It's the internet meme that's sweeping the blogosphere!

Andy posted what he calls the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game. Here's how it works:

Look up the most popular and critically-acclaimed books, movies, and music on Amazon. Click on "Customer Reviews," and sort them by "Lowest Rating First." Hilarity ensues!

There are plenty of examples in Andy's entry (and in his comments), but here are some of my favorites, sorted by category:

Books

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

• "I am an avid reader, and it takes a pretty bad book for me to stop reading it. Well, Cold Mountain was just such a book. It took 4 tries to even get halfway through. There are not many redeeming qualities, so giving it one star is being generous."
• "...This book was the most slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious, slow and tedious read imaginable."
• "TOTALLY UNREADABLE!!!! THE MOST OVER RATED, UNREAD BESTSELLER SINCE MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA."
• "I HATE HATE HATE HATE THIS BOOK! It's awful. I was about 20 pages into the book and I already hated it."
• "While this book does have some interesting characters, you never get inside the main character ... The female characters are more vibrant although its hard to understand how one of them loves Mr. Dullness from nowhere."

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

• "Truly one of the worst children's books ever written, unless, that is, you like to read stories in which parents are portrayed as child-torturers and murderers."
• "I bought this book as a gift for someone. Naturally, I read it before I gave it away. The bottom line is that I didn't like it so very much that I gave this person something else instead, thinking they should have a good gift."
• "Like the title of my review says, this is absolutely, without a doubt, the worst book I have ever read. The plot is inane, the characters are irritating and stupid, and the setting is utterly ridiculous. The concept of daemons and the even sillier concept of bears having armor just makes me want to cry."
• "One found themselves dispsiing Lyra at every turn rather than growing to care about her more."
• "This book couldn't have bored me anymore than watching my printer spew out ink at an inch an hour. She gets captures... Escapes... Gets captured... Escaped... Ugh this book stunk."

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

• "It is all just a jumble of words strung together over many pages. I sensed no excitement or adventure in his books."
• "If O'Brian was trying to capture existential meaninglessness in a cold universe, he is wildly successful..."
• "I just couldn't finish it. I tried but I realised I was wasting too much of a short life."
• "Don't, don't, don't believe the hype! Two types of people should read this book: History majors and 'guys' trying to read more."
• "In Master and Commander the dialog is just plain weird, NOT in terms of the terminology, but in the constant shifting of topics of discussion between the characters."

Movies

Star Wars

• "The acting, except for Alec Guinness, is lousy, although I tend to prefer that of the snakelike creature in the garbage pit...This is stuff straight out of a comic book."
• "I can't stand this movie! I absolutly hate this movie! It is so poor, boring, and stupid that I can't make myself get into it. Star Wars has some very cool sound effects but the acting is terrible and so is the boring script. I'd rather watch Sesame Street than this. This movie is for boring grown ups who like boring movies. Avoid it!"
• "I hate this film saga or trilogy, the script is poor, the acting and the directing even worse, i cant understand why intelegent people can watch such a childish and stupid film"
• "Twenty-three years later I am still bored to death whenever I sit down to watch this film."
• "I don't see what makes this movie so popular. the special effects are bad (yes, they were good for their time, i realize this), there is little to no characterization (we don't even know who these people are) and the plot is pretty weak. Hey, the Imperial dudes just left this big hole in their spaceship for us to shoot missiles into! Cool! Sorry, but I believe that's the definition of lame."

The Princess Bride

• "This is an amazingly boring, highly over-rated film from a screenwriter who is touted as a god in the business. It's dull, boring, sheesh-ka-bob."
• "This movie is one of the worst movies I have ever seen because it was predictable and showed no flavor."
• "This movie bothers me and I really mean it... anybody want a peanut? I particularly sick of hearing that phrase over and over again along with many others. If this movie could fall off the face of the earth, I wouldn't cry."
• "You don't need Sominex or any other sleeping pill if you are having trouble falling asleep. Just watch this excruciatingly boring film instead. You'll be catching those zzz's before 30 minutes elapse. This is one very boring movie."
• "I have no idea what this is. This can't be a movie because movies are supposed to be good. The story is assanine and unbelievable. The title makes no sense. What exactly is a princess bride who is named after a buttercup. I was made to watch this movie in school and it was torture. Thank you."

Amelie

• "Watched the movie, teared up some 20 minutes in, for it was clear to me that its victims might as well be sickly young gazelles in an African savannah."
• "Having been socially forced, compelled and co-erced to watch this silly and stupid movie on a big screen during the time it was hyped and overhyped all over the place as the last socially-praisable and utmost meli-melo-romantic dada-istic most-life-changing and hope-inspiring conceptual film ever, I would like to sincerely warn you concerning this movie."
• "This movie should never be watched by anyone. It is just that bad. This movie is to a straight man as a high pitched shrill siren is to an eardrum. Unless sending it to a mortal enemy, don't. Just don't. Buying this only encourages people who make crap like this."
• There was something slightly depressing about the scenery and the dysfunctional people. (I do think that Audrey Tautou is pretty adorable, however.) I know it's supposed to be 'arty,' but I just found it too difficult to follow--I was confused the entire movie. Maybe I need to watch it again, but I just can't put myself through that."
• "At what specific age should my pubescent development have been stopped short for me to adequately enjoy this film? Can it be that I, as an adult, am meant to be charmed by the hijinks of a moron who interfers with any lives she has suddenly taken it into her peabrain to manipulate?"

Music

The Unforgettable Fire by U2

• "After about a half hour, I had to stop listening to it. It was so bad I had to stop eating my dinner and take an aspirin for my headache! Bono is about on the same level as Paul Stanley from Kiss (as far as vocals go)....He just doesn't know when to stop moaning like a walrus!"
• "Listening this album is just pain for me. The vocals are very low and so is the music."
• "The song structure relies on a simple chord structure. Therefore, no matter how creative The Edge may be, the songs just are not well developed."
• "There's not much on this album to recommend it as much of what's on here is bland and uninspiring."
• Hrm. Actually, there are only four negative reviews for this album!

Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen

• "THIS ALBUM IS REVOLTING.THE FACT THAT HIS STILL AROUND IS SCARY."
• "I guess I just don't get it. Because some blue collar folks and their rust belt towns get toasted in the age of technology at the advent of the new economy (yes, folks, even in 1984), this album has been portrayed as a masterpiece. Are you serious?"
• "In 1984, at the high point of President Reagan's climactic confrontation with the Soviet Union, came out this album. I liked it, since it's full of memorable melodies, until I learned about Springsteen's draft dodging. Only then did I realize that the title song is a put-down. To the garbage it went."
• "Perhaps the worst best-selling album ever, right down there with Michael Jackson's Thriller or any drek that Styx, REO Speedwagon, Duran Duran, or Billy Joel cranked out. Springsteen essentially sings the same song over and over."
• "If your intelectual capacity is such that your love machine-like repetition and you wish to contribute to the de-evolution of mankind's highest and noblest art form, this is the perfect album to support."

The Wall by Pink Floyd

• "A double album!!! As if one records worth of music wasn't bad enough, Floyd have to put out a double album, to double the pain and agony that comes from listening to these guys."
• "I remember this was the cool album that all the stoners and high school kids listened to and analyzed to death way back when. I will always think of Pink Floyd as one of THE most over-rated rock groups of the 70s. Some of the songs on The Wall were just okay, but really, the whole thing is one drawn-out tedious experience for insecure high schoolers to cling to as the 'greatest rock album ever'. Give me a friggin break!"
• "'We don't need no education...' When I first heard that, those many years ago, I was completely enraged. Perhaps the Floyds were protesting the system in place at the time, but I survived it with my faculties intact and then and now enraged at the general level of ignorance in American society. Without education, we'd still be living at the cultural level of gorillas and chimpanzees."
• "This is the most overrated album in all of rock and roll. This is Pink Floyd's WORST album bay far."
• "First thing this is not rock music the songs are so slow.Gilmor is the worst guiter player and a bad singer."

Do your own search. What kind of terrible things are people writing about your favorite books and movies and music?

On this day at foldedspace.org

2003 — Costco Trip   In which I fall into the Sarlacc's Pit of Haberdashery.

2002 — Life Out of Time   A beautiful evening: the sun is shining (but sweetly), it's seventy-two degrees. The sky has turned a soothing blue and is streaked by beautiful clouds, long and flat and wispy.