The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb • Hacker News Board

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#41

Post by kchoudhu » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:32 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #25

He was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes by the Bangladeshi International Crimes Tribunal. But many Bangladeshis found that sentence too lenient, and more than 100,000 of them gathered in Shahbag Square in the capital city of Dhaka to challenge it. It's interesting that so many people gathered solely to express "we want this guy dead, not imprisoned." I wonder if there's more context?

There is.

Given the dynamics of Bangladeshi politics, a life sentence from the current government is actually a jailing until the opposition comes to power and pardons everyone convicted by its predecessor.

I'm against capital punishment, but I understand where the protesters are coming from: they want real justice for the atrocities in 1971, and see the death penalty as the only way to obtain lasting closure.

Politics in a democracy of 180MM people is really, really messy.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#42

Post by icebraining » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:34 PM UTC

ronaldx wrote: post #12

gjjhjjjhhh wrote: post #4

Who would pay attention to ratings from a single unreliable source. For me the best place are meta sites that gather from many related sizes.

I prefer the IMdB's ratings system over, say, meta-site Rotten Tomatoes. At Rotten Tomatoes they rated Seth Rogen-vehicle "Neighbors" as 100%, last I checked. Meaning only: no reviewer at that point had said it was awful. And yet, I saw it and it was awful. At IMdB, I can see that it rates as 7.6/10.0, and also that teenager voters loved it (9.0/10.0), where older viewers hated it (5.0/10.0). Far more useful informat…

You should note that Rotten Tomatoes' main score is just the percentages of yay vs nay, meaning, the "percentage of critics who have given the movie a positive score".

If you look below that, you can see the actual "Average Score", which in the case of "Neighbors" is actually lower than IMdB's, at 7.1/10.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#43

Post by brie22 » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:35 PM UTC

538 is using the wrong metrics. For a movie to be truly, truly, sublimely bad, that badness needs to be recognized - people in some cases will want to watch it for its incredible badness. This means that there are going to be a disproportionate number of both 1 and 10 votes. And the winner based on this is - The Room. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368226/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#44

Post by regoldste » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:37 PM UTC

calibwam wrote: post #3

I would never have heard about this movie if it hadn't been so low rated. Perhaps they rather should have given in 5 stars, burying it in mediocrity?

If their goal was to bury it in mediocrity, I think that would be a good strategy. But I think their goal is to bring attention to a movie that distorted history in a meaningful way, then down-voting it is a pretty effective strategy. If you can down-vote it to the level where it has the worst score in the IMBD, or even among the ten lowest, it attracts attention and goads curiosity about what makes the movie so awful, which leads people to Google it and quickly find information about this social movement.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#45

Post by canvia » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:37 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #13

bluedino wrote: post #10

Luckily, IMDB also shows Metacritic ratings next to their own user ratings. I take those into account before I make my decisions on what I'm going to rent/stream. Far too often do you find a movie (usually a somewhat recent release) that's just flat out terrible despite having a > 7 score on IMDB (and usually a Metacritic score in the 30's or 40's)

Do you have any interesting examples that you've found?

The Avengers was particularly egregious. It was in the top 250 movies of all time for opening weekend. A huge % of ticket sales occur in the opening weekend. There is not a doubt in my mind that these ratings are thoroughly manipulated by the corrupt studios. At least IMDB now shows the metacritic score which is more accurate. A lot of Disney/Marvel movies seem to follow this trend.

If I had unlimited time and money I would create a new movie review site that fights corruption. I would have a phone app for doing the reviews and it would require taking a photograph of your ticket stub at the theater and uploading it for proof (w GPS tag). It is far too easy and anonymous to participate in these online movie ratings sites that have a large impact on people's decision making. I have more ideas for the review site if anyone wanted to discuss it further.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#46

Post by david927 » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:39 PM UTC

It just needs to be bicameral: one rating from critics and one rating by the public. Rotten Tomatoes does this, and I think it lends for a better overall result.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#47

Post by Gracana » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:42 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #25

He was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes by the Bangladeshi International Crimes Tribunal. But many Bangladeshis found that sentence too lenient, and more than 100,000 of them gathered in Shahbag Square in the capital city of Dhaka to challenge it. It's interesting that so many people gathered solely to express "we want this guy dead, not imprisoned." I wonder if there's more context?

The next paragraph goes on to say that as a result of the protests, his political party was banned from participating in future elections. I'm sure they wanted him dead as well (and they did get that wish), but the banning of his political party is huge.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#48

Post by icebraining » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:43 PM UTC

jebus989 wrote: post #37

edanm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any interesting examples that you've found?

Excuse the plugging of my own wares, but by coincidence I did some analysis the other day of the disparity between User/Critic ratings of movies on RottenTomatoes: http://benjaminlmoore.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/what-are-the-... Example: "Spy Kids" got a 93% fresh rating from critics, but 45% from audience ratings. Code attached should you want to investigate for yourself.

If you look at the Average Ratings, the difference is smaller, though: the critics gave it 7.2/10 while the audience gave it 5.2/10.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#49

Post by ronaldx » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:45 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #27

ronaldx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the IMdB's ratings system over, say, meta-site Rotten Tomatoes. At Rotten Tomatoes they rated Seth Rogen-vehicle "Neighbors" as 100%, last I checked. Meaning only: no reviewer at that point had said it was awful. And yet, I saw it and it was awful. At IMdB, I can see that it rates as 7.6/10.0, and also that teenager voters loved it (9.0/10.0), where older viewers hated it (5.0/10.0). Far more useful informat…

IMHO no single website should be used as a definitive source for the quality of peer-reviewed content. Instead, averages should be taken from different sites, compared to the types of movies usually reviewed as high or low on those respective sites. Each site has its own user base, and those users have their own biases. A review from Rotten Tomatoes will vary greatly from those of sites that include only noteworthy c…

I am interested to explore this idea more.

In general, I don't trust online reviews for anything because I don't know what 'normal' is or the motivations that people have for voting, as you say here. If I read any restaurant reviews or ratings, it's under the assumption that they're astroturfed.

But, IMdB provides the online reviews I trust the most. I know that the dataset is large enough to be reliable. I feel that people are motivated to vote for their own reference, with minimal outside agenda (this exception is newsworthy because it's rare). As an encyclopedic reference, the site is politically and culturally neutral, compared in particular to national newspaper reviews. I know from experience how the IMdB normally and consistently rates films/genres I might be interested to watch (I know its biases, compared to my own). The stats are openly broken down demographically, with the statistically crucial number of responses, which I feel confident in interpreting. I also know, for example, that new releases will be over-rated according to how close they are to their release date.

By averaging additional information from other sites, I believe it would be difficult to retain those subtle points, which are important to me. I certainly don't believe that Rotten Tomatoes contains the same nuance of information.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#50

Post by nkozyra » Wed, May 07, 2014, 1:49 PM UTC

I feel like there's an assumption that this data is erroneous for this reason - I think that any reason in which a person gives a negative rating toward a film is valid, be it politically motivated or otherwise.

FiveThirtyEight has had a rough start so far so I may be more inclined to seek more nuance than I normally would as they've tended to be extraordinarily simplistic (Silver himself notwithstanding) to date.