redundancy coverup), this is called “smart, hip, sexy.” Our old friend Peter Travers, who I guess must be famous or something, once called a film “smart, inventive and passionate,” but I know what he really meant. If I was Andy Rooney, whom I would tell you I'm not without hesitation after realizing I could not profit in any way from such a confusion, I might feel inclined to ask “and just what does hip mean, anyway?” I still think this needs an answer, however. As far as the oft-cited dictionary.com can tell, in addition to being a homologous posterior part in quadrupeds, it means to be keenly aware of or knowledgeable about the latest trends or developments a needless thing to point out about a film. As if these middle-aged white men who dominate [every] field would even be able to identify such a thing were it truly present. It is my thinking that the word is only included to separate “smart” and “sexy,” two words which clearly do not belong together. If I want ‘smart,’ I'll go read a book. And as far as ‘sexy’ (which I swear, I'm not typing again) is concerned, why would anyone look to mainstream cinema for that? I thought that was what pornography was for. Why pay upwards of eight dollars for a ticket to see a few minutes of suggestive clothed touching, when for a slight bit more than that you can get a full month of all the nudity you want, often without even wanting to, through the means of the internet? That is, if we are to believe Netzero, which by the way used to be free. And I am quite fed up with "nude scenes." If it was any degree of nudity that was worth other people being excited over, the film would have more than a PG-13 rating, you do realize that, don't you? Not only that, beyond “useless temporary arousal of key demographic” there's absolutely no reason to have one. If it's even relevant to the plot at all, which chances are, it isn't, I think we could all survive with nude contact being merely implied. If people want to be controversial, I don't see why they can't use inverted color film or make all the actors ingest helium before speaking or cast lepers for all the key roles. Well. Anyway...

Another one I've seen far too often is “Two thumbs way up!” That's in quotation marks, so I assume it's being said rather than done. It must be, as I've tried putting my thumbs way up. Really, I've tried. But I can't do it. They won't go any further up than just regular up. Likewise, they cannot go “further down.” If Ebert and whoever his friend is want more freedom with their needless praise, they ought to change way up to just regular up, and then what's regular up now can become halfway up. We needn't have filmmakers wondering if the rating of “up” they received is “way” or not. Or how about this. Fat guy and thin guy should start using both of their hands. Not only will this solve the “way up” problem, we won't have to worry about one person bringing out their other hand secretly to give something “two thumbs up” after the other person has pointed his downward, because they will both be using two hands each anyway. But then, those of the belief that Ebert did not, in fact, eat Siskel may become suspicious that Ebert is using the corpse's two decaying hands also. “Well, Gene would've liked this one,” he might justify it with. In which case, I recommend we cut all involved parties' thumbs off and put these people on permanent disability leave.

Richard Carliss, agent of the TIME overlords, sets forth, regarding Treasure Planet, that “this planet is a treasure!” Clearly, clearly, this man needs to be tracked down and locked up. Anyone who can say something like that and not feel shame is a threat to humanity.

I feel much the same way about Gene Shalit, the Today Show's resident hirsute lunatic, who on a regular basis says things like “Billy Crystal is the fastest fun in the west,” crazy enough already, I know, but he wasn't even talking about City Slickers, the movie Billy Crystal was in which was western-themed. No, Gene Shalit was talking about Analyze That. He must be stopped. If possible, of course, feel free to stop both of them.

David Moss, of WJW-TV/FOX, Cleveland, whatever that even means, when asked about Star Trek Nemesis will tell you “I liked it better than Star Wars.” You can tell this one didn't come from a positive review. I can imagine... ‘despite all that, it wasn't completely unbearable. At least, I liked it better than Star Wars, but I still want my money back.’

So this is the end. All requotes come from The New Haven Register (if you can't tell from the main page, that's the newspaper we get around here), except where otherwise noted, and you may notice that nowhere is otherwise noted. I didn't have a great selection to work with, only recent editions being available, and me not contributing a whole lot of effort into finding additional sources. But that also means I don't have to mention them at the end, which I've already informed you this is (but I guess I don't anyway, because this is the internet, wonderland of non-credit and misinformation).