Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

stephenfollows.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 421 posts

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#101

Post by adfhdfhdryheryh »

Kranar wrote: post #8

One of the interview questions I ask all UX Researchers is to open up rottentomatoes, sort recent films by rating and then look at the movies that have the lowest critic scores. Almost always you can see the audience score for those movies is much higher than the critic scores. I then ask why this is the case. The overwhelming majority of answers involve critics being out of touch with the audience, critics being per…

No, the correct conclusion is "I don't know". There is no real evidence one way or the other. Their unfounded speculation about human nature is just as plausible as yours. In the interview you can generate a hypothesis, not a conclusion.

This reminds me of the "why are manhole covers round" question, where people are judged by their ability to come up with clever wrong answers.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#104

Post by next_xibalba »

Kranar wrote: post #8

One of the interview questions I ask all UX Researchers is to open up rottentomatoes, sort recent films by rating and then look at the movies that have the lowest critic scores. Almost always you can see the audience score for those movies is much higher than the critic scores. I then ask why this is the case. The overwhelming majority of answers involve critics being out of touch with the audience, critics being per…

> most professional critics have to review every single movie

This isn't true. Quite far from it, in fact. Manohla Dargis at the NY Times, for example, averages only about 2 reviews per week. There are many more releases than that. Peter Travers at Rolling Stone does even fewer. Same with Justin Chang at the LA Times. Etc, etc.

IMO, the explanation is going to be multifactorial. Your "correct conclusion" probably explains some of the gap as critics are still obligated to review the prestige releases (even if they aren't necessarily interested in seeing them). But surely also does the divergence between the tastes of professional movie watchers and Joe Moviegoer explain the gap.

What's interesting is that in over-indexing on one bias, you've probably introduced another into your own hiring process. It does seem as though picking people who are careful, independent thinkers could still yield good hires. In the end, if you get a good candidate, who cares? I'd rather be right for the wrong reasons than just being wrong.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#105

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #78
shantnutiwari wrote: post #26

Were they ever in sync? I've always seen critics as a "negative recommendation" -- if a critic recommends a movie, it's usually bad and vice versa (and like all rules there notable exceptions like Thor Ragnarok, which both critics and normal people loved). And this is true not just in movies but books as well. Critics in both domains love the "ooh lala, fancy pancy hard to understand arty farty" book/movie that doesn…

Have you ever considered that there might actually be something to "ooh lala, fancy pancy hard to understand arty farty" movies that you are merely unable to appreciate and that your failure to appreciate any virtue doesn't constitute proof of its nonexistence? The whole point of pursuing the opinion of critics isn't averaging them to see what smart people like its in finding critics whose taste isn't wholly out of l…

I used to love artsy stuff then I realized that often they are not any better or deeper they just appear to be or the depth and meaning is projected on them through interpretation which has its place I guess.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#107

Post by _dain_ »

Kranar wrote: post #8

One of the interview questions I ask all UX Researchers is to open up rottentomatoes, sort recent films by rating and then look at the movies that have the lowest critic scores. Almost always you can see the audience score for those movies is much higher than the critic scores. I then ask why this is the case. The overwhelming majority of answers involve critics being out of touch with the audience, critics being per…

I wouldn't consider either of these to be the "correct" solution. You don't need to posit anything at all about how film criticism works. Occam's Razor suggests (ROT13):

Vg'f whfg erterffvba gb gur zrna pbzovarq jvgu erfgevpgvba bs enatr. Vs lbh unir gjb pbeeryngrq inevnoyrf K naq L, naq lbh cvpx gur zvavzhz A fnzcyrf sebz K, cebonoyl gur pbeerfcbaqvat A fnzcyrf sebz L jvyy unir uvture crepragvyr enax. Lbh pna pbasvez guvf ol fvzhyngvba. Gura pbzovar jvgu erfgevpgvba bs enatr: vg'f vzcbffvoyr gb tb orybj 0% fpber, fb ybj pevgvp fpberf "cvyr hc" ng mreb. Gura jura lbh ybbx ng gur pbeerfcbaqvat nhqvrapr fpber, nal aba-mreb inyhrf ng nyy jvyy envfr gur zrna. Ol flzzrgel, jr fubhyq rkcrpg gur zbivrf jvgu uvturfg pevgvp fpberf gb unir ybjre nhqvrapr fpberf, naq ivpr irefn va obgu pnfrf sbe ybj/uvtu nhqvrapr fpber.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#108

Post by tomrod »

_v7gu wrote: post #36
tomrod wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have the right mental model, this is an appropriate approach. Not every mental model is correct, either locally to a domain or globally in all cases. 1 < 2, in almost all cases except for small Z_{0,1} or similar type cases where mod functions modify the space to something exotic or comparator functions are defined far out of the typical. If you think there is a case for 2 < 1, and you aren't appealing to so…

Any mental model that assigns zero weight to the probability of being wrong is a wrong mental model. That said, biases arising from endogeneity might have negative effects too. You can't conclude a parameter should have a different/zero sign just because of endogeneity, you have to go fix your model, and re-estimate the parameters.

> Any mental model that assigns zero weight to the probability of being wrong is a wrong mental model.

This is true when there is uncertainty. It also doesn't connect to "I only hire people who think like I do", which is the context of my response, so I don't follow your point.

Agreed on your other point that you need to instrument endogeneity. Another requirement is plausibility. Hookworm presence in Greenland should be uncorrelated to solar sunspots.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#109

Post by justinclift »

squarefoot wrote: post #81

I wouldn't base any statistics on IMDB ratings, they're garbage. Just look at how many awful amateurish experiments there receive spectacular 10 star reviews within days of their release, very likely by cast and crew friends/relatives (or worse), then are buried by 1 star reviews when actual viewers eventually watch them.

IMDB seems to be widely abused these days for marketing purposes. eg fake high ratings to try and mislead people into giving them a try

Examples in point (both exceptionally terrible, but with very fake high ratings):

* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13668894 ("The Book of Boba Fett")

* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9170108 ("Raised by Wolves")

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#110

Post by JaimeThompson »

chrismeller wrote: post #28

So the main takeaway here for me is that more low budget (“indie” or “film festival”, my terms) movies are getting to theaters and being loved by critics, but people hate them. My wife and I have a rule in our household. Anything that was awarded at a film festival (Sundance in particular) I will not watch with her. This analysis backs up the feelings I’ve had that lead to that agreement… Any movie that does well wit…

What sorts of films don't lecture?
Post reply on HN