I can’t remember the last time that I’ve seen a movie, but I catch quite a few teasers on TV as I’m chasing Elyse around the family room. Based on what I’ve seen of late, I have missed about 10 movies that are “the (comedy, drama, thriller) of the summer” and countless other that have claimed to be the best of the year, regardless of their genre.

Those little teasers in the TV trailers have always made me suspicious. How do we really know what the critic has to say if they don’t show us the whole sentence? Every time I see a blurb, I imagine that the sentence went a little something like this: “That movie was not the best comedy of the summer.”

My interest was peaked this past week when I saw a teaser for Idlewild. As usual, the critics were buzzing. Idlewild is “a magical experience,” “the movie of the year,” and about three other things that I can’t remember. What caught my attention was not so much the quotes as it was their attribution. Shawn Edwards of Fox-TV, was the owner of all five accolates featured in the trailer.

They couldn’t find more than one person to give their film a thumbs up? Did only one person see the movie? And who is Shawn Edwards? What happened to the well-known critics?

So I did a little research on Mr. Edwards, and it turns out that he is known by cynics as a blurb-meister. He’ll say good things about even the worst of films. Crossroads (with Brittney Spears), Underclassmen (with Nick Cannon), and Are We There Yet? (with Ice Cube) are among his favorites. Shamefully, I’ve seen all three of those movies, and they are not the greatest of anything.

Check out these sites on Shawn Edwards and his fellow blurb-meisters:

http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=37494#37494

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117935524?categoryid=4&cs=1

I’m not sure if Idlewild is a good movie, so let me know if you see it. I’m not hanging my hat on the critic’s say-so.