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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Peter Bradshaw

Giving a review zero stars sets a dreadful precedent. But here are the one-star shockers I’d downgrade

Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love.
Nul points … Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love. Photograph: Album/Alamy


Kim Kardashian’s world-historically horrendous TV show All’s Fair has detonated a firestorm of critical horror which, as well as everything else, may have undermined the currency of the star-rating review economy. My colleague Lucy Mangan gave Kardashian’s show an all-but-unprecedented zero stars and zero stars are in fact very rare on this paper.

Yet perhaps in the post-Kardashian world they will become more commonplace. I actually have the distinction of giving the first zero star review in the Guardian’s history — for Cuba Gooding’s terrible comedy Boat Trip back in 2002. But it’s weird. There have been worse films than that which didn’t get zeroed. Not many. But some.

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