101 Movies to Avoid: The Most Overrated Films Ever! [ペーパーバック]

This book is either a troll or a legitimate book of criticism masked behind a psuedonym for no good reason, and either way it's sort of a miserable failure.

Since Alan Smithee is the recently-discontinued psuedonym for DGA directors wishing to disown a work, you might imagine that the book is attempting some kind of anti-criticism, showing off what ridiculous opinions the director of Supernova and Hellraiser: Bloodline might have. But there's no coherent attempt to write in another person's voice, and if the intent is to basically troll the reader, it's too unfocused for that as well- why not throw in some guaranteed controversy-starters like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or, hell, Citizen Kane? Why not go all out and skewer beloved family classics, legends of old Hollywood, or acclaimed foreign films? Why limit yourself to mostly the last decade with a few old ones thrown in for the heck of it?

On top of which it's just not very funny. The writing is a clichéd, uninspired form of that dry misanthropy which UK's snarkier critics love, only at least the writers for, say, Total Film are making an attempt to actually review the picture in question. "Smithee" just rambles for two or three paragraphs, throwing in the odd quip about how his wife badgers him to stop drinking or how Americans are different from yogurt (no culture.) When writing about Spielberg's War of the Worlds (which may be highly acclaimed in some corner of the universe I'm not familiar with), he wastes a lot of time gabbing about Tom Cruise's peccadilloes and slowly starts on the film, only he's used up all his meager space already.

If it is serious criticism, well, that doesn't work either. See, writing a negative review is not simply a question of coming up with some creative analogies ("the lead is more wooden than Pinocchio.") You have to actually discuss what the movie does wrong. 101 Movies To Avoid steers clear of specifics whenever possible, in favor of what Dorothy Parker called "calisthenics with words", only these aren't even vigorous calisthenics. In several cases it's not clear whether or not the reviewer has even seen the film in question- he not only gets facts wrong, he conveys no sense of how a film moves, feels, looks. You could change a few words and swap several of these around.

I feel like I'm giving this more attention than was put into it, but you see, that's the point. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and this includes tearing apart popular films. 101 Movies to Avoid takes the slacker's approach to criticism and fails even to deliver quality snark.

Scan the titles of the films reviewed, then google or wiki the author's name... and enjoy a bit of irony. Then reconsider the nature of the new reviews in the book. I actually agree that several of these films are overrated... but the satirical bent is clear.
Robert LaRue
Omnibozoologist