Not just for these reasons, Harry Knowles’ credibility is suspect, to say the least.  Print film critics' use of him as the paradigm of online critics should be obvious, but with the literally hundreds of examples out there, why has Harry Knowles become such a icon—derisive by print critics, a model by many online critics?  Jill Cozzi at Cozzi fan Tutti offers this explanation:

I think Harry Knowles is what's called…an "early adopter." The term "Early Adopter" describes the sort of person or group who takes on new technologies before they are completely proven and accepted by their peers. Potential users look to the early adopter for advice and information before trying a new technique or technology. Early adopters tend to be curious, enjoy problem solving, and accept the risks and challenges of exploring the potential and limits of new technologies.

I think that because Harry Knowles was among the first Web-based movie geeks, because he's such a relentless self-promoter, and because his disgusting physical persona plays into everyone's stereotypes of the geek/fanboy, he made a likely icon.

It also has helped print critics draw a line in the sand between their exalted ranks and "any idiot with a modem" by using him as a convenient and easy target as to why onliners can't be good critics. They can feel superior to him, and by extension, to all of us, if they can tar us all with the same brush.

What is lost in the discussion of Ain’t It Cool and online film criticism is how truly awful his film criticism is. Critics, online and print alike, often discuss it, but the Filmsnobs would like to do the legwork—to fill in the proof, so to say—and bestow the third Jay Sherman Award for “Excellence” in Film Criticism upon Harry Knowles by using examples of his reviews to show that he deserves every syllable of mockery and derision he receives.

JASON X review!!!!!!

Jason Voorhees has always been a half-assed imitation of Michael Myers… His theme sucks ass in comparison.

True enough, but "sucks ass?" As if to say: "Beethoven's Third Symphony sucks ass compared to his Ninth."

Now, admittedly the best thing about a FRIDAY THE 13TH film is playing the Jason drinking or toking game (choose your poison wisely). Any time naughty sexual contact occurs take a swig/toke. Any time somebody walks into a dark room calling somebody's name that they know is dead… take a swig/toke. Finally whenever Jason kills someone, empty your glass/inhale it to the embers. Getting severely fucked up has been the only possible step for me to be able to enjoy those films.

Getting severely fucked up is the only way I can read another one of these reviews. Believe me, I understand how difficult in can be to "have fun" in a review of a film like Jason X, especially to avoid writing the same review everyone else has, but here Knowles descends into games of puff-puff-pass.

Having said that, I've been excited about this movie for a while now. WHY? I mean, I understand looking at it blankly why someone would be skeptical. It is a b-genre film relocated to Space…. This usually means it sucks ass. HELLRAISER sucked in space. HIGHLANDER sucked on another planet. Well, my interest in the project got started when I heard that David Cronenberg was in the movie in a small role. That guaranteed me in attendance, as I will not miss anything that Cronenberg does at any level of participation. I'm that big of a fan. However, my immediate question when I heard he was in the film was… WHY? Why is David Cronenberg in a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie?

The bigger question is why Harry Knowles drops the name David Cronenberg in a review of Jason X. A David Cronenberg cameo in a bad movie is not earth-shattering news, witness his appearances in The Stupids, Boozecan, and Blood and Donuts. However, as Knowles does at least once a review, he drops a Hollywood name. Ain't it cool that he knows all these people? Ain't it cool that a self-proclaimed movie loving nerd like him can carry the torch for the rest of us who would love to know David Cronenberg? Ain't it cool that he's cool? Ain't it cool that he namedrops to lend credibility to reviews containing the phrases, "I couldn't give two shakes at a urinal for any of these characters?" But as for his final analysis of Jason X:

Fun. Goofy. Self-Aware. Cheesy. Fun.

In a way this movie reminds me of BRIDE OF CHUCKY though not quite as fantastic as that movie. Of course, I feel BRIDE OF CHUCKY is absolute genius…

No wonder this guy has no credibility—he liked Jason X and Bride of Chucky…"absolute genius." But these are just opinions, you might say. After all, the Filmsnobs loved Razzie winner Freddy Got Fingered. But the Filmsnobs at least explained our love of Freddy via its universally unacknowledged, yet present subtext. As for Harry Knowles' power of subtext interpretation:

Jason obviously represents the Baptist Church or those fucking Televangelists or Jesse Helms.

As Knowles himself might say: WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! For your information: That joke has been used on Comedy Central since the mid-nineties.

STAR WARS EPISODE TWO: ATTACK OF THE CLONES early cut review!!!!!

I saw Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones hours ago. The 'how' of that will be a thing of mystery buried in a passed piece of paper from my book signing with a hotel, a room number and a time listed upon it. You don't want to know about that room or the person(s) in that room, you want to know about Episode Two.

This is the most annoying aspect of Harry Knowles. Hollywood knows that Harry Knowles can boost the buzz of a movie, and many of the studios actively court him. However, Knowles still believes that he is the independent, muckraking voice of the movie fan, yet the irony is lost on him that he is perhaps the most perked, buffet-fed critic of them all. As if covering for some deep-seated insecurities—probably stemming from an inability to get laid—he rubs this in our face every chance he gets.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE Review!!!!!

David Lynch.

I love that name, the thoughts that it brings to mind. His name is nearly its own hallucinogen. You speak it and like a strange surrealist airborne virus it infects fellow cinephiles to talk about the color red, parallel realities, cross-dressing FBI agents, men on riding lawnmowers, floating fatmen, sideshow freaks, Pabst Blue Ribbon, bloody mayhem, bent realities and so much more.

David Lynch.

He's like Terry Gilliam's brother who discovered porn and the straight razor and never was the same again.

David Lynch.

The name means it is not safe to walk into the theater. He will, quite frankly, fuck with you. He really doesn't care what you came to see, what you thought you came to see, what you think he is going to do with you, he might very well reach into the bikini zone without permission. He is a wrong man.

Bless him for it!

This blasted back injury and recovery nearly cost me one of my favorite cinematic experiences this year. I've been trying to see this movie ever since Cannes. I had a ticket to it there, but the bus bringing me back from this modest French Villa took way longer than it should have and I missed the chance to get all tux-ed out and be lynched.

When the film played first run here in Austin, it was at a theater that I didn't really care to watch films at. Tim at the Drafthouse told me it would be coming there, but as the Holiday season began, the screenings came fast and furious. Almost no air in-between them. It is easy to forget something intended.

After the third viewing of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, I realized that I had been putting off MULHOLLAND DRIVE, not because I didn't want to see it, but because of my mania for Peter Jackson's latest. That film made it hard for me to concentrate. All I wanted to do, all that my thoughts would think about was watching the movie again. I was in danger of dropping off into hopeless fanboy oblivion… And I was happy. Happy and content.

I was sitting there at Subway with my 500 cal sandwich, debating whether or not to follow my 3rd showing of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, by heading over to the Drafthouse to see MULHOLLAND DRIVE. Generally after Jackson's film, I want post-coital petting, that smoke in bed, time to sniff the bouquet of this fine brandy. I need down time. Time to decompress. This is usually about 22 hours, but I felt a sense of urgency. This was a Wednesday night, there was a chance that the film could be leaving the Drafthouse, and then I'd have to wait for video (blech) and nobody should ever watch Lynch on video the first time.

I called Tim up, he told me it would be leaving the next night, but I had a screening of ALI then, so it was either tonight or never. Carpe Diem.

I don't read reviews of Lynch films. I just don't see the point. It would be like trying to find videos of a new girlfriend fucking. You haven't gone there yet, and you want to know if it is worth the wait. Well, this was a movie I knew I was taking to bed, it didn't matter if it was worth it or not, I was committed.

When the film started, there was no doubt. Yup, I'm in a Lynch movie. The angles were off, the colors rich, the music compelling. Everything was like reality, but really not. There was an air of deception and I knew all was not O.K.

Lynch finds the best women you know. From the second I saw Laura Harring in the back of that car, I knew… YUMMY. There suddenly came the moment of realization for her character in this opening scene. The moment where she suddenly knows she's trapped in a David Lynch movie. And the cruel God of her universe decrees to let her live with no idea of who she was or what had happened.

It takes him exactly 682 words to finally start his review of Mulholland Drive. That space is filled with stories of him talking to his friend Tim at the Drafthouse (unknown to the 99.9…% of us in cyberspace not from Austin, Texas, or regular patrons of the Drafthouse), his descriptions of how The Fellowship of the Ring is better than sex (more proof for my previous hypothesis on the psyche of Harry Knowles), and alogical lines like, "He's like Terry Gilliam's brother who discovered porn and the straight razor and never was the same again." The Filmsnobs love film critics who will introduce or end a review with a something from the news or a small personal anecdote—Rick Ferguson always used this method—but the idea is to use the anecdote to express a larger world-view through the prism of the movie. Ferguson told of his experiences in rehab to reveal screenwriting flaws in 28 Days; Harry Knowles tells personal anecdotes to 1) Expose his fragile emotional psyche 2) Express his inability to get laid 3) Remind that world that he has Hollywood connections 4) Try to turn clever, Pauline Kael or Anthony Lane quality phrases, that come out as stoned, film student nonsense.

Next, Harry takes on the infamous audition scene, and this is his result:

About halfway through the scene I was disturbed how arousingly private the scene was. Now I don't know if it just hit some private kink of intimacy in my mind. If it just 'floated my boat', but frankly you see so many clumsy, terribly awkward scenes in film. Intimacy usually means anal sex in Hollywood. It sure as hell doesn't mean dialogue whispered inside of kisses while nose dodging…

Apparently, the scene did hit some private kink of intimacy in Knowles' mind. The only thing I can gather from this paragraph is that anal sex is involved in that mysterious room in which he saw Attack of the Clones.

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS review!!!!!

The world is better for having a filmmaker like Wes Anderson in it. There simply are not nearly enough young filmmakers out there working with the express feeling of bringing joy and thoughtful consideration into cinema goers' lives.

There is a point blank sense of fun to his films. It is as if he wants to just make you smile for the duration of his film. In THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS he made me hold my nose to keep from snort laughing. Something that very rarely happens with me, usually only when I'm trying to suppress a guffaw, but what winds up happening is a suppression of my vocal chords and the outward expulsion of air. Then there is the nose snort laugh, the most embarrassing of all laughter, thus the pinched nose. However, though I tried to keep all sound from escaping, this ultrasonic high pitched squeal would occasionally escape like a corporate attorney's fart, or air escaping a pinched opening of a balloon.

The problem with this is Patch and her sister, Xenia Onatopp, were both infected by my stricken nature. Terrible terrible thing. It hardly ever strikes this bad. And one of the things that stunned me about the film was the production design is what had me laughing hardest. Just absurdist paintings behind characters that behooved everything they were saying, turning it on its ear and made sure that I caught the wink that someone… Wes? …was firing in my general location.

Now having said that, I have to say that Patch, Xenia and myself seemed to be the only people that were laughing throughout the film. Usually laughter was only coming at the clearly labeled jokes, same problem happened during THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. Seems many were looking at this film as a drama first and a comedy second.

As said before, part of film criticism is expressing a world-view through the prism of movies. Here, Harry Knowles expresses the qualitative spectrum of his snort laughter as it relates to the production design of The Royal Tenenbaums.

ALI Review!!!!!

Michael Mann's ALI failed on a great many levels to impress me, to hold my attention or to involve me with any sense of consistency at all.

I'll start with the chief problem I have with the movie. I don't need to see Ali at the press conferences and in the ring.

This begs the question: Where, exactly, does Knowles want to see Ali? Doing a cameo in Jason X? Having anal sex in a private screening room of Attack of the Clones? Drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon in a David Lynch film? Snort laughing at a screening of Bottle Rocket?

When playing Ali, if you are going to try and step into his life and play the most famous of Ali moments, then you have to do it without cutting away. The way Mann shoots Will's performance would be like making a film about the life of Fred Astaire and shooting his dancing through a series or rapid edits and close-ups of feet and legs married with medium upper torso shots. You strip away the genius of the man by cutting away, segmenting the reality, and it is a subtle thing that simply adds up in the viewer's mind to say, "Will Smith is no Muhammad Ali."

That is a great point. In all seriousness, that paragraph made me to legitimately re-evaluate how I originally reviewed the fight sequences in Ali. But Knowles cannot let the point stand on its own. In the Ain't It Cool-iverse, such statements must be validated by vainglorious namedropping:

I met Ali and had the chance to share a few words with him. When I went to the World Premiere of GODZILLA, Ali and his wife attended as well. On the flight from New York to Atlanta (I believe it was) I sat across the aisle from THE GREATEST. I was flying with Glen Oliver of FilmForce and we were both in awe. This was Muhammad Ali. One of the Greatest personalities of all time. A man that stood up to the Vietnam War and the U.S. Government. A man that reinvented himself and became forever a symbol of greatness. When I shook his hand, I cried, because I'd seen him on TV, on Film and fighting Superman. I had action figures and coloring books of this man.

ORANGE COUNTY review!!!!!

I hate bad teen movies. Bad teen movies where you have the pretty boy faces and the pretty girl faces and gosh damn everything is so happy and so wonderful and the worst thing in the world is the evil jock or the fact that before you go to college you have to tell your girl one last time that you love her, but your car broke down and you were raped by redneck prairie dog hunters down back around the back forty. Luckily for me, this isn't those films.

I didn't find this one bland and uninvolving. This didn't have a star with dead eyes like Freddie Prinze Jr. There was no jackal headed beast in this film. Also I like the fact that nearly every plot twist that took place in this film actually happened to me. That rules.

My senior year of High School was going great. I had aced both my SAT and ACT tests. My GPA was high, there was no way in hell I wasn't getting into the University of Texas. It was a done deal. I had extracurricular honors out the wazoo. Science club, Spanish Club, Business Club, Band, Jazz Band (playing two instruments), Theater Arts, Extemporaneous Speaking, Debate, National Young Leaders of America kid… I was set to kick major ass in college.

I was motivated like a state trooper after a semi full of marijuana… I had my target, my goal and it wasn't getting away. I was living in a town of 3000. 60 miles from the nearest movie theater. Most days you could smell horse shit, other days you could smell the cow patties. The radio stations played immense rotation of Barbara Mandrel and Alabama and the Oak Ridge Boys. Fun was going out to a metal barn in the middle of nowhere, hearing a C&W cover band called SAGE play line dances, while drinking fifths of vodka and Coors Light till you couldn't hold your head up right. I had to fucking escape.

I'd see kids that were Seniors when I was in Junior High… Some working at the M-System grocery store… others at the ALLSUP'S convenience stores. My mom was a hopeless semi-violent alcoholic, my grandmother was crazy, both had guns and loved shooting at one another. I had to fucking escape.

I knew everything was fine, I was doing my time… making hash marks in the wall of my own mental prison. Counting down to the day where I could escape.

The day I received my rejection letter from the University of Texas was like the biggest slap to my face I've ever received in life. I was stunned. I did everything right. Nothing had gone wrong. I was worthy. I had been accepted to Syracuse, American College of Switzerland and Moscow State University… but I submitted to all of those knowing full well that my mother would never allow me to go that far from home and pay for college, thereby forcing her to pay for me to go to U.T.

The plan had gone astray. I reread the letter. Apparently they claimed to never receive my transcript. My guidance counselor never sent UT my transcript! She Never Sent My Transcript! SHE NEVER SENT MY TRANSCRIPT!!!!! ARGH!!!!

My best friend and I drove non-stop to Austin… took my transcript… I looked like a man destined for a noose. I was not a happy camper. I was never one to believe that all my life's answers were going to be found in college, but ever since I could remember getting into UT was what it was all about. I used to wander the campus for hours as a kid… attend film screenings for the public and students… My love for cinema was birthed partly upon that campus.

My stomach felt like a blender spinning S.O.S. brillo pads and marbles… It just didn't work. It was upset. As I sat opposite the Admissions person at UT and they told me they were full and that yes my transcript was solid and that I would have definitely been admitted, but there is nothing they could do… My heart sunk. She suggested I sign up for a semester at Austin Community College and transfer in the following Spring.

I left feeling like hell. Just terrible. My entire life was based on getting into UT For the past 6 years, it was nearly always near the surface of my thoughts. Everytime I hated a teacher or a class or thought about putting off studying it was there. Everything bad about my life was transformed into motivational reasons to excel in school… To get out. To go to UT

Not getting in suddenly… for the first time as a sentient semi-adult I realized that plans for life change, that you have to adapt, to roll with the punches… all that trite truism bullshit you tell yourself when you realize that life doesn't obey your fucking whims like it goddamn is supposed to.

Did it end happily?

Well, I'm not a lawyer!

I found my own way, my own path and it wasn't by the book… which I never did find a copy of.

Now, ORANGE COUNTY is about this exact same story and period… but the story belongs to Colin Hanks.

But the review, of course, belongs to the insistent narcissism of Harry Knowles. The preceding 880 words serve no purpose except to substitute for the therapy Knowles is begging for. In fact, the first-person narrative structure of his reviews seems to be a cry for help, with its reoccurring themes of anal sex and being a high school loser revealing a deep, disturbing psychosis. Yet, if his reviews are indeed a window to the soul of Harry Knowles, then the following is the most disturbing of all:

BLADE 2 review!!!!!

A warning: BLADE 2 is an R-rated movie. This is the NC-17 Review of it. You have been warned.

For me to review BLADE 2, it is a major conflict of interest, because Guillermo Del Toro and I are brothers. His father says so. His wife believes this. Guillermo and I are just the best of friends, but when El Gordo calls my father Dad, and I call his Dad "Pops" and we delve into hours of passionate discussion about H.P. Lovecraft, Goya, Steve Ditko action, the movies and pussy… We can lose all track of time on planet Earth.

This is typical (in its own bizarre, indecipherable way) Knowles narcissistic namedropping. But read on…

But having attended the World Premiere of BLADE 2 last night, one inescapable thought crossed my mind during the movie. 10 to 1…. I believe Guillermo Del Toro eats pussy better than any man alive.

Watch his 'HOUSE OF PAIN' sequence in BLADE 2. BLADE 2 is the tongue, mouth, fingers and lips of a lover. The Audience is the clit. Watch your audience. This is where Guillermo Del Toro goes down on the audience. It starts with long licks with a nose bump on the joy button slowly. He smiles as he does this… Watching the audience begin to squirm, then he takes the audiences' clit in his mouth and just licks it like crazy, the audience is ready, on that precipice, then calm. He backs off… long licks again, brings in a finger to massage a bit, licks from the bottom to the top… The audience is cooing… He has them, they want release. He acts like he's going to give it to you, takes you right to the edge, the audiences' backs arched, ready to cum…. Backs off pinching the nipples just so, his head bobbing up to say, "You like?" The audience shifts around needing release, he builds again… The pressure at a near boiling point… Each stroke and moment a hypersensitive place… Two fingers to the sweet spot, the audience is there… right there at that point… suddenly he's relentless taking the audience through a rampage of orgasms… trying to get away, trying to escape… back back back, but he has you, and he's never going to let you forget this moment, the audience was electric… Frenetically frothing… Guillermo hears them begging no more, when he decides to stop for a moment, there is that relaxed calm… The audience relaxes… labored breathing… a sated smile, WHEN SUDDENLY THE RELENTLESS BASTARD IS AT IT AGAIN!!!! You begin laughing, trying to push him away, but no… more pleasure, more joy, more fun… You can't handle it, you start giggling and screaming… And it goes like this for quite some time, till at the end… The credits roll, the theater lights come up… You look at the screen, you realize you want that tongue again… You want that feeling again, and you watch it again and again, because damn he respects the clit!

Ok, maybe I take the metaphor too far… maybe… But I had two girls around me, Patch black and blued my right forearm with slaps and rabbit punches as though Guillermo was pounding the short hairs, and Saffron (not Vegas') gripping my shoulder from behind like frickin Spock, leaning up to my ear to say, "You didn't tell me this was pornography!!!!" To which I grab her hand, sniffed her fingers and said, "MMMm you're fingers are wet… enjoy!"

Now you might feel all of this is inappropriate behavior on my part, but folks, at the Q&A afterwards, the second question came from a woman on the front row that asked Del Toro "Could you comment on the vaginal influence of the Reapers?"

Guillermo looked like the wet chinned thigh splitter that he is and said, "You have to understand Make Up artists, they never get any pussy, so they are always creating it!"

ZACTLY!

Is there any doubt that when print film critics, such as the insufferable Richard Corliss, wish to debunk the myth of quality online film criticism, their crux exhibit is Harry Knowles? The metaphor indeed goes too far, Mr. Knowles, far beyond tact, far beyond taste, far beyond respectability.  Indeed, Harry, it is you lapping at the clit of Hollywood, or maybe it's the other way around.  If I were to take the metaphor too far, I would suggest that Hollywood producers and Harry Knowles are engaged in a glorious sixty-nine of vanity and embarrassing self-promotion.  Perhaps I just find it difficult to believe that a man Brill's Content named one of the fifty most influential people in Hollywood would openly express his sexual fantasies (especially concerning his close friends) in such a public forum, but Harry Knowles has, to the detriment of serious online film critics, been appointed our icon, though his words can only be described as…well, the most apt description might come from smelling Saffron's fingers.

       The Filmsnobs Wish to Congratulate Harry Knowles, Winner of the Third Jay Sherman Award for Excellence in Film Criticism!