I swear rotten tomatoes and IMDb fucked up movies and tv more than anyone talks about. You can’t REALLY make an review of a work of art, even if it is corporate produced tripe, with a percentage scale or */10 system, and before anyone comes at me I know it’s been done for decades but it was never a be all and end all thing, critics wrote articles about things and you might disagree with their sensibilities and go see it specifically because a particular critic didn’t like it, the opposite is also true.
At some point though we crossed a line where no one actually reads the criticism and internalizes it, instead they just look at the number and make it either a personal attack or validation. Thats a really bad way to experience art of any kind.
This isn’t a complete thought I feel, but I hate the reality of film and television criticism today, not because critics are worthless, because that’s just silly. If you like something Peter Travers said was dog shit go find a critic that speaks to your taste it’s not difficult and doesn’t mean your favorite movie actually sucks.
At some point though we crossed a line where no one actually reads the criticism and internalizes it, instead they just look at the number and make it either a personal attack or validation.
There’s too much media now. Used to be, a few good movies came out every couple months. Now between all the studios and streaming services and other formats, we exist within the cone of a firehose of content. No one has time to read and internalize reviews, they’re just looking to filter the firehose to a binary watch/don’t watch
I view the rating as marketing these days. There are so many awful movies with good reviews, that I’m 100% convinced that they use bots to push the rating up, trying to increase the sales.
Since people generelly trust the reviews, it works.
What does that mean? Does it mean it’s the best movie ever made? Nope, it just means everyone at least kinda likes it. It’s Toy Story, it’s a good movie. Though I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest movie of all time. Just a decent movie.
The way the scoring works means that if everyone thinks a movie is better than average, the movie gets a perfect score.
If 75% of the critics think something was the greatest movie ever, while 25% didn’t like it, it’s a 75% score. It might be a movie you’ll think is the greatest movie ever too, but you might give it a miss to watch movie that 90% of the critics thought was just ok instead.
So if a studio is making a movie to try to get a good score, they will make it so it doesn’t offend anyone, and have it universally be considered ok. The way these sites measure movies encourages mediocrity and playing it safe.
I agree they both fucked it up, but my main problem is how there seems to have been a clear shift in how they “weigh” reviews after both IMDB and RT were bought by large corporate entities (Amazon and Fandango, respectively).
I can’t help but feel like a lot of the movies coming out from those companies or their subsidiaries (…and at least some number of politically expedient allies) somehow manage to get higher overall review scores on RT and IMDB than they maybe deserve.
…which is one of the main reasons I shifted to checking Letterbox’d for reviews… but unfortunately, another day to shift to a different platform be coming soon again.
In Darknet Diaries Ep 27: Chartbreakers, Jack Rhysider describes how cheap and easy it is to buy your way to the top of the Apple Podcasts rating chart or onto the New York Times bestseller list.
After listening to this, it’s pretty easy to extend the logic to every other rating platform. Paying for review manipulation is basically part of the marketing budget.
I want to be clear I don’t disagree at all you’re correct. Corporate control of art means they will go to any lengths to ensure profit.
But also, I really kinda glossed over the overarching problem, which is that the film industry is now driven by reviews and vibes reviewed by c-suite folks that answer to shareholders and don’t give a fuck about the actual film or show or whatever
This has always been true with the plastic arts but we’ve reached a zenith.
I will die on the hill that art cannot be considered a financial investment. It by definition has to take risks and investment people cannot handle that
This Patrick Willems piece does a really good job of digging in to why so many streaming “blockbusters” are so shitty these days.
Tl;dw: The streaming companies have the metrics, and are now essentially making movies that hit certain beats to satisfy what they perceive as customer requirements, rather than movies that exist for their own sake.
Yeah these ratings are worse than useless. Oh The Abyss 14% better than Amelie?? Fuck off, Poindexter.
They’re completely disconnected from my own opinions and when I see then before watching a movie they just distract me by wondering what tf other were watching.
You can’t map.reduce this shit, it’s totally subjective
Kinda why Siskel and Ebert was popular back in the day. Siskel approached criticism as being about trying to encourage film makers to make better movies. Ebert was about indicating whether he thought the audience would like the movie. So they would debate. One of them or both would often be wrong. But from the discussion you could get an idea about whether it’s a movie you might enjoy.
There just isn’t anything like that now. You’re going either hear someone tell you it’s the best thing ever, or it’s the worst thing ever. Someone will review it as if it’s supposed to be art while someone else will tell you if it’s got good action scenes in it. These will all be ones or zeros that are added up to produce a rotten tomato number. We don’t even really know what perspective someone is reviewing something from.
You’re right, it’s all subjective so there’s no way to know whether you’ll like a movie until you’ve watched it yourself.
I swear rotten tomatoes and IMDb fucked up movies and tv more than anyone talks about. You can’t REALLY make an review of a work of art, even if it is corporate produced tripe, with a percentage scale or */10 system, and before anyone comes at me I know it’s been done for decades but it was never a be all and end all thing, critics wrote articles about things and you might disagree with their sensibilities and go see it specifically because a particular critic didn’t like it, the opposite is also true.
At some point though we crossed a line where no one actually reads the criticism and internalizes it, instead they just look at the number and make it either a personal attack or validation. Thats a really bad way to experience art of any kind.
This isn’t a complete thought I feel, but I hate the reality of film and television criticism today, not because critics are worthless, because that’s just silly. If you like something Peter Travers said was dog shit go find a critic that speaks to your taste it’s not difficult and doesn’t mean your favorite movie actually sucks.
There’s too much media now. Used to be, a few good movies came out every couple months. Now between all the studios and streaming services and other formats, we exist within the cone of a firehose of content. No one has time to read and internalize reviews, they’re just looking to filter the firehose to a binary watch/don’t watch
I view the rating as marketing these days. There are so many awful movies with good reviews, that I’m 100% convinced that they use bots to push the rating up, trying to increase the sales.
Since people generelly trust the reviews, it works.
Toy Story is 100%
What does that mean? Does it mean it’s the best movie ever made? Nope, it just means everyone at least kinda likes it. It’s Toy Story, it’s a good movie. Though I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest movie of all time. Just a decent movie.
The way the scoring works means that if everyone thinks a movie is better than average, the movie gets a perfect score.
If 75% of the critics think something was the greatest movie ever, while 25% didn’t like it, it’s a 75% score. It might be a movie you’ll think is the greatest movie ever too, but you might give it a miss to watch movie that 90% of the critics thought was just ok instead.
So if a studio is making a movie to try to get a good score, they will make it so it doesn’t offend anyone, and have it universally be considered ok. The way these sites measure movies encourages mediocrity and playing it safe.
Good to see a fellow ball knower out here
I agree they both fucked it up, but my main problem is how there seems to have been a clear shift in how they “weigh” reviews after both IMDB and RT were bought by large corporate entities (Amazon and Fandango, respectively).
I can’t help but feel like a lot of the movies coming out from those companies or their subsidiaries (…and at least some number of politically expedient allies) somehow manage to get higher overall review scores on RT and IMDB than they maybe deserve.
For example, that shitty right-wing nationalist churchslop movie “Young Washington” got relatively high scores on RT…
…and IMDB…
…but not on Letterbox’d…
…which is one of the main reasons I shifted to checking Letterbox’d for reviews… but unfortunately, another day to shift to a different platform be coming soon again.
In Darknet Diaries Ep 27: Chartbreakers, Jack Rhysider describes how cheap and easy it is to buy your way to the top of the Apple Podcasts rating chart or onto the New York Times bestseller list.
After listening to this, it’s pretty easy to extend the logic to every other rating platform. Paying for review manipulation is basically part of the marketing budget.
I want to be clear I don’t disagree at all you’re correct. Corporate control of art means they will go to any lengths to ensure profit.
But also, I really kinda glossed over the overarching problem, which is that the film industry is now driven by reviews and vibes reviewed by c-suite folks that answer to shareholders and don’t give a fuck about the actual film or show or whatever
This has always been true with the plastic arts but we’ve reached a zenith.
I will die on the hill that art cannot be considered a financial investment. It by definition has to take risks and investment people cannot handle that
This Patrick Willems piece does a really good job of digging in to why so many streaming “blockbusters” are so shitty these days.
Tl;dw: The streaming companies have the metrics, and are now essentially making movies that hit certain beats to satisfy what they perceive as customer requirements, rather than movies that exist for their own sake.
Art by corporate committee, a fucking travesty
Yeah fedi needs a letterboxd. I kind of wonder if bookwyrm would be a good inspo for it.
I think NeoDB is a good start. Just needs a larger community l
Yeah these ratings are worse than useless. Oh The Abyss 14% better than Amelie?? Fuck off, Poindexter.
They’re completely disconnected from my own opinions and when I see then before watching a movie they just distract me by wondering what tf other were watching.
You can’t map.reduce this shit, it’s totally subjective
Kinda why Siskel and Ebert was popular back in the day. Siskel approached criticism as being about trying to encourage film makers to make better movies. Ebert was about indicating whether he thought the audience would like the movie. So they would debate. One of them or both would often be wrong. But from the discussion you could get an idea about whether it’s a movie you might enjoy.
There just isn’t anything like that now. You’re going either hear someone tell you it’s the best thing ever, or it’s the worst thing ever. Someone will review it as if it’s supposed to be art while someone else will tell you if it’s got good action scenes in it. These will all be ones or zeros that are added up to produce a rotten tomato number. We don’t even really know what perspective someone is reviewing something from.
You’re right, it’s all subjective so there’s no way to know whether you’ll like a movie until you’ve watched it yourself.
How can you be wrong about an opinion?