Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} I Hated Hated Hated This Movie by Roger Ebert I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie. Roger Ebert awards at least two out of four stars to most of the more than 150 movies he reviews each year. But when the noted film critic does pan a movie, the result is a humorous, scathing critique far more entertaining than the movie itself. I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie is a collection of more than 200 of Ebert's most biting and entertaining reviews of films receiving a mere star or less from the only film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize. Ebert has no patience for these atrocious movies and minces no words in skewering the offenders. Witness: Armageddon * (1998) --The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out. The Beverly Hillbillies * (1993)--Imagine the dumbest half-hour sitcom you've ever seen, spin it out to ninety-three minutes by making it even more thin and shallow, and you have this movie. It's appalling. North no stars (1994)--I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience- insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it. Police Academy no stars (1984)--It's so bad, maybe you should pool your money and draw straws and send one of the guys off to rent it so that in the future, whenever you think you're sitting through a bad comedy, he could shake his head, chuckle tolerantly, and explain that you don't know what bad is. Dear God * (1996)-- Dear God is the kind of movie where you walk out repeating the title, but not with a smile. The movies reviewed within I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie are motion pictures you'll want to distance yourself from, but Roger Ebert's creative and comical musings on those films make for a book no movie fan should miss. Hate (La Haine) Mathieu Kassovitz is a 29-year-old French director who in his first two films has probed the wound of alienation among France's young outsiders. His new film “Hate” tells the story of three young men--an Arab, an African and a Jew--who spend an aimless day in a sterile Paris suburb, as social turmoil swirls around them and they eventually get into a confrontation with the police. If France is the man falling off the building, they are the sidewalk. In Kassovitz's first film, “Cafe au Lait” (1994), he told the story of a young woman from the Caribbean who summons her two boyfriends--one African, one Jewish--to announce that she is pregnant. That film, inspired by Spike Lee's “She's Gotta Have It,” was more of a comedy, but with “Hate,” also about characters who are not ethnically French, he has painted a much darker vision. In America, where for all of our problems, we are long accustomed to being a melting pot, it is hard to realize how monolithic most European nations have been--especially France, where Frenchness is almost a cult, and a political leader like Jean-Marie Le Pen can roll up alarming vote totals with his anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant diatribes. The French neo-Nazi right wing lurks in the shadows of “Hate,” providing it with an unspoken subtext for its French audiences. (Imagine how a moviegoer from Mars would misread a film like “Driving Miss Daisy” if he knew nothing about Southern segregation.) The three heroes of “Hate” are Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Jewish, working class; Hubert (Hubert Kounde), from Africa, a boxer, more mature than his friends, and Said (Said Taghmaoui), from North Africa, more lighthearted than his friends. That they hang out with one another reflects the fact that in France, friendships are as likely to be based on class as race. These characters inhabit a world where much of the cultural furniture has been imported from America. They use words like “homeboy.” Vinz gives Saida “killer haircut, like in New York.” Vinz does a De Niro imitation (“Who you talkin' to?”). There's break-dancing in the movie. Perhaps they like U.S. culture because it is not French, and they do not feel very French, either. During the course of less than 24 hours, they move aimlessly through their suburb and take a brief trip to Paris. They have run-ins with the cops, who try to clear them off a rooftop hangout that has become such a youth center, it even has its own hot dog stand. They move on the periphery of riots that have started after the police shooting of an Arab youth. When his younger sister’s school is burned down, Vinz's Jewish grandmother warns, “You start out like that, you'll end up not going to temple.” What underlies everything they do is the inescapable fact that they have nothing to do. They have no jobs, no prospects, no serious hopes of economic independence, no money, few ways to amuse themselves except by hanging out. They are not bad kids, not criminals, not particularly violent (the boxer is the least violent), but they have been singled out by age, ethnicity and appearances probable troublemakers. Treated that way by the police, they respond--almost whether they want to or not. As a filmmaker, Kassovitz has grown since his first film. His black-and-white cinematography camera is alert, filling the frame with meaning his characters are not aware of. Many French films place their characters in such picturesque settings--Paris, Nice--that it is easy to see them as more colorful than real. But the concrete suburbs where Kassovitz sets his film (the same sterile settings that were home to Eric Rohmer's cosmically different “Boyfriends and Girlfriends” in 1987) give back nothing. These are empty vistas of space--architectural deserts--that flaunt their hostility to the three young men, as if they were designed to provide no cover. The film's ending is more or less predictable and inevitable, but effective all the same. The film is not about its ending. It is not about the landing, but about the fall. “Hate” is, I suppose, a Generation X film, whatever that means, but more mature and insightful than the American Gen X movies. In America, we cling to the notion that we have choice, and so if our Gen X heroes are alienated from society, it is their choice--it's their “lifestyle.” In France, Kassovitz says, it is society that has made the choice. A Tribute to Roger Ebert From the Screenwriter of the Movie He Hated, Hated, Hated. A Tribute to Roger Ebert From the Screenwriter of the Movie He Hated, Hated, Hated. Apr 10, 2013 12:00 pm. Share This Article Reddit LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Print Talk. Alan Zweibel won three Emmys as a writer for the original cast of “Saturday Night Live” and a fourth as the writer of “The Paul Simon Special” in 1978 (he was also nominated as an “SNL” writer that year as well, meaning he either defeated himself or lost to himself, depending on your point- of-view). He worked on the cult favorite “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and co-wrote the movie version of “Dragnet” with Dan Aykroyd. He’s had an fine career with some major achievements. But nobody’s perfect. Amongst those major achievements rests a major stink bomb: “North,” the infamous 1994 flop starring a young Elijah Wood as a boy who hates his parents so thoroughly that he sues them in court and then travels the country auditioning new mothers and fathers. Then as now, “North” was notorious for the excoriating review it received from the late critic Roger Ebert, in which he wrote: “I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it. I hold it as an item of faith that Rob Reiner is a gifted filmmaker; among his credits are ‘This Is Spinal Tap,’ ‘ The Sure Thing ,’ ‘ The Princess Bride ,’ ‘Stand By Me,’ ‘ When Harry Met Sally… ,’ and ‘ Misery .’ I list those titles as an incantation against this one.” ‘North’ is a bad film — one of the worst movies ever made. But it is not by a bad filmmaker, and must represent some sort of lapse from which Reiner will recover — possibly sooner than I will.” Ebert goes out of his way to praise Reiner as a filmmaker even as he demolishes his movie, insisting that he is a “gifted” director who will “recover” from the “lapse” in judgment that produced “North.” He does not, however, go out of his way to say anything good about Alan Zweibel, who wrote the novel the film was based on, and also helped adapt it to the screen. The review quickly became legendary — and the “hated hated hated hated hated” line became the title of Ebert’s first collection of reviews for movies he disliked (disliked disliked). Many of the obituaries for Ebert in the last week have mentioned the “North” review and that great line. It’s easily one of the most well-known and widely read things he ever wrote. Now, here is one more tribute to Ebert that mentions “North” — Alan Zweibel’s in The New Yorker . Whether “North” is a masterpiece or a piece of garbage (I’m certainly not a fan), you could hardly blame its creators for holding a grudge against anyone who wrote a review as negative as “I hated hated hated hated hated this movie” — much less someone like Ebert, who wrote such a negative review and had the power to influence readers and viewers around the country and the world. Nonetheless, Zweibel’s remembrance is a lovely one: honest, a little hurt, but very generous. Near the end of the piece, Zweibel reveals an encounter with Ebert in a Chicago restaurant a dozen years after “North” had been released, after the sting of “hated hated hated hated hated” had faded but not vanished. Spotting him at lunch, Zweibel followed Ebert to the restroom and introduced himself. There was an awkward moment of silence, and then Zweibel spoke: “‘And I just have to tell you, Roger, that that sweater you’re wearing? I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate that sweater.’ One last beat of silence. Then I smiled. And then he smiled. Then I started laughing. And then he started laughing. And then we shook hands. Rest in peace, Roger.” That’s a classy gesture and a funny farewell from subject to critic. I don’t know about you, but I suddenly hate hate hate hate hate “North” a little bit less. I only hate it four hates now. I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie. I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie is a collection of more than 200 of Ebert's most biting and entertaining reviews of films receiving a mere star or less from the only film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize. Ebert has no patience for these atrocious movies and minces no words in skewering the offenders. Witness: Armageddon * (1998) --The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out. The Beverly Hillbillies * (1993)--Imagine the dumbest half-hour sitcom you've ever seen, spin it out to ninety-three minutes by making it even more thin and shallow, and you have this movie. It's appalling. North no stars (1994)--I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience- insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it. Police Academy no stars (1984)--It's so bad, maybe you should pool your money and draw straws and send one of the guys off to rent it so that in the future, whenever you think you're sitting through a bad comedy, he could shake his head, chuckle tolerantly, and explain that you don't know what bad is. Dear God * (1996)-- Dear God is the kind of movie where you walk out repeating the title, but not with a smile. The movies reviewed within I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie are motion pictures you'll want to distance yourself from, but Roger Ebert's creative and comical musings on those films make for a book no movie fan should miss. North. I have no idea why Rob Reiner, or anyone else, wanted to make this story into a movie, and close examination of the film itself is no help. "North" is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails. The film stars Elijah Wood, who is a wonderful young actor (and if you don't believe me, watch his version of "The Adventures of Huck Finn"). Here he is stuck in a story that no actor, however wonderful, however young, should be punished with. He plays a kid with inattentive parents, who decides to go into court, free himself of them, and go on a worldwide search for nicer parents. This idea is deeply flawed. Children do not lightly separate from their parents - and certainly not on the evidence provided here, where the great parental sin is not paying attention to their kid at the dinner table. The parents (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander) have provided little North with what looks like a million-dollar house in a Frank Capra neighborhood, all on dad's salary as a pants inspector. And, yes, I know that is supposed to be a fantasy, but the pants-inspecting jokes are only the first of several truly awful episodes in this film. North goes into court, where the judge is Alan Arkin, proving without the slightest shadow of a doubt that he should never, ever appear again in public with any material even vaguely inspired by Groucho Marx. North's case hits the headlines, and since he is such an all-star overachiever, offers pour in from would-be parents all over the world, leading to an odyssey that takes him to Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, and elsewhere. What is the point of the scenes with the auditioning parents? (The victimized actors range from Dan Aykroyd as a Texan to Kathy Bates as an Eskimo). They are all seen as broad, desperate comic caricatures. They are not funny. They are not touching. There is no truth in them. They don't even work as parodies. There is an idiocy here that seems almost intentional, as if the filmmakers plotted to leave anything of interest or entertainment value out of these episodes. North is followed on his travels by a mysterious character who appears in many guises. He is the Easter bunny, a cowboy, a beach bum, and a Federal Express driver who works in several product plugs. Funny, thinks North; this guy looks familiar. And so he is. All of the manifestations are played by Bruce Willis, who is not funny, or helpful, in any of them. I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it. I hold it as an item of faith that Rob Reiner is a gifted filmmaker; among his credits are "This Is Spinal Tap," "The Sure Thing," "The Princess Bride," "Stand By Me," "When Harry Met Sally. ," and "Misery." I list those titles as an incantation against this one. "North" is a bad film - one of the worst movies ever made. But it is not by a bad filmmaker, and must represent some sort of lapse from which Reiner will recover - possibly sooner than I will.