David Cronenberg: Rotten Tomatoes is Wrecking Film Criticism
59 replies, posted
You're not supposed to use the site to see if a movie is good the name of the fucking site is ROTTEN tomatoes the only real purpose is to reinforce your own opinion that the movie is total shit
[QUOTE=godfatherk;46874931]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.[/QUOTE]it's a 50$ difference on average
[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;46875393]You're not supposed to use the site to see if a movie is good the name of the fucking site is ROTTEN tomatoes the only real purpose is to reinforce your own opinion that the movie is total shit[/QUOTE]
Well except that's why I like rotten tomatoesm I would have never seen the absolute delight of Saving Christmas without!
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;46873491]Criticism should be about analysing the merits of a movie based on a particular perspective, usually that of the author[/QUOTE]
that is literally the opposite of most classical criticism schools. what the author intended is meaningless
[editline]7th January 2015[/editline]
that said i do believe rt and metacritic etc ruins critical thinking and the value of art critique because it means people don't think for themselves anymore or even get to read formulated opinions to inform themselves - it's just looking at aggregated numbers
I actually like to consult Rotten Tomatoes to be honest but I take it with a grain of salt. Some reviews and opinions are outright nonsensical or just to edgy without any real reason.
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;46875659]that said i do believe rt and metacritic etc ruins critical thinking and the value of art critique because it means people don't think for themselves anymore or even get to read formulated opinions to inform themselves - it's just looking at aggregated numbers[/QUOTE]
Basically this. Art criticism is not really supposed to be about assigning value, but critiquing through a particular lens. That's not to imply that criticism can't say if a movie is good or bad, and it's nice to have a quick reference for whether critics generally think a film is worth your money, but reducing film critics to yes votes and no votes really devalues proper analysis. Scoring systems also encourage a sort of groupthink, since you can't simply ignore a reviewer if their score is being included in the average.
Art is such a personal and subjective thing that I think it's much more productive to find a critic whose analysis you tend to agree with, and use them to assess new films, rather than try to take an average of what all critics think.
[QUOTE=junker154;46875913]I actually like to consult Rotten Tomatoes to be honest but I take it with a grain of salt. Some reviews and opinions are outright nonsensical or just to edgy without any real reason.[/QUOTE]
There;s a review of Toy Story 3 that's pretty infamous, saying it's a bad movie because the toys in it could be linked to product placement.
[url]http://nypress.com/bored-game/[/url]
[QUOTE=john_pelphre;46875992]There;s a review of Toy Story 3 that's pretty infamous, saying it's a bad movie because the toys in it could be linked to product placement.
[URL]http://nypress.com/bored-game/[/URL][/QUOTE]
I feel like some people tend to be quite excessive with their political and philosophical beliefs, desperately trying to incorporate it in an academic way which just seems outright ridiculous and misplaced. Sometimes it's almost to critical.
[QUOTE=godfatherk;46874931]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.[/QUOTE]
yeah I was thinking about this. Never ditched a movie because it was just a 60 something on rottentomatoes, recently watched maleficent (49% on RT) and Dracula Untold (22% on RT) but a 6 for a pc game is a huge red flag for me.
Might be because movies cost me 6€something while games cost between 5 and 60.. Or it might be because I find bad movies amusing.
I don't really care what any critic thinks of a movie, so I never ever bothered to read any review, why have the movie spoiled for me before I go see it. An IMDB or RT score though, i'll know what to expect when a movie in a certain genre gets a certain rating and I can adjust my expectations before going in to see the movie, which means even if the movie is not that great I'll still have an enjoyable time.
[editline]7th January 2015[/editline]
Plus if the movie ends up being much better than expected that's only more fun for me.
[QUOTE=BananaFoam;46873696]It doesn't really matter what the skill or perspective of the critic is though; it is all opinion.[/QUOTE]
if this was true, then there would be no place for any sort of criticism or comparison in any artistic medium ever
can people please stop saying this.
I tend to trust reviews for PC games moreso over movies.
It's easier for one to objectively critique a video game over a movie. Whereas in a movie you are a passive audience, in a game you are directly controling the entertainment. That makes it easier for anyone to articulate why they like or dislike a product.
As far as movies go. I don't even look at RT any more. It's such utter bullshit. Many movies that RT have given disgusting scores to have turned out to be quite great to me.
Many critics base their critiques off of their preferences of what they think a good movie should be, then support their biased claims with attempts at explaining the film's invalidity with technicalities and nitpicking.
I've been thinking for awhile to start a website where it grabs a summery of each review from multiple websites, but doesn't grab the score (unless you're really into scores, which we'll give you an option to pick what you want to see and from who, incase you want to blacklist certain websites. and no average score, that's just silly.)
Thoughts?
I don't have a problem with using rotten tomatoes as a general measurement of how much I may enjoy a movie before I see it. My rule is anything over a 55% on RT is something I'd see. I've seen movies that have 90% on RT that I didn't like and I've seen movies with 70% that I though deserved much higher scores. Usually though, anything below a 40% is the point where my experience is congruent with the score.
In other words, RT is fine, it's not "ruining" movie criticism, as long as you can keep them separated in your mind. If I want a proper movie review, I go to RedLetterMedia or the like.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;46877305]I don't have a problem with using rotten tomatoes as a general measurement of how much I may enjoy a movie before I see it. My rule is anything over a 55% on RT is something I'd see. I've seen movies that have 90% on RT that I didn't like and I've seen movies with 70% that I though deserved much higher scores. Usually though, anything below a 40% is the point where my experience is congruent with the score.
In other words, RT is fine, it's not "ruining" movie criticism, as long as you can keep them separated in your mind. If I want a proper movie review, I go to RedLetterMedia or the like.[/QUOTE]
the problem mostly comes from how the public perceives scores. not everyone's really good at judging scores vs. the content of the movies.
[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;46876209]if this was true, then there would be no place for any sort of criticism or comparison in any artistic medium ever
can people please stop saying this.[/QUOTE]
Not all criticism serves the same function. For instance, if a horror film comes out then a review might help me decide if seeing it is worth it. I don't need a well written, well thought out essay on this movie and what it means. All I need to know is "Horror fans should see this" or "Even genre fans shouldn't bother". Rotten Tomatoes delivers this exact service.
Cronenberg seems to be suggesting ALL criticism should be aiming for the well written, well thought out side of things. Why? What purpose does that serve? If you want in depth movie discussion there's a million places online to find it, why does it need to be in movie reviews?
Do people actually get a serious opinion from aggregate sites? I thought they were just used to tell the difference between a bad movie and a [URL="http://www.metacritic.com/movie/kirk-camerons-saving-christmas"][I]bad[/I] movie[/URL].
[url]http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kung_pow/?search=kung%20pow%20enter%20the%20fist[/url]
oh come on it is supposed to be bad on purpose. besides this movie i've found that rt ratings tend to be pretty reliable.
[QUOTE=Jackald;46879785]To me, being a good critic means you can hate a movie that you know is objectively good, and you can love a movie that you know is objectively bad. Separating your feelings from your assessment is what it means to review something.[/QUOTE]
What is 'objectively good' in filmmaking though? I can promise you that every single rule you'd name as marking a 'good' movie has been broken in good movies. That's one reason I think that kind of film review is outdated. There is too much out there, from realism to fantasy to abstract to retro ironic, for any individual style of review to be the right one. Your personal feelings have to come into it. I don't care what someone who admits they don't find horror films scary thinks about the latest horror film. I don't care how educated they are, how well they write, or how 'objective' they are- they aren't going to 'get it'. Not every film is made to have equal appeal to every person. Some movies I will never appreciate, that's not a critical judgment it's just acknowledging that those movies are not aimed at me.
[QUOTE=ChestyMcGee;46875659]that is literally the opposite of most classical criticism schools. what the author intended is meaningless
[editline]7th January 2015[/editline]
that said i do believe rt and metacritic etc ruins critical thinking and the value of art critique because it means people don't think for themselves anymore or even get to read formulated opinions to inform themselves - it's just looking at aggregated numbers[/QUOTE]
I meant the author of the criticism. I worded that awfully.
I get that movies are subjective, but it's one thing to look at a film from a critical point of view and still like/dislike it regardless of the popular opinion, and another to try to hide the fact that you don't know or don't care that much about cinema with "but it's my opinion!"
I'm not at all saying your opinion is only relevant if you care about filmmaking, I mean that just because it's subjective it doesn't mean you can't judge it. There's way too many people who know nothing of cinematography or writing and get mad when people critique those things in a movie that they like
[QUOTE=lapsus_;46876108]yeah I was thinking about this. Never ditched a movie because it was just a 60 something on rottentomatoes, recently watched maleficent (49% on RT) and Dracula Untold (22% on RT) but a 6 for a pc game is a huge red flag for me.
Might be because movies cost me 6€something while games cost between 5 and 60.. Or it might be because I find bad movies amusing.[/QUOTE]
Also because games that get low scores might have negatives that make the game unplayable in some way or that hinder the experience severely. Usually gamed with 6 have some slightly big problems like a choppy multiplayer or fucked up settings or graphics or controlls.
The same doesnt happens in movies. At most, you fall asleep from being a bad movie.
Wait, do people actually pay the numerical ratings any attention?
I never pay those numbers any mind. I read the reviews myself, find the most common pros and cons in all of the reviews (the more people say the same thing, the more likely it's true), and make an initial judgement from that. If it doesn't sound bad from there, I then go onto other sources of information - generally YouTube - to investigate further.
This goes for anything reviewed - films, games, albums, books, what have you.
Why can't people just... Watch a movie and decide for themselves?
[QUOTE=SIRIUS;46885447]Why can't people just... Watch a movie and decide for themselves?[/QUOTE]
Because it costs money?
[QUOTE=Kljunas;46887469]Because it costs money?[/QUOTE]
if you can't afford to go to a movie then don't? there are rarely movies so bad you wish you didn't spend the money
Agreed. There's films I've seen which have a bad rating on these review aggregate sites but I still enjoyed them immensely.
Another example of this is Mrs Brown's Boys which professional critics universally panned. However I (and many people I've spoken to) find it absolutely hilarious if you take it for what it is.
People just need to lighten up and form their own opinions. By all means, if you follow a particular critic and share the same tastes in media, do give their opinion some thought. However, don't boycott something just because the Daily Mail said it was bad.
[QUOTE=Rocâ„¢;46875346]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.[/QUOTE]
Or when a damn good game gets an 84 instead of an 85, which costs the dev studio a huge bonus and may very well cost them future contracts on the game series they created 20 years ago.
[editline]9th January 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=SIRIUS;46887565]if you can't afford to go to a movie then don't? there are rarely movies so bad you wish you didn't spend the money[/QUOTE]
Let's see here.
1: Gas. Ok, that's piss cheap these days, but it won't last. And it's still a cost. For me it's about $10 just to go to town.
2: Snacks. Movie theaters make piss all off ticket sales, so they charge a metric fuckton for popcorn and soda. They also get pissy when you sneak a can of Dr Pepper in via coat pocket.
3: It's crowded. Not everyone likes being in crowded places.
4: The ticket itself costs a decent chunk. That's going up, too, thanks to the MPAA.
There's also scheduling issues at hand. The usual response then is to wait for DVD(Still costs money but not as much) or wait for it to hit HBO(My go-to). Which can take upwards of a year and a half and not all movies even make it there. I still haven't seen Fury because of that, even though I want to watch it.
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