I got an e-mail containing a press release from Peace Arch Entertainment, who is currently distributing “Chapter 27,” the film about the guy who shot John Lennon. You might know it as the movie where Jared Leto got really fat. The headline on the press release reads:

“PEACE ARCH ENTERTAINMENT EXPANDS RELEASE OF CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ‘CHAPTER 27′”

Can you spot the funny part? That’s right: “critically acclaimed.” At the moment, Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 20%, with 24 negative reviews and only 6 positive. (It’ll be 25 negative as soon as I get around to posting mine.) The average score is 4 out of 10 — which means those who didn’t like it REALLY didn’t like it. Even champion quoted whore Pete Hammond panned it, and he gives out negative reviews about as often as Paula Abdul.

So how, exactly, is Chapter 27 “critically acclaimed”? I guess it did get acclaim from six people, and those people are critics, so technically the description is accurate. But come on, publicists. You’re not foolin’ anyone.

Though I promise I wasn’t fishing for compliments when I asked for examples of movies you’d seen (and loved) solely on my recommendation, it was nice to read some of the lovely testimonials that some of you posted.

You’ve convinced me! I’m not going to give up reviewing movies after all!

Just kidding. I wasn’t considering it anyway. I was contemplating suicide, though, and you’ve talked me out of that.

Just kidding! You haven’t talked me out of it.

(Just kidding.)

I was somewhat taken aback to see how many of you claimed not to make a move, film-wise, without first consulting me. That’s simultaneously the nicest compliment and worst curse that a film critic can get. “I always check with you first! So you’d better not let me down….”

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Yesterday I asked you to share instances where you saw a movie solely on my recommendation — a movie you wouldn’t have seen otherwise — and loved it. Many of you gave delightful testimonials. I was especially glad to note films that were overlooked generally — “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium,” “Waitress,” and “Stranger Than Fiction,” for example — that some of you discovered because of my reviews. It makes it all worthwhile, you know? That and the money.

Now it’s time for the opposite. Now I want to hear about times when you saw a movie based on solely on my recommendation — a movie you wouldn’t have seen otherwise — and hated it. Note that I’m not talking about simply disliking a movie I liked, as that happens frequently. I’m talking about a time where you weren’t even considering a movie until I recommended it, and you trusted me against your own gut instinct … and came out of it wishing you hadn’t listened to me.

Go ahead, lay it on me.

A reader named Dan posted a comment on my review of “The Lookout” over the weekend that said, in part:

I watched this film last night, purely on Eric’s recommendation during a podcast. A wonderful film, beautifully acted and shot…. Thanks Eric for the tip.

Friends, that’s the kind of comment that does a movie critic’s heart good. The point of film reviewing (at least from my perspective) is to help people enjoy movies more. That means steering them away from the ones that aren’t worthwhile, and reminding them of the ones that are. Obviously a review can only reflect my personal opinion, but ideally you can use my comments to determine whether or not you would enjoy the movie yourself.

So when I hear that someone saw a movie solely on my recommendation, and that they loved it — well, it makes me go all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s nice to hear feedback of any kind (just so I know I’m not just talking to myself), but that kind is especially nice.

And now I hope it won’t be TOO self-indulgent (I know it is at least a little bit) to solicit more testimonials. Have you ever seen a film specifically because I recommended it — one that you probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise — and wound up loving it? Post a comment and tell us about it!

(If the opposite has happened — you saw a film on my advice and HATED it — hang on to that. We’ll talk about those later.)

Peter Sciretta at SlashFilm posted something the other day that summarizes a thought I’ve been having a lot lately: People have changed the definition of what a “spoiler” is.

Peter writes:

Originally a spoiler meant something from a film that gave away a twist or turning point in the story. Basically, anything that would ruin your experience watching the story on the big screen. I don’t know exactly when, but sometime in the last year the tide began to change online, and [even] studio-released production photos began to be considered “spoilers” even when they didn’t reveal something major about the story.

Nowadays we have people freaking out if they see or read ANYTHING about a movie, no matter how minor. Peter’s article was prompted by some fans getting upset when he posted photos of the new Hasbro toy version of the “Cloverfield” monster. To them, seeing what the monster looked like constituted a “spoiler,” and he should have warned them before posting the picture.

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My friend Erik Childress runs an ongoing feature at eFilmCritic called CriticWatch, in which he keeps track of the critics’ quotes used in movie ads. When you see all the quotes listed, it becomes apparent which critics are reasonable and which ones are shamelessly praising everything they see just so they can get quoted. We call those people quote whores.

One of 2007’s busiest whores was Pete Hammond, recently fired from Maxim magazine, which decided it didn’t need a film critic since the only reason anyone buys the magazine is to look at pictures of ladies’ boobs. Hammond’s praise was quoted in ads for 88 films in 2007.

He has zero credibility within the film critic community, and probably not much more among movie-goers in general. Yet for some reason Rotten Tomatoes chose to profile him in the latest installment of its “Meet a Critic” feature. Imagine there were a “Meet an Actor” feature somewhere, and they chose Tara Reid. That’s what we’re talking about here.

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Astute readers may have noticed that this is the last Friday of the year, and thus the time when I should be posting my “Best and Worst Movies of 2007″ article and related features. They will be posted by Monday.

There are two reasons for the delay. One is that I didn’t accomplish as much during my week-long visit to the ancestral Snider homeland as I thought I would, waylaid as I was by family merriment and some under-the-weatherness.

The greater reason is that the studios made us wait a little longer than usual this year to see some of the key potential-top-ten-list films. It’s impossible to see everything in a year, of course, but this year there were a few titles I noticed appearing on other critics’ lists that I hadn’t seen yet. Then there were a few others that I had seen but wanted to revisit before finalizing my list. I’m trying to avoid the trap of “Well, this A- movie I saw in November is fresher in my mind than the A- movie I saw in March, so I’ll put it on the list and bump the March one.”

So I’m giving myself the weekend to get everything together. I might sneak in and post stuff early, but for sure it will be there by Monday. It’s probably best to just crawl into bed and sleep the weekend away to make the time go faster.

You may recall that last year (well, technically still “this year”) I took January off from reviewing new movies. I thought at the time that it might become a tradition, but this year (well, technically still “next year”) I don’t feel compelled to put myself on hiatus. Maybe I’ve seen enough great movies lately that I’m not feeling burnt out.

There’s also the fact that, for the first time maybe ever, there are January releases on the docket that look intriguing and that might actually be good! “Cloverfield,” the annoyingly hyped but admittedly cool-looking monster movie from producer J.J. Abrams, opens Jan. 18. The next week we get the fourth Rambo movie, apparently just called “Rambo,” which may not be good but which at least warrants some attention. Most January movies are altogether ignorable.

(Sidetrack: How can they just call it “Rambo”? Wasn’t the first one called “Rambo”? No sir. The first one was called “First Blood” and featured the character of Rambo. The sequel was called “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” and then came “Rambo III” and now what should be called “Rambo IV” is being called just “Rambo.” For a while they were calling it “John Rambo,” which would have provided a nice symmetry with Stallone’s recent “Rocky Balboa.” Then for a few minutes it was being called “Rambo: To Hell and Back” — really — and I’m glad they changed their minds about that.)

So it will be business as usual this January! Already I am looking forward to (links go to trailers) “27 Dresses,” “One Missed Call,” “Untraceable,” “First Sunday,” “Mad Money,” and wow, maybe I should rethink this.

A sentiment expressed frequently by commenters here at EricDSnider.com is this one: “Why did this movie ‘only’ get an A-? Your review doesn’t mention anything wrong with it!”

Two recent examples. On “The Bourne Ultimatum,” someone writes, “I thought this movie deserved much better [than] a B+.” (Considering the scale only goes up two more notches, to A- and A, I’m not sure that “much” better than B+ was really an option. That’s like saying you wish something cost “much” less than a nickel.) And on “Lars and the Real Girl,” a reader says, “Now, I’ll go back and read your [review], and may learn why you thought the film deserved only an A-.” (”Only” an A-? You people are tough!)

In both of those cases, the reviews are entirely positive. There’s nothing in the text to indicate that I thought the movie was lacking in any way. So why not a perfect score?

As is often the case, Roger Ebert has expressed the answer to this question much better than I would have. In a recent “Answer Man” column, he received this question:

I often find some of my very favorite films are ones you give 3 1/2 star ratings. I’ve never read a review where you explain what costs these movies the last half star…. How do you decide on those?

And Ebert explains it thus:

I wish that I didn’t give star ratings at all and every review had to speak for itself. But 3 1/2 is a very good rating, meaning all a movie lacked was an ineffable tingle at the base of my spine.

Exactly. An A- or B+ movie, if there’s nothing specifically wrong with it, simply lacks a certain something — something you can’t necessarily put into words, but something nonetheless.

I used to be much more liberal with my A’s. If you look in the archives, you’ll find I gave them out more frequently when I first started reviewing (mid-1999), and less often starting in about 2004. It used to be that if I couldn’t think of anything particularly wrong with a film, I gave it an A. Now my attitude is different. It’s not enough that a film doesn’t have anything noticeably wrong with it. It needs to have something strongly right about it, too.

“Snide Remarks” enters its 11th year with a familiar topic: fatness and dieting. This week’s installment is called “Ahead of the Curves,” and you’ll find the audio version here as well as at the top of the page itself.

(We’ve slightly improved the SnideCast feature, by the way. We don’t have actual fast-forward and rewind buttons, but you can now click anywhere on the recording’s progress bar to jump to that point.)

Also, here are reviews of “Feast of Love” and “Across the Universe.” The latter was a strange case in that they held a press screening for it, only invited a few select critics, and flat-out told the others (like me) that there was no screening. You and I would call that a “lie,” but I think that word means something different to publicists. Anyway, there it is.