Critics' Voices Become a Whisper

Who says critics don't matter anymore? The new trailer for Paramount's upcoming numskull comedy "Jackass: Number Two" is full of quotes from reviews of the first movie. There's just one tiny twist: The studio uses the vitriolic reviews attacking the first film ("A disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle" says an aghast Richard Roeper) to promote the new picture.

With a sly, leering note of triumph, the narrator intones: "Unfortunately for them, we just made 'Number Two.' "

All in all, it's been a rotten tomato of a summer for America's embattled film critics. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" broke box-office records left and right, despite a yowling chorus of negative reviews. M. Night Shyamalan cast Bob Balaban as a persnickety film critic in "Lady in the Water," then gleefully killed him off, allowing a snarling jackal-like creature to do the dirty deed.

Sony Corp. chief Howard Stringer, asked after the huge opening of "The Da Vinci Code" why the studio kept reviewers away from the film until the last possible moment, merrily quipped, "Nobody ever built a statue to a critic."