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‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

fivethirtyeight.com

31–40 of 44 posts

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#31
post #22

I won't argue that an average score on its own doesn't provide you with information about the diversity of opinion that led to that average, I'm sure we could do better in this regard. Perhaps something like Amazon does with the graphical representation showing how many people gave each star rating on a product review. What I do have two problems with is the framing of this article when it comes to the new Ghostbuste…

No, main problem is its another effing REBOOT hijacking original name.

Technically the original movie wasn't the first to use the "Ghostbusters" name, and there were some legal issues around that. This is why there was a "Ghostbusters" cartoon that was not tied to the movie franchise, and a "The Real Ghostbusters" cartoon that was tied to the franchise.

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#32
There is a movie rating website called filmaffinity http://www.filmaffinity.com/en/main.html that has an interesting feature called "Movie Soulmates".

It matches your movie ratings against the rest of the users, selecting the ones with a highest coincidence.

Then you can discover unseen films highly rated by people with, allegedly, your same taste.

I also found Tastekid http://www.tastekid.com/ and FilmFish https://www.film-fish.com/ quite accurate.

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#33
post #18

This is mostly covered in the article, but anyway: I see a few overlapping effects here: 1) Aggregators like Tomatometer rank based on broad appeal. That's why Toy Story is one of the highest scored of all time (if you don't like Toy Story, you're dead inside ), and Fight Club can be beloved to many but still not A grade. 2) Audiences are slowly getting tired of cynical reboots. Sure, I understand the harsh reality t…

So you've seen it already?

The internet matters. A cultural consensus has formed and that means a lot of people won't see this movie because the internet "decided" it was bad before anyone had seen it. The way I see it, a small number of overtly mysogynist trolls exploited a widespread subtle cultural mysogyny to tank a movie.

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#34
post #19

I have no opinion on Ghosbusters, but I just wanted to add that maybe it's not all out of spite and out of hatred towards media aimed at women? I'm a man and I would on average rate any rom-com that I saw with my fiancee much lower than she would - but at the same time, she would usually rate any action move that I liked much lower than I would. It's not because I hate women or she hates men - it's just.....not every…

The argument of the article seems to be that meta-ratings sites don't handle that class of movie well, more than it is claiming that "men are misogynistic and hate any media aimed at women". To some extent it's the nature of a polarising topic. It's just that when it's a male/female split, it's easier to detect and analyse, so it's easy to build an article around. The argument here is when men post internet reviews o…

that's almost exactly what the article states though lol

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#35
I strongly enjoy movies by Studio Ghibli, and they mostly are female-led. Lets look at the latest, exclusively female-led movie from 2014 called When Marnie Was There.

IMDB: Men made 7779 votes with average 7.7, women made 2881 votes with average 7.9

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3398268/ratings-male

That is 0.2 points difference. If we look at ponyo, the difference is even less, with 0.1 points difference. If there is a bias, it is not exactly tanking the rating, and someone would have work hard to identify if its because women rate women-led movies higher than average, or males who rate it lower.

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#36
post #16

I don't buy that Ghostbusters success will hinge on the gender of the lead actors - the leads in the new film have a lot to live up to in Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray.

The trick is the controversy. I know a lot of people who absolutely love Total Recall. There was a remake a few years ago, and it was bad (like everyone expected). People saw it or didnt, and nobody complained about it "ruining their childhood" or publicly boycotted it. I can't help but feel the different reaction is due to the gender recasting.

Similar statements was made when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out, and it had nothing to do with gender. How does Jar Jar Binks fit with your theory?

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#37
post #26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only seven possible plots for books, so I guess they're over too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots

I would find it very hard to fit e.g. the Song of Ice and Fire into any of the 7 categories without moving the goalposts.

I know. The "seven basic plots" idea works, but only if you completely ignore the subtly and nuance of story-telling that authors have used most of the time. The point I was making was that you can't just boil every movie since Terminator 2 down to a rehash of what's come before. If the poster I was replying to is going to be over-simplify film plots then you also have to accept we can over-simplify book plots to get to the same point.

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#38
post #23

I actually agree with much of the articles reasoning, other than the title, and everything about Ghostbusters: > More specifically, a vocal portion of men on the internet — shall we say — go out of their way to make their voices heard when it comes to judging entertainment aimed at women, and that appears to be happening with the new “Ghostbusters.” The thing with the new Ghostbusters has nothing to do with them bein…

The thing is that we have been in the work of parody for so long time that we don't ever know were it started. Get the Rocky series blockbuster, for example. We had a much better history, with a black man and boxe. But then someone stole the idea and put a white man against his worst enemy: another white man with diferent world view (Russians).

I find it funny how most of people that discredit the OP conclusion also thinks they are right when they are in the opposite situation. I don't see you Bros complaining when Hollywood whitewash history.

And last, when did you guys started to think that the "old" stuff is yours? They have legally owners, and they can change to fit or create a better history/world (and some guys like you keep thinking in ways to put it worse), like star wars and the woman and black as main characters.

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#39
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie looks really bad but as someone who saw the movie, it's actually pretty good and funny. The quatuor works perfectly, there is no feminism message at all, it's just a good comedy. Maybe it won't be your type of humor, but this is not a bad movie in any way. People are just rating the movie without seeing it, which is pretty stupid in the first place. Because of that I expect the score to be much higher, hope…

Simply casting typically male roles (comedic lead, scientist, etc.) with female actors is feminist. The movie doesn't need to have a feminist "message" to be feminist. Note: when I say feminist I mean that entirely as a good thing.

> Simply casting typically male roles (comedic lead, scientist, etc.) with female actors is feminist.

No, it is not. Print roles as male only that is mysogenic. Comedic lead and scientists are only typically male roles because they are - and a lot of freak White guys are trying to "fight hard" to prevent that móveis and the internet changes it.

Re: ‘Ghostbusters’ Is a Perfect Example of How Internet Movie Ratings Are Broken

#40
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is the controversy. I know a lot of people who absolutely love Total Recall. There was a remake a few years ago, and it was bad (like everyone expected). People saw it or didnt, and nobody complained about it "ruining their childhood" or publicly boycotted it. I can't help but feel the different reaction is due to the gender recasting.

Similar statements was made when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out, and it had nothing to do with gender. How does Jar Jar Binks fit with your theory?

Nobody complained about it doing that prior to its release. It was hotly anticipated. Lineups around blocks were lined up. when it turned out to be bad, decades of anticipation turned to outrage. That was all after it came out.
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