Slashdot Mirror
Real Moviegoers Don't Care About Rotten Tomatoes
In a recent essay published on the Hollywood Reporter, Martin Scorsese inveighs against two conjoined trends -- the widespread reporting of box-office results and the grading of movies by consumers on CinemaScore and by critics on Rotten Tomatoes -- and blames it for "a tone that is hostile to serious filmmakers." In particular, he contends that this hostile environment is worsening "as film criticism written by passionately engaged people with actual knowledge of film history has gradually faded from the scene." Richard Brody, a movie critic at the New Yorker, thinks Scorsese is missing the mark. He writes: I think that film criticism is, over all, better than ever, because, with its new Internet-centrism, it's more democratic than ever and many of the critics who write largely online are more film-curious than ever. Anyone who is active on so-called Film Twitter -- who sees links by critics, mainly younger critics, to his or her work -- can't help but be impressed by the knowledge, the curiosity, and the sensibility of many of them. Their tastes tend to be broader and more daring than those of many senior critics on more established publications. And, even if readers of the wider press aren't reading these more obscure critics, the critics whom general readers read are often reading those young critics (and if they're not, it shows). This is, of course, not universally so, any more than it ever was. The Internet is democratic in all directions -- it's also available to writers of lesser knowledge, duller taste, and dubious agendas, and it may be their work that's advertised most loudly -- but the younger generation of critics is present online and there for the finding. [...] What Scorsese doesn't exactly say, but what, I think, marks a generation gap in movie thinking that his essay reflects, is the appearance of an increasing divide between artistically ambitious films and Hollywood films -- the gap between the top box-office films and the award winners. For filmmakers ready to work on lower budgets, the gap is irrelevant. The filmmakers whose conceptions tend toward the spectacular are the ones whose styles may, literally, be cramped by shrinking budgets -- filmmakers such as Scorsese and Wes Anderson, whose work has both an original and elaborate sense of style and a grand historical reach.
is hostile to consumers.
A good review isn't one that says if a movie is good or shit. It's not necessarily one that explains why a particular movie is good or shit. A good review is one that gives me a fair chance to judge beforehand whether or not I am likely to enjoy the movie. I'm finding such reviews amongst the writings of more "serious" reviewers as well as punters on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes. Overall I'd say the availability of amateur reviews has helped me.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Moviegoers have plenty of things to do with their time and many of them don't want to waste their time on crappy movies. For me nearly every movie with a very bad rotten tomato score (below 30%) is not worth going to the theater. I may rent it later but it isn't going to get $30-$40 from me. On top of that, there are plenty of movies which could be interesting but I'll wait for the reviews before going to the theater. Right now movies like Jumanji, Blade Runner, and Ready Player One are in that category for me. If they can get 70%+ scores I'll take another look, but otherwise I'll wait for the rental.
Bad rotten tomato scores are kind of like a resume with a lot of misspelled words when you have 1000 resumes to go through. It's a good initial filter criteria.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Zero fucks were given about critics
--
Hey Hollywood, stop making the same shit over again
I do refuse to go to movies with low scores, and more importantly, I use it to discover movies with a high score that I was unaware of.
It's how I find Indie films to watch.
Maybe I'm part of the elite.
Or maybe the shmucks that dislike rotten tomatoes have no idea what they are talking about.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Scorsese is generally wrong. People go to movies to see something entertaining, not (for the most part) study how well it was constructed. Nearly no one cares about the 'art of film" or whatever other pompous nonsense they talk to each other about. Critics who base their reviews and evaluation on what grade someone might get at film school are completely missing the boat. That's why no one pays any attention to them.
Scorsese has made plenty of movies people wanted to see, but you have to wonder if that was accidental, given his thought process. Or maybe he has lost sight of the end goal, 2 hours of entertainment (as opposed to an exercise of technical prowess).
If he wants to make movies for other film school grad or NY critics, then fine, but don't whine about the fact that most people don't care about it. From a artistic standpoint, "Star Wars" is a piece of crap, with terrible acting, cliche' plot that would have fit about as well in a B Western, and an entirely predictable ending. Oh, and it was not too far from a scene-by-scene remake of "The Hidden Fortress", so also not original. But people liked it because it has cool (astonishing for the time) effects and a lot of spaceships blowing each other up. People go to watch "Weekend at Bernie's" because its stupid but funny. No one cares it he shot a scene day-for-night or uses the same framing techniques as Kurosawa in Yojimbo.
If someone want to go to study the artistic value of a movie, fine, no on is stopping them. And no one (except the people who want to make money by providing entertainment for entertainments sake) is preventing anyone from making those movies. But it is foolish to expect that such self-indulgence made for other film buffs is going to get a high rating or make money from the general public. Rotten Tomatoes is telling you what people actually want to see, crappy or not from perspective of the overblown craft of moviemaking.
Martin Scorsese inveighs against two conjoined trends -- the widespread reporting of box-office results and the grading of movies by consumers on CinemaScore and by critics on Rotten Tomatoes -- and blames it for "a tone that is hostile to serious filmmakers." In particular, he contends that this hostile environment is worsening "as film criticism written by passionately engaged people with actual knowledge of film history has gradually faded from the scene.
Translation: "Serious film makers shouldn't have to care about whether or not their film appeals to anyone or makes money and anyone who isn't a film history major shouldn't be allowed to criticize my work because they are unworthy."
"Hostile to serious filmmakers"? What a joke. Just because you can't make money on a shit film anymore isn't our problem. Just because nobody wants to fund your risky art house film isn't our problem. Knowledge of film history is utterly irrelevant in determining whether or not a film is worth seeing. Popularity does not necessarily equal quality but it cannot be denied that there is a strong correlation. Rotten Tomatoes isn't the end-all-be-all of movie evaluation but it is useful information. If a movie gets a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes I'm probably going to skip seeing it in a theater. If a narcissistic director cannot handle that business reality then that isn't my problem.
Much like a lot of professionals there is a disconnect between them and the average guy.
Critics watch movies all the time, and are use to digging them apart and the begin to realize what they like and dislike, and as time goes on they get more picky.
Just like a Wine Connoisseur. As the average guy knows if he liked or disliked a wine, but wouldn't be able to tell them apart. the Wine Connoisseur has learned to tell the differences, so a wine they may had liked decades back is now poor to him, because of that one undertone that they have caught on to.
The same with movies, a plot hole, or a poorly made character would have gone unnoticed to the average movie goer because they got distracted by the shiny thing going on, or just comprehending a major plot and not realizing the sub plot.
There are some movies that I rather enjoyed because of the problems a critic had pointed out. Often because they were expecting more depth in the movie, while I just wanted a way to have a rompin good time for the next 2 hours.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I looked at the Bladerunner 2048 Reviews on Saturday after the premiere, looks like a TON of canned 5-star reviews, overly verbose not really saying anything about watching the movie, but just how great the movie is, or the importance of the movie. Then there were the opposite one and no pointers, who wrote not again about the movie but how bad the movie was. In there if you read a bit you could find snippets of actual reviews where people mention the plot development form the original, characters, scenes etc.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I pass on the trailers if only because frequently they reveal too much.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
Just like a Wine Connoisseur. As the average guy knows if he liked or disliked a wine, but wouldn't be able to tell them apart. the Wine Connoisseur has learned to tell the differences, so a wine they may had liked decades back is now poor to him, because of that one undertone that they have caught on to.
You might have chosen a different example because wine tasting is complete BS and has been repeatedly shown to be so in all sorts of studies. So called wine experts are routinely anything but experts and are easily revealed as such. They often cannot tell the difference between "good" and "bad" wines under any sort of rigorous scrutiny. Very similar to audiophiles who like to pretend they can hear things the rest of us cannot.
Between "professional" reviewers that don't dare to pan an atrocious movie because they fear the social shitstorm, astroturfing studios and people who don't give a shit about the movie being good or bad because it doesn't fit into their world view and that's why it's horrible (or because it caters to it and that's why it has to be stellar), all of them trying to out-do each other with "it's the greatest movie of all times" or "it's the worst trash since the invention of cinema" on a movie that is essentially "meh".
I guess everyone knows by now what I'm talking about, so I'll just close here. tl;dr version: It might work for simple Michael Bay movies that have no "message" but as soon as there is one, just ignore RT and find out for yourself.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Eh, the teenagers don't bother me much, really. They don't tend to go to movies that require a great deal of attention.
I'm with you on the smaller theaters, though. My comments about theaters wasn't talking about those.
My town has three that are tiny, that use home theater equipment for their projection, and never have first-run movies. But they do have couches and overstuffed armchairs, beer, wine, and actually good, real food that you can order with a text and they bring it to you. Those are wonderful theaters that I enjoy going to. They are also thriving, where the more mainstream theaters are struggling, so I'm not the only one who likes them.