quote whores Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Oh, generalizations. Will they ever go out of style? Let's hope not, or who knows how SmartMoney Magazine would conduct business. I mean, I get it -- "What aren't movie critics telling you?" is easier to pitch than "Why are movie critics still relevant to consumers?". It's got a ready-set villain, out to squander your finances in times like these, so why waste it?

And I know, I'm generalizing about the magazine itself, but if there were even a single byline on this piece (which IFC's Matt Singer brought to my attention, praise be to him), then I'd take that writer to task, perhaps in private. But no, the Magazine itself has broadly knocked my profession -- going so far as to file the piece under the "Rip-Offs" heading of their "Spending" section -- and so I shall attempt to explain why a few bad apples does not a rotten bushel, or feature article, make.

Our own Scott Weinberg recently told you about the canning of quote whore Pete Hammond from the pages of Maxim Magazine, and brought you many of Hammond's incredible quotes, culled all year long by the indefatigable Erik Childress at efilmcritic.com. Now Childress has announced his annual Criticwatch "Whores of the Year" list, saving his "2007 Michael Medved Bag of Douche Memorial Award" for Hammond. Jeffrey Lyons and Earl Dittman made the top ten this year, along with young E! Online critic Ben Lyons -- son of Jeffrey -- for calling I Am Legend "one of the greatest films ever made." Says Childress: "If he were 12 and had only seen 50 movies in his lifetime it would STILL be one of the dumbest god damn statements ever made by a human being named Lyons."

Apparently Childress has taken on the superhuman effort of combing through every blurb on every movie ad for the entire year and cataloging them in such a way as to reveal their hidden hypocrisies. How many films in 2007 were called "masterpiece"? At least 20, and that's including Dittman's assessment of Halloween. Even more films were called "spellbinding" and "a must-see!" I personally escaped this year, but several of my critic friends did not. Even Cinematical's James Rocchi is mentioned, for having used the phrase "raw sexuality and fever-pitched emotion" in his review of Red Road. A big thanks to Erik for keeping score.