David Cronenberg: Rotten Tomatoes is Wrecking Film Criticism
59 replies, posted
[QUOTE]David Cronenberg, director of culty arthouse classics like Videodrome, The Fly and A History of Violence, says film criticism is no longer "effective." And he blames sites like Rotten Tomatoes, that offer aggregate opinions rather than reasoned ideas.
"Even now if you go to Rotten Tomatoes, you have critics and then you have 'Top Critics', and what that really means is that there are legitimate critics who have actually paid their dues and worked hard and are in a legitimate website connected perhaps with a newspaper or perhaps not. Then there are all these other people who just say they're critics and you read their writing and they can't write, or they can write and their writing reveals that they're quite stupid and ignorant. ... Some voices have emerged that are actually quite good who never would have emerged before, so that's the upside of that. But I think it means that it's diluted the effective critics."[/QUOTE]
[url]http://io9.com/david-cronenberg-says-rotten-tomatoes-is-wrecking-film-1677869612?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+io9%2Ffull+%28io9%29[/url]
Criticism should be about analysing the merits of a movie based on a particular perspective, usually that of the author. When all perspectives are boiled down into a gestalt whole, what is even being criticized anymore?
instead of an analysis of the flaws and merits of the movie, it becomes this weird statistics based prediction that tries to give you the probability of you liking it or not.
I've noticed that there's a lot of bandwagonning that tends to happen with Rotten Tomatoes. People will tend to not form their own opinion but piggy back off the opinions of the majority.
We give too much power to sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
i can see what he's saying stagnation is happening with bandwagoning but at the same time, it's all opinions.
Just because someone is a 'seasoned' critic doesn't mean if they reviewed a movie and gave it a bad score it is objectively a bad film and that his review should be taken over the 300 other reviews from non 'seasoned' critics stating the flick was phenomenal.
Sort of like a "the people don't know what they like" argument.
[editline]7th January 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Fangz;46873503]We give too much power to sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.[/QUOTE]
metacritic is something that really needs to die though.
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;46873491]it becomes this weird statistics based prediction that tries to give you the probability of you liking it or not.[/QUOTE]
Which is what 99.98% of people looking into movie critiques are after. VERY few people who go to a site like Rotten Tomatoes or view the works of those like Roger and Ebert want to criticize the story or special effects or whatever. What they want to know is whether the movie was good and whether or not it will fit their tastes. Most reviewers have come to terms with this, dunno why this guy can't accept that.
I don't think this is specific to Rotten Tomatoes or film critics. It's just how the internet is. Anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection can voice their opinions and have them seen by millions of people.
It doesn't really matter what the skill or perspective of the critic is though; it is all opinion. He shouldn't be bothered that these people are able to review a film, since I think in the end films are objective and are reviewable by all regardless of critical skill. What Cronenberg should be upset about is that people use those criticisms to decide their own opinion about a film without even seeing it.
It isn't Rotten Tomatoes fault that people overvalue the opinion of the "critics". That shouldn't decide whether you like a movie. What matters it that [I]you[/I] are interested in it and that you decide what [I]your[/I] opinion is.
Critics in general are kind of... useless. I don't mean to sound harsh or arrogant but movies, games, and pretty much all media boils down to personal opinion and interest, and you shouldn't let critics basically decide for you whether or not you like a film.
[QUOTE=cqbcat;46873684]I don't think this is specific to Rotten Tomatoes or film critics. It's just how the internet is. Anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection can voice their opinions and have them seen by millions of people.[/QUOTE]
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I don't know what the problem here is, you have more opinions to look at before making a final decision on whether or not to watch the movie. If you think the opinion piece that you're reading is shit then discard that opinion. I legitimately do not give a fuck if someone has been reviewing films for 50 years or just started. I don't care if their review is a 4000 word essay or 4-6 sentences brcause It's still going to have the same weight (somewhat)
My post is a bit bias because I'm a consumer. I want to hear what other average consumers have said about the piece of entertainment that I'm planning to purchase. When I was a movie goer, I used rotten tomatoes because it had both professional reviews and user reviews. Most of the time I valued user reviews over professional reviews because most if not all movies that have been rated negatively by professionals turned out to be good or at least decent.
Hehe, I think complaining about how RT is "ruining" the critic industry is a bit like complaining about some dude ruining the Hudson River by shitting in it.
There was plenty of shit in that river before he came along, and there'll be plenty more shit when he's gone.
I think he has missed the point. The nature of movie criticism has changed. It's no longer relevant to do it the way Roger Ebert and others did it back in the day. Now, with instant access to unlimited amounts of media, it's no longer about detailing what makes something good or bad, it's about efficiently deciding what's worth your time or not. Rotten Tomatoes does this, it allows anyone to quickly spot movies they are likely to enjoy and avoid the ones that sound like the wrong type of movie for you. In short it's about "Yes/No", not "Yes and the reason why is..." or "No, and the reason why is...".
What is it with this perceived notion that criticism is bad and destructive?
When I was in school, I was taught that criticism is how you better yours and others works.
[QUOTE=Solo Wing;46873893]What is it with this perceived notion that criticism is bad and destructive?
When I was in school, I was taught that criticism is how you better yours and others works.[/QUOTE]
it isn't just criticism, it's criticism of thousands of opinions condensed into a simple aggregate that is the problem.
It's only a problem if the viewer doesn't understand what the rating on these hubs means.
If "x% of people who write about things a lot think that the thing is good" is cornerstone of the opinion you build onto the the thing, then you are obviously not building very respectable opinions on things.
It's still a handy simple tool that tells you [I]something[/I] at first glance.
[QUOTE=Vitalogy;46873493]I've noticed that there's a lot of bandwagonning that tends to happen with Rotten Tomatoes. People will tend to not form their own opinion but piggy back off the opinions of the majority.[/QUOTE]
That's typical of people in general. Humans are very easily influenced by crowd dynamics; out of a large group of people, a few spot something and draw attention to it-- then the others follow their lead and start paying attention to it too.
Opinions work much the same way. Originality and independent thought don't factor into what people like or dislike so much as what's trending in the mainstream and really "in" right now. Is it popular to like a certain something, or is it popular to dislike it?
That's a very broad generalization, but it's still the truth. Your average person behaves like a childish animal that doesn't spend its time applying hardly any critical thought to anything, whether it be entertainment or politics or religion or education; it's easier to just let others make up our minds and our opinions for us than to do it ourselves to a really intricate and well-thought-out extent, because thinking takes effort and concentration, and it's hard for an unfortunate number of people to apply effort and concentration.
And sometimes it isn't even that. Sometimes, people do come up with original ideas and have independent thought processes-- they just don't want to waste their energy arguing with each other and will go along with whatever the rest of the group does in order to preserve the peace.
It's something we're all guilty of, some of us more than others however. It gets really old though when you start paying attention to it and begin noticing the pattern more as time goes on.
[editline]7th January 2015[/editline]
I like Rotten Tomatoes for the most part though because I can read through the user reviews, which I'm still more apt to trust than the ones done by "professional" critics, and can get a general consensus on what was liked and what was disliked. Then I can interpret how good or bad its content is and can tell what to expect when I watch it, but still not have it completely spoiled.
I don't really let it make up my mind for me; I just like to see what the general praises and criticisms consist of is all.
Most professional critics know that criticism isn't about scores and how good a film is. I saw Mark Kermode's 2014 round up of the year and he gave the latest Transformers his number 1 worst film spot. He acknowledges that it also made the most money this year, and that there's a market for those sorts of films. He also can't really add exploration films to the list, because that sort of goes against the point.
I still don't agree that ANYTHING should get reviewed with a number. There are way too many variables to take into account. Say what you liked, say what you didn't. End.
I go to RottenTomatoes because so far I haven't found a good movie critic to replace the Ebert-shaped hole in my heart.
It's all subjective, why should people have to "pay" to be able to comment?
This is a thinly veiled outburst or frustration by someone in a privileged position who feels it's unfair that now anyone has the ability to comment on film/media/art without being part of the upper echelon who reached their position through connections and nepotism. Times change Mr. Cronenberg, welcome to the modern world where I'll say what I want and I don't need my daddy or friends to do it.
I agree somewhat.
I still find sites like Rotten Tomatoes useful from time to time however, usually just to get a general idea of whether or not a film is worth giving a go, I don't take them too seriously.
Which is probably all they should be used for, if anything.
It's quite simple, use a site like Rotten Tomatoes to get a general idea of whether you'll like a movie or not and then read specific critiques of the movie by whatever critics you trust and value the most to get an even better idea.
Like if I'm buying a game on steam, I'll look at the overall ratings on steam, then go see if TB has covered it and form a better analysis of it that way, as for me TB is a good sounding board, and then if that's not enough, I'll look up a few other youtubers to see what they make of it and then decide.
no one goes to rotten tomatoes for an actual proper film criticism and analysis though. all it is is a one stop website to get a decently reliable view on whether or not a film will be worth watching.
the idea that RT is pushing out film critics is ridiculous, film critics have never been huge beyond roger ebert.
"Hey want to go see movie X?"
"Idk man MC/RT only gave it a Y%"
Huge pet peeve of mine. I kind of just get annoyed in general when people try to give movies/music/video games/whatever a number. You don't talk about media in numbers, you talk about them with words. What's more important is what people actually have to say about the media and with RT it's usually just a sentence or two.
I value an actual review well over ketchupscore.
I'm guessing somebody just got a bad rating.
On polarizing movies RottenTomatoes sucks ass, but with most films it's a fine guideline.
In video games, everything that's under 8/10 is considered a no play, so the reviewing bs is even bigger there than in movies, where a 5/10 or 6/10 is considered as watchable, and 7/10 starts getting positive.
rt isnt ruining anything, this guy even says that the top critics section is legit
Wrecking sounds a bit extreme but I do think the site could use some kind of re-tooling.
anyone who uses metacritic/rt as anything other than getting a "gist" of a movie/game's quality is kind of silly. I've seen plenty of movies that I thought were excellent that were bad on RT
I have a bigger problem with the idea of comparing scores between multiple titles, and I think this happens a lot more on metacritic. The judgement is relative to it's own thing or genre, not to all the other things on the site. Would you compare your favorite soda against your favorite ice cream? No because that would be dumb. You would compare your favorite soda to other sodas and your favorite ice cream to other ice creams.
[editline]7th January 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Colliseemoe;46874767]"Hey want to go see movie X?"
"Idk man MC/RT only gave it a Y%"
Huge pet peeve of mine. I kind of just get annoyed in general when people try to give movies/music/video games/whatever a number. You don't talk about media in numbers, you talk about them with words. What's more important is what people actually have to say about the media and with RT it's usually just a sentence or two.
I value an actual review well over ketchupscore.[/QUOTE]
my brother used to do this with games and gameinformer magazine
[QUOTE=Viva;46873506]metacritic is something that really needs to die though.[/QUOTE]
0/10
Didn't like the game because my potato can't run it, so its obviously bad
Didn't like the game because the devs didn't suck my cock, so its bad
user reviews are absolute trash when you see games that are worth at the very least a 7 getting a 0 because the reviewer didn't like something completely subjective.
([I]​some) [/I]game reviews suck because they don't understand that Wolfenstein is not trying to be Gone Home.
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