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Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

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Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#31

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

potatolicious wrote: post #28
cgore wrote: post #4

I think more than anything what we need is more movies made by low-budget places. I really don't want to see another sequel, redo, or comic book movie. It's just lazy on the part of the movie companies.

I agree, but this exists to a significant extent already (though more would be great) - it's a really, really good time to be into low-budget indie flicks. The problem is that your local multiplex is not going to be showing independent films, nor are they going to be blasting marketing cranked up to 11 on all channels, so it's much harder to hear about them, and in some cases, much harder to see them period. But the…

Things like Fathom Events are already managing to run more niche content a few showings a week. (Example: there's a Studio Ghibli film doing 1 showing an evening at 3 theaters around town for two nights next week.)

It's not inconceivable that we'll eventually see a similar platform for (more) indie movies, using a screen or two a couple evenings a week. Movie theaters are hard up for money, and I suspect would happily take a full theater for any film they can do small batches of.

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#32

Post by drblast »

I often wonder if movies will simply occupy a niche market in the future. I wonder that about a lot of industries. Appealing to huge demographics with excellent movies would certainly be more profitable, but what if the current status quo of rehashing comic books over and over again is profitable enough? That's certainly a safer bet.

Monster truck rallies cater to a small subset of society, and they're probably not going anywhere. Nobody wonders why the monster truck rally industry doesn't try to expand its audience; they do what they do and it's profitable enough to keep them going. Why change what works?

Capitalism is like evolution. You don't have to be excellent to survive, you just have to be good enough not to die.

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#33

Post by fishywang »

noncoml wrote: post #26

I don't know what the complaints are about. I have observed that RT has constantly over-inflated rating for movies while they are still playing in the theaters.

Are you confused RT with IMDb by any chance? IMDb do have inflated rating for new-ish movies, but I don't think RT has the same issue (if you are looking at critic rating a.k.a. freshness, not the user rating)

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#34

Post by mtgx »

beat wrote: post #23

A flip side to this... is Rotten Tomatoes boosting movies that would otherwise be ignored, by virtue of excellent ratings? I'm thinking specifically of Hidden Figures here. Who would ever have thought that we'd see a Star Wars movie (Rogue One) booted out of the #1 spot by a movie about black women doing math? (This is in no way a criticism of either movie, btw. I loved both of them and consider them high-water marks…

I don't see the problem with that. Rotten Tomatoes is a review site where people judge the quality of a movie, not the popularity of a movie. You're probably thinking of popularity when you say that, because to me, Rogue One was kind of "meh", but that's just my opinion.

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#35

Post by noncoml »

fishywang wrote: post #33
noncoml wrote: post #26

I don't know what the complaints are about. I have observed that RT has constantly over-inflated rating for movies while they are still playing in the theaters.

Are you confused RT with IMDb by any chance? IMDb do have inflated rating for new-ish movies, but I don't think RT has the same issue (if you are looking at critic rating a.k.a. freshness, not the user rating)

No, RT.

For example look at "Wind River". Rating is at 86%

By comparison, some older movies around or lower than that rating:

"The Big Lebowski": 81% "Gladiator": 76% "The Wolf of Wall Streer": 77%

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#36

Post by runevault »

Animats wrote: post #19

The movie industry doesn't seem to be able to figure out if a movie will be a dud up front. Most of the dud movies are broken at the script and actor selection phase. Maybe productions need to do a staged reading in front of an audience as a test before going into production. Perhaps with slides and sketches from the storyboard for the action. The CG people have their act together. When was the last time a big-budget…

Something to keep in mind, a lot of movies when bought are good, but then people come in and muck with the script (either producers/execs tell the original screenwriter to make these changes, or they hire someone else to do it).

Hollywood has a collection of processes that allow people with little experience in telling stories to influence how said stories are told, and then those who come after have to deal with the fallout. It is more than a little gross.

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#37

Post by irrational »

anton_tarasenko wrote: post #13

I once plotted the TSPDT Top 1000 movies by year. That's an all-time ranking voted by critics. The distribution plot peaks around the 1970s and declines since then. For one, post-war European cinema was really great and influenced the American industry. Now all major movies originate in the same place. The last fresh blood had come mostly from Latin America, Mexico in particular. And the place for experiments changed…

Art? I always thought movies were about entertainment.

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#38

Post by beat »

mtgx wrote: post #34
beat wrote: post #23

A flip side to this... is Rotten Tomatoes boosting movies that would otherwise be ignored, by virtue of excellent ratings? I'm thinking specifically of Hidden Figures here. Who would ever have thought that we'd see a Star Wars movie (Rogue One) booted out of the #1 spot by a movie about black women doing math? (This is in no way a criticism of either movie, btw. I loved both of them and consider them high-water marks…

I don't see the problem with that. Rotten Tomatoes is a review site where people judge the quality of a movie, not the popularity of a movie. You're probably thinking of popularity when you say that, because to me, Rogue One was kind of "meh", but that's just my opinion.

What I'm saying is that movies that would otherwise be ignored might be achieving surprise popularity due to strong reviews on Rotten Tomatoes - Hidden Figures as a case in point. It was the #1 movie in America, not some obscure art film, which is the fate I would expect for such a subject, told in such a way. I think popularity followed from quality.

Of course, any ol' movie labeled Star Wars will do well, by virtue of brand.

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#39

Post by munificent »

Animats wrote: post #19

The movie industry doesn't seem to be able to figure out if a movie will be a dud up front. Most of the dud movies are broken at the script and actor selection phase. Maybe productions need to do a staged reading in front of an audience as a test before going into production. Perhaps with slides and sketches from the storyboard for the action. The CG people have their act together. When was the last time a big-budget…

> Most of the dud movies are broken at the script and actor selection phase.

Nothing kills a movie quite like a bad script. You can pair up a lot of very similar winners and losers and see that the key difference is the script. Compare for example Baywatch and 22 Jump Street. Both rehashed Gen-X era TV shows about good-looking people. 22 Jump Street was smart, self-aware, and successful.

Since few bombs do have good scripts, you would think studio execs would simply never put a weak script into production. While you can have a successful film with a shitty script, why risk it? Especially given how cheap it is to change a script early on.

Given that they seemingly don't, there's probably some other forces in play. Probably some combination of:

1. Maybe it's just really hard to evaluate a script early on. There's probably some truth to this, but I don't think much. Film execs read a lot of scripts and it's an easily trainable skill.

2. Maybe the script starts out good but gets screwed up because of perverse incentives. This is, I think, a bigger part of it. The director wants to put their mark on it. A big-name star wants their character to get more screen time. All of a sudden, there are forces pushing on the script that make it better for the people making the movie, but not for the view.

3. Corporate politics at the studio comes into play. A studio brings on a script doctor who is compelled to earn their check by making a certain amount of changes even if the script didn't need them. An exec owes someone a favor and gets a role jammed in for a particular actor. An exec got burned on a previous film about shark and says all sharks must be removed from all scripts.

4. Then the reality of production, scheduling and budget. You read a lot of stories about subplots that had to be cut because they ran out of money, scenes that were rushed because of location access, etc. I think a lot of times, the movie you watch is not the movie that was described on paper. It's not uncommon for screenwriters to take their name off a film because the final result of production hell isn't what they wrote.

Re: Is Rotten Tomatoes Killing the Movie Industry? No, Bad Movies Are

#40

Post by macintux »

watwut wrote: post #25
mavhc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of good movies out, are they not showing anywhere near you?

Examples?

Logan Lucky looked really good, vanished from theaters before I could see it. Baby Driver was very good. Dunkirk. And those are just the big productions.
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