"I hope she downloaded it from the iTunes Store and isn't a pirate on top of being a vampire" - Roger Ebert

Your Movie Sucks brings together a whole bunch of reviews Robert Ebert has done of movies he wasn't that impressed with. As a professional Critic I guess he has high standards, but noted he excluded criticism of any of the major franchises in the book, instead targeting a number of lame ducks that have crossed his sights over the years. For the purposes of this review I'm going to focus on Roger's horror evaluation, because quite frankly any more reading of Ebert would have lead me to finding a high powered rifle and a tower. Any species that can give rise to this egotistical knob end should be culled at the earliest possible time to be brutally honest. Let's get down and see why I considered Ebert to be a bit of a pork chop.

North Americans may be surprised to learn that Downunder Critics have very little impact on the viewing habits of our citizens, as opposed to what is apparently the case in North America where, besides Critic proof outings, movies can be made or broken by critiques from the major outlets. Which kind of makes you wonder why so much rubbish is being produced by Hollywood; perhaps in North America as well Critics are a lot less persuasive than they think they are. So to a certain extent Roger Ebert is a product of his culture, nowhere else would the antics of a person who wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls be taken anything like as seriously or actually given much space. Now I've got to ask any North Americans reading if they can write in and tell me why this person is held in any sort of regard, as quite frankly he is a self opinionated bore who constantly gets his facts wrong and who doesn't appear to have any understanding of foreign cultures.

Two Downunder movies are harpooned in Ebert's book, and in both cases Ebert comes off as a Xenophobic buffoon, the sort of Seppo that we lampoon Downunder. The Spierig's Undead gets a serve, which was surprising given Ebert doesn't go out of his way to attack any other low budget Independent feature, at least based on the evidence suggested by this book. Anywise Roger, in a bitchy moment that is all too prevalent in his reviews, attacks the movie for the zany characters involved and the aliens, whose motive Roger apparently couldn't work out. Now Undead has problems, but it's made for an Aussie audience, we get the humour going down here, something Ebert completely misses. Equally if you can't work out the alien motives, and the realisation of what those motives are that will have a profound effect on the survivors, then you really shouldn't be reviewing movies. Undead is Aussie horror 101, sorry Roger even my demented ginger haired cousin worked out what was happening in this one, and jived to the Aussie stereotypes being given a serve by the Spierigs. Worse is in store for Greg McLean's Wolf Creek, the most successful of the Aussie horror flicks Downunder in well over a decade. This is a movie that the RT meter surprisingly gave an 82% fresh to, i.e. a lot of U.S Critics liked what they saw. Naturally Roger didn't like it and lists his reasons, which could apply to 1001 U.S movies that he doesn't put the boot into. Yes the movie is brutal in parts, the infamous "head on a stick" for example, and yes things happen because the script demands they happen, but McLean singularly brought the chill back to Aussie horror cinema and had a smash hit as a result. What Ebert misses is the central character Mick is quintessential Aussie, we have all meet someone with the same mannerisms. Once again movie aimed at an Aussie audience Roger, try and get your head out of your arse and check that not all movies are made for a North American audience. Yes there's a misogynist streak running through the flick, but what was the name of the script you wrote Roger? You know the one that present women in less than a favourable light. Greg McLean's movie helped re-establish the dark genre Downunder as a force to be reckoned with, it wasn't a calling card on Hollywood Roger, not everyone wants to dial into that particular pond of ineptitude. Greg has gone on to make a number of other movies Downunder, and to date hasn't been dazzled by the Hollywood Ebert is sure everyone aspires to. All that glitters, somethings are only surface deep Mr Ebert, like your attention span perhaps.

Yes there is a line Mr Ebert, and you crossed it, your reviews of foreign film show a deep xenophobic nature, a person who has no wish to understand the cultures that give rise to their own breed of horror. No doubt you are bored by J-Horror's use of long dark haired revenants as well!

Now before anyone accuses me of being a Downunder apologist let's see how Roger deals with dark genre movies from his own culture. I've already quoted Blade Trinty above, a fun action movie that doesn't take itself seriously as opposed to Ebert. The bushy tailed will note that Ebert has made a fundamental mistake in his thinly veiled attack on the movie. The character he is describing, Abigail, isn't a vampire. Come on Roger that's a bit poor mate, but about the standard we can expect from you. Ebert also launches a tirade against Final Destination 2, apparently the improbable deaths offended him, sorry Roger didn't you get the premise of the franchise? For whatever dubious reason people are catching the movies for the implausible deaths, ergo the movie makers are supplying exactly what the market wants. Shimizu's U.S remake, The Grude, gets shafted for missing "intriguing opportunities", sorry Roger didn't you pick up on the whole "stranger in a strange land" vibe, the movie maker was making this movie for a North American audience ergo it's not in a foreign language! SMG is adrift in a culture she doesn't understand, to make things worse they speak in her language, but there's subtle differences to how the Japanese perceive things. Roger of course misses this completely, guess Shimizu should have dumbed things down for Seppo Critics then, actually so should M. Night, who we'll get to shortly.

What surprised me about Ebert is he doesn't seem to have grasped a very simplistic fact about any movie, they operate to their own reality, their own rules, pretty much no movie is reality by its very nature. Hence Ebert's attacks on Resident Evil show a Critic who went in with a set narrow mind, someone who had decided he didn't like a movie before he had seen it. Throw any movie at me and if I so decide I can find all sorts of plot holes, illogic moments, and inconsistent character actions. Nature of the beast Bro, if you aren't jiving to this, then go lug crates of cola into warehouses, quite probably that is a far more productive use of your time.

Strangely Ebert demonstrates time after time that he shouldn't be reviewing movies as he singularly lacks the understanding of sub-plot, waking nightmares, and any other number of other requirements for evaluating cinematic fare. How else can you explain Ebert's self professed non-understanding of Silent Hill, a surreal nightmare based on a video game. Roger didn't understand it, and hey he wasn't alone a bunch of other people he talked to coming out of the movie theatre didn't understand it either. I had a similar experience coming out of Predators, a bunch of bogans didn't get the Doctor in that movie! But there's worse from Roger, a man who apparently needs everything spelt out in neon lights. M Night Shyamalan's The Village is a movie that has meet with mixed reactions at best. The film was advertised as a horror flick, which brought in exactly the wrong crowd, oh and also Roger Ebert who apparently has no understanding of political satire. Roger didn't like The Village because it's "based on a premise that cannot support it". Once again Roger, pull the carrot out and watch the movie for its own sake, you know think a bit before carrying on like a complete prat. For Roger, and a multitude of dribbling teens, The Village is about paranoia, mind control, political masters using an outside threat to enforce behaviour. M Night openly attacks the Presidential misdealing of Bush Junior, a fact Ebert completely misses in his crusade to appear as the dumbest North American critic since Leonard Maltin, who didn't get Event Horizon! Sure a lot of people didn't dig The Village, I can understand that, but in Mr Ebert's twisted view books like Guillvar's Travels should never have been published because it's "based on a premise that cannot support it". Frack me, dinner talk around Ebert's table must be on a whole new level of inanity.

I can cite numerous other examples from this book where Roger Ebert get's his facts wrong and simply doesn't understand what he is viewing. At the best I could state that Ebert has an over inflated opinion of himself, at worse I could quite possibly make the same sort of attack that a well know web site has made on numerous occasions about Harry Knowles, another North American "Critic", who has openly lied on a number of occasions to his readers about having seen a movie. Both Critics really do make you wonder why North Americans bother reading Critics in the first place. To be honest you would expect Critics, as opposed to Reviewers who aren't paid to write on their impressions of movies, to get their facts right and have some understanding of what makes a movie tick. I would also postulate, sorry look it up Roger, that Critics shouldn't go into movies with a prejudicial attitude.

Okay I'm not even going to say where you can get this book filled of Roger Ebert's wrong facts and wrong assumptions, though check the bargain bins down your local mall if intrigued to learn how not to write reviews. On a couple of occasions in the book Ebert is proud of the fact that he owns an Apple computer, which pretty much summed him up for me. He's the type of person who doesn't own a PC he owns an "Apple", yes those completely over priced toys for the non-technical who haven't worked out they are getting ripped off yet. Sorry Roger your book sucks, no recommendation, anyone who reads Ebert's ramblings is getting exactly what they deserve from an Emperor who definitely has no clothes on. Sorry Roger was that illusion a bit too subtle for you, okay then, a Critic who has fooled people into thinking he can talk movies.