Favorite/Least favorite critic cliches

Feel-good picture. Unless it's a horror movie, then it's funny.

"The Amityville Horror remake was the feel-good picture of the summer."

Roller Coaster ride from start to finish.

From the (adjective) mind of (filmmaker's name)...

"One of the best movies of the year!"

"Blank meets Blank"

that's maybe my least favorite unless it's totally out there. also, another non-favorite is
"Wickedly Funny"

"Get ready for the next great [insert genre here]."

99% of the time, when something advertises itself as the next great whatever, it turns out to be anything but.

As good as sex- AICN

While not cliche per se, I hate anything thats overly cutesy.

"If Matthew Broderick is the Freshman, I'd like to go back to school!" and its ilk make me tear my hair out.

I do however lament that I did not find a single review of the Planet of the Apes remake that refered to it as "Marky Mark and the Monkey Bunch"

I dislike it when critics use the term 'philosophy 101' in a derogatory fashion when reviewing a movie.

"Two thumbs up"!

"Two thumbs way up"!

"The best film you'll see this year, or any year"!

" _______________________ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"

" __________________ has never been _____________"

" __________________ is back"!

"Forget The Matrix, ____________"!

Any review that refers to a movie as a "ride."

Any quotes attributed to local TV critics.

"Master of Horror" How many damn "Masters" does the genre have nowadays?

"A taut psychological thriller."

"With a twist ending you won't see coming!"

Bullshit. You just told me there's a twist.

Legendary Filmaker..... Like Master its overused.

From Acin - Achingly Beautifull - i am still trying to figure that one out.

Oh, and ANY quote from Larry King. Larry King is amazed if he has a bowel movement before noon, his opinion of a film shouldn't count for anthing.

My favorite, if only because I get a kick out of a critic that draws his/her battle lines like any internet nerd:

"George Lucas should be ashamed!"

Least favorite:

"Bring some tissues."

I hate the "Best _______ of the Year" quotes well. Almost every movie advertised on TV seems to have that quote.

I also despise the "_____ Move Over! _____ is HERE!!!"

Or a sci-fi film comes out and they say "this generation's Star Wars" or "It's like Star Wars and The Matrix!!!"

And this isn't really a quote from a critic, but I hate those goddamn movie commericals where they talk to the audience after the movie and they say "it rocks!!! I can't wait to see it again!!!" And they are all chipper twits bouncing all over the place.

I just wish for once they have a real commerical and say "oh man it sucked big time - Fox fucked up again!" "It could have been a good movie but Stallone/Willis/Arnie/ ruined it!"

You can't blame critics (especially veterans) for being unable to continuously invent reactions toward movies about which they have no spontaneous feelings whatsoever.

There isn’t a critic alive who won’t, at some point, resort to cliché. Why expend your most valuable lines on material that you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole if you weren’t being paid?

On my copy of Princess Mononoke:

"The 'Star Wars' of Animated Features!"

Grrrr.....

"In the tradition of..." to describe a cheap rip off of.
I agree that Philosophy 101 is a cliche, but I can understand why it is used to describe "deep and profund" films that not nearly as deep and profound as the filmakes think they are.
ANd the terms has merit in that it drives the Matrix fanboys crazy.

"DIE HARD on/in a BLANK!"

not much these days, but 10-13 years ago that was everywhere. and it was annoying every time.

die hard on a bus
die hard on a boat
die hard on a train
die hard in a hockey rink
die hard on a spaceship
die hard at a summer camp

crazy...

THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN- "Bring some tissues."


BWAHAHA.

Its so lame though, is there really something wrong with any type of philosophy 101 type class? Its just the act of learning, enriching the mind with knowledge, to bash a film for even trying to be more than just entertaining is so backwards is annoying. Everytime a film I like for being more than entertaining comes out, so do the philosophy 101 comments, I've seen them for A.I, Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Solaris, etc. Its just a lazy way of saying "I couldnt get into the film and didnt understand most of what was going on, so...".

In the case of the Matrix films, the directors never said they were deep and profound in the first place, they've hardly said a word about the films to anyone, going so far to put two commentaries on each film, one from those critics who spout the cliche and one from actual philosophers. Regular people in 1999 discovered whatever they wanted to in the first film (I remember an amusing Empire magazine review where the befuddled critic wondered why/where people saw an Alice in Wonderland theme and asked readers to send in their thoughts) and critics thus begun the backlash for Reloaded ("Its so cod philosophy 101 people!"). And yes I get crazy easily.

For those of us who do read philosophy, it is annoying to see HOLLYWOOD films attempt at some sort of thought. In my mind philosophical films are inherently annoying. When I mean philosophical, I mean when there's an actual dialogue between characters discussing some upper crust issue that can't be relatable on any other level than what is being presented. Its disgustingly Platonic and a laughable way to justify the profundity of a film that is just as void of anything remotely human as the next. A malaise of metaphorical symbols, no different than sitting at some Church mass being hypnotized. Other films can be philosophical, or inspire some without having to toss around quotidian quotes, name names, or pose eye-rolling rhetorical questions. Its not the audience's laziness but the filmmaker's laziness to produce something worthwhile instead of digging up some old text of clever thought and capitalizing on it. There is a danger of ill-informed films (or trend) right now becoming philosophical. Oh well, let the masses be swayed. To wit (since I suck):

Another one, more from the advertising than the critics: "Critics everywhere have discovered...."

Right, like they blundered into the theater expecting to see one film and suddenly this cinematic revelation appeared before them.

In my mind a 'philosophical film' is one that sparks a philosophical debate from the viewers after the end credits, no matter what the method during the content. Sure we'd all prefer it done subtilely rather than have characters looking at the screen and quoting Plato, etc, but the films I mentioned in my post dont do it that way. Their subject matters are simply thought provoking, as in: they provoke the viewer into thinking outside the film's own story. Its still entertainment at the end of the day, not an academic investigation or analysis of a particular train of ideas. But equating specific films with a philosophy 101 class is still cheap and a lazy way of critiquing them in my opinion.

I did enjoy reading Ray Carney's Q&A though, and agree with most of it.