The Phantom film twice as good as Donnie Darko?

February 26th, 2007

My wife hides the TV Guide from me.

Not because she worries about the amount of television I watch… I don’t know about that actually she might worry about how much television I watch after all but that isn’t the reason she hides the Sunday Courier Mail TV Guide. I think she is possibly worried about some important thing popping in my brain as I read the movie reviews for the week.

I’m not sure how it works in other countries but here in Australia you get a little television magazine in your sunday paper telling you what’s on television and the occasional fluff story to promote whatever show is coming up and about a thousand advertisements. Actually the ads have gotten so ridiculous now that they have increased the size of some pages so they can print ads on the over run and fold it back into the magazine.

One part of this magazine is the movies ‘what not to miss’ section and this is the section that Tracey wishes I wouldn’t read. There was a time once when I praised the movies section (I’m going to start referring to it as the guide but just so you know I’m focusing on the movie bit). A time when I actually found one of their lacklustre reviews of a film entertaining.

Star Trek V - Kirk meets God and is unimpressed.

This I will grant them that it sums this film up nicely.

Writing these two sentence reviews seems like a fairly simple thing to do and I’m certain they used to put someone’s name in the by line but I notice on this weeks addition that there is no one responsible. It boggles my mind then when they are so frequently incorrect, unfair and remarkably uneven.

Now I get that it is no doubt hard to see every film in the list in order to review them and I suspect that a lot of them just get recycled. But just a little editorial intervention would be appreciated. One of the more horrid mistakes that springs to mind is for the film Changing Lanes in which the description lists the main actors as Ben Affleck and Danny Glover… mmmm that should have been Samuel L Jackson. Easy mistake to make considering they are both male actors.

So each week I go through the poorly written and often incorrect mini reviews and growl, shout and fume. This week however I’m beyond horrified at the lack of professionalism. This insipid little entry is for the film Donnie Darko.

Donnie Darko (one star)

A sleepwalking high school student is saved from a plummeting aircraft engine by a giant rabbit called Frank. Not surprisingly the kid becomes convinced the world is about to end. If it ever worked out what it wanted to be when it grew up, perhaps we could take this movie seriously.

Even now I’m trying not to pull my hair out in frustration. Where do these people get off writing the dumbest review I’ve ever encountered (oh hang on there’s a Matrix one that bugs me too) and not having the decency of attaching the reviewer’s name????

Perhaps if a movie is too over your head for you to string together an even vaguely valid or thought out criticism you should go generic like this one which funny enough appears on the Courier Mail’s parent website:

During the presidential election of 1988, teenaged Donnie Darko sleepwalks out of his house one night and sees a giant, demonic-looking rabbit named Frank who tells him the world will end in 28 days, six hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. He returns home the next morning to find that a jet engine has crashed through his bedroom. As Donnie tries to figure out why he survived, while dealing with the people in his town, Frank continues to turn up and causes him to commit acts of vandalism. Donnie Darko received 11 awards and eight nominations including the 2002 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film’s Special Award.

See they could have ripped that off their own website!?!?

In case you were wondering the actual movie of the week is the 1945 romance Brief Encounter and they consider The Phantom to be twice as good as Donnie Darko coming in with 2 stars?

Well I’ve done some digging and I think I’ve found the person who may be responsible for this but I don’t know if I’m quite angry enough to write in yet and offer my services because I worry about the 1000 monkeys they’ve got writing the articles and what they would do with them. However I’m watching now, and you’re watching too - we’ll see how it goes next week.

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