People always wonder why I spend so much time ripping on Pete Hammond‘s ‘movie reviews’.  Who cares what he thinks or how badly he writes?  Isn’t he just some guy? Why the sour grapes? Well, the sad truth of it is that a guy who can’t use the word “literally” and called Old Dogs a “riotously funny slapstick farce that ought to appeal to moviegoers of all ages” [f*cking OLD DOGS!] actually has some influence in this town.  I can’t help but be amazed by that.  Most recently, Hammond has been hired on at Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com, presumably in order to create something like the Axis of Evil, only more obnoxiously self-promoting.  TOLDJA TOLDJA TOLDJA!

LOS ANGELES – September 1, 2010: Mail.com Media Corporation’s Jay Penske and Deadline.com’s Nikki Finke today announced the hiring of Pete Hammond, the well-known Los Angeles Times/The Envelope’s “Notes On A Season” blog columnist and former Variety contributor who is widely considered the preeminent awards season commentator for film and television. Effective immediately, he becomes the Deadline.com Awards Columnist. It is Deadline’s intention to own the awards space, helped by Pete’s unique understanding of the behind-the-scenes of this very specialized process when the entertainment industry is fixated on grabbing the gold [that sounds like a Pete Hammond sentence].

Said Finke, Deadline’s General Manager and Editor-in-Chief: “I realized that if Deadline Hollywood was going to offer expanded awards season coverage, we had to find someone of Mike’s, Nellie’s, and Tim’s caliber. Pete Hammond is a very well-established brand in this arena, and he’s among the most knowledgeable and insightful people on film and television I’ve ever encountered. If awards season is Hollywood’s Super Bowl, then Pete is the quarterback calling many of the plays.”

Oh man, I can’t wait for all the insight he’s going to drop on us, with biting analysis like “look for this 2nd visit to Marvel’s latest cash cow to top the original, not only for ratcheted up action, excitement and pure movie fun but also at the box office and beyond,” “The Expendables literally explodes off the screen and into my butt!” and “I would literally murder a vagrant if Sandra Bullock told me to!”

Hike it to quarterback Pete!  “Hut one! Hut two! Get me a thesaurus, I need another word for ‘excited’!”  As long as this keeps him from writing movie reviews.

(Pete and Rachel Zoe, sittin’ in a tree, L-I-T-E-RA-LL-ee…)

That Boxoffice Magazine’s Pete Hammond (who also writes a blog for the LA Times and used to work for Maxim) is a giant whore is nothing new — I first covered his Whore of the Year award from eFilmcritic back in 2008 — but with all the negative attention he gets, you’d think he might at least try to conceal his true purpose (providing marketing soundbites disguised as movie reviews).  Instead, as this guy pointed out, he’s become such a parody of himself that it’s like his reviews are being written by a spambot.  Let’s examine his latest review, of The Expendables.  His most blatant attempts to get himself quoted are in bold text:

A who’s who of classic action stars light up the screen for pure combustible entertainment in Sly Stallone’s The Expendables, a sort of Dirty Dozen meets Inglourious Basterds–and then some. Though this film has a less-than-plausible storyline that’s already been trotted out in various forms earlier this year (The A Team, The Losers), it’s filled with literally explosive excitement.

If I don’t see at least one of those quotes in a trailer, TV spot, or poster, I will literally eat my own sh*t.  But back to the figurative sh*t eating, the rest of this review:

This summer flick finds a group of seasoned mercenaries on an unexpected suicide mission to overthrow a corrupt South American dictator. Released nearly a year after Quentin Tarantino’s Basterds, Expendables hopes to make lightning strike twice in an end-of-season mission to storm the box office and makes off with a lot of loot.

[Sic] metaphor(s), bro!

Read the rest of this entry »

It hasn’t ended up online yet, but if you’ve been watching the NBA finals or the World Cup at all in the last few days, you’ve probably seen the new commercial for Knight and Day that prominently features quotes calling it “FRESH” and “ORIGINAL,” and painting it as the island of creativity in a sea of remakes and sequels.  And I guaran-g*ddamn-tee you it was a direct response to trend pieces in the Hollywood Reporter and New York Times about how moviegoers are burnt out on sequels and remakes.

The ads are so hastily cut together that they don’t even attribute the quotes.  It’s just “FRESH” covering the entire screen, with no indication of whether the person who said it was Ben Lyons or DJ Jazzy Jeff (who’ve both been known to describe things as ‘fresh’), or whether the full sentence it came from was actually “Knight and Day is a pile of monkey sh*t that smells especially fresh.”  Are you f*cking kidding me, Knight and Day?  In the era of Pete Hammondses, you couldn’t find one empty suit with whom to identify a positive statement about your movie?

"Knight and Day is a masterpiece. I loved it even more than I love cleaning turds off my own assh*le with my tongue." -Pete Hammond

Read the rest of this entry »

The other day, FilmDrunkard David was kind enough to send me the above screencap from the RottenTomatoes reviews page for Shrek Forever After, showing that it had received only one positive review.  And guess who it is, surprise, surprise, our old friend Pete Hammond.   Here’s what Pete says about the film, broken into out-of-context quotes and with exclamation points added, the way he would want it:

“Hilarious and heartfelt from start to finish!”

“The best Shrek of them all!”

“Big laughs and emotion!”

“You can’t beat these beloved Ogres in brilliant 3D (for the first time) for pure entertainment this summer!”

“Shrek is without question the funniest film of the year-at least so far!”

Some of the previous films Pete Hammond deemed “funniest” of their respective genres include:

Heartbreak Kid (“Ben Stiller’s funniest film.”)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (“Woody Allen’s funniest film in years.”)

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (“The funniest movie I’ve seen all year.”)

Monsters vs. Aliens (“The year’s funniest comedy.”)

Up (“The funniest movie of the summer.”)

The Proposal (“Riotously funny! The Proposal is without question the year’s best comedy.”)

It wasn’t the first time he’d called something “pure entertainment” either.  (“Pure entertainment!” -City Island, “Pure entertainment with great music, wit and a dream cast!” -A Prairie Home Companion, “Pure entertainment from start to finish.” -High School Musical 3, “The most purely entertaining and inventive animated comedy of the year.” -Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs via).

Since the guy’s reviews are basically mad-lib collections of phrases that got him quoted in the marketing material of previous movies and he has no credibility, studios have stopped citing him as a source, saying it only detracts from the idea that reviews are meaningful in the first place.  Haha, just kidding, of course.

Like porn and pleasing me sexually, the entertainment industry is an area in which kissing ass really does pay.  One person who seems to do little BESIDES kissing ass is Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com BoxOffice.com’s movie reviewer who used to work for Maxim and also blogs for the LA Times.  You can often find his quotes shouting at you from the covers of crappy movies like Old Dogs, and The Proposal. He’s arguably the most-quoted critic in Hollywood.  Is that because he’s a respected authority who provides compelling critiques and thoughtful analysis?  Of course not.  It’s because his reviews consist of little more than blatant attempts to be quoted.  You can practically smell the desperation through the computer.

He recently wrote an Iron Man 2 review, and I thought it’d be fun to see if we can identify each specific instance of his blatant quote whoring (hint: it won’t be hard because I’ve put them in bold).  Let’s begin.

Let the summer begin! Iron Man 2, the sequel to 2008’s Marvel blockbuster (grossed over $570 million worldwide), is a sensational way to give the season a kick start…
…It may not be in 3D but look for this 2nd visit to Marvel’s latest cash cow to top the original, not only for ratcheted up action, excitement and pure movie fun but also at the box office and beyond.
As he was the first time around, Downey Jr. is the man!
As one of the new villains, Johansson oozes sex appeal and shows she has a natural flair for martial arts.  Meanwhile the tattooed and imposing Rourke is a hoot with thick Russian accent and a penchant for pet birds. Best of all is Rockwell who plays the low-rent rival of Stark to the hilt, particularly in the opening Senate hearing where he tries to unsuccessfully squash his arrogant competitor.
Fans of the first will not be bored. This Iron Man may not be the Godfather II of comic book movie sequels critics hope for but it is a complete blast anyway.

You can read the review in its entirety here, though I can’t imagine why you’d want to.  It’s not even a review, really, just pure drivel interspersed with attempts at self promotion.  Since I can’t help it, let’s break some of this down:

Read the rest of this entry »