"Salt on That Popcorn?" -- Popcorn by The Colonel #39

The late Roger Ebert (R.I.P.) wasn't shy, or shy of words, when he disliked a movie. The Colonel did not catch any of the following movies, but here's a treat for fans of Ebertian malediction. 

• Armageddon, one star: "OK, say you do succeed in blowing up an asteroid the size of Texas. What if a piece the size of Dallas is left? Wouldn't that be big enough to destroy life on Earth? What about a piece the size of Austin? Let's face it: Even an object the size of that big Wal-Mart outside Abilene would pretty much clean us out, if you count the parking lot."

• The Brown Bunny, zero stars: "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than 'The Brown Bunny.'" (When the movie’s director responded by mocking Ebert’s weight, Ebert said, “It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'")

• Jason X, half star: "'This sucks on so many levels' -- Dialogue from 'Jason X'; rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. 'Jason X' sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness, and aptness of thought."

• Mad Dog Time, zero stars. "'Mad Dog Time' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching 'Mad Dog Time' is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line.... 'Mad Dog Time' should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor."

• The Usual Suspects, one-and-a-half stars. "Once again, my comprehension began to slip, and finally I wrote down: 'To the degree that I do understand, I don't care.' It was, however, somewhat reassuring at the end of the movie to discover that I had, after all, understood everything I was intended to understand. It was just that there was less to understand than the movie at first suggests."

• Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, zero stars. "[The title character] makes a living prostituting himself. How much he charges I'm not sure, but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie. [The movie] is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience. The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes.... Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

• North, zero stars. "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."

• Spice World, half star. "'Spice World' is obviously intended as a ripoff of 'A Hard Day's Night' which gave The Beatles to the movies...the huge difference, of course, is that the Beatles were talented--while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts."

• Good Luck Chuck, one star. "There is a word for this movie, and that word is: Ick."

• Freddy Got Fingered, zero stars. "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."