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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

#61

Post by Animats »

munificent wrote: post #39
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…

Film execs read a lot of scripts and it's an easily trainable skill.

Reading scripts and summarizing them down to a standard two-page format is a standard part of the filter. An actress/model/waitress friend used to do that for extra cash. Film execs mostly read those executive summaries.

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

#62

Post by mulmen »

macintux wrote: post #40
watwut wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I skipped Dunkirk because a friend told me it was disappointing.

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

#63

Post by criddell »

munificent wrote: post #39
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…

What about the second part of the line you quoted? What do you think about actor selection?

One of my favorite things is seeing a movie with an actor that I'm not familiar with and being blown away by their performance. Some big actors (like Tom Cruise) I never quite forget that I'm watching Tom Cruise act and that takes away something from the experience.

Gary Oldman is a counter example. He's so good that I often don't notice him.

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

#64

Post by nebabyte »

Touche wrote: post #52
slg wrote: post #49

These type of articles never explore the potential results of the Rotten Tomatoes voting system. As the article mentions the RT rating is not a measure of how good a movie is, it is a measure of the percentage of people who viewed the movie positively. A 100% doesn't mean a movie is perfect or even particularly good, it means no one thought it was bad. A movie designed to do well on a RT score needs to please everyon…

Those films are now done by Netflix and Amazon. Just a different model. I used to go to an indie theater twice a week when I was in college and saw every niche film. But those theaters hardly exist any more. The big theater experience just isn't cut out for that. It's barely pleasant enough to go see the latest popcorn movie. The industry really needs to take at-home seriously.

"The industry" only cares about its own moneymaking; you're not gonna see them roll over and say "hey, you know what's a really good movie?" rather than keep pushing their own formulaic investments.

Even critics aren't going to stop reviewing big-name movies on the grounds that they're all the same recycled shit; reviews of recycled shit likely still earns them far more than their other reviews combined.

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

#65

Post by platz »

rgbrenner wrote: post #54

No one is killing the movie industry. Here are the stats: http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MPAA-Theatric...

and yet the referenced article in the piece [1] doesn't seem to keep the execs from complaining "studio head honchos lay the blame for several months of horrific box office numbers — the worst in 20 years — on the website":

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/business/media/rotten-tom...

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

#66

Post by sien »

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.

This is what Blumhouse productions do. They are responsible for Paranormal activity and a number of other cheap successful films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumhouse_Productions

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

#67

Post by Legion »

Some of the good material that would have been turned into movies in the past gets turned into television/streaming shows now. Game of Thrones occupies the kind of cultural space that something like Star Wars did during the original trilogy.

It's not that that material doesn't exist, it's simply that it no longer is the sole domain of the movie format.

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

#68

Post by criddell »

PopsiclePete wrote: post #48

Movies lately: * Generic Super-Hero Movie A. * Generic Super-Hero Movie B. Different title from A, yet actually identical plot and sometimes actors. * A new CG cartoon "for the whole family". They haven't had an original idea since Wall-E. * Generic block-buster action movie with robots and/or ninjas or ninja-robots, explosions, Chevrolet placement ads, and at least 2 pairs of extremely shapely female breasts. * Gene…

> TV is much better, with lots more variety

That's pretty interesting. TV used to be the home for schlock and quality story telling was mostly done by movies. These days, if you want to tell a substantial story with depth, you do it on television. Movies are to television as short stores are to novels.

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

#69

Post by Sir_Substance »

slg wrote: post #49

These type of articles never explore the potential results of the Rotten Tomatoes voting system. As the article mentions the RT rating is not a measure of how good a movie is, it is a measure of the percentage of people who viewed the movie positively. A 100% doesn't mean a movie is perfect or even particularly good, it means no one thought it was bad. A movie designed to do well on a RT score needs to please everyon…

>If you ask people why they don't go to the movies more they will often cite the idea that there is nothing new they haven't seen before

I have literally never heard someone say this

>(besides the complaints you hear about prices)

Yup, there it is.

But also, to watch a movie in the cinema I often have to sit in uncomfortably off-center chairs. I can't adjust the volume if I think it's too loud, I can't pause the movie to take a piss and I have to listen to the troglodytes behind me eat popcorn with their mouths open. The movies start at rigidly defined times that may not be convenient for me, I'm not allowed to bring a pizza in, I can't do anything about it if someone has an inconsolable baby or kicks the back of my chair repeatedly and to top it all off there's half an hour of ads before the movie starts.

And yeah, I have to pay $15 for that.

All in all, cinema is still a very 1920's experience, and I don't really want that. I have a 3D home projector man, I got it second hand for like $200. It's not as good as the cinema projector, but I assure you my couch is nicer. I've just delayed my cinema schedule by 6 months. Spiderman: Homecoming is being released soon, I'm pumped. No spoilers please.

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

#70

Post by mavhc »

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?

Recently I've seen Wind River, mother!, limehouse golem, american made, Dunkirk, the big sick, Spiderman, War for the planet of the apes, wonder woman, baby driver.
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