201–210 of 421 posts
Critics seem to rate movies on a global scale. How can I give this movie 9/10 when Citizen Kane is a 9/10? On that scale, this movie is at most a 6. Unsurprisingly, popular genres get trashed on that scale. Normal folks rate movies subjectively. Was it really awesome and did I love it? Then it’s a 10.
I feel like the mass of people are ossifying around the familiar. People like re-watching the same stuff that they've already watched, they're comfortable these days watching reboots of the same superhero movies. They like big budgets and flashy special effects. They don't like being challenged by anything. Even when it comes to something like online forums, something like reddit is mostly a wasteland of the same 50…
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also consider the fact that you might have a 40 year old reviewing videogames when the target audience is like 4 years old. my kid and the typical video game reviewer probably have different opinions about the latest paw patrol game.
I sometimes hear this, but I disagree. If you're 40 years old, you need to be able to consume any kind of media and then place yourself into the mindset of a younger person and judge it from that mindset - because you used to be that younger person. Truly exceptional media is good enough to transcend the age barrier and is enjoyable for everyone, e.g., The Incredibles is enjoyable for young kids because it's a cartoo…
All of these things and more are the kinds of things that a 40 year old should consider in their review of a game, especially considering that a 16-25 year old game reviewer might miss on them in favor of other aesthetics.
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I sometimes hear this, but I disagree. If you're 40 years old, you need to be able to consume any kind of media and then place yourself into the mindset of a younger person and judge it from that mindset - because you used to be that younger person. Truly exceptional media is good enough to transcend the age barrier and is enjoyable for everyone, e.g., The Incredibles is enjoyable for young kids because it's a cartoo…
The funny thing is that games used to be FAR more punishing than they are today. Give an 8 year old (or hell, a 16 year old for that matter) Super Mario Bros. Watch their reaction when they get to World 1-3 or something and then lose all of their lives and realize that the game doesn't care, they have to start ALL the way from the beginning. Compare that to Elden Ring, which has difficult boss fights but otherwise is…
I haven't played Elden, but for comparison's sake, I haven't had any trouble picking up SMB3 blind nor did I find any of the levels individually more difficult than most high rank monsters in Monster Hunter Rise. SMB1 definitely isn't a difficult game either bar a few specific levels, 8-3 being the most notorious.
The biggest thing I see people struggle with is patient, reactive and/or predictive gameplay. Any game with counter mechanics relying on tight windows showcases this: most people either fail to utilize them or simply don't bother. Let alone emergent counterplay. The other part, you can't just statstick your game through most older non-RPGs, where newer games provide you with many more methods to allow more failure.
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Look wider. I think you can find plenty that would be described as challenging, that is a legitimate artistic exploration or funny/dramatic/frightening in a new way. Foreign films are a relatively easy way to explore this now. If you are concerned about escaping a filter bubble of foreign directors palatable in your country, start with a country that interests you, then search for their top films by decade or their m…
Keep in mind that most of the foreign films that you can find with subtitles tend to be among the best films the country has ever produced, or the ones that fit their cultural climate the best. You're not getting the direct filmgoer experience of that culture, just the best fruits, and that's perfectly fine because if you like their best you may find more in their second-best that you will also absolutely enjoy, just…
Just like books, I guess. :)
How many reviews of movies have you seen from a senior, experienced reviewer got a film really totally wrong?
I don't mean "hated a movie that genre fans will like", or "dunked on a trashy movie", because in almost all cases those reviews acknowledge their biases and even the people who like that sort of thing will get the picture.
I mean: really wrong.
In recent years I can think of only one major movie that was seriously misunderstood by a major critic: Cloud Atlas was totally misperceived by Mark Kermode. And even he changed his opinion on a second viewing.
In general I wish other things were reviewed as fairly as films are; too many reviews of things/services are poisoned by motivated reasoning.
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Sony literally cannot stop making spiderman movies. Part of the deal when they bought the rights from Disney in 1998 was they have to make at least one spiderman movie every 5.75 years, or the rights are forfeit. https://www.octalcomics.com/when-does-sonys-spiderman-rights...
You're saying disney hat the rights to Marvels spider-man in 1998?
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Look wider. I think you can find plenty that would be described as challenging, that is a legitimate artistic exploration or funny/dramatic/frightening in a new way. Foreign films are a relatively easy way to explore this now. If you are concerned about escaping a filter bubble of foreign directors palatable in your country, start with a country that interests you, then search for their top films by decade or their m…
Keep in mind that most of the foreign films that you can find with subtitles tend to be among the best films the country has ever produced, or the ones that fit their cultural climate the best. You're not getting the direct filmgoer experience of that culture, just the best fruits, and that's perfectly fine because if you like their best you may find more in their second-best that you will also absolutely enjoy, just…
This is really not true from what I can see. European films are routinely subtitled for other languages. (They used to be dubbed instead).
And even cheap and cheerful Bollywood and Chinese movies find a distributor and a bad translation.
Perhaps this is more of a problem on US streaming services. You do have to want to find these things, to some extent. But almost all cinema is produced with a global audience in mind.
I don't know if this tells the entire story, but I think these are 2 of the bigger issues at play. 1) The corporatization of social media is a big factor. There's big money involved in controlling reviews. Critics and influencers devoted to certain fandoms inevitably get influenced, pressured, infiltrated by studios who expect favorable treatment towards their product or that entity loses access, gets attacked, etc.…
One counter-example to your second point is Don't Look Up https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dont_look_up_2021 55% Tomatometer, 78% audience score My take with this movie is that the opposite of your #2 happened. Lots of regular folks who are concerned with global warming rated the movie highly, because they care about the political message it sends. Critics saw it as a pretty mediocre movie even though the message mig…