MovieChat Forums > A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011) Discussion > HAHA... Reading Ebert's Review. He did...

HAHA... Reading Ebert's Review. He didn't WATCH the Movie.

posted 13 years ago by Tom_Cruises_Testicles
24 replies | jump to latest

This is all taken from one Paragraph in his(Roger Ebert's) review. Count the mistakes:

The plot: Harold ( Cho) has drifted away from Harold (Cho)

-Okay, one of those should be Kumar(Penn)

and become a successful Wall Street trader, where his office is under assault by protestors. Kumar (Penn) has split up with Vanessa and lives in the ruins of a bachelor apartment. Santa (Patton Oswalt) delivers a package for Kumar at Kumar's apartment.

-FALSE. Oswalt played a fake Santa. The REAL Santa in the movie is played by Richard Riehle. Most will probably recognize him from Office Space. It's Riehle who sent the package.

Second mistake with this sentence: the package was for Harold. Which is why Kumar delivers it to his house. If it was for Kumar, he would of stayed home and smoked it to his head and never met up with Harold.

Kumar delivers it on Christmas Eve to Harold's suburban manse, loaded with Christmas decorations to impress his Mexican father-in-law Mr. Perez (Danny Trejo), who hates Mexicans.

-The mexican father in law doesn't hate Mexicans (he and his whole family are mexicans). He hates Koreans. And Harold is Korean. (although at the end he says his dislike for Harold is for a completely different reason then him being Korean)

-Notice he says "Harold's suburban manse". The definition of a manse is a house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of a Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist or United Church. The implication is that the minister has been called by God and will remain until he/she is called elsewhere.

I must of missed the whole MANSE subplot.

At least his following paragraph gets the plot right. But then in the next one he says:

The movie is about the disastrous adventures of H&K as two treacherous African-American tree-vendors sell Kumar's reserved tree to someone else,

-Well that's wrong. It's HAROLD's reserved tree. And the someone else who its sold to.... That's KUMAR.

At this point, it seems Ebert has no knowledge of what happens next in the film. He sums the rest up with ETC. leaving out a pretty big subplot involving the Ukrainian gangsters trying to kill them for the remainder of the film. I guess that wasn't as important as mentioning that the christmas tree was being sold by two African Americans.

I can see leaving out the details about the pregnancy or how the movie tacks on character arcs about them maturing. I even understand leaving out NPH or the Wafflebot(which stole the show). Its not an in depth review. But the Mob part is a big chunk of the movie, even if it is completely anti-climatic.

Next paragraph

It's my suspicion that Penn and Cho have outgrown the characters, but are contractually sentenced to continue doing remakes as long as the movies make money

It's not a remake. It's a sequel. The films have a set formula but that's like saying Every Bond film is a remake because they follow a similar pattern.

It's one thing to get a laugh with a lot of baby poo thrown at an SUV window.

I don't think it was Baby poo. But i guess it could be. We didn't see who took the poo. I wonder how he can tell it's baby poo.

How the hell does a reviewer make this many mistakes? Even if he didn't watch the film, you would think he'd find a synopsis to help him.

[–] sj_sulli09 13 years ago

Wow, he must really have not been into it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXE09k4hweU

[–] iJoe85 13 years ago

I loved this movie and thought it was MUCH better than 'In Time,' which he gave 3 out of 4 stars! >_>

[–] robocat893 13 years ago

Ebert has been losing it for years. He really should retire.

I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies.

[–] rphilip1 13 years ago

Ebert's clueless for the most part. He gave Die Hard 2 stars. I mean really, Die Hard.

[–] ImaWeabooApparantly 13 years ago

And he gave Kick-Ass 1 star. Not to mention in his "The Last Airbender" review, he said the movie took place in the future.

[–] stazzercise 13 years ago

I think he did see the movie, but I do tend to catch mistakes in his reviews from time to time. I think his attention to details isn't there.

But as for calling this movie a "remake"...I have not seen it yet, so I can't say---but "Escape from Guantanamo Bay" was actually a remake of the original, since it stole the same scenarios, the same jokes, etc, etc, and just tweaked them. It sucked.

As for "kick-Ass"...well, yeah, that didn't deserve more than 2 stars to begin with.

[–] Tom_Cruises_Testicles 13 years ago

Its not a remake. Unless you are going to consider almost every Hollywood sequel made a remake. Are the Austin Power Movies remakes? Are the Bond films remakes? Indiana Jones films? They steal the same scenarios, same jokes, etc.

There's a difference between a series developing a formula(which almost every film has in a general sense: Inciting incident leads to progressive complications result in a crisis that climaxes and then has a resolution. In a general sense a lot of movies, that are unrelated, are remakes of each other. just new/different characters.)

Either way, Ebert's intention is referring to sequels, not remakes. Unless you are saying Ebert intended to say the actors " are contractually sentenced to continue doing remakes". It's quite clear with his phrasing he meant to say SEQUEL. His intention is why I'm counting it as a mistake in his review.

[–] stazzercise 13 years ago

I'm not saying it actually was a remake...I meant it felt like a remake since it was the same exact scenes and jokes made out to be new ones. When you watch Inidana Jones and the Temple of Doom, it seems like a new story. The Bond movies are The Bond movies are the same but they thing is they don't use the same action sequences over and over. They The Austin Powers movies in no way feel like you're watching the previous one over again.

In Harold & Kumar 2, they just changed "they are looking for White Castle" to "escaping Guantanamo" but the jokes are all the same, just tweaked and they pretend like they are new. The cheetah becomes a deer. Freakshow gets turned into other hicks...etc, whatever, whatever. I forget most of H&K2 because it' was all gelled into the original. The point is I remember watching H&K2 and the whole time thinking "They did this in the original except now they changed it to ___________" And they tried passing it off like it was all fresh.

[–] Colbeast 13 years ago

Yeah, cause they totally get stoned with the deer then ride it across the highway. And a redneck definitely shows up and shoots the cheetah. And you're right, going to and escaping from are the same thing just as well as White Castle and Guantanamo Bay are pretty much the same. Dumb@$$...

[–] doowopfan 13 years ago

Not to comment on a portion that wasn't the most important part of your post but I didn't recognize Riehle from from Office Space. I pictured The Fugitive, Glory and Hatchet.

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I did sixty in five minutes once...

[–] videavice 13 years ago

And Ebert is paid for that kind BS?! This world is awesome.

Oh just about the remake thing, you can't involve the same actors, with the same atmosphere in the movies, a logical evolution of characers lives and even the same director and call the result a remake. It's a sequel. If one of these days we got a "Justin Chon" Harold and a "Dev Patel" Kumar, it'll be a remake.

Just my 2 cents

cave canem

[–] truheart_1 13 years ago

@stazzercise- You probably haven't watched Austin Powers in years. There no way you would make a comment like. "The Austin Powers movies in no way feel like you're watching the previous one over again", otherwise. Every Austin Powers movie feels the same. Will Ferrell's character get's hurt in both the first and the second movie. Dr. Evil does the same shush joke in all three. There is a time travelling element to all three. Joke about Austins teeth. Jokes about various items blocking body parts. I'll stop there because anyone who's seen those movies knows what I'm talking about. All comedy sequels redo jokes from the original in different ways. That's why comedy sequels normally are not very good. The jokes are no longer fresh and most are expected.

[–] pjmccrac 12 years ago

Are you kidding the Austin Powers movies use the same like 4 or 5 jokes throughout all 3 movies and they do it to show that all Bond movies are pretty much the same how do you not see that.

[–] Hurley8957 13 years ago

Wow, Ebert must've been really high when he watched the movie and wrote his review.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (4524359) 13 years ago

Couldn't you have started by explaining who this Ebert guy is in the first place?
Why should I care about this guys opinion? Is he important in any way?

[–] destroyerwod 13 years ago

After reading this entire post and all the reply i was gonna ask the same thing as chris.... WHO IS THIS ELBERT guy? truth is, i NEVER, NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVERRRRR took anybody reviews into consideration for a movie. Cause in the end, we are all humans and we don't all loves the same things.

Underworld 2 is on tv right now, i tried to get my mom into it, i said to her this is the same franchise i saw in theater last night... Only this is number 2 and i saw number 4.... But she is so not interested... cause vampire and wherewolf dosen't interest her... and a SUPER HOT Kate Beckinsale either...(lol) but well... personally even tought Number 2 seem a bit weak storywise compared to number 1, its still a movie i love, and i love the franchise, so for me its a great movie... for her... its nothing.

Humans are different, and just like Jeff Hardy would say, its a great thing about life, we are all different and if we where all the same, life would be boring.

[–] ahmedw-bakhsh 13 years ago

If he didn't watch the movie, how would he have known that poo flies out of the car? Or that two "African Americans" were the ones that sold the tree? Or that Santa delivers a package to whomever?

[–] HowIMetYourHobo 13 years ago

That doesn't mean he didn't watch the film - unless you think he genuinely believed the movie is Harold and Harold with John Cho playing two parts, it just means the guy really needs to hire an/a better editor, or at least read his stuff before he publishes it. That's a lot of big mistakes.

TheHobo.

[–] napierslogs 12 years ago

Actually all these mistakes are fairly minor - they read like major mistakes, but they are simple editorial mistakes.
Writing Harold's name down twice instead of Kumar - if you don't re-read what you wrote anybody can make that mistake whether they watched the movie or not. Same with Mexican father-in-law who hates Mexicans. Essentially, that's just a typo.

Most reviewers, any sane reviewer, spends more time discussing the beginning plots rather than the entire plot of all stories in the entire movie. If Ebert really did discuss the Ukrainian gangsters or the Wafflebot or the pregnancy or NPH, it would be a terrible review. Ebert's reviews have too much plot discussion anyways, this is a much better way to do it.

Although Manse is technically a house inhabited by a minister, it has informally (through incorrect speech/grammar usage) come to be a short form for mansion. He was just trying to spice-up the language to say that Harold is living in a nice, big house. Which again is an editor's mistake and does not imply that Ebert didn't see the movie.

The use of the word remake instead of sequel could easily be a sarcastic way of saying that this movie is identical to the first two. I personally would disagree with that but he can argue that if he wants to.

Whether or not it's actually baby poo is besides the point. It's a simple and close enough to accurate way to describe that joke.

There are only two things that the mistakes in this review point out, and it's not that he didn't watch the movie:
1. He didn't re-read his own review - Since he didn't like the movie, why would he want to spend another minute on the review when he probably had five more reviews to write that day.
2. His editor did a lousy job - most, if not all, of these mistakes should have been caught by his editor.

To me this shows that the editor that the paper hired doesn't actually care to read Ebert's reviews, which is too bad because a lot of people would love that job.

Follow my blog Napierslogs' Movie Expositions at http://napierslogs.blogspot.com

[–] mojo2004 12 years ago

Hasn't his wife been doing his reviews for some time? She probably didn't watch the film.

You have the right to remain silent because whatever you say will probably be stupid anyway!

[–] Charlie Goose 12 years ago

I've noticed that lack of attention to detail in MANY Ebert reviews.
Incorrect plots, attributing dialogue to a different character, just general errors that would not be made if he had actually paid attention.

I hope he stops making those mistakes!

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.

[–] DaliParton 10 years ago

> I hope he stops making those mistakes!

You got your wish.

[–] HelloMyNameIsMrBurns 8 years ago

I thought a manse was a nice house, but not as nice as a mansion.