foul mouthed film critic who resides at:
http://www.BigEmpire.com/filthy

Mr. Filthy curses a lot during his movie reviews, but is your best bet for honest info on whether a movie is a piece of shit or not.

I had dinner with him last weekend and lemme tell you something, he cooks a mean slab of ham.

Filthy currently is employed at a real job stocking shelves at The Family Dollar in Arvada, Colorado to pay for his moviegoing experience. Before this he was gainfully employed at the Ralston Amoco.

Go read his stuff, it rocks.

29 Aug 2000

Filthy has been featued in the Sep. 2000 Rolling Stone HOT issue.

He's my Hero.

The Filthy Critic writes completely honest movie reviews. He isn't affraid to say a movie loses points because he doesn't get to see a certain actress topless. He doesn't care what the director is trying to say about society in the movie. He isn't impressed by special effects. He doesn't want to hear any of that morailty crap they put into movies. He is not a quote whore. And he will always call a movie for what it really is.

The fact that Filthy was featured in Rolling Stone is somewhat ironic considering his comments about Rolling Stone in his review for Almost Famous, saying, and I quote, "But let's face the truth here, any prick with a pen and an ass to stick it up can write for Rolling Stone"

The Filthy Critic is the most honest film critic that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. The moniker filthy is an apt description - the language is coarse and...well...filthy.

That said, it's also honest. The "Whore of the week" on the left side of the page serves as a great reminder of how corrupt and meaningless the current critics are. Frankly, the best movie reviews I've found in the last few years were Ain't It Cool News, Filthy Critic, and Council of Doom pages on the SpaceGhost website. Cartoonnetwork has since shut down the SpaceGhost pages so I've got just the two.

Filthy is great on a number of levels. The first is that it's an honest critique of the movies, meaning that he'll (explicitly) say what and why he did or did not like about the movie. If harsh language offends, don't bother reading - but the harsh language is part of the charm. Being upfront about his reason for liking and disliking a movie allows you to draw your own conclusion, rather then most reviews which obfuscate their reasoning, I've found.

Lastly, it's really really funny. Mrs. Filthy is excellent.

You can read it at: http://www.filthycritic.com/filthy/

The format of the Filthy Critic's movie reviews follows a two fold pattern. First he talks about what has been happening in his life recently, which is always somewhat depressing, quite a bit lurid, and over all, well, filthy. Often these stories involve Filthy drinking, starting fights, making fun of his retarded cousin, and telling fat lady jokes. He then uses this segue into movie reviews, sometimes smoothly, sometimes not.

One of the ironic things about his reviews is that Filthy, despite his language, consistently gives high ratings to thoughtful, intelligent movies that have genuine characters and well thought out plots. Quite apart from his colorful language, he is just as famous for not being afraid to call misogynistic, simplistic films for what they really are.

Which seems somewhat odd, considering that Filthy is not afraid to talk in very insulting, sometimes misogynist terms when talking about his own life. Which brings about a question: Is Filthy making a joke about how supposedly enlightened, liberal Hollywood regulary sticks the worst stereotyping down peoples throats, and creates a persona of a drunken workingman who can still appreciate realistic film to highlight this; or, whether Filthy really is a simple, cantankerous working man who somehow has a very literate taste in film.

"I get people that e-mail me and say, “You’re the only real honest critic out there,” and it’s like no, I’m so dishonest, I’m so full of shit-- but if me being full of shit is the same as what they want to hear, then they think it’s honesty. It’s fine with me."

The Filthy Critic is dead - it says so on his website. In fact, it now says "The Filthy Critic is still dead," presumably because so many people have been emailing bigempire.com asking if Filthy really did die in a bicycle accident or if this is another of his jokes. I was curious about this myself, and the 20 to 30 hits a day I was getting on my blog from people typing "Filthy Critic dead?" into Google spurred me into doing some very rudimentary research.

It turns out that the Filthy Critic is indeed dead. However, the man who created him and wrote all his reviews is alive and well, and has merely decided to bring to an end the artificially prolonged life of a character he dreamed up one day with his friends - the obnoxious, foul-mouthed movie fan who manages to capture the essence of what there is to say about a movie without using any of the normal language of artistic appreciation or criticism.

Filthy's creator's name is (apparently) Matt Weatherford, and he is a writer who has written jokes for, among other shows, The Simpsons, and who also writes fiction and screenplays as well as the occasional piece for magazines, including Rolling Stone. He says that he never expected the Filthy Critic to run for very long, and that he was bored with the concept after the first year of the five he kept it going. He doesn't think he is very funny - somewhat modestly, he says that he thinks he has written maybe five funny reviews. He explains his popularity, therefore, by saying that most people don't know what's funny - they only know what other people think is funny, and laugh along with it.

According to other sources at bigempire.com, there is no chance of the Filthy Critic doing a soap opera-style resurrection, but I'm sure we'll be hearing more from Matt Weatherford in the future.

"Yeah, this guy can write movie reviews. Anyone can write movie reviews. But also, these are the only words that this guy knows to express his opinion. And as conceited as it is for me to say it, the point was that even with that limited lexicon, I can get my point across. Even by being vulgar I can get my point across, and people understand what I’m trying to say. And that’s kind of what the point was."

The dope on Matt's non-death: http://www.bengarvey.com/modules.php? op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=245&mode=thread &order=0&thold=0&POSTNUKESID=9b4ec24d2ee9b55a3641fb2c87a5f648
An enlightening interview with the Filthy Critic: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/columns/get-that-out-of-your-mouth/03-05-22.shtml

UPDATE: He's back! No explanation. Let's let the above writeup stand for its historical value.


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