Caustic Critic: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

On paper, the job of a reviewer of any medium is to provide an evaluation of a given work in the medium, outlining its good and bad points and whether you should check it out. Useful, succinct, and an integral part of any entertainment industry.

Doesn't mean you have to be ''nice'' about it.

 

 

They need not necessarily be reviewers; they might be essayists discussing trends, but the spirit is the same.

Alternately, as the above quote implies, a usually constructive critic is tempted to bring out the sarcasm guns by a unusually bad work or product.

 

 

Not to be confused with [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Like]].

 

== Literature ==

* Ellsworth Toohey of ''[[The Fountainhead]]''

* [[Charlie Brooker]], of ''[[TV Go Home]]'', ''Charlie Brooker's [[Screenwipe]]'' and "guy who inspired [[Zero Punctuation]]" fame.

(on [[Katharine Hepburn]]) "She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B" }}

** Probably the definitive quote on caustic humor:

* Even [[Roger Ebert]] has been in on the act; he has said that in many cases it's more fun to write a review of a bad movie than it is to write a review of a good one (a sentiment voiced by several other critics). Many of his most negative reviews have been collected in his books, ''I Hated, Hated, Hated, Hated, '''Hated''' This Movie'' and ''Your Movie Sucks''.

* When not writing himself, [[Edgar Allan Poe]] was a well-known literary critic that ''tore apart'' everything, to the extent that he was known as "The Executioner".

* Theatre critic George Jean Nathan unabashedly described himself as a destructive critic.

* [[Leo Tolstoy]], like Poe, is more famous for his own fiction, but he also mounted some scathing assaults on ''[[Der Ring Des Nibelungen]]'' and ''[[King Lear]]''.

* [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Time Enough for Love]]''. See the [[Caustic Critic/Quotes|quotes page]] for details.

 

 

* [[Mark Kermode]] of [[The BBC]] has a (deserved) reputation for this, especially regarding [[Pirates of the Caribbean]] including some suggestions that everyone involved with a movie hang their heads in shame, that a film be buried in an underground bunker filled with toxic waste, and that a film was akin to the experience of smashing one's head into a glass door elongated to ninety minutes.

** See also his rants, er, opinion of all Transformers films, Sex and the City 2, Angels and Demons, etc.

* [[Statler and Waldorf|Hecklers]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpYEJx7PkWE&feature=related Statler and Waldorf] added a grumpy (and extremely popular) streak of critical humour to the ''[[The Muppet Show]]''.

* Adam Sessler of ''[[X-Play]]''

** "I'd rather french kiss my grandma than play this game."

 

== Music ==

* Robert Christgau '''defines''' this trope.

 

== Professional Wrestling ==

* Chris Hyatte from Scoops Wrestling and the early days of 411 Mania was a mixture of this and a rare example of a malicious [[Cloudcuckoolander]]. From placing a bounty on the daughters of Tony Schiavone's Daughter to turning the Villainos into an infamous [[Memetic Badass|crime family]] Hyatte's columns were a mixture of [[Non Sequitur]] and [[Refuge in Audacity]]. Sadly the end of Scoops and his falling out with several websites, have made his body of work [[Keep Circulating the Tapes|hard to find.]]

* Bill & Doug (RVDTito4Life) and Kent Jones, who claimed to be the first [[YouTube]] "shooter", which is a misnomer since he's not in the professional wrestling business. Bill & Doug, meanwhile, actually became shooters when they were hired by [[TNA]] to host their online show, ''TNA Addicts''.

* [[Jim Cornette]]. The emotion of "vague or minor but tolerable dislike" does not seem to exist for this man.

 

== Theatre ==

 

== Web Original ==

* Maddox of [[The Best Page in The Universe]].

* Being a collection of caustic critics is the stated mission of [[Pajiba]]. Their tagline is "Scathing Reviews. Bitchy People."

* Professor Otaku of the [[Desu Des Brigade]], with anime.

** Sometimes. At times, he's obviously not very serious, and gives the movies some slack (i.e.: THIS PART OF THE MOVIE BLOWS FUCKING DUCKS. WHO THOUGHT OF IT? DID I MENTION IT'S A MISPLACED PROP?) In addition, he lists actual flaws and appears to ''like'' bits of the movie.

* [http://necrocritic.webs.com/ The Necro Critic]. He reviews both bad movies AND bad videogames.

** And as of recently, is even reviewing anime.

* ''Screw These Comics'' was a site that did this for sprite comics, and had a group of characters review a given in dialogue. Eventually, the creator quit after realizing his own reviews had degenerated into the same kind of things that he criticized bad sprite comics for overusing. Where once the team would look at a comic's points legitimately while making fun of it, toward the end many reviews consisted solely of variations of the exchange:

'''EvilNes''': SHUT THE FUCK UP NES YOU STUPID FAG THIS COMIC SUCKS! }}

* [[Retsupurae]] is this for [[Let's Play]].

* ''[[Seanbaby]]'' was one of the original online personalities to do this.

* Comixology's Tucker Stone, he is well educated and uses the full extent of his thinking power to utterly take apart mainstream comic books.

* [[Something Awful]]'s reviews of movies and older videogames go here.

** He also does this a lot with the movie reviews he use to do for a magazine that are posted on his website. Oddly enough, when he did a [[Let's Play]] of ''Phantasmagoria 2'' he noted that the he though the first game, which was one of the featured FMV games, was good and mostly just aged poorly.

** He very memorably did this with ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'', and was so funny that even some fans of the game enjoyed it. He later moves on to [[Final Fantasy X]], a game that while he despises, he also notes that he enjoyed the combat.

*** It's worth noting that he seemed to exhibit a very thorough knowledge of FFX, and obviously spent quite a bit of time with optional quests. He probably doesn't really hate the game as a whole, but [[Rule of Funny]] very much applies when ripping on [[The Scrappy|certain characters]] and [[Narm|moments]].

* [http://sturgeonawards.blogspot.com/ The Sturgeon Awards]. The blogger will review anything he hates. However, he has written a positive review of [[Genetos]].

* [http://www.facebook.com/pages/FireBlog/154468544591691 The FireBlog] gives text reviews of overrated TV shows, and is currently working on [[The Middle]]. It will also make fun of idiots on [[IMDb]]. Apparently, nobody is safe from the [[Fire Blogger]].

** The Distressed Watcher is even more of a caustic critic than anybody on the website, covering trailers specifically, and is so hateful about it that a lot of the site’s members hate him.

*** It is worth noting that the Distressed Watcher is also known as [[The Amazing Atheist]], who is another controversial personality. Clearly, the actor enjoys being controversial.

* John Solomon of the now-defunct webcomic review blog, ''Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad''.

** Parodied in [[The Flash Tub]]'s [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/flash-tub/furious-famicom-faggot.php Furious Famicom Faggot].

* There are quite a few websites dedicated to bad movies; here are a just a select few:

** [http://www.ruthlessreviews.com Ruthless Reviews]

** [http://www.stomptokyo.com/badmoviereport The Bad Movie Report]

** [http://www.badmovies.org Badmovies.org]

* Parodied in [http://xninjared.deviantart.com/art/Happy-Valentine-from-XNinjaRed-153934205 this comic] where the Ninja is being a harsh critic over a Valentine card saying there's no plot, feeling or charm and says he can do better, only to basically make a threat card rather than a Valentines card.

* The former [[WoW]] podcaster [[The Cynical Brit|Total Biscuit (aka Total Halibut aka the Cynical Brit)]] loved the game back when he did postcasts, and still won't hesitate to rag on every perceived slip up, and outright tells anyone who doesn't like his reviews "there's the door". He thoroughly believes that reviews have to be critical to be effective.

* Although not formal critics, pretty much every user at the [[RPG Codex]] forum is this for any video game even nominally considered an RPG. Generally they consider most modern games, especially ones by Bethesda, to be "bland, banal, boring, shit" and refer to them as 'popamole'.

* [[Confused Matthew]]: He makes a point of targeting movies that were better reviewed and received than he thought they should be. He actually ends up playing devils advocate occasionally on movies that he feels got an excessive negative reaction. The common opinion he disagrees with is what has him confused.

* Wanna see someone try to be a caustic critic only to have the work he's harping on turn out to be be a classic game which he never actually played? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxLgFbNPB9s Here ya go]

* ''Busy Street'' represents a Meta example of this. Thrashing and picking apart other internet "Angry Reviewers".

* [http://www.filmtracks.com/ Film Tracks]. When they don't give a positive review to an established composer, they will mercilessly trash a score by a newcomer, a score that features guitars and scores by [[Hans Zimmer]] and his company (though the third one is done by most film score circles). They also infamously trashed [[Trent Reznor]]'s score to ''[[The Social Network]]'' and suggested that the soundtrack would make better use as a frisbee.

* The Bad Webcomics Wiki is an entire wiki based on this. Due to the fact that it has many people, not all of whom are qualified critics, and many new members seem to be under the impression that it's a troll site where they can flame at comics they dislike, the quality, accuracy and fairness of the reviews may vary, but it doesn't change the fact that a considerable percentage of the comics reviewed are simply bad, one way or another.

* [[Mr. Coat and Friends]], although to a much lesser degree than similar sites.

* [[Reddit]], Hacker News, and Slashdot are full of programmers who love to rip their least favorite programming languages, coding paradigms, etc.

* Despite his own opinion (he says he's mixed almost equally on negative and positive reviews) Youtube user Razorfist AKA "The Rageaholic" is an easy fit. [[Berserk Button|Do NOT compare him to Yahtzee.]]

 

 

== In-Universe Examples ==

 

 

* From the descriptions of his typical reviews, Mortimer Brewster of ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace]]'' seems to be one of these.

 

* ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' has music critic Barney Bittman, played by the legendary [[Gilbert Gottfried]].

 

* ''[[Cyrano De Bergerac]]'': Cyrano critics your artistic work without any pity, and given the play is a [[Period Piece]], [[Foregone Conclusion|Cyrano is always right]] [[Historical Fiction|in his critics]]: [[Giftedly Bad|Montfleury]] was a ''"An actor villainous!"'' (and then Cyrano kicks him out the theater), [[Fan Dumb|les Précieuses]] could ''"Inspire our verse, but—criticise it not!"'', [[Sturgeon's Law|playwright Baró’s]] ''"verses are not worth a doit! I'm glad to interrupt"'' (Baró’s play). [[Magnificent Bastard|Cardenal]] [[Small Name, Big Ego|Richelieu]] ([[Man Behind the Man|famous politician]], [[Renaissance Man|wrote plays as a hobby]]) ''"is an author. 'Twill not fail to please him that I should mar a brother-author's play"''. Cyrano also is fair, of his own talent he thinks: ''"Not to mount high"'' and about Molière, Cyrano thinks he’s a ''"genius"''.

 

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Criticism Tropes]]