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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

#141

Post by always_good »

platz wrote: post #110
jknoepfler wrote: post #73

Although RT tends to produce false positives for me, it is a reasonably reliable filter. If Hollywood is suffering, I'd look to the quality of its product. For example, marvel civil war is a false positive (for me). When I watch it, I can't get past the clipped, contrived dialogue, close-ups on faces, ham-fisted plots, inconceivably stupid action, schizophrenic scene changes, plastic cgi, and awkward obviously demogr…

Use metacritic

Critics in general are bad signals.

It's like how HN and /r/programming users brag by hating on things that are popular and loving the esoteric such that they peacock to the other neckbeards about how refined their tastes are. Ugh, DAE hate Javascript?

I prefer IMDB user ratings and Metacritic's user ratings, basically the opinions of the unwashed masses who can at least tell you if a movie is actually enjoyable.

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

#142

Post by bitexploder »

paganel wrote: post #93
Sir_Substance wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 movi…

> 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've started skipping a lot of the super-hero movies because they started being all the same to me ("Wonder Woman" was a little different and more interesting, fortunately). The same goes for most of the action moves being filmed today, which pains me to say it because I'm a huge f…

I thought Wonder Woman was alright. Something about it felt a little "off" to me. It is hard to put my finger on it. Maybe they tried to compress too much plot into the time. I don't know. It was definitely more fun to watch than many of the recent superhero goo moves. Perhaps it was th caricature Germans. On the plus side they did WWI which is as overdone in modern cinema.

Netflix's Marvel shows are interesting too, especially Like Cage. But those aren't movies :)

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

#143

Post by platz »

always_good wrote: post #141
platz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use metacritic

Critics in general are bad signals. It's like how HN and /r/programming users brag by hating on things that are popular and loving the esoteric such that they peacock to the other neckbeards about how refined their tastes are. Ugh, DAE hate Javascript? I prefer IMDB user ratings and Metacritic's user ratings, basically the opinions of the unwashed masses who can at least tell you if a movie is actually enjoyable.

> Critics in general are bad signals.

Critics may be bad signals when conditioned on the things that you individually prefer. this is hardly an objective measure.

Your preference for user ratings could also be biased towards the kind of things that you enjoy about movies, which may align more with non-critics, while at the same time my preference for (aggregrated) critic ratings could be biased towards the things i enjoy about movies, which might align more with critics; those two sets of things might not exactly be the same. (i.e. there could be tribes that rate enjoyableness differently)

Lastly, there is this [1], which is tangential to your claim but worth considering what a good distribution of ratings should look like. Now even though the analysis isn't perfect, it's still interesting that _if_ the assumptions of the analysis were true, metacritic has the most well-behaved distribution.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15108071

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

#144

Post by 6stringmerc »

It's funny a guy working for a Print medium being linked via digital has any grounding to talking about what is killing what. Bro, you're re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Film is changing at the pace of technology, and Rotten Tomatoes will have its time and then the next generation will go elsewhere.

You know, because IMDB and its comment section totally killed the movie industry. Wait, scratch that. It didn't. It turned into a cesspool and life moved on. Or, as Dr. Malcom might put it, "life, uh, finds a way."

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

#145

Post by WalterBright »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #129
Sangermaine wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you've been going to the wrong movies, at least for your tastes. You seem to be exclusively seeing blockbusters. Maybe you'd prefer smaller, less action-focused films.

My filter: avoid all super hero movies.

Me too. I skip all the comic book movies.

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

#146

Post by Aloha »

alexasmyths wrote: post #128
Aloha wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also act as if older movies are on whole universally and objectively better than they are now - which they're not - because of the lens of time, we don't remember the 20 stinkers released every year, only the big blockbuster movies that impressed everyone - as an infrequent movie goer - I'd say movies on whole, are about as good as they ever were.

"which they're not " Many of them are though. If you ever get a chance to study some 'old film's in Uni or whatever, it's pretty interesting. A lot oldies can seem a little bland to us, but they're like novels - they are much richer than we grasp at first glance. Also there is context. Best example would be Charlie Chaplin. I mean, it can seem ridiculous ... but really it's genius. Pacing and language has changed so…

Again, its the same lens of time, there were 2-3 times as many forgettable dramas, romantic comedies, historical pictures, and lets not even start on westerns - they're not even part of our collective memories anymore. Consider that in 1939, there were something like two movies a week released - and 1939 was a banner year for quality too in all honesty - but still only 2-3 have survived in popular memory, and only 10% of the total production was considered notable.

Chaplin was genius, so was Lloyd, so was Keton, they all produced moves of unbelievable quality, but how many of those three are known by people outside the film industry or film historians today?

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

#147

Post by derblitzmann »

always_good wrote: post #141
platz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use metacritic

Critics in general are bad signals. It's like how HN and /r/programming users brag by hating on things that are popular and loving the esoteric such that they peacock to the other neckbeards about how refined their tastes are. Ugh, DAE hate Javascript? I prefer IMDB user ratings and Metacritic's user ratings, basically the opinions of the unwashed masses who can at least tell you if a movie is actually enjoyable.

I'd add that, if you don't know the individual critic's taste, they might as well be another take on public opinion. There can be something to be gained, but for the everyday person, you are best off with "what did the general public think" and what did this person (whose tastes I know) think?

A good example (I think, at least when ignoring drama) is Total Biscuit. He makes it clear when playing a genre of game he doesn't care for or if a game is in a setting he loves. He lays it out and tries to be fair and objective (even if that pursuit is a fool's errand).

P.S. I'd also like to say that the pursuit of an unachievable goal (objectivity, perfection, etc...) is a noble pursuit even if unobtainable, as it will cause a drive to be better and improve. Rather than an excuse to be lazy since, "perfect/objective/... is impossible.

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

#148

Post by derblitzmann »

always_good wrote: post #141
platz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use metacritic

Critics in general are bad signals. It's like how HN and /r/programming users brag by hating on things that are popular and loving the esoteric such that they peacock to the other neckbeards about how refined their tastes are. Ugh, DAE hate Javascript? I prefer IMDB user ratings and Metacritic's user ratings, basically the opinions of the unwashed masses who can at least tell you if a movie is actually enjoyable.

Also, an interesting thing about metacritic (at least from what I can remember) is that they are silent about how they weight differing review sites/critics in how they calculate their overall rating.

Whereas (as far as I know) RT has a simple average for critic reviews and general internet user reviews.

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

#149

Post by lotsofpulp »

watwut wrote: post #42
macintux wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have seen baby driver, it was ok except large plot holes (especially around his girlfriend and boss behavior which made little sense to me by the end of movie). Dunkirk does not seem my thing, but I will check Logan, thanks.

Baby Driver, made no sense, I have yet to see any reasonable explanation for the drawn out and confusing ending. Did serve as a good subaru commercial though.

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

#150

Post by philwelch »

ericd wrote: post #111
Sangermaine wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you've been going to the wrong movies, at least for your tastes. You seem to be exclusively seeing blockbusters. Maybe you'd prefer smaller, less action-focused films.

Eh, I love a good action movie, but it's hard to get into movies that you can't believe. I watched a very low rated one from the 80s the other day ( https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blood_of_heroes/ ), and while it had very little plot, and the production value was incredibly low compared to recent movies, and just generally wasn't a very good movie, I enjoyed it more than the vast majority of very expensive recent b…

Have you seen the John Wick movies?
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