Thursday, August 17, 2006

WORDS: Making Me Proud of the English Language

One of my favourite features on defective yeti is The Bad Review Revue, a regular roundup of awesome reviews of terrible movies. Since my site is about all things wordy, I couldn't not share with you the brilliance of the most recent bad review, which is for the movie Sphere:
Dustin is ashen. He keeps looking over his shoulder as if he expects somebody to rush in and tell him it's okay, he can leave, the monster won't be offended. But nobody comes.

"Hi, Dustin," the monster croaks in a screechy, raspy voice.

"I want to make another American Buffalo," Dustin replies. "Or maybe Wag the Dog."

"Whatever." The monster yawns and spreads its legs.

"Ohhhh," whines Dustin, sounding like Ben Braddock in The Graduate. "Ohhhh. I-I-I-I dunno. I dunno if I can do this."

"Don't pull the shy virgin bit with me." The monster pats the mattress. "Come over here, Rain Man. Give it to me rough this time."

So Dustin fucks the monster, holding his nose and trying hard not to gag. But after a while, he kind of gets into it. He knows what the monster likes. They go way back.
You'll have to go here to read the rest.

Mean? Yes. Magnificent? Definitely. I don't know about you, but this makes me proud to be a fellow user of the English language.

7 comments:

Doppelsis said...

You are so weird.

--Deb said...

Thank you for that link. There really are few things as satisfying as a well-written bad review . . . at least, for the things that deserve it. (I can never appreciate the wit and bite properly when I'm busy shouting "What are you thinking?" at the screen." When I see zero- and one-star movie reviews in the paper, I almost always stop to read them, even though you'd never catch me near the theaters to actually see the things. But the reviews are fun!

jjlook said...

My favourite bad review ever was from when Elvis Mitchell used to review for the NY Times. I have always remembered this sentence: "the only way this movie could be stupider is if it were longer."
I love and miss Elvis Mitchell.

Anonymous said...

I adore bad reviews. One of my favorite lines from a one-star movie review (of Urban Legends: Final Cut, which was indeed awful) is this one by Eric D. Snider of the (Provo) Daily Herald: "It starts bad, is bad in the middle, has some more badness near the end, and then erupts into a grand finale of badness so bad it makes other bad things look good." Hee. -Cranberry

Anonymous said...

I am entertained with bad reviews. It makes me feel proud of myself. I can't help but think that there are still some out there who are pointless than I am.

RossK said...

jjl--

You can still find Elvis Mitchell regularly in spoken word form on NPR's Weekend with Scott Simon.

This week they discussed the 'other' Cosby Show.

.

Claire said...

Beautiful. Just...beautiful. Hee.