I’m about to leave to catch a screening of Kick-Ass 2 with Tom, but our excitement has been tempered by less-than-stellar reviews. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film has only a 28% “certified fresh” rating. For some reason that website still confuses me. I can never remember just by looking at the tomatoes which one is good and which one is bad. Green is good and red is bad typically, but on that site the green tomato is bad and the red tomato is good. Whatever, that’s not my point.
A few months ago Tom, Nate and I were watching the first Kick-Ass movie on TV and we were shocked to learn that the film was given 1-star by whoever writes the log-lines for the cable company. “One star!?” we thought, remembering fondly the night that the three of us saw it in theaters. “Who the fuck writes these things!?” A few minutes later someone else showed up at the house. I don’t know if it was Ben or Fran or Mark or whoever, but they expressed their distaste for the movie. Apparently — unbeknownst to us — people didn’t like Kick-Ass. It was ranked 77% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But it can’t be great.
As I sat and contemplated movies I’ve enjoyed through the years, I wondered if there are other movies (like the first Kick-Ass) that most people didn’t like. I decided to check some of my favorites against critics and audiences using the Rotten Tomatoes index as the standard by which movies are graded. Because what is a scientific experiment without some kind of constant? Right?
With that in mind I give you:
Ten Movies I Like That Apparently No One Else Does
10. The Saint – 30% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – Bullshit. This film is a classic. I can’t even fathom how it wasn’t on the last AFI’s 100 Years 100 Movies list. “Top Critics” wrote about it, “eminently forgettable” and “This insufferable romance-adventure includes vague comedy as well as unintentional humor, and its target audience seems to be preadolescents who won’t notice the calculated enthusiasm with which it sidesteps sexuality.” Whoops!
09. House Of Wax (2005) – 25% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – I used to love to smoke pot and watch this movie, which I probably did on ten different occasions in the lost years between college graduation and my move to LA. Unfortunately, no one else thought it was any good. “You’ll be rooting for these people to get slaughtered out of sheer boredom” said Washington Post critic Desson Thomson. Yeah, dude. Isn’t that the point? What’s wrong with that!?
08. Wolf Creek – 53% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – Apparently even if you garner over 50% positive reviews you still get that nasty green splatter tomato. While on the topic of bad horror movies, Wolf Creek gets a lot of shit because most audience members who watch it see an incredibly misogynistic film with little to no redeeming qualities. Bruce Westbrook called it “cruel for the sake of cruelty,” and Elizabeth Weitzman of the Daily News said, “Just because Dimension considered Greg McLean’s nasty exploitation flick worthy of their time and money doesn’t mean it deserves yours.” Yeah, that’s just what a woman WOULD say.
07. AntiTrust – 24% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – “There’s no an original note in Howard Franklin’s screenplay or Peter Howitt’s direction.” How could you say that, Peter Travers? Isn’t the very idea that you can cast Ryan Phillippe as a bumbling computer nerd the very essence of originality!? Or the fact that you can dress…what’s that guy’s name…Tim Robbins (?) up to look JUST LIKE Bill Gates, then give him some crazy not-Bill-Gates name like Gill Bates? “A thriller is in trouble when the audience doesn’t care about the hero and actively likes the bad guy.” See, that critic actually makes the plot sound like something truly original!
06. Airborne – 17% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – Oh, if my buddy Simon could see the unfair shake this movie has been given by critics. He’d be the first one to grab his pitchfork and his torch and get behind me as we mob…whatever you call the buildings where film critics hide. Their parents’ houses? News bureaus? One guy called Airbone a “fad flick that has lots of skateboards…and literally nothing else.” Uh…does the name Jack Black mean anything to you!? ASSHOLE!
05. Event Horizon – 22% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – At least the audience members who reviewed the film gave it a 61% rating. I’m still not sure if that’s any good, apparently a 53% is still bad enough to earn a splattered tomato. One guy described this amazing space-horror (and isn’t that a genre we really need to see more of these days!?) by saying “you look at Event Horizon as you would something that fell out of someone’s nose.” Unnecessarily harsh, guy. Sam Neil was epic in this movie. So was Jeff Goldblum! Oh, wait. Never mind. I’m thinking of Jurassic Park.
04. Fear – 39% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – You guys, I don’t care if this is “one of the all-time goofiest movies,” or an “overblown, predictable snicker-fest”. I could watch young Reese Witherspoon get finger-banged on a roller coaster set to “Wild Horses” (as covered by The Sundays) for the rest of my life without getting bored.
03. Super Troopers – 35% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – Somehow, miraculously, STARSHIP Troopers earned a 63% (good enough for an un-splattered, red tomato) and yet Super Troopers only managed a 35%. Really!? This is one of the most quotable movies of my generation. I think. It’s like…the Animal House of the ’00s. Except with policemen instead of co-eds. Some cunt named Richard Roeper described it by saying, “It made me yearn for the golden era of January, when Slackers was released.” Alright douchebag, go suck Linklater’s dick a little more why don’t you. Wait a minute, did you say SLACKERS? Not Slacker!? YOU SAID SLACKERS? That fucking HORRIBLE movie with Devon Sawa!? Oh my God, Roeper. You…you’re a fucking idiot. Thankfully the audience members who ranked this gave it an 86%, which means old people don’t find funny things funny, and young people are at least 53% more intelligent than old people when it comes to film critique.
Slackers, by the way, has a 10% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe Roeper was making a joke in his review. If so, it was the worst joke in the history of film critique because he would have been complimenting Super Troopers, which totally flies in the face of his negative review. Roeper, you suck. You killed Ebert. Not the cancer. Just you.
02. Beyond The Black Rainbow – 46% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – It’s a shame you can’t grade a movie based solely on its score, because this had one of the best in recent memory. Sure, the plot was incomprehensible and I’m pretty sure I sat down to watch the movie sober and wound up tripping fucking balls, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a BAD film. Rene Rodriguez, the dope who writes for the Miami Herald, said, “The movie looks like it was lit by lava lamps, scored on Moog synthesizers, written between bong hits and acted underwater. None of this is meant as praise.” UM, HELLO DOUCHEBAG, THAT’S LIKE THE BEST COMPLIMENT A DIRECTOR COULD EVER HOPE TO RECEIVE! And what the fuck is wrong with writing music on a synthesizer? Have you ever watched a Herzog film? What the fuck do you think Popol Vuh was using, a John Williams robot? Eat a dick.
01. Godzilla – 25% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes – I ask you again, people: Do not judge a movie based simply on things like acting, direction, or writing. Look to the soundtrack. If it wasn’t for Godzilla, we wouldn’t have that incredible soundtrack with “A320” (Foo Fighters), “Untitled” by Silverchair, or…oh, shit. I’m thinking of Cable Guy, not Godzilla. Matthew Broderick was in both movies but I don’t think I liked Godzilla at all. In fact, Godzilla sucked! Cable Guy was awesome! AND IT ONLY GOT A 54%? THAT’S BULLSHIT! But the soundtrack — oh man — “Blind” by Silverchair, Porno For Pyros, Cracker, Filter, Toadies! C’mon, that movie was awesome. Fuck you, Rotten Tomatoes. You don’t know dick about shit.
Silverchair – Blind [MP3]
