The only trick is, you need some words. Well, I’ve got them, tested and retested. Like the elegant repartee collected in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation , each of these babies is a polished jewel, rendered glistening and gleaming by constant use. Keep this list handy, and you’ll never be caught short.
Jaw-dropping: very expensive
Eye-popping: very expensive
Jaw-dropping, eye-popping: very, very expensive
Under-appreciated: I know I’ll never meet her, but you never know, do you? You never know!
Inhumanly lovely: Maybe her publicist will return my calls
Awesomely talented: Maybe I’ll get invited to a screening
Ridiculously gifted: Maybe I’ll get to do a fawning interview
Ridiculously good-looking: Maybe I’ll get an autographed photo, addressed to me! So what if her agent signed it? I don’t have to know that.
Ridiculously talented: Variety is the spice of life
Haunting: I didn’t get it
Poetic: I totally didn’t get it
Surreal: irritating
Dangerous: OK, not really dangerous. It’s only a damn movie
Disturbing: guy’s head explodes
Envelope-pushing: guy’s head explodes
The most intelligently sensual film I’ve seen in decades!: I’m fucking Pauline Kael!
Laugh out loud funny: Guy’s pants fall down
Searing meditation on racial identity: Black guy screws a white chick
Most ambitious use of ambient noise since Citizen Kane!: If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all (Thumper school of film crit)
Ambitious: Terrible
An epic!: Longer than Jay Leno going to the bathroom
Intelligently erotic: 40-year-old actress looks great in the nude
Thinking-man’s epic: People talk too much
Roller-coaster ride of thrills: If the events depicted had actually happened to me, I would have been very upset.
The feel-good movie of the year!: They aren’t paying me to say this, but I wish they would
Oscar-worthy: Can you prove it isn’t?
Savage: Guy hits another guy with a chain
Riveting: I felt like hitting the john but decided to hold it
Sublimely goofy: Big fat guy does lots of cool shit and does not have to work for a living
Touching: There’s a dog in it
Something the whole family can enjoy: Yes, I am drunk. Offer me a bribe, somebody!
Transcendently lovely: I know I read this somewhere
Exquisite: Small-breasted
Luminous: OK, probably not “luminous,” whatever the fuck that means. I didn’t get it, that’s all. Is that a crime?
Luminous transparency: I know I read this somewhere
Funky: Stars black people who might beat me up if I made fun of them
Sensuous: You can totally see her nipples
Approaches greatness: terrible
Focused: Well, you know, focused, like, “Focus, dude, focus!” You know?
As I wrote in my review of …: I am more important than you are
Rarely have I seen such a subtly grounded performance!: Said of a performer who does not float in the air, like, she’s not exactly Tinker Belle, if you know what I mean
Wacky: I got nothing
Quintessential stoner flick: Except for all the other ones
Quintessential zombie flick: Ditto
