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He's widely believed to be an awful director. I'd rather not watch a movie that gets less than 60% critical approval, much less 20% or even 1%.

You are right about that article (must have been slashdotted) but it also went on to explain how producers are pumping more and more money into movies and advertising as well. It sounds like they're trying to hold onto the "old-fashioned" way to me. I would imagine the idea of spending less on fancy special effects and especially on advertisements is a crazy idea to movie studios but even cutting those costs by 20% would have no negative impact on the sales. IMHO seeing 25 commercials for something does nothing to improve sales. 1 prominent ad will do the trick of 25 annoying ones, plus commercials that try to convince you to buy something only work on the idiots who need convincing that they need something in the first place. If a consumer wants something, they will search for it until they find something they like. If you remember Jumper, it had tons of commercials, trailers, spots during football games, etc. and it got a 16% on RT. They spent god knows how much money on production and even more on advertising. (Here's a hint movie studios: Make a good story line and people will go see it.)

...the 2006 film The Lives of Others, which presents Germany's more recent past in a way that seems a lot more like a potential American future than the Godwinian parallels most people seem to draw.

While I can't comment on the accuracy of the film's portrayal of the GDR in 1985 (it looked convincing, but I wasn't there), I can say its portrayal of a subtle, businesslike surveillance state, quite unlike the obviously super-evil third reich half a century earlier, seemed a lot more efficient in eliminating dissent.

Dramatic disappearances in the night? Dissidents gunned down in the streets? No, if you spoke out against the GDR (again, at least as envisioned in the film), you didn't have to fear for your life. You just found your career a little "harder" to continue in. You found life gradually less satisfying... Shipped off to a torture chamber with all manner of horrific devices? No, just sent to a little room. To talk. For a long time. Until you cooperated.

Untraceable currently has a 14% on the Tomatometer. When I don't have explicit interest in a film, that is enough of an indicator for me.

Byung-Gu gets ahold of your rear with his phallic, silver, steam-delivering alien anal probe.

He says, "See this here?... It's headed for a special place..." LOL!

He says no one has been able to stand it for more than an hour (I suppose he meant ALIENS, not humans...), but at least he lubes the thing. When it arrives on screen, it's a stunner. If you live in SF, you can borrow it from SFPL. Or, you can buy it online... Funny as hell. Crosses every imaginable film/movie genre in about 2 hours. Can't make stuff like this in the US...

http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/horror/savethegreenplanet/savethegreenplanet.html

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10004650-save_the_green_planet/

http://www.loveasianfilm.com/reviews/savethegreenplanet.html

Or simply because the movie sucks maybe?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385752/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/his_dark_materials_the_golden_compass/

Occam's razor is everyone's friend.

It appears that the various religious groups are convincing their members to stay away from it due to the anti-religious message in the books.

While that may be true, it may not be the reason for the low revenue. It's possible that it just isn't a very good movie. It's currently running 43% at Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty bad. I've seen the movie, and while it's not that bad, it's seriously flawed.

Seen "Natural City"?

Check it out:

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/natural_city.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_City

http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/natural-city/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10004724-natural_city/

Despite some negative reviews, this is a pretty good film. It's more drama than sci-fi. It HAS gadgets, some awesome stop-motion action, and the characters have depth. Unlike cold, stoic Blade Runner, Natural City actually pulls tears from the eyes due to the acting talent performance, the things happening to characters, and other reasons you might personally find.

I always turn to Comedy Central for my news and facts.

Ok, friend, let me explain to to you real slow...

Conservatives often complain about a "liberal bias" in the mainstream media. There is no such thing, of course - media outlets are as conservative as the corporations that own them, journalists tend slightly to the right on economic issues (though, like most educated groups, more liberal on social ones), and their coverage features government and business leaders much more than labor leaders or consumer advocates. Still, the meme is well-known, and is a frequent tactic for neoconservative apologists: "Bush's policies are working great. Things just look bad because of that pesky liberal bias in the media."

Stephen Colbert is a very clever man. He knows about this "liberal bias" idea, and that it's a myth. He has made a running joke of neoconservatives' inability to face facts and admit that their reign has been failure after failure. Perhaps you've heard of Colbert's idea of truthiness?

The high point (so far) of this running joke was when Colbert spoke at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner last yea. He said "Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

I was not citing him as a source. I was quoting his clever summation of how, on issues from the teaching of evolution to climate change to the invasion of Iraq to supply-side economics, the conservative position has been consistently at odds with the facts. They don't pay attention to the polls or to anything else that disagrees with their preconceptions.

Many of the KOSacks wondered about that, but it was a serious post.

Evidence, please. You expect serious posts from the nym "Yacka Jah Yacka"? Who posts a poll on their page with two answers, both "yes"? Who posts a comment which links to an image from a Monty Python film?

Who writes, "The prayers would be different, but we would recite them just as mindlessly as we do today. The sermons would in all likelihood be exactly the same, and wed continue to snore through them." Heck, that sounds like something Twain might write.

It's good satire. Your inability to recognize it as such would sadden me - except that, darn it, you're just helping prove my point.

"Here's a 2 dollar coupon that expires the day we get around to mailing it out and is only good at a single retailer in northern alaska."

On top of all that, the guy behind the counter is probably a vampire.

I hear he is pretty good at tracking.

Gotfuturama and the interview they link, at RottenTomatoes. (minor spoilers there, if you can call them that)

uhhh... really?
(am wondering if this is a joke) ..
you should check out the basically unanimous reviews
see: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wing_commander/
people really strained to find good things to say...

Promotional Previews are specifically released in order to help promote the film through positive word of mouth...

Several years ago I got free tickets to see a preview of Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever.

Let's just say their word of mouth idea wasn't such a good idea.

Games are still a fledgling media. I have found that meta-ratings systems help, but their is still room for improvement.

For instance, I have found that a movie that is getting more than an 80% rating on rottentomatoes.com is almost always a movie that I will find worthwhile, even if it is in a genre that I don't normally enjoy. However, game ratings like those at rottentomatoes.com or metacritic.com aren't quite as consistent.

There are several reasons for this. First, game review scores tend to be overinflated. The median score for a game rating seems to be about 7.5 which makes it very difficult to distinguish which games are really the "best".

Second, unlike movies games don't always age well. The original "Resident Evil" has a great rating. However, I tried playing it for the first time this year, and it was agony. I just couldn't get in to it with its primitive interface.

Last, games are more personal. The amount of time that can be committed to a game is at least an order of magnitude greater than the amount of time that it takes to watch one movie. Also, games are much more diverse. I have never gotten into FPSs, so no matter how highly rated they are I wouldn't shell out $60 for one. However, I probably will buy Heroes of Might and Magic V despite the fact that it doesn't have a stellar rating.

Now take a wild guess as to what phrases might appear on Boing-Boing that the city of Boston might want to block?

Goatse? Bong? Dildo? Shit? I dunno, your guess is as good as mine

Also, if you want to try something fun, look up reviews of the ATHF Movie. It got around 2-3 stars from most news papers.

"Most"? Are you sure about that?

>Money doesn't guarantee a movie will be good, but it does heavily indicate the movie won't be appallingly bad.

Two words for ya: Pluto Nash.
As in The Adventures Of Pluto Nash.
'Nuf said. :)

I saw it and its was an incredible dystopian view ofthe future. At rottentomatoes its at 91% positive, so your opinion is very much in the minority. Its worth checking out if you like sci-fi.

In fact, I remember the cool, if not outright negative, response bladerunner got when it came out, its only of late that its even considered a decent movie, so the comparision doesnt really apply. A version of you in the 80s would have said 'its no 2001.'

i've found the best book on the subject
for people who aren't designers is: Robin William's Non-Designer's Design Book.

Epic Movie has a 3% rating at Rotten Tomatoes... I won't be rushing to watch, or download that one, I think.

"Epic Movie strays so far from the solid fundamentals of filmmaking that it calls the very foundation of humor into question."

"The cinematic equivalent of a tapeworm, this delivers few laughs beyond the initial chuckles of recognition."

"What makes Epic Movie such an unpleasant endurance test isn't its rampant stupidity or slavish reliance on crude humor--it's the sheer laziness on display throughout."

I think the author failed to take into account the lack of concern for quality scripts in movies...
Notice how crappy movies are consistently in the top 10 at the box office.

People who read books have higher standards... (slightly?) :)

Penguins SHOULD NOT have cleavage.

I couldn't agree more! What a TERRIBLY over-rated movie!

I checked it on IMDB too to be safe but it was around 8.5 at the time! (8.5!)
I learnt a harsh lesson that day and that was to trust the critics scores and NOT the fanboys.
I've never looked at imdb the same since, ever since then I've used rotten tomatoes critics scores rather than imdb or rotten tomatoes user scores.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pirates_of_the_car ibbean_dead_mans_chest/

53% for dead mans chest (an absoloutely spot on rating as far as I'm concerned, not total garbage but no where near anything special)
Yet the users at IMDB and RT have rated it 7.3 and 7.8 - ugh!

Ghastly movie overall, a real shame compared to the original.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comments/?entry id=381433

Looks like Tolkien Enterprises isn't the only one who wants to let Jackson do the job.

Call it a hunch, but it's probably because it's flamebait.

There are a core of people out on the Internet who have mindless launched onto the "it plays itself" meme and trash the game at every possible moment, despite the fact that it's received universely positive reviews.

Anyone who's been paying any attention is well aware that it does not, in fact, OMG PLAY ITSELF!!11!!111!111111 any more than World of Warcraft "plays itself" because your character auto-attacks instead of requiring a click per attack ala Diablo II.

So, yes, the GP post is in fact flamebait. Has the GP poster ever actually played the game? Saying you played the preview demo that came with DQ8 DOES NOT COUNT since the demo barely showed anything off and was an early gameplay preview, NOT a full-fledged game demo.

Seriously, read the TON of absolutely glowing reviews about the game - almost none of them indicate that the game plays itself. It automates certain actions, but that's hardly a new thing.

Unless you've actually played the game, you have no right to be claiming it "plays itself".

But that brings up a more important question: Don't schools teach how to get rid of the undead anymore ?

Why bother editing a movie?

Because the first time around the movie sucked bad.

Actually, what really scares me are biological weapons (think Smallpox's Variola Major or other very nasty bugs) that can be transported with less readily available detection (Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is a good read, so is Stephen King's The Stand, and then there is the movie 12 Monkeys http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/12_monkeys/). My High school biology teacher (back in the mid 80's), who sevred as an officer in the Army a few years before, said biological weapons concerned her much more than nuclear for several reasons:

Given even the most viril and horrifying biological agent (ebola/anthrax) there are those with natural immunities and infection rates can be drastically cut down through quarantine and some people just live in such remote places that they'd have little to fear. However there are no natural immunities to 4000'C temperatures.

IMO, this kind of threat still continues today. For those of you who may have seen "The Sum of All Fears" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sum_of_all_fears/ or "By Dawn's Early Light" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003334-by_dawns_e arly_light/ , it doesn't take much to think of a moderately plausible scenario where we blow ourselves back into the stone age. Today we can look at a terrorist motivation for possible fissile material to enter via poor port security, for example, or porous borders in the US/Canada US/Mexico.

Actually, what really scares me are biological weapons (think Smallpox's Variola Major or other very nasty bugs) that can be transported with less readily available detection (Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is a good read, so is Stephen King's The Stand, and then there is the movie 12 Monkeys http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/12_monkeys/). My High school biology teacher (back in the mid 80's), who sevred as an officer in the Army a few years before, said biological weapons concerned her much more than nuclear for several reasons:

* easier to obtain the needed materials
* less technology needed to deploy
* time delay between deployment and noticable effects
* ease and speed by which pathogens can spread

So yes, I can see why the risks are significant and recurrant. There's plenty of Fear, Hate, Ignorance and Mistrust going around for possibilities to crop up. I just hope there are enough people like Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov, in the right place, and at the right time, to help save us from ourselves.

Thanks, Stan :)

IMO, this kind of threat still continues today. For those of you who may have seen "The Sum of All Fears" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sum_of_all_fears/ or "By Dawn's Early Light" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003334-by_dawns_e arly_light/ , it doesn't take much to think of a moderately plausible scenario where we blow ourselves back into the stone age. Today we can look at a terrorist motivation for possible fissile material to enter via poor port security, for example, or porous borders in the US/Canada US/Mexico.

Actually, what really scares me are biological weapons (think Smallpox's Variola Major or other very nasty bugs) that can be transported with less readily available detection (Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is a good read, so is Stephen King's The Stand, and then there is the movie 12 Monkeys http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/12_monkeys/). My High school biology teacher (back in the mid 80's), who sevred as an officer in the Army a few years before, said biological weapons concerned her much more than nuclear for several reasons:

* easier to obtain the needed materials
* less technology needed to deploy
* time delay between deployment and noticable effects
* ease and speed by which pathogens can spread

So yes, I can see why the risks are significant and recurrant. There's plenty of Fear, Hate, Ignorance and Mistrust going around for possibilities to crop up. I just hope there are enough people like Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov, in the right place, and at the right time, to help save us from ourselves.

Thanks, Stan :)

IMO, this kind of threat still continues today. For those of you who may have seen "The Sum of All Fears" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sum_of_all_fears/ or "By Dawn's Early Light" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003334-by_dawns_e arly_light/ , it doesn't take much to think of a moderately plausible scenario where we blow ourselves back into the stone age. Today we can look at a terrorist motivation for possible fissile material to enter via poor port security, for example, or porous borders in the US/Canada US/Mexico.

Actually, what really scares me are biological weapons (think Smallpox's Variola Major or other very nasty bugs) that can be transported with less readily available detection (Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is a good read, so is Stephen King's The Stand, and then there is the movie 12 Monkeys http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/12_monkeys/). My High school biology teacher (back in the mid 80's), who sevred as an officer in the Army a few years before, said biological weapons concerned her much more than nuclear for several reasons:

* easier to obtain the needed materials
* less technology needed to deploy
* time delay between deployment and noticable effects
* ease and speed by which pathogens can spread

So yes, I can see why the risks are significant and recurrant. There's plenty of Fear, Hate, Ignorance and Mistrust going around for possibilities to crop up. I just hope there are enough people like Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov, in the right place, and at the right time, to help save us from ourselves.

Thanks, Stan :)

...yet I've only ever heard bad news about the PS3. The Wii is the first console I've ever been excited about, simply because it's meant for my gaming style: multiplayer, social fun.

Tom singing? Is he talking about Tom Bombadil? That's not in the hobbit, anyway, that was in the first book of LOTR, and was cut from the move, if I'm not mistaken.

Oh no. A plot device from The Pulse!

Expect initial releases of the hardware to cause ghosts dancing in slow motion to fall out of shadows by your desk, then eat your life.

Ahhhh! So THAT'S why the PowerBook was featured in An Inconvenient Truth so much! I wondered if there was some sorta Apple endorsement being made by Al Gore. It seems that it may not be quite as much the normal product placement, as Al really is a part of Apple. Interesting... Way to go Al!

I haven't seen it, and I probably had the same reaction you did to the ads/etc for it, but apparently it got pretty good reviews.

Nowadays, most people just use a site like Rotton Tomatoes. I generally don't see films with less than 80% positive reviews and then I look for a few key critics and what my local independent paper has to say. If a film passes the sniff test from each, 9 times out of 10 I find I like the film and it is worth my time.

I really enjoyed the original Halo until I got inside to the Zork segments (a maze of twisty little passages all alike) and it became a more boring FPS than Robotica.

If it "feels" like the beach segments than I'm all for it 'cause that felt great. If it "feels" like the cheese grater on my kneecaps that was The Silent Cartographer and everything after, then it's good that I know this now so I can prepare for absolutely no anticipation for this game.

First of all, video on demand is not the place to begin your search, oh I know its convenient, but chances are you'll only find last years crap that couldn't make back production costs. Best of luck finding something good.

Check out some movie review sites before judging whether a movie is worth your time or not http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ has a pretty good track record with me.

Also, you don't necessarily need to watch something thats come out in the past few years, hundreds of good films have come come out over the past 80 years. I'd be willing to bet that you could easily dig up something good with a quick google search. I personally would much rather sit down with a good film noir than the 99% crap track record hollywood has going on. Start on the IMDB 250 http://www.imdb.com/chart/top and I guarantee you'll never be short of something good to watch.

"That doesn't sound much better as far as credibility goes. Is there any scientific evidence to back up his assertion?"

Translation: "I don't know what's happening, and I didn't bother to read the comments in this thread, but I'm still skeptical."

Al Gore is a movie star: An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Read the IMDB comments, such as this one: "Fact-laden, straightforward documentary with some comic insertions".

RottenTomatoes rates the movie 92% positive.

Watch the movie advertisement on YouTube. " The most terrifying movie of the summer. You owe it to the planet to see the truth. Pledge to see An Inconvenient Truth opening weekend."

"It's a mind-boggling disaster epic that draws its special power from the fact that we are both the villains and victims of the story." -- William Arnold, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Roads are great, but so is clean air & water. imho
Mankind should celebrate this Highway system anniversary by designing highly-efficient, nearly emissions-free vehicles as a next step in transportation technology.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/who_killed_the_ele ctric_car/

Ad skipping remains perfectly legal. No one is forced to own a television in the first place. I don't see the point in getting all hung up over removing the mind control substance from a meal that was never very nutricious in the first place. Once a month I go to my local video store, rent five movies for a week for $10. I can barely *find* five movies a month worth watching. With some help from my pickiest friends I have another five movies on deck.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gaza_strip/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005064-darwins_n ightmare/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartest _guys_in_the_room/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mondovino/

Seems to be a common theme here: some of these might be a little depressing. There's the problem. Most people who moan about skipping the ads aren't prepared to go all the way.

Ad skipping remains perfectly legal. No one is forced to own a television in the first place. I don't see the point in getting all hung up over removing the mind control substance from a meal that was never very nutricious in the first place. Once a month I go to my local video store, rent five movies for a week for $10. I can barely *find* five movies a month worth watching. With some help from my pickiest friends I have another five movies on deck.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gaza_strip/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005064-darwins_n ightmare/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartest _guys_in_the_room/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mondovino/

Seems to be a common theme here: some of these might be a little depressing. There's the problem. Most people who moan about skipping the ads aren't prepared to go all the way.

Ad skipping remains perfectly legal. No one is forced to own a television in the first place. I don't see the point in getting all hung up over removing the mind control substance from a meal that was never very nutricious in the first place. Once a month I go to my local video store, rent five movies for a week for $10. I can barely *find* five movies a month worth watching. With some help from my pickiest friends I have another five movies on deck.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gaza_strip/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005064-darwins_n ightmare/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartest _guys_in_the_room/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mondovino/

Seems to be a common theme here: some of these might be a little depressing. There's the problem. Most people who moan about skipping the ads aren't prepared to go all the way.

Ad skipping remains perfectly legal. No one is forced to own a television in the first place. I don't see the point in getting all hung up over removing the mind control substance from a meal that was never very nutricious in the first place. Once a month I go to my local video store, rent five movies for a week for $10. I can barely *find* five movies a month worth watching. With some help from my pickiest friends I have another five movies on deck.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gaza_strip/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005064-darwins_n ightmare/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartest _guys_in_the_room/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mondovino/

Seems to be a common theme here: some of these might be a little depressing. There's the problem. Most people who moan about skipping the ads aren't prepared to go all the way.

Ad skipping remains perfectly legal. No one is forced to own a television in the first place. I don't see the point in getting all hung up over removing the mind control substance from a meal that was never very nutricious in the first place. Once a month I go to my local video store, rent five movies for a week for $10. I can barely *find* five movies a month worth watching. With some help from my pickiest friends I have another five movies on deck.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gaza_strip/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005064-darwins_n ightmare/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartest _guys_in_the_room/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mondovino/

Seems to be a common theme here: some of these might be a little depressing. There's the problem. Most people who moan about skipping the ads aren't prepared to go all the way.

Interesting points about FF7 and CG sequences, considering that FF7 was sold based on the fact that the CG was pretty. FF7 marked Squaresoft's move from making plot-based games to pretty graphics games. And why not, it was their most successful Final Fantasy title to date. Hell, they even suckered people into buying MORE CUTSCENES for it in the form of "Advent Children", a movie that's managed to somehow score a 40% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's that high because they have a total of six reviews, and the two ones counted "fresh" are one star shy of being counted "rotten".

They stopped being plot-based entirely when they created the terrible, terrible Final Fantasy movie. They also went essentially bankrupt and were bought out by Enix, in a move that managed seems to have scuttled any creativity left in both companies.

They've released a soft drink called "Potion" based on Final Fantasy. They've released an MMORPG based on Final Fantasy that was just another EverQuest clone - complete with endless expansion packs. Any pretext to them giving a shit about the games was lost when they released a that MMORPG.

Final Fantasy 7 was the beginning of the end. It was the first game were they stopped caring about story and started caring about graphics - which is why none of the characters in FF7 have any character. (People complain that Cloud was whiney, I find that gives him too much credit as a character.)

It's over. When Squaresoft moved to the PlayStation because it allowed them to display CG movies and the N64 didn't, it was over. They stopped trying to make games that were fun, and started trying to make games that were pretty. And, as stories like this prove, it's worked. People still talk about Final Fantasy instead of ignoring it like they should. The final Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy 3 (6j). After that, Squaresoft was no longer about fantasy, and all about graphics.

Go here. Look at the top five releases. As of today, 3 May, apparently only one of them, by consensus of all the reporting critics, is worth seeing. Look at the top ten. Look at the top twenty. It's similarly bleak.

I realize this hardly counts as definitive evidence, but it's enough that I really don't believe the MPAA when they moan about piracy.

And for the question of the year: Who really gives a shit?

Parents who watched Grandma's Boy and figured out that Little Johnny's interest in XBox and gaming magazines is going to a lead to a life of boozing, smoking and unsafe sex with grandmothers.