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Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

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Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#161

Post by [deleted] »

bmelton wrote: post #48
abruzzi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowpiercer. I'm sure some people love it, but I could not think of a single redeeming thing after I got done. I honestly preferred "The Room", (though that ones 'quality' was unintentional.)

Snowpiercer was indeed sad, but I always assumed my negativity towards it was a result of having already read Hugh Howey's (rather good) Silo Saga, which it seemed to rip off at every turn, only having shifted the X and Y axes. I came away from it thinking that if I hadn't read the Silo Saga, I might possibly have actually enjoyed Snowpiercer, though definitely nowhere near 95%'s worth.

[deleted]

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#162

Post by taejo »

eevilspock wrote: post #113
bostik wrote: post #63

Oh wow, that's rich. Quoting from the article: Sites like Rotten Tomatoes that aggregate movie reviews into one overall rating are being blamed for poor opening weekends. The best part is that the quote above even provides a link to the reference they are using for the made statement.[0] In effect, the studios are complaining that news of the films' crappiness are spreading too fast . Let that sink in. The studios co…

> When a bunch of reviews can undo the effects of a massive, weeks or months long marketing push, I'd say it's time to rethink your product strategy. Whenever a debate about advertising pops up on HN, many people defend it as the necessary way for consumers to find out about good products. Healthy free markets depend on informed consumers, but to think that advertising results in informed consumers makes little sense…

> to think that advertising results in informed consumers makes little sense. I find it strange that a community of logic and science oriented people can hold such a notion.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair

Many people here on HN are paid by ads.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#164

Post by bcgraham »

Udik wrote: post #118
bostik wrote: post #63

Oh wow, that's rich. Quoting from the article: Sites like Rotten Tomatoes that aggregate movie reviews into one overall rating are being blamed for poor opening weekends. The best part is that the quote above even provides a link to the reference they are using for the made statement.[0] In effect, the studios are complaining that news of the films' crappiness are spreading too fast . Let that sink in. The studios co…

The problem with Rotten Tomatoes is that - I suspect- the studios are perfectly able to influence the professional reviewers. Or, more probably, professional reviewers adjust their expectations and judgments on the type of movie they're reviewing. The end result is that every recent shiny pile-of-crap produced by Hollywood gets enthusiastic reviews and therefore excellent scores on RT. Gravity: RT score 97% 2001 A Sp…

RT's Tomatometer or Metacritic's Metascore are not measures of film worth as a kind of "atomic weight." Tomatometer, in particular, is a statement about how many reviewers gave a positive review, without regard to each reviewer's depth of feeling.

Imagine three movies:

First: 90% of reviewers gave 5/5, 10% of reviewers gave 1/5. Second: 90% of reviewers gave 3/5, 10% of reviewers gave 2/5. Third: 80% of reviewers gave 5/5, 20% of reviewers gave 1/5.

First movie: Almost all reviewers raved about the movie - it's probably good. Second movie: Not a single reviewer loved or hated it; it's probably pretty bland. Third movie: vast majority of reviewers loved it, and the rest hated it. It's not as sure a bet as the first, but all of the reviewers reacted strongly to it.

Would you rather see the second or third movie? I'd rather see the third. For example, is The Avengers (92%)[1] really a better executed, more worthwhile film than Cloud Atlas (66%)[2]?

Metacritic handles this a little better, because the reviewer score is weighted, not just a +1 or -1. However, it still has the problem of 90%/10% and 60%/40% both averaging to 50%.

No number-crunching, but I have a suspicion that studios are getting better and better about shotgunning out enough chum to different types of reviewers to effectively game those numbers, which is how you arrive at RT scores like those you present.

[1] http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marvels_the_avengers/

[2] http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cloud_atlas_2012/

Roger Ebert wrote about Cloud Atlas: "Surely this is one of the most ambitious films ever made. ... Anywhere you go where movie people gather, it will be discussed."

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#165

Post by DonaldFisk »

SyneRyder wrote: post #108

Maybe of interest to some here is MovieLens[1], a research project from University of Minnesota that makes personalised movie recommendations based on your own ratings. You can dive behind the scenes and switch between different algorithms, compare its predicted score against the average review score, and there's a page with statistics on your own ratings. (Preferred genres, ratings curve, ratio of mainstream to obsc…

This (collaborative filtering) is a better approach, but it depends very much on the algorithm used, and how many movies you have already rated. I have not subscribed to MovieLens, and don't know what algorithms it uses.

I developed an online recommendation system (see http://web.onetel.com/~hibou/morse/MORSE.html for details) about 20 years ago. For a user who had entered sufficient ratings for other movies, the algorithm I used (described in the paper) performed better than the more widely used average of M nearest neighbours, which in turn is better than simply averaging everyone's ratings. All it used were the individual ratings given by its users. It was entirely agnostic as to genre (which is quite fuzzy), cast, or crew. I was aware of a tendency for people to rate movies more highly if they watched them recently, but never asked users for this data.

Surprisingly, using the ratings of only the one person whose tastes are closest to your own (i.e. M=1) results in very inaccurate predicted ratings.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#166

Post by thenomad »

Majestic121 wrote: post #148
thenomad wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be nice, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm not going to make a grand sweeping statement here, but certainly, I've found out about multiple useful products via adverts. I actively don't want them to go away completely. I am very interested in hearing about new products in a number of spaces. If people can pay to let me know, briefly, about their thing that they think I might find useful, I'm cool with that.

Did you actually have a need for those products before hearing about them? I find myself very often in the situation were I hear/learn about a new cool thing, and I want it absolutely right now (The last example was a colleague bringing an Oculus to work, I almost ordered one the spot) However, I try to wait a bit before actually buying anything big (like one/two weeks), and I find that most of the time I don't actua…

Depends what you mean by "need".

If you mean "your business or life had a critical problem that could only be fixed by this tool", then no.

If you mean "your business or life could be significantly impacted and improved by this tool", then yes.

I almost never impulse-buy, FYI.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#167

Post by mrob »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #139
mrob wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the same thing. For example, the funniest movie I've ever seen is "Freddy Got Fingered". This is currently rated 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. And the most boring movie I've seen is "Lost In Translation", which is rated 95% there. In both cases I watched them because I liked the lead actor's previous work, and that's had a better success rate than trusting reviews.

I'm appalled that for someone out there, Freddy Got Fingered is the funniest movie they've ever seen . Likewise, that Lost In Translation is the most boring .

Note that "funniest movie" isn't the same as "best comedy". It's merely the one that made me laugh the most. That's a very important attribute for judging comedy, but not the only one. Taking all aspects into account (how much I laughed, acting, memorable lines, cultural impact, cinematography, etc.) I would rate Ghostbusters as best.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#168

Post by Jedd »

moron4hire wrote: post #145
octo_t wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I preferred the martian to 2001. Might have just been the mindset that I watched 2001 in, but it felt the like 3 or 4 films in one and sort of dragged. Although I would rate Blade Runner higher than the martian. Your mileage may vary, one size does not fit all etc etc.

Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies, but it has some serious problems, almost all of which are due to it being based on a Philip K. Dick novel.

Is the problem that it was based (rather than accurately translated from the book), or that the novel was written by Philip K Dick?

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#169

Post by chiph »

draugadrotten wrote: post #149
laumars wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a tendency for Hollywood to blame everyone bar themselves for a long long time. eg generic plot lines are blamed on the cost it takes to produce movies because movie goers demand the latest greatest special effects. Which isn't a complete lie, but then you have a movie like Skyline that manages to have excellent effects and at a fraction of budget of the big box office movies (though sadly Skyline was poor…

> The problem with the movie industry is that they are so self absorbed that they think people owe them a decent living. But in reality they're a luxury. Another way to look at that, is that when I afford myself a luxury, I want to be treated well. Today, when I go to the cinema, I am treated like a potential criminal - I am spoonfed threats about being prosecuted for piracy if I take a photo of the cinema screen wit…

If you get the chance, visit an Alamo Drafthouse (they're in several locations outside of Austin now, including Northern Virginia and Los Angeles) You'll have a much better experience - no ads, comfy chairs, beer & food brought to you, and obnoxious people get kicked out.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#170

Post by EdiX »

Udik wrote: post #137
ciaranm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the Martian was excellent. You'll notice that the user-rated % is higher than the critics, at 94%. From the video game aggregation space, you tend to see the type of thing you're suggesting (games that are big-budget-questionably-reviewed) have _much_ lower user-scores than critics. I would be surprised if user-rated movies was different.

De gustibus non est disputandum . At least, not on HN. However, would you put The Martian almost on par with 2001? Would you rate it more than Blade Runner? I wouldn't do either, no way. As for the video games space, well, I don't know it enough. But I suppose you could argue that video games are different from movies in that they require a much higher level of engagement, both in terms of time and concentration - no…

    At least, not on HN. However, would you put The Martian almost on par with 2001? Would you rate it more than Blade Runner? I wouldn't do either, no way.
If you interpret the rating as probability of that a randomly selected person will enjoy the movie then yes. I would probably rate it higher than both.
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